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Creativity and Meditations

On Pause from Writing
(but not from Creativity & Meditation)

LETTING Our Lives BLOOM

Through meditation, we learn how to notice and let go. This principle over time can become a powerful tool - for me, it reflects the best approach one can have to life. Letting something go can seem as an impossible thing to do, since the need for control is a trait that most of us humans share. But forcing things to be, as we want them to, always creates friction, internally and externally. It’s that friction that poisons us, both our bodies and our minds. It’s why we’re angry, depressed; it’s how we react to being in a constant battle with our »wants«. Life doesn’t care however: it too busy being... well, life.

LET GO

Not fighting for what we want is not a goal anyone should give up on. On the contrary, having goals towards which to strive for is a must in order to stay motivated. But fighting for goals is mute. It’s a tendency that our society have taught us (a capitalist one, especially) - effort, being busy, and pushing towards our goals, will someday bring us there. It very well may, but at what price? Is it a wonder that so many people have nervous breakdowns or their health falls apart in »pursuit of happiness«? In this stage of our evolution as a society, struggling and being busy is deemed as a commendable and worthy way of living. But what happens when we »get there«? Is it all that we’ve expected? Does reaching a material goal pay off an entire life’s worth of ignoring our own development and growth?

AND NOTICE

Moments when things seem simpler and we can enjoy life as it is, should not be something that we reserve just for holidays. It’s a mind state that can be lived. Not necessarily by picking up meditation, but by first realizing that we’ve been trying to force a different life, than the one we are living currently, into existence. In reality, that will not work for 99% of people. At least not as a sustainable way of being happy. Being happy is not a thing to be achieved, it is a state of mind. All positive emotions are preexisting states inside of us, while negative ones are a result of inner friction (between our expectations and reality), of constant swimming against the current. Letting go of your inner tightness lets positivity flow back onto the surface. »Taking a moment to smell the flowers« in most instances, sounds like bull crap – but you, and the life around you, are always blooming. So we can very well try to learn how to notice it and enjoy.

“… a single lamp may light hundreds of thousands of lamps without itself being diminished.”
Vimalakirti, Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra