Episode 33 - Mindful meditation & creativity

In this episode, somewhat longer than usual, I explore some of the relationships between mindful meditation and creativity – what we might call ‘creative awareness.’ I begin by examining what we mean by creativity and go on to suggest that there is a close affinity between paying attention and the development of a creative engagement with the world. I argue that letting-go and unlearning, and the making of connections, are important aspects of both mindful meditation and creativity. 

Taking up Jane Hirshfield’s thoughts about the role of concentration in the composing of poetry, I suggest that mindful meditation involves the development of concentration and that this can be helpful in developing a creative practice. I go on to make reference to John Cage’s ideas about living the creative life and briefly discuss drawing as a mindful discipline. I end with a salutary note about creativity and ethics. Towards the end of the episode, I employ an exploratory, open, poetic form of words - in harmony, I hope, with the overall theme. Please see the transcript for spelling of names and for references.

Transcript

It seems to me that everyone is creative. Everyone has an imagination, playful thoughts, flights of fancy. Everyone has creative skills – even if they don’t think they have. Creativity means the ability to come up with new forms, new ways of doing something, finding solutions and responses to challenges and problems. It may be baking a cake, being witty, raising children, caring for people, healing injury and illness or juggling the demands of work, family and education. Or it may be learning a new skill, a new job or changing a way of thinking about something. It could also be trying to make a poem, or a drawing, writing a report or a novel, or composing a piece of music. These are all modes of creativity.

So, what do we mean when we use the term ‘creativity?’ Well, it is often used to denote distinctive ways of being, thinking and making that demonstrate flexibility, innovation, inventiveness and the confounding of expectations and assumptions. Intuition, improvisation and non-linear ways of thinking are often emphasized, as are, experiment, trying-things-out, making a mess. Also, working productively with high levels of disorder, uncertainty & indeterminacy may be important. Elements of chance/serendipity are often essential – both in the creative process and in the products of creativity. And there’s often an element of spontaneity and of being surprised by what emerges. A sense of something unexpected, not predetermined.

Sometimes, maybe because they have been told so at home or at school, individuals believe they are not creative, are not imaginative, can’t draw or write poems. When they try any of these activities, they immediately feel critical of what they are doing – ‘this looks terrible, this doesn’t sound good, this is hopeless, why is what I have done so bad!’ This tendency to be over-critical hinders learning and creative development. So, it is important to let go of this critical tendency and to suspend judgment. Just playing with materials, words, sounds, lines on a page – without judging what we are doing - is a key aspect of cultivating creativity. Make a mess. Take risks. Enjoy each moment and let go of any judgmental feelings. Just see what happens.

With this spirit of playfulness and exploration there are no ‘mistakes.’ There is just a process of doing something to see what happens. Close your eyes while you draw, splash paint around, put words and sentences in different orders, try a few different notes in the music. These are creative learning experiences. Usually, we think that to learn we need to acquire something, but with creativity, we often need to unlearn, to let go of preconceptions and habits – particularly judgmental habits – this is how we open up new ways of doing and thinking.

So, really look, listen, pay attention and appreciate what you are doing, or have done. Do this with an open mind, without labelling it good or bad, successful or unsuccessful – just experience it for what it is. And listen to the music of everyday life, the poetry of people chatting, the beauty of the world around you – in this mode of experiencing, awareness itself, is a creative activity.

As you recognise your own creativity, nurture it and value it, and recognise the creativity of those around you. Creative acts don’t emerge out of a void, they arise out of the interactions between people and other beings, and the world. The blackbird singing in the morning, high on a lamppost, listens to other blackbirds and learns from them. The songs they sing are never the same. Creativity is, on the one hand, always bringing something new into the world, but, on the other hand, it is usually making variations on ways of doing that have been around for a long, long time. Value what you do as your own way of expressing your creativity.

Ponder on these lines from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, titled, Pied Beauty. They read like this: ‘Glory be to God for dappled things / - For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; / For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; / Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; ….’

