Past, Future, Meanwhile

I continue to contemplate the Lynda Barry writing workshop, “Writing the Unthinkable.”

Lynda asked us a few times to write in the third-person objective point of view, which means that you refer to a character as “he” or “she” (rather than “I” or “you”) and that you report only what can be known by an objective viewer: no thoughts or feelings can be directly reported as if you, the narrator, were inside the character’s head. This is an extremely tricky way of writing, especially about yourself, and I asked her if there was a reason for it.

She answered that she wanted us to practice viewing characters as we do (or should more often do) in real life – viewing the actions and words without really knowing the others’ thoughts and intentions. We just observe the characters with an open state of mind, and keep ourselves (our Selfs) out of the way. That means not interpreting everything about them through the screen of our own old, familiar story, but being open to whatever clues to what’s really going on arrive.  I mentioned how difficult a certain exercise had been to take something we had written about ourselves in the first person (“I”), and rewrite it in this third person objective.  All she would say is that it is an important step in moving toward fiction. I said I realized it might help us to ground our stories in the sensory, not just in thoughts and feelings, and she said it would do that, too.

The idea of viewing without assumptions, I said, reminds me of what I try to do in meditation, to simply observe. She said that she, too, meditates, and yes, it is like that. I never learned anything more about her meditation, but I was prompted to think even more about how this approach aligns with the practice.

One little anecdote she told touched on a dilemma I have struggled with as a writer striving to live with mindfulness. She told how one of her nephews had said that if he could engage in time travel, he would want a time machine that works three ways: “past, future, and meanwhile.” We all laughed – yes, our experience in the moment is so often NOT what is happening right now. There’s now, and then there’s meanwhile, back at the ranch – meanwhile, back in fourth grade … meanwhile, back in that argument with your ex-boyfriend when you should have said X.   

 

However, that’s not all that meanwhile is. Meanwhile is where we would all go as we wrote furiously for seven minutes. She began every writing period with “All right. Starting with the words ‘I am,’ you are going to write about your image for seven minutes. And I’ll see you when you get back.” Meanwhile is also where we would go as we listened to someone read their story out loud. Meanwhile is what we experience when we are fully absorbed in a book, or play, or film, or painting. Meanwhile is where we are taken by a great piece of music or dance. Meanwhile is where kids go when they are wholly engaged in play. It’s an essential, important place, and it must have its proper place in Buddhist practice.

It’s helpful to think of what meanwhile isn't, or perhaps what an unwholesome meanwhile might be. Meanwhile might be unwholesome if it takes the form of drifting thoughts, or repeating worries, or scenes that play out again and again in our minds without our looking deeply at them. If we do take the time and energy to invite these thoughts and feelings to come forward, if we embody them and feel them and work to know them, then perhaps our time in that meanwhile becomes wholesome.

I think it may be that in the act of writing, inviting the image from meanwhile to speak and taking down the dictation, we are very present to that image, very present to ourselves, and very present to its, and our, suchness or True Nature. And to be present to all of that is to be present to the now moment.

During the question and answer session at a retreat with Thầy, I heard a woman asked about the wholesomeness of remembering. She said that she has many precious memories that bring her a lot of happiness – is she not to think about those memories anymore, since they aren’t happening in the present moment? Thầy answered that of course we all remember the past, and we should, in order to reflect and understand, and also because it brings joy. Also, we all must plan for the future – we can’t only pay attention to what is happening right now. He said that the key to remembering the past with freedom is to be aware that you are remembering. The key to thinking about the future with freedom is to be aware that you are thinking about the future.

As I reflect on my own experiences with writing, I think it is true that the act of writing moors me, to a certain extent, to the present moment. The writing spools out over time, one chosen word or phrase at a time. I try to hold on to the image or feeling as this time runs by, but the image or feeling changes as that time passes. The image, and the writing, are living things, changing over time. The awareness needed to hold on to all of this is an intense kind of awareness, very open and concentrated at the same time.

I thought that John Daido Loori might have some insights about this, and he did.

