Creativity and the Practice of Surprise
- Insights Into Practices: The Practice of Surprise
- A Poem About Creativity
- What I’m Reading
- What I’m Watching
- 3-Month Practice Period – Starting January 8th
- Half-day Retreats – This Sunday, December 8th
Insights Into Practices: Surprise
This is one of my favorite writing prompts — What surprises me about my life right now…
Try it, begin with this prompt and write for 3, 7, or 12 minutes. Explore free writing, writing without planning or editing. Let yourself be surprised by what you write. Writing seems to access a different part of our brains/bodies then when we are thinking or speaking. There is a somewhat different flavor of “editor” or our internal editor is open to more possibilities…
The first word that I wrote with this prompt (What surprises me about my life right now…) was “everything.” I’m surprised that it rained this morning, surprised to live near San Francisco, (I grew up in New Jersey), and very surprised to be a Zen teacher/business person. (My father was an electrician; my mother was a secretary). How did that happen?
I imagine the same may be true for you — how did any of this happen, really? And, what will happen next? Surprise is a healthy and creative approach in influencing all parts of our well-being, relationships, and work.
As for surprise and creativity in the work world, I’ve always liked this story:
There was once a US-based recycling company that sent two salesmen to an urban area of southern Spain to assess the market for recycling. After a short time, the company headquarters receives two telegrams:
The first salesman reported:
Situation hopeless. There is no recycling here.
The second salesman reported:
Glorious opportunity. There is no recycling here.
Our minds often crave patterns and predictability. Our brains are constantly making predictions about what will happen next. At the same time, the world is not what it seems. Everything is new, fresh, and perhaps original.
The word original comes from the Latin verb oriri, “to rise” which points to the rising of the moon and the sun; as well as the noun origo, which refers to the rising of a spring from its source in the earth. Though we can predict the patterns of the moon and sun, each moonrise and sunrise are distinct and original. Each spring emerging from its source is fresh, new, and surprising.
When we let go of expectations, of only seeing patterns and predictions, everything is new, fresh, and surprising.
Practice:
Explore writing with the prompt: What surprises me about my life right now….
Notice: What has surprised you thus far, today, this week, this year?
A Poem About Creativity
Robert Bly, Things to Think.
Think in ways you’ve never thought before.
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.
Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.
When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s about
To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that it’s
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.
(A surprising sunrise, from my Mill Valley deck this morning.)
What I’m Reading: Creativity
The Creative Act: A Way of Being, by Rick Rubin – Beautifully designed book, and both an extremely poetic and practical approach to living a creative life.
Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the Word, by Jane Hirshfield – I love Jane’s poetry and I’m particularly drawn to her prose. Wonderful essays about poetry and the creative process.
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind – by Shunryu Suzuki – This is a book I keep reading, again and again. It’s never the same. Beginner’s Mind is a path toward creativity and many other positive aspirations as well.
What I’m Watching: Creativity
McCartney 3,2,1 – Paul McCartney and Rick Rubin explore the creative process, unpacking how many well-known Beatles songs came into being.
Appreciating Your Life: A 3-Month Zen Practice Period
January 8th – April 2nd, 2025
Online
A 3-month Practice Period is a great way to begin or deepen your mindfulness and meditation practice and cultivate ways for integrating mindfulness practice with your work and all parts of your life.
Online meetings are Wednesday from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. PT. We will begin each session with 30 minutes of lightly guided meditation, followed by a short talk, as well as small group and large group discussions.
The theme for the Practice Period is Appreciating Your Life. This is the underlying theme of meditation practice and Zen practice – seeing and feeling everything, the good, bad, ugly, beautiful – as gift and an opportunity to learn, grow, and engage. It’s the practice of feeling deeply, opening our hearts and minds, with a mindset of appreciation, and of being of benefit, through our ability to see more clearly, to accept what is, and work effectively with change and for change.
Our focus will be on how Zen practice can be integrated into daily life to help us:
– cultivate greater wellbeing
– navigate change and challenges
– discover more meaning and purpose in work and relationship
Our primary reading for the practice period is Branching Streams Flow In The Darkness, Zen Talks on a poem called the Sandokai, or the Harmony of Difference and Equality. This is an excellent primer on the non-dual teaching is Zen practice and how to apply them to your wellbeing, relationships, work, and social and environmental responsibility.
Being part of a community that meets weekly is a powerful way to find more clarity and connection as we begin a New Year. Each week we will meditate together for 30 minutes. Then, I’ll give a short talk, unpacking ideas and practices from Branch Stream Flow In The Darkness. We will have a variety of small group and large group discussions, to practice and deepen the tools and themes discussed. Each week you will leave with an actionable insight, or a practice, and a suggested reading.
Weekly sessions will be recorded and made available in case you miss any sessions or want to revisit them.
I hope you will join me.
Half Day Retreats
December 8th, In Person and Online, in Mill Valley
January 26th, 2025, In Person and Online, in Mill Valley.
In our world of busyness, of more/faster/better, this half-day retreat offers time to stop, reflect, and renew. We will explore the practices of effort and effortless as a path to well-being and “stepping into your life.” Together we’ll follow a gentle schedule of sitting and walking meditation, a talk, and some discussion.
Anyone looking to begin or deepen a meditation and mindfulness practice is invited to attend. What is meditation? I like a definition proposed by Dogen, the 13th century founder of Zen in Japan: “The practice I speak of is not meditation. It is simply the dharma gate of repose and bliss…It is the manifestation of ultimate reality…Once its heart is grasped, you are like a dragon when he gains the water, like a tiger when she enters the mountains.”
Warm regards,
Marc