Messing with Meditation

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When I read James Parker’s article, “Ode to Not Meditating” in the April 2021 issue of the Atlantic, I smiled, gratified to encounter someone who recognizes the downside of meditation.  Advocates of the practice profess its ability to calm the mind and center one’s character, stopping the “the rawness and chaos of [our] own nature” as Parker so aptly states. God knows I’ve tried.  I’ve given myself over to serene voices, undulating waves on sandy beaches, and oscillating hypnotic tones only to fall asleep as bits of chaos leach from my head, flowing out of my body through its fingers and toes, leaving me floating in a sea of easeful numbness. An ‘airy fairy’ valium-like haze shelters me from surrounding reality. Quite frankly, I’d rather experience “sneezy breezy” reality that slaps my face, heats my skin and jerks my mind to attention, assuring me that I'm alive and thinking.  Like Parker, I’d rather keep my mind on, not in a vaporous neutral condition of being.

Some might debate this view, saying a meditative state opens you up inspiration and new perspectives. That may be true for some, but for me, my inspiration has its source in my emotions as I respond to the world around me. I welcome the sensations that explode in my mind and body – the chaos of awakening from dream, the panic of surprise, the fury of conflict, the hollowness of loss, the discomfort of anxiety and the nausea of errors and omissions.  As a writer I must wrestle with all these feelings, digging deep into their roots to grasp the meaning of them. This, like meditation, takes practice, but unlike meditation, these struggles create openings for rich insights, like a plow opening the earth, exposing pungent soil for seeded growth.

I don’t refuse the inner glow of being at peace, the satisfaction of acceptance or the buoyancy of optimism. But without experiencing the disruptive and disturbing, can peace, acceptance and optimism be fully realized?

Memorable stories are those in which we live the ordeals of a story's characters, embracing them because of how they make us feel; how they stimulate our own emotions; how they remind us of who we are, what we could be, and what we have yet to experience.  Writers who do this, whether they make us laugh, frighten us, thrill us or arouse great passion in us, whatever their genre, are the great writers. If I can do that for my readers, then I will consider myself a victorious writer.