In The Zen of Creativity, Daido Loori describes “working samadhi” (concentration), which is a bit different from the “absolute samadhi” that we may experience on the meditation cushion: the kind of single-pointedness of  mind in which there is “no observer. There is not awareness of time, self, or other.”

However, we can’t operate a computer or drive a car in this state. We must keep going until this state gradually manifests itself as working samadhi, which means we are able to function in activity but from within a place of stillness, of centeredness.…

In working samadhi there is no effort, no intent. It’s a 360-degree awareness; not so much like the awareness of a hunter, which is very focused and directed, but like the awareness of the hunted – unrestricted.…
…If your art is grounded in the still point, the self will be out of the way and your art will reflect its subject directly. (pp. 58-60)

Getting yourself, your Self, out of the way, is much of what Lynda Barry’s teaching is about.

The Diver’s Clothes Lying Empty

A week ago I attended a writing workshop at the Omega Institute with Lynda Barry, called “Writing the Unthinkable.” It was a powerful and transformative five days. Her approach to writing is emotional, psychological, spiritual, rather than intellectual. I think this method saved her life; at any rate, it has helped her to pass on what it is about any kind of art that makes life worth living.

For instance, she emphasizes the experience of capturing an image over the product of that experience. We are not to look at what we create for at least a week, preferably a month, because we will not be able to look at it without undue, unfair judgment before then. She likens art-making to the serious, fully-engaged play of children. The structure of her workshop was to guide us on a journey back to that open state of mind, in which the drawbridge can come down and images like ponies can cross over onto the field to play. These are Lynda’s words, Lynda’s metaphors; but I love them. I feel they could have been mine.

Every morning and every afternoon, we wrote three short pieces. Part of our preparation for each was to draw a tight spiral, or some other doodle, while she recited the same poem to us from memory. I heard this poem about twenty times. I came to love it. It is a poem by Rumi.

The Diver’s Clothes Lying Empty

You are sitting here with us,
but you are also out walking in a field at dawn.

You are yourself the animal we hunt
when you come with us on the hunt.

You are in your body
like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you are wind.

You are the diver’s clothes
lying empty on the beach.
You are the fish.

In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.

Your hidden self is blood in those,
those veins that are lute strings
that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of surf
but the sound of no shore.

Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

For me, the work was to ride the current, even as it pulled me through rough, dark waters, beyond the “sad edge of surf” to “the sound of no shore.” What is the sound of no shore? I think it is the experience of the world beyond the hurts and upheavals of my own personal history, my own self as I have known myself. It is the experience of story beyond “my story.” One of the promises of the workshop was to move from memory into fiction, which is why I was drawn to it. She took us there – it was an exhilarating journey.

I chose not to write down the poem during that week – I wanted to experience it only as something heard while in an open state of mind. Once I got home, I looked it up on-line (my own Rumi collection has gone missing) and found another translation of the poem. It seems so different, to me, it almost seems like a different poem. Or at least a different poet. I wonder which is closer to the original Persian.

Clothes Abandoned on the Shore

Your body is here with us,
but your heart is in the meadow.
You travel with the hunters
though you yourself are what they hunt.

Like a reed flute,
you are encased by your body,
with a restless breathy sound inside.

You are a diver;
your body is just clothing left at the shore.
You are a fish whose way is through water.

In this sea there are many bright veins
and some that are dark.
The heart receives its light
from those bright veins.

If you lift your wing
I can show them to you.
You are hidden like the blood within,
and you are shy to the touch.

Those same veins sing a melancholy tune
in the sweet-stringed lute,
music from a shoreless sea
whose waves roar out infinity.

Rumi, translated by Kabir Helminsky

Between the two translations, I have a preference. I suppose I can’t help but have a preference. I prefer the version that I heard Lynda recite to us. The second version has its moments, but that word “infinity” just ruins it for me.

