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Writing and Healing Prompt: A Poem and a Meditation

Posted by Diane Morrow on June 15, 2014 in Blog, Writing and Healing Prompts, Writing and Meditation

________________ “Hurry” by Marie Howe We stop at the dry cleaners and the grocery store and the gas station and the green market and Hurry up honey, I say, hurry hurry, as she runs along two or three steps behind me her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down. Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave? To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown? Today, when all the errands are finally done, I say to her, Honey I’m sorry I keep saying Hurry— you walk ahead of me. You be the mother. And, Hurry up, she says, over her shoulder, looking back at me, laughing. Hurry up now darling, she says, hurry, hurry, taking the house keys from my hands. ________________ “Meditation: Make the Best Possible Use of Time” by Matthieu Ricard Contemplate the passage of seasons, of the days and months, of each moment, and the changes that affect every aspect of the life of beings. Then think about death, which is inevitable but whose time is uncertain. Who knows how much time you have left to live? Even if you live into old age, the latter part of your life will pass just as fast as the beginning, if not faster. So you need to consider, in the deepest part of yourself, what really counts in this life and use the time left to you to live in the most fruitful way possible—for your own sake and others. If you have the wish to meditate and develop your inner qualities, it is never too soon to start. Some questions: What really does count in this life? How can we weave this glimpse of what counts into our ordinary lives? And how can we maintain some sense of humor about it while we’re doing so? ___________________________________________________________________________ The poem, “Hurry,” by Marie Howe is from her book, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time. The meditation is from the book, Why Meditate? by Matthieu Ricard, which can be found here. You can learn more about Matthieu Ricard and his work at matthieuricard.org and at karuna-shechen.org...

Thinking About the Preciousness of Human Life

Posted by Diane Morrow on June 8, 2014 in Blog, Writing and Meditation

The kind of meditation I’m most familiar with (mostly from hearing about it and only a bit from experience) is meditation that focuses attention on a single object—like the breath—or that focuses on one’s thoughts or experiences, such as in mindfulness meditation. But when Matthieu Ricard finally turns to actual suggested meditations, in his fourth chapter, “Turning the Mind Toward Meditation,” he doesn’t start with either concentration meditation or mindfulness. Instead, he begins with four meditations that will, themselves, he suggests, “strengthen your determination to meditate.” Some teachers, I believe, would categorize these four meditations under analytical meditation because they involve thinking about things and trying to analyze them and apply them to our lives. I used to think meditation involved trying not to think—or only trying to think exclusively about one word or object—but it turns out I was wrong. And in fact, it’s these more analytical meditations that seem like they could potentially have a closer connection to the act of writing than say concentration meditation or meditation that focuses on the breath. Here is the first of the four meditations: On the Preciousness of Human Life Realize how precious human life is and arouse a deep wish to draw out its quintessential qualities. Unlike the life of animals, human life offers an extraordinary opportunity to accomplish good things on a scale beyond that of your own personal experience. Your human intelligence is an extremely powerful tool that can create either great benefits or horrible disasters. Use it to achieve the gradual elimination of suffering and to discover genuine happiness, not only for yourself but also for those around you. In this way, every moment that passes will be worth living and you will have no regrets at the time of death, like a farmer who has cultivated his fields to the best of his ability. Remain for a few moments in the state of profound appreciation aroused by these contemplations. If this were a poem I would be most drawn to the image of the farmer cultivating his fields to the best of his ability. Not wasting any of it—not the fields or the time. And not having regrets at the time of death. If this were a poem I would also notice what it’s not saying—that it’s not locating the preciousness, for instance, in any particular experience of the world, no matter how lovely. That he’s suggesting that it’s not what we experience that makes life precious but that it’s the opportunity to create benefit that’s precious. This opportunity to cultivate our fields—whatever those are—to the best of our ability. This opportunity to use our intelligence to gradually eliminate suffering. I’ve been sitting here for a while thinking about what that means—what it could mean—to use this life well enough to not have any regrets at the time of death—to keep remembering, in spite of whatever arises, that this life is a precious opportunity—and finite. I’ve been trying to think how it might happen that these words of Ricard’s might become something more than mere words flowing past me while I remain unchanged, with the same old configuration of thoughts as before. I’m beginning to think that’s what meditation might be—or one kind of meditation—thinking deeply about something in the silence–letting new words and thoughts actually sink in and...