The poem, first published in 1877, is full of surprise, invention and innovation. We may need to read it a few times to get used to the music and rhythm, and to reflect on what is being conveyed by the words. The way in which Hopkins exalts God, in thanks for ‘dappled things’, is unusual and unexpected. What are these dappled things that Hopkins is so excited about? He goes on to tell us – not only mentioning phenomena we may not even have noticed, but also employing linguistic images that are fresh-minted and unusual: ‘skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow’, and ‘rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim’. It is as if the poet is seeing something for the first time – scavenging his word hoard for materials that will hold for a breathless moment the slippery glimpses of light on clouds and trout-skins.  There is a sense of excitement in the language that evokes the feeling we experience when we first glimpse something previously unseen. And the next few words open up another image that is full of vitality and has an aura of playful uncertainty that hurries us on in our reading: ‘Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls…’ – describing, or evoking, chestnuts falling on the ground like lumps of hot coal. This is creativity of observation and of poetic construction – creative awareness – a mind full of inventiveness, seemingly surprised at itself. How has Hopkins come to these ways of noticing, thinking and making? Can the practice of mindful meditation shed some light on Hopkins’ practice of poetry?

From a Buddhist perspective creativity can be enhanced by the development of an open non-discriminatory mode of awareness - mindful meditation or zazen - a disinterested attention to all that arises - a non-centred awareness. In this way the creative stream of human being can flow unimpeded by the desires and demands of the linguistic and acquisitive self or ego.

An idea arises as a moment of consciousness. The more we relax our hold on the linguistic or conceptualising self the more likely it is that ideas will arise out of the flux of interactions deep in the embodied mind. Being in possessive mode in relation to ideas can be counter-productive and hinder the flow of imagination. In a sense the less we try to ‘have’ ideas the more likely it is that they will arise. Getting our ‘selves’ out of the picture may unlock the flow of creative activity. 

Experiential evidence from the sciences and the arts points to the effectiveness of ‘letting go’, even of ‘giving up’, allowing the intuitive, pre-linguistic processes to run ‘underground’ in the mind – at the margins of consciousness rather than at the centre of attention. In these conditions ideas often emerge in ‘Eureka’ mode! The Daoist phrase, wu-wei, seems appropriate - letting things happen of their own accord, without predetermining the outcome and without excessive force or effort. This process of letting-go, so important in creative activities, is also vitally important in the practice of mindful meditation, distinguishing it from unmindful awareness.

Creativity is a process, a being-at-home with what occurs from moment to moment, being alive to the potential out of which all events and forms arise – a playfulness in the way we engage with ideas and life. Creativity is, as Heinrich Wohl used to say, ‘being at home with multiplicity’. It is also a state of not grasping at what passes, not standing in the way of, or trying to hang on to, the flux of life – creativity is ‘skilful means.’ 

The seventeenth-century Rinzai Zen master, Bankei, (1622-93, also known as Kokushi) tells us that to be truly alive creative beings, we need only recognise, with all of our being, that we are truly alive. (see Haskel, 1989: xxx - xxxi) The state of enlightenment or liberation that human beings so frantically crave, is often only realised by letting-go of the craving – as if we chase after our own shadow, when it is always at our feet. Similarly, creativity, which is a manifestation of being truly alive, is not something that needs to be learnt or added to our being, rather it is a way of being that is most immediate and ready-at-hand, often realised by unlearning, unknowing, letting-go. Paradoxically, the process of realising by letting-go may require a very systematic discipline: for instance, the disciplines of the koan in Zen Buddhism, and of intensive periods of meditation – or, in an art context, the discipline of drawing a human being or a stone over and over again in order to see the human being or stone as if for the first time – what Lawrence Weschler refers to with the phrase, ‘seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees’. 

Within the arts, and in Buddhist practice, the need to cast off old assumptions, habits and knowledge, to ‘unlearn’, is often as important as learning. This shedding of a skin can be a powerful and transformative process, leading to a sense of renewal and empowerment. The practice of mindful meditation can be seen as a process of paying close attention to all that arises in our embodied mind, without adding a commentary or making judgments, and without clinging to experiences as they flow through us. Unlearning becomes a key strategy in changing our relationship to experiences and to the world. Through non-attached attention we dissolve the chains of reaction and habit that have built up over the years, enabling us to see things as they are, rather than as we would wish them to be. We learn new ways of being by letting go of old ways. By unlearning and unknowing we dissolve the rigid boundaries and responses of our acquisitive ego-self and discover a more fluid and open identity that is in closer harmony with how the world is.

