1.3 : Why Is Consciousness Important While Writing?

Transcript

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the Immovable Wisdom Writing Podcast. I'm Karen A. Parker, a Black, queer, non-binary, and neurodivergent Secular Buddhist who's certified in fiction book coaching and holds an MFA in creative writing. On this podcast, I’ll be talking about how BIPOC and QUILTBAG+ fiction writers can build sustainable, decolonial, dharmic writing practice while navigating the predominantly white, cis-hetero publishing industry. And if you don't identify as either BIPOC or QUILTBAG+, but you wanna support underrepresented writers, don't worry. This podcast is for you, too. Make sure you subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode. Thanks for tuning in, and let's get into it.

How's it going, everybody? 

Welcome to the Immovable Wisdom Writing Podcast, season one, episode three. I am your host, Karen A. Parker—Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (fiction, specifically), speculative fiction author and Secular Buddhist who is trying to navigate the white, cisgender, heterosexual publishing industry (or at least the majority of it) through a decolonial dharmic lens. 

So, last episode, I talked about curiosity or principle number one in my Immovable Wisdom Writing Framework. And also, just to clarify, like, the Immovable Wisdom Writing Framework is not, like, me trying to co-opt Buddhism. I've just kinda collected these principles and sort of, like, you know, use them as a shorthand. Like, I would encourage you to research actual Buddhist philosophy and to go beyond this podcast. But, like, just to clarify that in case anyone comes at me and is like, “Karen, you're totally, like, culturally appropriating here.” No, I'm not. I'm giving you the receipts. 

But, anyway, back to back to what I was talking about.

So, ehipassiko in Pali kinda translates “to come and see” because Buddhism is an experiential way of life. It's not necessarily a religion. It is more of a way of understanding the world and understanding yourself. And I have kind of translated that term to be “curiosity” just for my own shorthand and for my own mnemonics because alliteration is one of my favorite literary devices, and it's also one of my favorite mnemonics. 

So on this episode, we're gonna be talking about something adjacent to it, and something that I think I actually alluded to in last episode, but, we'll get to that as I explain.

But on this episode, we're gonna be talking about consciousness or the Buddhist principle of sati. And you will likely know about sati because it often gets translated into as, into English as mindfulness. So mindfulness, according to Lion's Roar, from the article that I'm reading from, which I will put the link for in the Show Notes, is about “being purposefully aware without judgment” of what is happening in your body and your mind and your environment in the present moment. “Mindfulness is both a mental state and a practice where one pays attention on purpose.” So, “in a nutshell, mindfulness is intentional awareness.”

So, to give an example of that, mindfulness might look like, you know, walking but also paying attention to your steps as you walk, meditating while sitting and paying attention to your breath, mindfully eating your dinner instead of just scarfing it down in front of the in front of the television. Like, again, mindfulness is the what and not necessarily the how, even though it kind of is its own sort of what. And, you know, mindfulness is also—This is another thing that I want to mention overall. Like, when when I look at other, like, writing institutions or, writing practitioners that have a Buddhist lens or are coming into writing with a Buddhist lens or Buddhist theory, most of it is just like mindfulness kind of slapped onto writing practice. And I don't blame that. Like, mindfulness is its own field, like, you know, Jon Kabat Zinn and Thich Nhat Hanh, and all of these wonderful practitioners have have made it their focus and their main philosophy, but I'm always about getting the full context and getting the full, you know, the full picture of it. 

And so, you might think that mindfulness is a very important part of of Buddhism, but it's not the whole thing. And, I don't want that to kind of bleed into the Immovable Wisdom Writing Framework either. Like, all of the parts that I'm talking about, I feel are are equally important or should be there. 

So getting back to, how mindfulness is sort of incorporated in a Buddhist way, when you're not mindful, you're often distracted. So, just to give just to give an example, I was looking out the window today, and I saw this person with their dog. And the dog didn't look to be too old. It was like a black Lab, maybe like, really between, like, the teenage years or the equivalent thereof of, like, dog years, and was super cute. And one of the sprinklers had turned on on the lawn of an adjacent house, and the dog was just like, “Oh my god, sprinkler!” And was just like, you know, getting his drink of water, from the sprinkler. But I imagine it also felt pretty good because, like, the high pressure of the water is probably, like, good on his teeth or something. So, he's just having a ball. He was in the present moment. But obviously, his owner wanted to—his, her, their, I don't know the gender of the dog—but obviously, the owner of the dog wanted to get on with the walk and, kind of, you know, use his whistle to get the dog's attention.

So I kinda like to think of, like—When we're writers, we're often stuck in, you know, we're often stuck in thoughts of, like, not wanting to be in the present moment. Like, we we say we wanna write, but then we end up doing the laundry, or then we end up watching our favorite TV show, or we end up just absolutely not being present when we do write. And, and also kind of coming back to curiosity and, and such, like, we don't— We tend to ignore how we're feeling, and we push beyond our limits. And we don't kind of check-in with the present moment, and we're like, “Oh, are we okay with this scene? Or, are we okay with how we're sitting?”