About Rumi:

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī (Persian: جلال الدین محمد بلخى), also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (Persian: جلال‌الدین محمد رومی), and popularly known as Mowlānā (Persian: مولانا) but known to the English-speaking world simply as Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rūmī is a descriptive name meaning "the Roman" since he lived most of his life in an area called Rūm because it was once ruled by the Eastern Roman Empire. (from Wikipedia)

The Better Way

At a recent gathering of the Mindful Artists Collective, one member read aloud “The Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone,” as it is recorded in the Plum Village Chanting and Recitation Book.

The Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Live Alone

Bhaddekaratta Sutta : Translated from the Pali

I heard these words of the Buddha one time when the Lord was staying at the monastery in the Jeta Grove, in the town of Shravasti. He called all the monks to him and instructed them, “Bhikkhus!” And the bhikkhus replied, “We are here.” The Blessed One taught, “I will teach you what is meant by ‘knowing the better way to live alone.’ I will begin with an outline of the teaching, and then I will give a detailed explanation. Bhikkhus, please listen carefully.”

“Blessed One, we are listening.”

The Buddha taught:

Do not pursue the past.
Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is.
The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is
In the very here and now,
The practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.
We must be diligent today.
To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly.
How can we bargain with it?
The sage calls a person who knows how
to dwell in mindfulness night and day
“one who knows the better way to live alone.”

“Do not pursue the past. / Do not lose yourself in the future.” These lines have always puzzled me. I am more prone to losing myself in the past, and pursuing the future, than the other way around. I constantly catch myself reliving an event or conversation from the past, rather than living in the present moment. And the future is pursued in the form of plans, hopes, and worries. As if to pre-live the future would be to avoid the pain of surprises. Still, I have no argument with the view that re-living and pre-living are not the way to stability and freedom.

“Bhikkhus, what do we mean by ‘pursuing the past’? When someone thinks about the way his body was in the past, the way his feelings were in the past, the way his perceptions were in the past, the way his mental factors were in the past, the way his consciousness was in the past; when he thinks about these things and his mind is burdened by and attached to these things which belong to the past, then that person is pursuing the past.

It happens that lately I have been thinking a lot about the way my body was in the past, as signs and symptoms of middle age make themselves known with increasing frequency. The Buddha was speaking of the body as one of the five skandas, or aspects of our experience of being, and not of “the body of my youth” necessarily. But this is the association that arose for me. When I think about the way my body was in the past, is my mind “burdened by and attached to these things which belong to past”? Oh, yes.

There must be a better way.

“Bhikkhus, what is meant by ‘not pursuing the past’? When someone thinks about the way his body was in the past, the way his feelings were in the past, the way his perceptions were in the past, the way his mental factors were in the past, the way his consciousness was in the past; when he thinks about these things but his mind is neither enslaved by nor attached to these things which belong to the past, then that person is not pursuing the past.

To think about these things and be “neither enslaved by nor attached to” them, neither approving nor condemning those past conditions, nor present conditions – that sounds exactly like freedom.

“Bhikkhus, what is meant by ‘losing yourself in the future’? When someone thinks about the way his body will be in the future, the way his feelings will be in the future, the way his perceptions will be in the future, the way his mental factors will be in the future, the way his consciousness will be in the future; when he thinks about these things and his mind is burdened by and daydreaming about these things which belong to the future, then that person is losing himself in the future.

Mostly, these days, I feel burdened by my imaginings of the future. My body will be even less capable and even less responsive to my wishes. Farther out in time, my body, as well as my feelings, perceptions, mental factors, and consciousness will not “be” at all, in the way that they “be” right now. I used to feel much more neutral about these facts, but increasingly I am disturbed by them. I have miles to go before even coming near acceptance.

I notice that the teaching is clear that it is expected, and acceptable, that we would think about these things, both the past, which is gone, and the future, which is still to come. We’re not meant to stop thinking about these things, only to think about them without attachment.

“Bhikkhus, what is meant by ‘not losing yourself in the future’? When someone thinks about the way his body will be in the future, the way his feelings will be in the future, the way his perceptions will be in the future, the way his mental factors will be in the future, the way his consciousness will be in the future; when he thinks about these things but his mind is not burdened by or daydreaming about these things which belong to the future, then he is not losing himself in the future.