Too often learning is seen as a process of increasing knowledge, an acquisitive, incremental process of adding to our storehouse of information, conceptions and habitual responses. But learning is also a transformative process in which letting-go is as important, or possibly more important, than holding on – indeed real learning, involving meaningful change and insight, can be hindered by our accumulated ‘knowledge’. Our preconceptions, habits of thought and acquired information can prevent us from realising through experience. This experiential mode of knowing requires a constant willingness to give up as well as to gather - to unlearn, in order to learn afresh.

Creativity and making connections 

Another aspect of creativity that is often neglected is the ability to make connections. We often think of creativity in terms of originality, making something out of nothing. But of course, all that comes out of nothing, is nothing. A pile of zeros is still zero. We always need material out of which to make something, whether it is paint, bricks, flour or thought. Often creativity involves connecting something to something else, in a new or surprising way. Making connections, or noticing connections, is itself a creative act, and to notice connections is to be connected, to experience the interrelationship and interdependence of all that exists. The feeling of interconnectedness is also often accompanied by a feeling of kinship and compassion.  

The Zen teacher, Sawaki Roshi, writes: ‘Zazen is the way through which you can connect with the whole universe.’ (in Uchiyama 1990: 80) Connecting to the universe involves setting aside the conditional or discriminating self to see things as they are in their infinite inter-dependence – this is to be free, to realise natural wisdom – to be wholly here. According to Sawaki, when we realise true selfhood in all its transparency ‘there is no gap between the true self and all sentient beings’. (ibid: 20) And as there is no gap between beings, all beings are integral to ‘my’ being, a facet of the transparent or permeable self. As his student, Uchiyama, puts it: 

everything I encounter here and now is a part of my life, I shouldn’t treat anything [or anyone, or any being] roughly. I should take care of everything wholeheartedly. I practice in this way. Everything I encounter is my life. (ibid: 124)

The importance of concentration in developing creativity

To develop creativity, is also to develop concentration; concentration is also central to the practice of mindful meditation. If we consider the meanings of the word, ‘concentrate’, we notice how significant it is in any creative act. Here’s a dictionary definition of ‘concentrate:’ ‘Bring towards or collect at a centre; Increase the strength of; Employ all one’s powers or attention on.' [Shorter Oxford English Dictionary] 

Concentration, combined with playful, open-ended awareness and construction, seems to typify most creative activities – including the making of poems. The American poet, Jane Hirshfield, argues that poetry begins ‘in the body and mind of concentration.’ And by ‘concentration’ she means, ‘a particular state of awareness: penetrating, unified, and focused, yet also permeable and open. Coming into concentration may require particular methods. For instance, the ninth-century Zen teacher, Zuigan, used to talk to himself quite sternly each morning, saying: ‘Master Zuigan, are you here?’ ‘Yes,’ he would reply. It was his way of coming to concentrate, to pay attention. Musicians might rehearse particular preparatory exercises, playing the same melody over and over again, just to bring their minds to concentration. Visual artists might open their sketchbooks and simply make marks or doodle – just to see what appears. And in the practice of playful concentration, the controlling, somewhat rigid and acquisitive part of ourselves dissolves - vanishing or becoming freer and lighter in the process of paying attention, opening, listening and growing. 

John Cage and the creative life

The American composer, John Cage, spent his career encouraging us to open our ears to the sound-world that surrounds us all the time, and to open our minds to indeterminacy, to chance events and the endless surprising routine of everyday life – which, once we get our preconceptions and thinking habits out of the way, can be a source of endless delight and wonder. This is Cage’s view of the creative life and of the practice of creative awareness. Many people know of his work titled, 4’ 33’’ – it was very controversial when first ‘performed. A pianist was seen to walk on stage, sit at the piano, open and close the lid a couple of times and walk off again. The duration of the event - four minutes and thirty-three seconds - was decided by chance. 

