Writing as a Path to Enlightenment

It starts with a desire to write.  If that desire is intense enough words somehow find their way onto the page.  You start with you – because you must.  Your story is the only
one you have to tell.  It may not be the first one you share with the world but it is where you begin writing.  Your thoughts, your experiences, your viewpoint: these are the raw materials of your earliest efforts.  


And this is good.

If you continue to write and you write honestly and deeply enough about your own experiences you begin to recognize that you are not as different from other people as you once thought.  With this realization your imagination takes a leap and you gain the power to imagine situations from other people’s points of view.

This power not only makes your writing much, much better but it also gives you the gift of compassion: compassion for others and compassion for yourself. 

It is compassion that allows you to see shades of grey where once you only saw black and white.

It is compassion that cracks you open, that makes you deeper and wiser.  
 
Compassion is the pathway to Art.  It is also the pathway to Enlightenment.

May you write your way to both.