I know meditating would be good for me if I could practice it but I can’t. I tried it so often and I failed every time. I took small steps. Even sitting down for only one minute a day to watch my breath go in and out did not work for me. I lack discipline in all areas of my life. So, of course, I wouldn’t even be able to do something as easy as meditating for one minute. I hated myself for that.
Then I read Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. Freeing the Writer Within. I am a writer and — this is where we come right back to my lack of discipline — I struggle with it. So I read a lot of books about writing to overcome that discipline deficiency. When I read Writing Down the Bones the following paragraph at the beginning of the book hit me, hit me hard:
In 1974 I began to do sitting meditation. From 1978 to 1984 I studied Zen formally with Dainin Katagiri Roshi at the Minnesota Zen Center in Minneapolis. Whenever I went to see him and ask him a question about Buddhism, I had trouble understanding the answer until he said, “You know, like in writing when you …” When he said to me, “Why do you come to sit meditation? Why don’t you make writing your practice? If you go deep enough in writing, it will take you everyplace.”
Writing as a form of mindful practice? This is amazing!
I love handwriting. I can go on handwriting for hours, till it hurts. All Natalie Goldberg asks me to do is to write down things that are going through my mind. No effort needed, no focus, no real purpose either. This is what I love doing anyway: writing with a pen in my hand, sitting at my desk, on a bench in a park, in a café, doesn’t matter. The act of writing, she says, could be a form of meditation!
To be honest it made me tear up. This was like the universe telling me, Anja, you got this. If you sit down and write, you are already meditating.
How I practice writing as a form of meditation
The ideal day would start with me waking up. It is quiet. Everyone is still asleep. I sit down at my desk and write into my journal until I have filled three or four pages.
You could start a timer and write for a certain time or until you have filled a certain amount of pages. I don’t do that. I usually just go for it.
And don’t be too hard on yourself. I still lack discipline. Sometimes I oversleep and start my day with other stuff. Sometimes I write some sentences. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by other tasks. Sometimes I write in my journal at another time of day. There are weeks I fill 10–15 pages and on other days: nothing. But because I love doing it so much, I know I will always come back to practice writing at some time.
The practice itself is of much more importance. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or punctuation. You don’t need to write nicely. If you are angry: write it down, every harsh word going through your mind. Deal with it on paper. Let it out! Go with the flow! I filled pages with my little angry self and with my anxiety, my fears. It helps to write it down. There is always another part in me answering. It is calming me down, helping me with its reasonable voice.
Now I have found something I can count on if life goes hard on me. Taking my fountain pen and start writing will always help me in some way. It will help me reflect my actions, help me watch the nature of my thoughts and it will help me to calm down. Isn’t that exactly what a meditation practice is supposed to do?