It all sounds very flippant and maybe a bit silly – but it is Cage’s way of saying, hang on, stop for a moment - in fact stop for 4’33’’ – just be still and quiet for a short time and listen, look around, see what’s happening, be here in this place where you sit or stand, and pay attention. Really be present rather than absent. Listen to the music of everyday life, of this moment, of NOW – rather than thinking of past or future, daydreaming, worrying about this and that, being anywhere but where you are. When we do this even for just 33 seconds, we realise that we are missing so much – it is as if we are often only half-awake. So, Cage is offering us an opportunity to really wake up – to practice creative awareness – to appreciate what it is to be alive at this moment.

Here are some fragments of Cage’s writings - re-orchestrated by me to give a flavour of his thought – and maybe, to be surprised by: 

The role of the composer is other, is no longer, is being, is free, is a wild goose chase, full circle back again, to piano & dry fungi, direction (no stars), woodpecker solos & a startled moose

Our poetry now is the realisation that we possess nothing

Out of a hat comes revelation & a pianist. On the way, she said she would play slowly. On the way she would play slowly. She said on the way she would play, play slowly.  Everything, he said, is repetition. Slowly she would play. She would say playing slowly she hoped to avoid making mistakes, but there are no mistakes – only sounds, intended & unintended. A glass of brandy

I was in the woods looking for mushrooms. After an hour or so Dad said, “Well we can always go & buy some real ones”. Mother said, “I’ve never enjoyed having a good time”

There are already so many sounds to listen to. Why then do we need to make music?

We must work at looking with no judgement, nothing to say. All art has the signature of anonymity 

Sounds take place in time. Dance takes place with one foot in the grave. We’ve paid our bills. Art is a job that will keep us in a state of not knowing the answers 

Drawing as a creative practice

So, back to creativity! In relation to the visual arts, drawing is a useful activity for developing discipline, attention, skill and creativity.

‘Drawing’, can refer to many activities including: gestural, abstract mark-making; the representation of things in the world – from direct observation or memory; and, representing with lines, tones and marks, our feelings, thoughts, imagined forms and structures. 

In the practice of observational drawing, learning to see is as important as learning to re-present what is seen. The development of clear-sighted awareness, uninflected by words and preconceptions, is at least as important as analytical or critical thinking. To see clearly, with fresh eyes, involves forgetting the name of the thing we are seeing – for the name is a form of preconception that clouds or distorts our vision. Learning to see in this disinterested, clear-sighted way, takes a lot of practice – for we easily fall back into habits, preconceiving what we are going to see – very far from creative, mindful, awareness.

When we exercise creative awareness, we notice that we are surrounded by intended or unintended drawings – the scuffed signs of time and existence. The face of each brick or stone in a wall, tells the story of its making, of coming into existence, of enduring and decay. What makes many drawings particularly interesting is the way in which the history of their making is revealed – the remains of earlier marks, half-erased lines, tentative beginnings still visible – these all add to the richness of experiencing the drawing. 

Also, in the activity of drawing, process is often more important than product, but the product has a beauty, power or resonance that is a manifestation of the process. The activity of drawing is often complex - at times intense, at times relaxed – involving different kinds of movements: fast, slow, regular, irregular, light, heavy, sinuous, jagged and so on.

It is often difficult to know when to stop! It may be when harmony is achieved, or a state of order, unity or wholeness that is satisfying – when balance, tension or dynamism produces a sense of ‘rightness’. The pictorial field is activated, interesting relationships are established between the parts and the edges of the surface you are drawing on. Again, drawings often demonstrate risk-taking – pushing beyond a known state of order into dis-order, chaos and on into less predictable forms, relationships and images. 

Creativity and ethics

While creativity is usually lauded as ‘a good thing’, a quality always to be nurtured, it is important to keep in mind that creativity is not ethically neutral, let alone universally ‘good’. Sadly, human beings are as creative in the arts of war, cruelty and repression as they are in the arts of peace, care, tolerance and liberation. Creativity can be a force for good, a way to, and a manifestation of, enlightenment and liberation, but it can also be a force for domination, selfishness and exploitation. The way in which creativity is manifested and exercised defines its moral value, though paradoxically, as already mentioned, there is a kind of purposelessness or playfulness that seems integral to creativity. So, it is important to ensure creativity, like mindful awareness, is firmly located within an ethical framework that prioritises the common good and seeks to foster understanding, kindness and peace. 

