Art of Zen: Meditation for Writing

Lived mindfulness & how we can capture these moments

The Saturday Brunch: a figurative flat white or fizzy to start your weekend

Photo by Maxim Berg on Unsplash

Today’s post is the last of this month’s series on Art of Zen.

Will meditation make my mind go blank? If you’re a writer, that’s probably the last thing you want to happen. Is enlightenment just a white piece of paper or does it look more like Ulysses?

Not many readers are going to engage with your blank paper or screen, even if you feel really peaceful when you allow it to be there. Maybe accepting blankness as a starting point rather than allowing it to freak you out and give you writer’s block is a better way of thinking about this opposition. It might be likened to the inner circle, or negative space, of an ensō. Today we’ll explore the way meditation could become a part of your writing practice, even your routine.

We hear about meditation everywhere, but what is it really? And is there a right way to do it? Recently, Alanis Morissette added to the discourse by creating an album of guided meditation called the storm before the calm. Could her rock ballads from the 90s allow a different kind of meditation while blaring from open car windows and driving on a long country road to nowhere? Rather than consider what’s right or wrong about meditation, about constricting it, let’s look at where it comes from and how people practice it.

Zazen is the main form of Zen Buddhist meditation: seated meditation. Although other practices, like painting ensō and writing haiku, are considered other forms of meditation. Its goal is enlightenment through wisdom and compassion:

Through za-zen the Zen practitioner attempts to embody non-discriminatory wisdom vis-à-vis the meditational experience known as “satori” (enlightenment). A process of discovering wisdom culminates, among other things, in the experiential apprehension of the equality of all thing-events.

The most distinguishing feature of this school of the Buddha-Way is its contention that wisdom, accompanied by compassion, is expressed in the everyday lifeworld when associating with one’s self, other people, and nature. [Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

In writing, we also seek understanding through wisdom and compassion, often grounded in experiences of everyday life.

xiv. The Culture of Everyday Life

There are many ways to meditate, and we’ll look briefly at a few of them here. Some form of daily practice of meditation might help you with your writing but not because it ‘empties your mind.’ Instead, meditation helps us to allow noise - metaphorical and literal - to coexist with our present focus and intention. It keeps us from feeling torn between what we are doing and other things waiting to be done. And, it helps us see the beauty of the world around us, even if that beauty may be in something sad or difficult.

I find that any kind of focusing activity can help my writing. The key is intention, but also the idea of presence. By shifting from considering exterior influences we have no control over to being at peace with our present selves and the universe, we are able to enter the space of writing. We can then be more fresh and active in mind; we can observe nature or ideas more clearly.

Just Sitting

Traditional zazen is a form of Buddhist meditation that involves sitting in a lotus position and focusing on the present. You stack each ankle on top of the thighs or sit cross-legged if this is unavailable to your range of motion. I also like to sit up on a blanket or yoga block. Sometimes, sitting on heels or a chair is also useful, or as one practitioner I know suggested to start, you may want to lay on the floor on your back with your legs resting up on a chair. Mainly, you want to be comfortable.

While seated, you keep your spine upright as if a line is pulling your crown toward the sky. Roll your shoulders up and back so you release this tension. Your eyes should be softly closed (no squeezing them shut) and hands can rest with palms up on the knees or come together softly. There are a variety of mudras that can be used for the hand placement, with some described here. A key is sitting up straight so that your breath is running smoothly through your body and you can sit a while without discomfort.

Then you sit still, quietly, for a while.

In my visits to the Diamond Way Buddhist Centre in Hong Kong, we were guided into position and given some reflection of Buddhist philosophy before just sitting for 30-60 minutes. I like to think about changing thoughts and exterior sounds or smells into energies that flow freely through my body. Rather than barriers, they are collapsed and become a part of my existence.

One westernized interpretation on Healthline describes zazen as such:

The aim of the practice is to let go of all judgement and goals. The meditator is aware of all sensations and thoughts that arise and pass by. Meditation is the practice of seeing things as they really are and being aware that everything is temporary. It allows you to do this by focusing on the present moment.

In the video below, Zen Buddhist Abbot Shohaku Okumura guides you through zazen. He also features in other interesting videos on the channel about zen and our daily lives: identity, staying present, global society, and more.

Yoga and meditation

You may have practiced something similar to zazen at the beginning or end of a yoga class. I’ve been practicing yoga for over a decade and recently completed a teacher training program. (I plan to connect yoga more with writing in the future; stay tuned!)

Depending on your experience, you might understand yoga as only physical exercise. However, it is also a spiritual path and way of life, including much philosophy rooted in similar ideas as Zen Buddhism. About a fourth of the course concerned meditation, which is considered a higher ‘limb’ than physical postures (asana) and breath work (pranayama).

In the yoga course, we went through various kinds of meditation through different postures and breath work as well as using mantras connected to different ideas we learn in yoga.

