Matt Brown
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This sounds fantastic. I found myself identifying with Vajra as well, and this image fits perfectly!
Hello! Something Susan said on the weekend about Magnetize had me thinking about a point in my writing process that I’m trying to grow, which is (appropriately) the “let it rest” phase. I’m historically guilty of writing things — whether they were emails, a blog post, a chapter of a book, whatever — and either immediately sending them off for feedback or ploughing on to the next step without giving myself a bit of space to see what arises naturally in my own response to what I’ve just done; this space can be an hour, or a day, or a good afternoon walk listening to music, or whatever.
As I’ve been mindful of this idea in the past several months I am starting to find that space very useful. It seems to attract what seem like (in retrospect) very obvious points of clarity on the work I’ve just done, and how I might “tighten the bolts” on it (as I like to say), or how it might lead to something else, or connect to something I’ve already done, or someone else has already done, or something. I wonder if I am good or neglectful at applying this idea to other areas of my life… I am going to reflect on that this week.
@ THEREZA – I hadn’t even read your response when I wrote mine but I feel like we’re pretty aligned! May our view bring us clarity and strength.
One of the key practices in the last year of my life — since I left my last job, but I don’t know that it’s *directly* connected to that — has been “radical acceptance,” meaning that I am really trying, every single day, to be mindful of my own expectations and that I will ultimately have to accept whatever comes, regardless. It’s not an easy practice, and it doesn’t apply to everything, but it does help somewhat. The largest concern in my life — this one *definitely* connected to leaving my job! — is of course around incoming and future financial stability, and that’s one area where radical acceptance doesn’t seem to budge my worries. (Probably because “accept that I literally have no idea what’s going to happen nor do I have any way to predict it” sends my Virgo mind into a tizzy. 😂)
So here, yes, focusing on the first and second noble truths — that this uncertainty and discomfort are the way of things, and that attempting to work against the way of things is, ultimately, the cause of my suffering — is certainly much more helpful. It doesn’t make me feel GOOD, per se, but it certainly makes me feel BETTER. My favourite step on the eightfold path, in pretty much everything in life, is Right View, because I pride (?) myself on how hard I work to see things as clearly as I can, whether good or bad. It’s the secret key that unlocks pretty much everything about the way I balance myself in my life, so I rely on it constantly.
What’s funny about my current anxieties is that there is SUCH appeal to NOT seeing them clearly, i.e. pretending they’re not as big a deal as I think they are… maybe that’s true of a lot of these games we play with ourselves. It’s a good anxiety de-escalator, in general, to tell yourself that something isn’t as big of a deal as it seems to be. But I do worry that doing so, at least if I do it habitually, is negating the value of seeing the concern as clearly as I can.
My shrine is pretty simple: it’s a small fountain on my balcony, to which I’ve added a clay statue of the Buddha, and a small stone that I collected when trying to sort through one of the worst parts of the process of writing a novel last year. (I declared that the stone belongs to my main character, so as long as it’s there, she’s guiding me forward.) I prefer to meditate in front of the shrine when it’s warm enough to do so; because I live in Canada, that means I meditate *near* the statue (i.e. inside) from about October to March. I contemplated bringing the whole thing inside during the winter but the flowing water keeps the fountain unfrozen and something about the idea of it flowing away, in spite of the elements, appeals to my sense of the world.
Hi everyone! Excited to be doing this. I’m Matt, I’m a writer living in Toronto. I’ve been a member of the Sangha for about four years now, and have found particularly in the last couple of years I’ve been applying a lot of the teaching to my writing process. I’m particularly interested in taking that further, via this course. See you soon!