Bringing together the various threads of this talk 

In terms of Zen and other modes of mindful meditation being creative is to be using your ‘Beginner’s Mind,’ or ‘Don’t-know Mind.’ This is how to be mindful: to pay close attention – and to ‘mind’ what you’re doing – doing it with care, but playfully, without looking for reward or success. Do it just to do it. Enjoy what you’re doing, savour the experience. Watch your creativity as it unfolds.

Noticing and cultivating creativity is very life-affirming, it enhances our appreciation of what we do, and what others do. It enriches daily life and increases our sense of wellbeing. Caring for ourselves and others, yet also being carefree and playful as we work in the garden, bake a cake, play football, write poems or explore other arts and crafts, enables us to shake off the stresses and anxieties of our busy lives. Developing the art of letting go is an important part of this process.

Mindful meditation is another way of cultivating and honing the art of creative being – just sitting quietly, watching your mind and what is going on around you without reacting out of habit, without making judgments or commenting on what is happening – just being present, alive to what is going on. Learning how to notice, appreciate and let go.

In the process of mindful meditation, we develop awareness and concentration – learning to live with the transient nature of existence. To be mindful is also to appreciate what we do from moment-to-moment. When we can be at ease with each passing moment, we are at ease with ourselves and with the world. This is good for our wellbeing - enabling us to act with more kindness and wisdom than we might otherwise have done. 

In a sense we could say our creative nature is hindered or clouded by our preconceptions, cravings and habits. Therefore, the more we become aware of our habits of thought and feeling, able to stand back and see them for what they are, the less we are controlled by them – able to act more creatively and flexibly. Developing the skills of letting go, being open and present – being responsive rather than reacting through habit – enables us to grow in creative awareness and imagination. 

Practicing mindful meditation, even for a short time, on a regular basis, enables us to get to know ourselves better – to realise that things are always changing, as we are changing. We can become more at ease and less critical of ourselves and others, and feel more connected to ourselves, other people and the world. By developing our awareness, we come to realise what a miracle it is to be alive, to be conscious, to be here. By understanding ourselves, we come to understand others - we can develop kindness and compassion for ourselves and for other beings - and for this amazing planet we live on. And by extending mindful meditation into daily life, even the most routine of activities can be transformed into something surprising, creative and enjoyable – cooking, cleaning teeth and washing dishes will never be the same again.

I would like to end by saying what I have already said in a different form – a more open exploratory way of speaking about creativity and creative awareness. Hopefully it might be interesting for its rhythms and music as well as for its meaning. Here goes:  

Fresh turn again to ideas familiar strange. Immeasurable 

dance of action - being - chance - surprise. Standing thinking, 

every human chaos. Sewing shut to open smooth round 

stone. Illogical leap to incomplete, as small disturbed bird 

on twig in dappled mind all stippled calls to trout. Whatever 

turns to bullseye works. So, to make a mess, try this, try that, 

give up, go home. Turn again to dance with chance - unfolding 

rhetoric of surprise. Full circle to chase wild goose. Lucid 

elusive river-run. One thing after another - after another 

- sudden light hitting dappled dark, river-stones turned 

to silver eels 

And finally, a haiku by the Japanese poet, Issa, who lived from 1763-1827: 

simply trust

do not the petals flutter down,

just like that

(in Blyth 1949: 207)

Thank you for listening and bye for now.

References

Blyth, R.H. 1949. Haiku Volume 1: Eastern Culture, Tokyo: The Hokuseido Press.

Haskel, Peter. 1989. Bankei Zen: Translations from the Record of Bankei, New York: Grove Weidenfeld.

Hirshfield, Jane. 1998. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. HarperPerennial, pp 3-5.

W.H. Gardner, ed. 1963. Gerald Manley Hopkins: A selection of his poems and prose. Penguin.

Sokuzan quote from, Zen and the poet’s mind, a conversation with Fleda Brown, in Urthona Magazine, Issue 33, pp.8-13.

Uchiyama, Kôshô. 1990. The Zen Teaching of ‘Homeless’ Kôdô, Kyoto: Kyoto Sôtô-Zen Center.