Just for those who may have forgotten over the years: Pi is what you get when you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter. When you try to represent it in decimal form, it goes on forever --- that is, it never ends or repeats. (It starts off with 3.14 --- March 14. Get it?)
How is this pertinent to meditation? Well, it gives us an appreciation for the complexity of reality and that helps us take a more spacious approach to how we view the world. And, heck. It's just fun! (And fascinating.)
Okay. For those of you whose eyes glaze over at anything mathematical but who like words, I give you a poem in honor of the day:
Pi
The admirable number pi:
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also initial,
five nine two because it never ends.
It can't be comprehended six five three five at a glance,
eight nine by calculation,
seven nine or imagination,
not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison
four six to anything else
two six four three in the world.
The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet.
Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.
The pageant of digits comprising the number pi
doesn't stop at the page's edge.
It goes on across the table, through the air,
over a wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.
Oh how brief - a mouse tail, a pigtail - is the tail of a comet!
How feeble the star's ray, bent by bumping up against space!
While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen
my phone number your shirt size the year
nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor
the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents
hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code,
in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert
alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,
as well as heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing,
it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five,
its uncommonly fine eight,
its far from final seven,
nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity
to continue.
Love it! Just love it!
So much about pi! Thanks.
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