5 Conditions for Writing and Meditation, Part Two

Posted by Diane Morrow on June 1, 2014 in Blog, Writing and Meditation

4. Enthusiasm. The first three conditions (that I wrote about last week) are tangible. This one is a bit more abstract. I like that Ricard includes 2 possible sources for enthusiasm: thinking about the benefits and then getting a taste of them. For me, with writing, the latter happened first. I wrote and I tasted the benefits and that motivated me to want to continue. I only learned about possible benefits in a theoretical sense much later. But with meditation, for me, it’s been the other way around. I’ve been hearing about the benefits for years—and it was hearing about this—from many different people—that eventually gave me some enthusiasm to want to try it—and then to begin to taste the benefits. To me one of the appealing benefits of meditation is to develop a more stable mind, to become less blown by the winds of this day and that. As a high school teacher now, I find the wind is often blowing this way and that—both inside the classroom and outside—and I’ve gradually come to realize I need a more stable mind in order to handle the wind better. Yes, I think now that it’s teaching that has been one of the things propelling me towards meditation—to realize that when I have a bit more of a stable mind so does the classroom often become more stable. So I’ve been able to taste the benefits a little and this has motivated me further. 5. Practice & Perseverance. This is something I’ve thought a lot about when it comes to writing. It’s become integral to the way that I think about writing—and is beginning to become part of the way that I think about meditation. Ricard uses an analogy to keeping a plant alive and how important it is to water it regularly. “If you just pour a bucket of water on it once a month, it will most likely die between waterings.” He also talks about not waiting to be motivated by mood, or becoming too dependent on short-term results: “Whether your meditation session is enjoyable or irritating, easy or hard, the important thing is to persevere. . . . Moreover, it is when you don’t feel like meditating that it might have the most beneficial effects, because at those times meditation is working directly against some obstacle that stands in the way of your spiritual progress.” I find this last piece of advice especially useful—and a possible source of enthusiasm when I don’t feel like writing or meditating on a particular day. Ah, it might be even more beneficial because it’s working more directly against this resistance. At the end of the chapter, he reminds us again about thinking long-term rather than short-term: In the case of meditation, your goal is to transform yourself over the course of months and years. The progress you make is usually hardly noticeable from day to day, like the hands of a clock, which you barely see moving. You must be diligent but not impatient. I like to consider that something transformative might be happening slowly and surely even though we often might not be able to see any immediate results. ___________________________________________________________________________ The book, Why Meditate?, can be found here. You can learn more about Matthieu Ricard and his work at matthieuricard.org and...

