Tales From The Contemplative Artist
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In June, I went on a short silent meditation retreat. One phenomenon that often occurs on these sorts of retreats is that the meditators, called yogis, start holding doors open for one another when entering and exiting buildings. No one wants anyone else to experience a door slammed in their face or a sudden loud noise breaking the quiet atmosphere.
Towards the middle of the retreat, though, this constant concern from others started to grate on me. Why were much older and frailer seniors going out of their way to hold open heavy doors, or, in one case, balance on one foot to open two sets of doors for me? It felt like this behavior was getting a bit ridiculous, and what would happen if someone injured themselves while doing something purportedly for my benefit?
Since it was a silent retreat, I couldn’t confront anyone directly, and merely stewed in my irritation. When it came time to gather in a small group with one of the meditation teachers (one of the only times during the retreat that participants speak), I reported honestly–that there was some anger, impatience, and irritation in the mind.
The teacher suggested that perhaps my mind could benefit from more gentleness.
Hah! I realized that the mind I had described, in its own subtle way, was the critical mind–aka the one many of us writers are so familiar with, aka the one that can stop us from writing.
But how would I go about finding gentleness?
TEA HOUSE PRACTICE
In her novel, The Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki writes of the “granular nature of time,” the “6,400,099,980 moments that constitute a single day.” A character mentions how every single one of those moments provides an opportunity to reestablish one’s will. “Even the snap of a finger,” she writes, “provides us with sixty-five opportunities to wake up and to choose actions that will produce beneficial karma and turn our lives around.”
Oh snap! Sixty-five opportunities to begin again.
Like Ozeki, the poet Jane Hirshfield has also practiced Zen Buddhism and writes about the connection between meditation practice and writing practice. In Ten Windows, in an essay on haiku, she writes that “Zen is less the study of doctrine than a set of tools for discovering what can be known when the world is looked at with open eyes. Poetry can be thought of in much the same way…”
Awareness is a main instrument in writing, so if and how we see matters (with clarity, with critique, with gentleness...).
Later I found out about what Hirshfield calls teahouse practice:
“In Japanese Zen, it’s sometimes said that there are four kinds of Buddhist practice. One is priest practice, one is monastic practice, one is layperson’s practice, and the fourth is “teahouse practice.” Teahouse practice is the practice path of the old woman who runs the teahouse by the side of the road. No one knows why they like to stop there for some green tea and a small sweet cake. The fragrance of the tea, the freshness of the cake, are good, but nothing special. The old woman wipes the wooden counters with a clean, soft cloth and the wood glows a little, and each person who enters is met with a friendly and slightly curious look. “Who are you?” the look says, and “What can I bring you?” and something in it is also like the look of the truck stop waitress who calls everyone “Dear,” and means it. If she also sees far into them, it is into who they are just as they are.”
Hirshfield says that writing poems is a “teahouse practice” for her, that it’s a way of looking at life and finding it more spacious and “more dear.”
I loved learning about the teahouse practice, not only because I do a lot of writing at tea shops (shoutout to Northeast Tea House in Minneapolis for not allowing computers!), but also because of my experiences working in the food industry. There is so much dignity in offering food and giving attention to the clean atmosphere and to the ingredients served. In Hirshfield’s description of the old woman who runs the teahouse by the side of the road, I found some of the gentleness my contracting, critical mind did not have on retreat. By contrast, the old woman’s mind as described appeared open, kind, and curious towards the visitors, whomever they might be.
WHEN TO WRITE MOMENTS OF EXTRA-AWARENESS
While meditation retreats provide practice for cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, a writer’s task often involves modulating the moments of a story.
A couple of writer friends and I recently gathered to discuss "Escapes," a short story by Joy Williams whose young narrator, Lizzie, hasn’t yet learned how to read. She travels with her mother to see a magic show, but over the course of the story, we realize that Lizzie’s mother has an alcohol problem. Her drinking and the ramifications of that intensify over the course of the story–at one point, when the magician is about to saw a woman in half, Lizzie’s mother appears on stage, volunteering to switch places with the woman.
My friends and I chatted about a few particularly impactful and well-drawn moments in the story. Towards the end of "Escapes,” an usher from the show escorts Lizzie and her mother to a diner and gives Lizzie a donut. Her mom passes out across the table:
“Then slowly I began to eat the donut with my mittened hands. The sour hair of the wool mingled with the tasteless crumbs and this utterly absorbed my attention. I pretended someone was feeding me.” (134)
Thinking it over now, I see that the sour in the treat, the bitterness in the innocence, is not just a food detail, but a life one, too–it corresponds to Lizzie’ predicament. In her childhood, no donut is a mere sweet treat, just as the magic show wasn’t just a fun family-friendly event. Importantly, even though Lizzie pretends someone is feeding her, she is not solely taking a flight of fancy. Instead, she remains grounded in the reality of the tangible mittens and the sensory experience of the tasteless crumbs and sourness (and her mother not feeding her, but instead sleeping across from her at a diner).
From a craft perspective, Williams is articulating a moment of both internal and external awareness (just what occurs on meditation retreats!) It’s a moment that slows down time and opens up Lizzie’s felt experience to the reader.
So much of writing is about knowing when to do this. Which moments do we pause on? Where does time slow down or stop? When do we bring the tensions already existing in the story to the surface and provide the reader with these poignant, momentary clearings?
In considering these questions, I also think about my own life–when have I experienced a moment of time seemingly standing still? When have you? Perhaps you have experienced love at first sight? Or perhaps you were in danger? Perhaps you were savoring a bite of extraordinary food or witnessed something striking–what other conditions were at play, do you remember? Try to use this intel in your writing, for your characters. When do you (when do they) pay the most attention to life? And why?
SELF-COMPASSION FOR WRITERS
While in my crabby mood on retreat, I wasn’t sure how I could go about cultivating gentleness. But, I remembered what another teacher had said, how she had used the term “contemplative artist” to describe how yogis could be creative in how they responded to the changing circumstances of the retreat. Like a painter or a cook, experimenting with color or ingredients, perhaps one could find creative ways to alter the canvas, to incline the mind towards a more balanced outlook.
For me, post-retreat, this has meant adding a dash of self-compassion to my life. Well-known meditation teacher Jack Kornfield offers some compassion phrases to meditate on:
May I/you be held in great compassion.
May my/your pain and suffering be eased.
May I/you live with a wise and peaceful heart.
Like the old woman who runs the teahouse by the side of the road and offers green tea, I offer these to you. Perhaps the next time you are caught up in that tight, critical mind, these phrases can serve you.