And so, I think that it's important for BIPOC and LGBTQ writers especially to check-in with themselves and be mindful in their writing practice because colonialism and the powers that be don't want you to be mindful. They want you to be numb. They want you to be ignorant. They want you to be, you know, a part of their system and the cog in their machine. And they want you to, you know, push past your limits to make that deadline. They want you to write work that is for them and not for you. 

And that's really where where the danger of not having a mindful practice comes in. You have a mind-less practice, so to speak. And so, how can we incorporate that into writing practice in general?

So, for me as a writer, being mindful consists of being very—I mean, on a very basic level—just being very judicious with my time. You know, being, being aware of, like, how I'm feeling when I'm drafting and, you know, being aware of the books that I'm reading. Like, if I start thinking about something else when I'm reading, I try and bring myself back to the present moment. And, and and just—There are a couple of techniques for that. I started with—I mean, my whole Buddhist journey kind of kicked off with Sharon Marshall, who I think I mentioned in the very first episode. But, after that, there was kind of a gap. And then, I turned to Headspace for meditation because at that point, I was I thought I was mostly dealing with anxiety and not, you know, neurodivergence and the whole umbrella of that and what that means.

And so, I did mindfulness. I did the whole guided meditation thing with Headspace and with Andy Puddicombe's lovely narration. I recommend Headspace. I don't use it much anymore because, it got, I think—A paid subscription got too expensive for me. But also, if you're listening, Headspace, would love to collab! But, maybe collab in the future, not in the podcast. I think I wanna keep the podcast free. 

But, anyway, back to back to the actual episode at hand. See? I'm doing I'm doing some mindfulness practice there. I'm trying not to get distracted, and trying not to, you know, go off on too many tangents.

But, yeah. There's, like I said, there's walking meditations, there's eating meditations, there's, you know, you can feel meditation when you're exercising, and you can even meditate while you're writing and really take a moment to slow down and see what that feels like if you write with music or if you meditate with music or you get in the zone. You know? There’s talk about, you know, Csikszentmihalyi's flow, and that might be kind of like a meditative state or a trance for your writing practice, if that's of use to you. 

But, yeah, I would I would say that for BIPOC and QUILTBAG+ writers in particular, that mindfulness is super-duper important because we often work ourselves to the bone, we often let our minds wander, and we don't keep our eyes on the prize, essentially.

And I think the prize is being centered and being, like, being aware of what's going on, especially in the world and especially with your writing. And just having all those listening ears, and those observant eyes, and those sharp thoughts on as much as possible. 

Now, there another point I wanted to mention, which is that, like, it's okay if you get distracted. Like, no one is 100% mindful 100% of the time. There's gonna be some thought that comes into our heads that takes us off the beaten path. You're gonna go down that rabbit hole. You're gonna watch those YouTube videos. And, you know, there's time that's gonna be lost. You're gonna make mistakes. And that's okay.

The point of mindfulness, like, and meditation and all of these practices is that you're cultivating it in a safe space so that when the moment comes when you notice that you're distracted, you come back more easily. So, when you exercise or when you do some kind of physical movement, you are putting your body through stress, but it's stress in an environment that is safe and that is good for you because it is pushing your body's limits and making your body more—making your body stronger to adapt to change. And that's what that's what meditation and mindfulness do for the brain. 

I mean, I think people can actually, like, see it or there have been psychological studies that have been done on this. Like, the more you practice it, the stronger it becomes, and the less mindless you are.

So if it happens, like, after you listen to this episode or if you go journaling that, that you start having a thought and, you know, you run away with it, you know, maybe that thought is actually important and you have to, like, go address it. But don't feel bad if you have a thought. Like, human beings have thoughts. Human beings get distracted. We are thinking, feeling creatures, and, like, the mindfulness component is something that you will have to develop over time because we are in a very easily, easily distracting world.

There is so much going on. Like, there's just so much going on. There's so much going on that we don't even we don't even know about, and we can't have our—You know, we can't have our eyes and ears everywhere at once. And so, that's why it's important to cultivate some moments throughout the day where you are present and where you are focused. And maybe, like, as you, maybe as you journal, like, take, like, three seconds before you write the next sentence. Or maybe as you're, as you're typing, maybe have—maybe close your eyes and see if, like, you can you can touch type, or something like that. Or just give guided meditations a shot. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes. But just try it. 

Yeah. Kind of combining curiosity here and, and consciousness, try it out. See how it goes. If it's not for you, then it's not for you, and you'll be the wiser for it. 

But that's gonna be it for this episode. It might be that next week gets another episode. I do not know. I'm still figuring out this podcast. 

But in the meantime, I will see you or hear you in the next one. 

Take care, y'all.

Thanks for listening to the Immovable Wisdom Writing podcast.

You can find resources and links from this episode in the show notes at karenaparker.com/podcast. 

Special thanks to Pop Villains for the cool theme titled “The Usual Suspects” and to Amelia Hruby from Softer Sounds. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast via your favorite listening platform. Also, please consider donating to the Captured Phantoms Pay It Forward Scholarship Fund at karenaparker.com/forward. Every donation helps subsidize the cost of coaching and editorial services that I provide for BIPOC and QUILTBAG+ speculative fiction writers.

Anyway, that's it for me y'all. Stay cool out there and keep writing.