Writing and Meditation

I’m living in silence, after a meditation retreat in early winter. I find myself returning to silence in my head, over and over. It’s oddly comforting, and hugely creative, like a giant white canvas where stories can emerge.

I was trying to explain how meditation helps my writing, one day, and totally failed. I was at a discussion session for writers, and I’d said something about quieting the mind. One writer responded that she didn’t want her mind quiet, because she wanted the story in her mind (well, she said something much more coherent than that, but this catches the essence).

Here’s my better explanation. Meditation helps quiet the fussing in the mind – the thinking about what happened yesterday, or might happen tomorrow. It quiets the anxiety and the stories from our own lives we get wrapped up in. All the worries and anxieties and the stories we make out of them quiet a little, settle and calm.

Then there’s space for the stories we want to focus on ­– the stories we write. It’s like wanting to go star gazing and finding the sky covered in clouds. If we could clear away the clouds, even for just a little while, we could see the stars.

And that’s meditation.

Maureen