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Writing and Meditation: Writing Down the Bones: First Questions

Posted by on February 23, 2014 in Blog, Writing and Meditation

Writing and Meditation: Writing Down the Bones: First Questions

  When I think about writing and meditation, the very first moment that comes to mind—the moment when I first thought of these two concepts as linked—is a moment in my late twenties, coming across Natalie Goldberg’s book, Writing Down the Bones, and finding this: In 1974 I began to do sitting meditation. From 1978 to 1984 I studied Zen formally with Dainin Katagiri Roshi (Roshi is a title for a Zen master) at the Minnesota Zen Center in Minneapolis. Whenever I went to see him and asked him a question about Buddhism, I had trouble understanding the answer until he said, ‘You know, like in writing when you . . .’ When he referred to writing, I understood. About three years ago, he said to me, ‘Why do you come to sit meditation? Why don’t you make writing your practice? If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you everyplace?’ This, for me, was like coming across fresh water—or a compass, a map, the right food at the right time. Yes, maybe that’s how it can be. A part of me had begun to suspect this—a faint voice telling me that writing could take me where I needed to go. But reading that passage—that sense of permission—it strengthened that voice in me, nurtured it, encouraged it. Now it’s been more than twenty-five years. I can say with full confidence that my life is far richer and better because I have written through so much of it. But lately I’ve been thinking that I want to be even more intentional in the ways that I use writing as a practice. To look at it more closely. Is writing, potentially, a form of meditation itself? (That’s what Katagiri Roshi seemed to be suggesting above.) Can writing be a bridge to meditation? Or a scaffold? A kind of way station? For those, like me, who find meditation hard? Or, perhaps, can the two work together well–say, a person going back and forth from one to the other? How might writing and meditation be fruitfully connected? And how might all the information that has begun to accumulate about meditation, including meditation and neuroscience, inform that connection? These are questions I’m starting with. ______________________________________________________________________________ See also Writing Down the Bones Photo is mine. A way station?...

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Writing and Meditation

Posted by on February 16, 2014 in Blog

Writing and Meditation

I’m one of those people who’s been interested in meditation for a long time. But I’ve been mostly interested from a distance–because I also find it really, really hard. I find it hard to hold a thought—or my breath—in my mind, to concentrate on that thought, or to try and work with it. I’m one of those people who finds it easier to focus on a thought—and hold it—work with it—if my fingers are moving on a keyboard, or across a page. I suspect this has everything to do with practice. If I were to graph the hours I’ve logged writing in my life—starting with the alphabet—and compare it to the minutes I’ve logged meditating, the meditation minutes would be powerfully dwarfed—they would literally disappear. I’ve been interested for a while now in how writing can become a kind of meditation—perhaps a bridge to meditation—or a boat—for those of us who have trouble diving into the deep pool of meditation. So . . . writing and meditation is one of the things I plan to write about and explore over the next year. I’ll be reading about meditation. Reading about writing and meditation. Writing about all of this—and seeing where it takes me. New pieces will be posted under Writing and Meditation. I would love to hear about your thoughts on the subject–or good resources you’ve come across. _____________________________________________________________ Photo: Rowing boats on the shore of Palokkajärvi in Jyväskylä, Finland by Magnus Franklin, from Wikimedia Commons Email is the best way to comment or contact. My new email address is diane.s.morrow at...

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Returning to The Guest House

Posted by on February 2, 2014 in Blog

Returning to The Guest House

So I’ve been away from writing at this site for some 16 months, and I want to start again. But it’s clear that if I’m going to find my way back to writing here, then some cleaning and reorganization of this site is going to be required. It’s a bit like I’ve decided to open the door and step inside after a long absence and I’m looking around and I can see all the work that needs to be done—the cleaning and sweeping and rearranging. (I’ve never had a summer home but I’ve seen them in movies—everything covered in white sheets and waiting for the season to start up again.) I’m pulling back the white sheets. I’m also aware that, like any project, this re-opening and renovation is going to be a step-by-step process: first one step and then the next and the next. I’m extremely happy to have left the Dalai Lama at the top of the page in my absence—a good teacher in residence—and I want to still give him a good place. So, the first step—I’m starting a new category here for teachers. The second step: an excerpt from Rumi’s poem, “The Guest House,” as a kind of reminder and anchor and metaphor for the work: This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.   A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.   Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. This is the metaphor I want to hold at the center of this work as I return and start writing again: this notion of treating each guest honorably—the Dalai Lama and chaos and joy and sorrow and whatever else might arrive—all of it—all of the voices—and this notion that writing to navigate all the arrivals, including the difficult and challenging ones, can work as a broom—can catalyze another layer of healing work—clearing us out for some new delight. My own delight this week: two and a half days out of school for snow—with time at home in the quiet to write and to think about writing here again. And pink and yellow tulips in the window. Wishing for you many, many good things with your own writing and sweeping. And many delights in the new year. _______________________ The full poem, “The Guest House,” by Jelaluddin Rumi, Translation by Coleman Barks, can be found at...

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