Category — creativity

Part Two of radio interview with Buddhist Geeks, Ryan Oelke & Vince Horn

Interview with Ryan Oelke and Vince Horn, the Buddhist Geeks. Thanks guys! Great talking with you. Love your show.

Please join me for a 5-day Meditation Retreat for Writers.

Which I happen to love, love, love teaching. And would love, love, love to see you there. Of course.

I had not written anything in a long time. the Writers Retreat gave me the space, time,and inward focus to let creativity happen naturally. I hadn’t realized how much I had to say. The meditation aspect of the retreat provided a peaceful structure where writing could be a pleasure once again instead of work.
Anne, Boston, Office Manager & Memoirist

If you’ve promised yourself to set aside time for writing but never seem to get around to it, this program is for you. It invites you to drop everything and tune into your own authentic voice. The moment you make this commitment–and give yourself the support of meditation and a non-intrusive community of fellow-writers–the words will flow. They truly will.

May 11-16 Kripalu, Lenox, MA

June 29-July 5 Karme Choling, Barnet, VT

This is what happens on the retreat:
Writer and teacher Susan Piver creates a warm but focused environment in which to reflect and create. The majority of time will be spent on personal writing projects.

Meditation, journaling, and lots of time for personal writing create a sense of flow and deep connection to your authentic voice.

Evenings are spent in group discussion. Each student will have a chance to read his or her work and receive feedback.

Meditation instruction will be offered; no prior experience needed.

Open to writers of fiction and non-fiction, published and unpublished.

You’ll leave the program inspired and relaxed, having written a lot.

Here are some nice things people have said about this retreat:
Susan Piver is very wise, intuitive, and insightful and has had great impact, with a very light touch.
Gil, St. Johnsbury, VT, Corporate Consultant & Business Writer

This course helped me integrate meditation skills such as serenity, focus, compassion, and insight into the areas of poetry and fiction. I am extremely grateful!
Brian, Ithaca, College Student & Poet

I cannot recommend this writing and meditation retreat enough! Susan’s carefully considered practice schedule offers precisely the right balance of meditation and space in which to write. Her teaching style allows for full creative expression to unfold because she neither interferes with the writing process, nor does she abandon the writer to his or her own devices. The result is a profound deepening of the work of writing and the practice of meditation. I left with a much more sophisticated understanding of how these two practices are not only complimentary, but how meditation is crucial to the life of the writer. This is a very rare opportunity for anyone, indeed.
Crystal, NYC, Novelist & Writing Teacher

I can’t imagine any way to improve this program because it was more than I could have asked for.
Kathy, Cleveland, Librarian & Memoirist

The growth I experienced in five days was life changing.
Britta, NYC, Graphic Designer & Memoirist

Susan is a caring, compassionate person whose presence, insights, and instructions made for a valuable week exploring meditation practice and writing.
Heather R, Albany, Travel Writer

Emotionally moving, spiritually a gift, cathartic beyond my wildest imagination.
Miriam, Cambridge, Waitress & Essayist

It’s really fun, I swear.

Here’s mine, in this month’s

I am one of the luckiest people alive because I have some amazing friendships. Like the guy mentioned above who e-mailed me those comments about Dylan. I mean how awesome is that.

This morning was talking to another friend who said, when I was telling him about trying to become a better, more disciplined writer, “Sometimes the energy of self-hate disguises itself as helpfulness.” That stopped my mind. Then he said “Self-hate can masquerade as tough love.” Stop again. I told him that there’s some part of me holding a gun to the head of the part of me who writes. He said, “If someone was trying to tell me something, no matter how helpful or beautiful, if I saw they had a gun to their head, I wouldn’t want to listen to them.” Yikes. I don’t know if this makes sense to anybody else or just to me because it’s such an apt description of my insides.

Everyday I struggle with discipline. To get done all that I want on any given day (write, meditate, exercise, cultivate opportunities, blah blah) a schedule seems paramount. All the books say so. I even say so! But I can’t do it. The only time I can (and it’s heavenly, HEAVENLY) is when I’m on a meditation retreat. I feel so grateful to the schedule for providing such perfect containment for my energy, for everyone’s. Yet I can’t do it at home. Believe me, I’ve tried.