5 Conditions for Writing and Meditation, Part One

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 25, 2014 in Blog

In the third chapter of Matthieu Ricard’s Why Meditate?, after talking about motivation, he offers 5 conditions that are conducive to a meditation practice. A bit like gathering supplies before beginning. I thought it might be helpful to write about each of these as it relates to writing—and perhaps to writing and meditation. 1. The advice of a qualified guide. This makes a lot of sense. Since I’ve been writing, I’ve been turning to teachers—both in books and face-to-face. This idea of not having to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch or wander in the dark—but to follow someone who knows more. While Ricard says that a living master is best, it can also be good to follow someone who simply knows more than us—and that the next best thing is a text. Better a reliable text, he says, than simply following a teacher who has idiosyncratic ideas. This is wonderful permission for those of us who learn well from books and texts. I think I have learned as much from books about writing as I have from face-to-face teachers, though both have been extremely valuable. Sometimes when I’m reading, and especially if I’m concentrating well, it’s as if the teacher becomes alive and present to me—almost as if they were teaching me face to face. I think this may be one of the reasons I like books so much. My guides in writing that I’ve met only through books have been Peter Elbow and Anton Chekhov and Mary Oliver and WB Yeats and Robert Frost and Natalie Goldberg and John Gardner, among others. One of my guides right now in meditation, and whom I have also not met, is Matthieu Ricard—and this text, Why Meditate? 2. A suitable place. Ricard writes: “You don’t try to learn the basics of navigation in the thick of a storm; you learn them in good weather on a calm sea.” Again, this makes perfect sense. Now, with my children moving toward grown, my daughter’s bedroom has become my office—my own calm sea. Pale gray walls. A daybed for guests (and for my daughter—it is still her room when she visits—we’re sharing it). A window that looks out on a corner of the back yard. A large white raft of a desk. When the children were young my calm sea was in the basement, or sometimes at the dining room table while they were napping or watching Sesame Street. I agree that it’s helpful to have a particular place, whether it’s a room or a table or a particular chair. The way writing or meditation or both can become a habit there—and the way the body can begin to associate a particular place with an activity. The body like a child, learning. This is where I write. Or, This is where I meditate. 3. An appropriate physical posture. This one makes sense, in theory. But for me this is still a growing edge—I’m working on it. Meditation begins by getting settled in a particular posture. There are a lot of guides for this and Ricard includes the 7 points of a good meditation posture in his chapter—what one should do with one’s legs, hands, shoulders, spine, and so forth. I’m better at remembering posture before meditation than I am before writing. But...

Meditation as the Mind’s Own Physician?

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 18, 2014 in Blog, Writing and Meditation

I’ve begun reading a second book on meditation: The Mind’s Own Physician. I chose it because it’s put out by the Mind & Life Institute, who also put out the book, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, an excellent book by Sharon Begley which came out of a series of conversations in October 2004 between the Dalai Lama and a small group of neuroscientists in Dharamsala on the science of neuroplasticity. The Mind’s Own Physician serves as a kind of sequel, coming out of a much larger conference in 2005 in Washington DC, jointly sponsored by the Mind-Life Institute, Georgetown University and John Hopkins. Here, scientists came together with experienced meditators and contemplatives, including the Dalai Lama, to look at “The Science and Clinical Applications of Meditation.” The book consists of a series of presentations and dialogues from the conference, and is edited by two of the presenters, John Kabat-Zinn and Richard Davidson. It was published several years after the conference, in 2011, and includes an epilogue with developments that have occurred since 2005. It’s another good book for a beginner (though it’s not only useful for beginners). It complements well my reading of Why Meditate? by looking at some early findings in the science of meditation. Interestingly, the moderator of the first session, and one of the contributors to the first chapter is Matthieu Ricard—who seems, now that I’ve learned about him, to be showing up everywhere. In his opening remarks, he offers a fairly succinct definition of meditation that I’m finding useful: Meditation is not just sitting and blissing out under a mango tree in order to have a better day, although it might help. If we look at the Eastern roots of the word for meditation, it truly means cultivation—cultivating new qualities, new ways of being. It also means familiarization: familiarization with a new way of seeing the world; for example, not grasping at permanence, and instead seeing the dynamic flow of interdependence. Meditation means familiarization with qualities that we have the potential to enhance like, like unconditional compassion, openness to others, and inner peace. It’s also familiarization with the very way the mind works. So often we are full of thoughts that ceaselessly go through our mind. We hardly notice what’s going on. What is behind the screen of thoughts? Can we relate to some kind of basic mindfulness and open presence? All of these sorts of inner exploration are considered meditation. Cultivating new qualities—like the qualities of compassion, openness, and inner peace. Familiarization with a new way of seeing the world—seeing, for instance, it’s interdependence. Familiarization with the way the mind works—looking behind the screen of thoughts. I find this definition useful, because it’s helping me, along with some of my other reading, to put aside some of the pre-conceived notions I’ve had in the past about meditation: that it’s primarily about relaxing—or relieving stress—or that it’s primarily about watching the breath. Or blissing out. As I’m beginning to understand it, watching the breath is a useful tool for concentrating, and reducing stress in the short-term is certainly a good thing, but the goal can go far beyond this. It’s as if it’s what we do with this focused and concentrated mind that matters. As I understand it, this has everything to do with...

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