In the practice of yoga, there are eight limbs —- where meditation is both the sixth - Dharana - and seventh - Dhyana, before Samadhi, or englightenment. Buddhism also has an “eightfold path” from similar roots. Although we often look at Yoga as part of a Hindu tradition, a few hundred years ago, both Buddhism and Hinduism referred to ‘yoga practices’ and the paths of these disciplines have similarities. Though there are key differences between yoga and Buddhism, they:

are both meditative systems that share many commonalities, including ethical values such as non-attachment, non-stealing, and non-violence. Both generally aim to facilitate transcendence of karma and rebirth, foster liberation through higher awareness, and reunite with the “true” reality obscured by the illusion of a separate self, or ego. Both also seek to reduce suffering intrinsic to all beings through realization of a higher consciousness. (Yoga Basics)

Indian yogi and mystic Sadhguru links Zen and Yoga in this way:

[Zen] is an uncharted path. It is not very different from what yoga is. What we call yoga, they call Zen. In yoga, we present the same thing as a science while in Zen it is handled as an art form. To appreciate art, you need to be evolved in a certain way. But everyone can enjoy the fruits of science.

If you’re more interested in the complements of practicing yoga and Zen buddhism, there is an interesting multifaceted discussion here as well as this opinion of Zen’s connection with yoga.

If you would like to go deeper in your yoga practice, please consider one of the online courses through Yoga Renew (who produced the video above). I have practiced yoga for thirteen years and attended many specialized workshops around the world; I found this online platform to be both well organized and thorough as well as being spiritual and inspirational. I have recommended courses to several of my friends already. There is a friendly online community you can join once you enroll in a course. If you are thinking about taking a class, please consider using the link provided here, because I will receive 10% to help cover my work as a writer.

Other freely accessible yoga meditation videos are available, including those from Yoga with Adriene (below). She’s the most popular yogi on youtube.com, possibly because she’s very easy to follow. You might try her approach if you’re new to yoga.

You could practice these forms of meditation just before a writing session or regularly at another time of day (wake up / before bed). Reflect on how it changes your practice and if perhaps the time spent (which is always the issue for me) might actually save you time through the way it helps you focus or see more clearly later on.

Writing as meditation

Can writing be a form of active meditation itself? Perhaps if we think of this notion of focusing the mind rather than emptying it, and if we achieve a form of free-writing that flows directly from our intuition and observations without blocks, this could be a kind of active meditation. Painting scrolls can be meditation, so writing can as well. Why not?

Check out these articles for more ideas:

• Writing Meditation from Inherent Peace (connected audio files)

• How to Use Writing as a Meditation Technique (many practical starting points)

• or this take from HuffPost: How to Use Writing as a Meditation Practice

Tea Ceremony

In addition to painting and writing, the Zen Tea Ceremony can be a ritualistic form of meditation itself. Although the ceremony itself is short (about 45 minutes), the preparation takes much longer and formal training can take years.

The video below and this article explain many details:

Tea ceremony is mostly about bonding between the host and the guest but it is for sure a meditational activity as the great founder Sen no Rikyu called “jaku” (tranquility) one of the main elements of tea ceremony. Then one may ask why it is different from any other tea drinking activity and why it may lead to mindfulness and the ultimate peace of mind. At MAIKOYA we tell our guests that the answers lay in the basic elements of zen philosophy which are also deeply embedded in the culture of Japan. These are: Transience, Presence, Selflessness, Acceptance of Life as it is. 

Professor Olds, who taught our Art of Zen class that I have spoken about throughout January, had trained in Japan to conduct the tea ceremony. Although it was not nearly as much training as a formal tea master would have, he had the right equipment and could share with us the basics. We held the ceremony one day in class.

It’s a more formalized version of doing something with intention. Here, it is also a social experience. However, I often think about my morning coffee as this kind of ritual. The sound of the machine, the smell, the cup…the quiet morning…the space to open to the day. Many of us have morning rituals. Even if I only get five minutes to relish in it, it changes the shape of my day and helps me to write better, whether I write immediately after or at a later point in the morning.

Or, sometimes you might find me enjoying a meditative coffee on a mountain. If you click on the link below, you’ll see a few coffees during one ski trip to Zermatt. Coffee features in many posts on my Instagram pages!

tournerlesmots

A post shared by Kathleen Waller (@tournerlesmots)

How do you meditate? What makes you feel zen? And have you tried traditional seated meditation…or what’s holding you back?

One of the great aspects of researching other cultures through travel, reading, and film is that it allows us to consider other ways of doing things. I really don’t think there’s a best way to meditate. And it’s fascinating to understand the way different cultures approach meditation. Personally, I have also found meditation through running. Yes, sometimes I run to think about something or to chat with a friend, but other times, the energies flow freely through my body in an open warmth toward the world and myself. I am alone but I am connected. I am tired but energized. I am free.

And then I write.