I’m giving up. Uncle.

My “process” (sounds so pretentious) seems to be absolutely non-linear. As an experiment, I’m going to go with it. This looks like working on something for 20 minutes and then working on something else for 2 hours and then going back to the first thing and then making 5 phone calls and then starting something brand new and then taking a nap and etc, etc.

Thank you to my friend who pointed out that some writers sit down at 9A sharp and work until noon come hell or high water and some go out and get drunk and just before passing out, work on their book. I’m really going to aim for the middle road here.

Wish me luck.

Was e-mailing with a friend yesterday about the kookiness of trying to make a living as a writer when he said this:

Being an artist is a risk. Risking non acceptance. Art has an interior dimension. One is groping for what has profound MEANING. Then to present that sense with integrity is vital. But it is a risk because it may not resonate in current time and space with the public/audience. That can hurt.

Fear of that pain can derail art. One begins to game the audience. The vision in the mind’s eye of the artist becomes poisoned and refracted by these tensions.

Look at this passage from a 1966 Playboy interview with Dylan:

PLAYBOY: Let’s take one last dip back into the material world. What about an artist’s relationship to money?

DYLAN: The myth of the starving artist is a myth. The big bankers and prominent young ladies who buy art started it. They just want to keep the artist under their thumb. Who says an artist can’t have any money? Look at Picasso. The starving artist is usually starving for those around him to starve. You don’t have to starve to be a good artist. You just have to have love, insight and a strong point of view. (My highlight) And you have to fight off depravity. Uncompromising, that’s what makes a good artist. It doesn’t matter if he has money or not. Look at Matisse; he was a banker. Anyway, there are other things that constitute wealth and poverty besides money.

Woke at 530 am. Was nervous about meetings today and after much thought and study, devised the following step-by-step strategy:

1. Feel nervous.
2. Rouse good cheer and trust in my own intelligence.
3. Drop all of that.
4. Click in with the atmosphere of the meeting and allow it to affect me.
5. See what happens next.

Strategy was inspired by this line from a Trungpa Rinpoche talk: “Having confidence that you have prepared well, get out of the way.” I think this is awesome advice.

So that’s that. Now it’s a wait and see game.

Unlike fiction writers, we non-fiction, self-helpy people don’t submit books, we submit book proposals, a lengthy outline of an idea. Good news: The book is sold before you start writing it. Bad news: creative direction is subject to group-think.In writing 4 books, I’ve screwed this creative direction thing up every which way. I’ve acted the know-it-all and ignored valuable input for making my work better—and, hugely to my chagrin, I’ve taken advice I knew was crappy but failed to reject due to lack of confidence in my own judgment.

So I have the benefit of having made big mistakes and the knowledge that I’m truly capable of great misjudgment. These may not sound like great advantages, but they actually are. I’ve really learned from my errors.

The book I’ve proposed is called “The Wisdom of a Broken Heart.” It’s about the power and soulfulness that are to be gained from heartbreak. I’m talking about relationship-related heartbreak, the kind that turns you into a wretched, obsessive toothpick of a human being. That’s the bad news. The good news: when your heart is broken, the vessel has shattered. Whatever you thought your life was, whoever you thought you were supposed to be, these things are gone and instead there is tremendous not-knowing. In wisdom tradition, this is considered fortunate. The book is about how and why it is.

I discuss new ideas with publishers with a bizarre mixture of perkiness, shame, and hope. I mean I like my ideas, but I don’t really expect anyone else will. Or won’t. I know I’m supposed to be supremely confident, but I’m not. Other people’s points of view have great impact on me. They can make me feel very inspired or very defeated.

One piece of feedback I’ve gotten is that the book would be better if it were about loss in general, not just romance-related loss.

I think I like this idea. I’d like to write more broadly on this topic. In fact, maybe that’s what I really want to write about in my heart of hearts.

Whether directly or indirectly, what I write is based on the language of Buddhism. The thing that attracted me to Buddhism in the first place, especially Shambhala Buddhism, which is what I practice, was that it taught profoundly intelligent ways to meet your own emotional intensity. I needed this. If I could write something that was useful to others who may also need it, I would be extremely fulfilled. I would get to devote myself to studying these teachings in order to be of benefit. I can’t imagine a better way to spend my time.