In the next two passages, I find myself doing some mental editing, as you’ll see:

“Bhikkhus, what is meant by ‘being swept away by the present’? When someone does not study or learn anything about the Awakened One [within oneself], or the teachings of love and understanding, or the community that lives in harmony and awareness; when that person knows nothing about the noble teachers and their teachings, and does not practice these teachings, and thinks, ‘This body is myself; I am this body. These feelings are myself; I am these feelings. This perception is myself; I am this perception. This mental factor is myself; I am this mental factor. This consciousness is myself; I am this consciousness,’ then that person is being swept away by the present.

“Bhikkhus, what is meant by ‘not being swept away by the present’? When someone studies and learns about the Awakened One [within oneself], the teachings of love and understanding, and the community that lives in harmony and awareness; when that person knows about noble teachers and their teachings, practices these teachings, and does not think, ‘This body is myself; I am this body. These feelings are myself; I am these feelings. This perception is myself; I am this perception. This mental factor is myself; I am this mental factor. This consciousness is myself; I am this consciousness’, then that person is not being swept away by the present.

What is striking about “not being swept away by the present” is what is not said about the better way to think. The teaching is that the person does not think, “This body is myself; I am this body.” The teaching is not that the person thinks, “This body is not myself; I am not this body.” We’re not told what the person thinks about themselves in relation to their body, just what they don’t think. Why would this be?

I suspect the right view is neither “This body is myself; I am this body” nor “This body is not myself; I am not this body.” Right view is not both, either. Right view is something beyond “is myself” and “is not myself.” Because right view about “myself” is neither “is” nor “is not.” We neither are nor are not: we inter-are.

These are insights drawn from Beyond the Self: Teachings on the Middle Way, one of Thầy’s new “little books” that fit into one’s pocket.

Thầy writes,

The Middle Way is not caught in pairs of opposites, such as being and nonbeing; coming and going; birth and death; same and different; exists and does not exist. These are ideas we need to go beyond. …

Relatively speaking, there are right views and there are wrong views. But if we look more deeply, we see that all views are wrong views. No view can ever be the truth. It is just the view from one point; that is why it is called a “point of view.” … Buddhism is not a collection of views. It is a practice that helps us eliminate wrong views. … From the viewpoint of the ultimate reality, Right View is the absence of all views. (pp. 9-10)

At a later point, Thầy pulls in the idea of touching the Dharma-nature or ultimate nature of all phenomena in order to go beyond the ideas of being born and dying. In the realm of “things as they are,” all things are interconnected, all things inter-are. This is the realm of no-birth and no-death, the realm of nirvana. (p.22)

From that point of view, then, “This body is myself; I am this body” is not correct, because if you say “this body,” you are distinguishing it from everything else that is, when in reality “this body” is everything that is. Even to say “Everything is myself; I am everything” is inadequate, because that still postulates a distinction between “everything” and “myself.” One could say, “Everything is everything,” but that refers to the cosmos as if it is a collection of “things,” separate and discrete, when it is not. Closer might be “Everything is no-thing; no-thing is everything”; which sounds a lot like “Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.” At this point, we may finally have arrived.

The sutra concludes:

“Bhikkhus, I have presented the outline and the detailed explanation of knowing the better way to live alone.” Thus the Buddha taught, and the bhikkhus were delighted to put his teachings into practice.

Bhaddekaratta Suttra (Majjhima Nikaya, Sutta no. 131)

What did the Buddha mean by “the better way to live alone”? In a dharma talk, Thầy explained:

“Knowing how to live alone” here does not mean to live in solitude, separated from other people, on a mountain or in a cave. "Living alone" here means living to have sovereignty of yourself, to have freedom, not to be dragged away by the past, not to be in fear of the future, not being pulled around by the circumstances of the present. We are always master of ourselves, we can grasp the situation as it is, and we are sovereign of the situation and of ourselves.

April 5, 1998, Plum Village

The past rushes away from us, the future rushes toward us, but the only place we ever are is in the present.