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Talk: 20000809-Larry_Rosenberg-CIMC-discussion_on_practice-8142 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 00:35:30 Display_question: I am wondering, if the goal is to be mindful all the time, is creativity to be avoided? Keyword_search: mindfulness, creativity, fabrication, writer, art, Dostoyevsky, fantasy, thinking, novel, vitality, energy, fear, letting go, silence Question_content: Questioner: I’ve been thinking about the practice of mindfulness. And one of the dependences of being mindful is this faculty of fabrication. Your mind caught up in what isn’t here… Larry: Thinking. Questioner: in the moment. Right, thinking or creating what's also true that we have creativity, so what I am wondering is if the goal is to be mindful all the time, is creativity then to be avoided? Are there any advanced meditators…. Larry: There's no room anymore for painting art, music out. Questioner: I was thinking of writing or novels, because that's the closest to the fabrication. You can spontaneously manifest a beautiful painting, but you cannot really write a novel in like… Larry: I don't know about it. I think painters go through quite a bit of an ordeal, and hard work based on what they... I have some friends, and so many things are scrapped until they get it right. But are you a writer? Questioner: Yeah. Okay. I'm not sure how to reconcile the two practices. Larry: There needn't be a problem. It has to do with knowing what you're doing. It's not that…let's say even sometimes people will put it in terms of, does this mean I can never have a fantasy again? You have to know when a fantasy is happening, that it's happening, particularly if you're a literary person. Some of these images that the mind produces are useful for you. Look, I use it too. I wrote something, I had to use thinking. It's not that thinking is bad, or your word was a fabrication, to create a world, let's say, and let's say good art. We know that the words are not it. The best novel is not life. It's about life. But somehow a really good one, really helps us, go deeper into ourselves. Let's say a great Dostoyevsky, helps us understand ourselves a lot better, et cetera. So, there's a place for thinking. Thinking actually is quite a magnificent human function. Break_line: The problem is, to begin with, we're enslaved to thinking, and we worship thinking. We have given tremendous authority to thinking, and we equate thinking with life itself, often. And it's unexamined. So that thinking is doing us. Thinking is telling us what the world is, and we think we're seeing the world. So that has produced tremendous suffering. People kill each other over different thoughts, ideologies, and it's pretty obvious. Break_line: But now, here you are, a writer, and a meditator. There have been many writers and meditators. When you practice, when you meditate, just… that means, let's say, when you sit, thoughts that come up. You don't start writing while you're sitting. Now, even there, there are exceptions. Now and then a creative burst comes, and no one's saying, stamp that out. You're not going to do it anyway. You're going to probably write it down or make a note in the corner of your mind. But by and large, what is it you're doing in the given moment? And if it's, let's say, sitting and being with the breathing, if that's your practice, in that moment, then that's not a time to be writing your novel, or whatever kind of writing you do. But let's say when you sit down to write a novel, meditation can help you. Break_line: For example, you start to write, and it's very common among writers that there's a blockage, right? Suddenly you dry. Nothing comes, and you panic, or you get discouraged, or even depressed. Those are good moments to practice. You don't have to jump onto a cushion. Just stay right at your computer, if that's how you write, and just be with what's happening, right there. As you learn how to do that, you take the power out of it. It tends to fall away. And actually, you have a fresh energy, that comes from not attaching to the apprehension, or the fear, or the disappointment, or the discouragement, when it falls away. There's a kind of vitality that comes in its wake from the letting go, from seeing through it. Break_line: And then, you then approach what your writing is, with a fresh mind. It's quite commonplace people who've been sitting for a while, and doing writing of one sort, or another, who've talked to me about it, and I know it in a small way for myself. When the mind learns how to get really silent, that means no thoughts, but you're not in dreamland, you’re not...you’re really quite…it's another dimension that most of us don't even know exists. But it's accessible, it's available. The method is to take you there. Okay, resting in that silence. Something happens in that silence. It's not dead, it's highly charged, very subtle form of life. And then when you come out of that, you may find that your writing is different, it's inspired, or you're painting, or sculpting, or dancing, or whatever your art form is. So, it's not one versus the other. It's keep your practice strong, and when it's time to write, just write. And when it's time to sit, just sit. Do you see what I'm getting at? Questioner: Yeah, when you are just sitting sometimes you can develop this scenario, or tendency, and you start describing your experience to yourself, and that hinders your experience. Larry: Yeah. Then you're not meditating anymore, but you know, even those of us who are not writers do that. It's not as well turned a phrase. Yeah. End_time: 00:41:14