Since I’ve been a little girl, I’ve heard things like why are you so negative, don’t be so serious about everything. WTF. It’s not negative to consider painful emotion. It’s not bad to want to look as sharply as you can into your own life. I’d be delighted to act as spokesperson for confusion, sadness, and somberness—feelings our world tells us are signs of failure. They’re not. They have value. And PS, in greatly counter-intuitive fashion, tremendous, radiant joy results from opening yourself to them, but this is another story.

On the other hand, I still really, really think a book about getting over a love affair is legitimate. The pain is so real and so difficult and there aren’t very many soulful books out there about relating to this particular situation.

So regarding new book idea, the bad news: I think I’m still not clear enough on my own idea and could get run over by another’s certainty. The good news: My lack of clarity makes me vulnerable and therefore tender and open to the wisdom of the moment.

So we’ll see.

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Student: You often criticize a film by saying that it is too aware of the audience. But when people make films, especially in the West, the point is to entertain people.

Chogyam Trungpa: If you are completely confident in yourself, you don’t have to think about the audience at all. You just do your thing, you just do it properly. This means YOU become the audience. What you make is entertainment, but that needs a certain amount of wisdom. When an artist does a painting for commission, there is a good likelihood that his painting will be one-sided because he is aware of the audience and he has to relate to the educational standards of the audience. If he presents his own style without reference to the audience, they will begin to react and automatically their sophistication will develop and eventually will reach the level of the artist….You see, we have the responsibility of raising the mentality of the audience. People might have to reach out with a certain amount of strain, but it’s worth it. The whole civilization then begins to raise its level of sophistication….The beautiful thing about Buddhism, if I may say so, is that Buddhists don’t try to con you. They just present what they have to say as it is, take it or leave it.

From “Visual Dharma: Film Workshop,” in the COLLECTED WORKS OF CHOGYAM TRUNGPA, Volume Seven, pages 644-645.

There are two things writers want: time & creative flow. Getting away from your everyday routine makes space for both. Join me on a retreat constructed especially for writers. The focus will be on plenty of time alone for personal writing, combined with daily meditation practice and evening discussion groups. Open to writers of fiction and non-fiction, published and unpublished. Meditation instruction will be offered.

Please email me with any questions.

January 4 – 11
BARNET, VT
Karme Choling Meditation Center
$850 (includes housing + food)

April 14-18
RED FEATHER LAKES, CO
Shambhala Mountain Center
$TBD

May 11 – 16
LENOX, MA
Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health
$295 (does not include housing + food)

June 29 – July 5
BARNET, VT
Karme Choling Meditation Center
$850 (includes housing + food)

What past participants have to say:

I had not written anything in a long time. The Writer’s Retreat gave me the space, time, and inward focus to let creativity happen naturally. I hadn’t realized how much I had to say. The meditation aspect of the retreat provided a peaceful structure where writing could be a pleasure once again instead of work. Susan led each day with a purposeful blend of meditation practice and writing sessions and I appreciated the fruits that came from a firm, but generous schedule. –A.B.

I cannot recommend this writing and meditation retreat enough! Susan’s carefully considered practice schedule offers precisely the right balance of meditation and space in which to write. Her teaching style allows for full creative expression to unfold because she neither interferes with the writing process, nor does she abandon the writer to his or her own devices. The result is a profound deepening of the work of writing and the practice of meditation. I left with an much more sophisticated understanding of how these two practices are not only complimentary, but how meditation is crucial to the life of the writer. This is a very rare opportunity for anyone, indeed. –C.G.

Susan, thank you so much for the amazing retreat at Karme Choling! It was such a powerful and inspiring time for me. The space itself, so beautiful and peaceful, is perfect for getting away, and the rhythms of the day there provided a wonderful structure for work and rest. Writing time balanced with meals, walks and meditation, and I arrived at a new place in my work which is very exciting. Please keep me posted on future events; I would join you again in a heartbeat. Thanks again so much. –C.M.

P.S. They’re incredibly fun…

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