Metta Meditation and Mr. Hyde

METTA ON A MONDAY AND MY HEART STOOD STILL

I went to hear groovy meditation Goddess Sharon Salzberg (http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/index.htm) teach in Brooklyn recently at Jaya Yoga Center (www.jayayogacenter.com). One of the best parts of the evening was when she led us through a Metta Meditation in which we focused loving energies first on ourselves, and then onto loved ones and mentors and even strangers. Metta is a Sanskrit word for loving-kindness. But in the rough-edged lingo of a classic rock chick from Queens, who called Manhattan home for decades, and now mixes it up in Crooklyn: Give Peace a Chance –– Or Else! Lemme splain:

Like most Native New Yorkers I was raised on two emotions: love and hate. Okay, mostly hate! Back in workin’ class Archie Bunker Queens, we had a lot of nothing and we hated the “haves”. Then I went away to college at SUNY Purchase, a high falutin’ arts school. And now I’m all grown up and living the writer’s life in a beautifully tree-filled parted of New York Cit-ay. I’m surrounded by peace-lovers and yet, I sometimes wish folks would just get their hate on like they did back in my misspent youth.

DR. JEKYLL, I PRESUME?

I sometimes feel like Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde (thanks Sean Young!) … by day a nurturing figure of love for the writers who come to me for practical help and much motherly reassurance; by night a writer myself who is as susceptible to the demons of random rage as the next passionate wordsmith. Calgon, take me away! But to where? Where can a person escape the constant pull between the grounded good citizen and the killer inside?

For help with this question I turn to one of my favorite films (based on the spookiest of gothic novels): “The Night of the Hunter.” There’s a great scene where Robert Mitchum as a terrifying preacher/con-man acts out the warring impulses in men’s souls. He wildly demonstrates the pull between God’s Love and the Devil’s Hate –– using his hands, eerily tattooed finger by finger with the words, L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E on each beefy paw.

EXTERNALIZE THE ANGER, LOVEY!

Last week, in the Brooklyn Bang the Keys Workshop, I had a strong feeling that what my groovy students and scribe-mates might need is a red-hot love injection of good old fashioned hate. My instinct was right. As it turned out, folks were in a bit of a funky cold medina state of malaise (apologies, Tone Loc) and were feely unusually dulled and down. Trust me these folks are usually wild and wiley!

The way past that general feeling of low-level depression (“why bother?”, “who’s going to care anyway?” etc.) was by going through some exercises of hate, as a way to exorcise the self-hating feelings common to all writers which have a way of manifesting as apathy and a resistance to the simple act of sitting down and banging those keys.

(Shameless book plug: “Bang the Keys” to be released by Penguin this August! March into your local bookseller and say, “I Want My ‘Bang the Keys’!” And after you receive the proper eye-rolling response, politely ask them to order the book for you and your writer buds.)

TIPS & TOOLS, TOOTS

So, below I share with you some Bang the Keys exercises to help you to love your tortured writer self, and then work through some rage, in an effort to get some words on the page. It worked for this tough but tender group of writers who entered my laboratory as watered down Dr. Jekylls, allowed themselves to be pumped up to energized and mad Dr. Hydes, and left with some sense of how to find what the Buddha called The Middle Path. And you can too, Scribesters!

And if you too distracted to even get to Point A, might I suggest some tips from the latest technology?
www.macfreedom.com -- it will force you to stay offline long enough to write (for a minimum of an hour at a time). And it’s free!
Writeroom: It allows you to write on a black screen with a green blinking cursor –– very helpful for those of us who still wax poetic about the “Wang” computers of the ‘80s, and for anyone who likes to shut off the high tech visual distractions of their computer screen. It’s free for a month and then $24.95 to buy: www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom.
www.joesaidso.com - instead of letting technology glitches and problems overwhelm you and take you away from your work as a writer, go to Joe to get your questions answered, stat! Me loves him.
And if you are still wondering, why bother with a writing “practice” at all, check out David Brooks’ opinion piece in today’s NYTimes: Genius: the Modern View: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01brooks.html.

WRITING EXERCISES:

1. Metta
Find a comfortable sitting position, close your eyes and simply observe your breath. When you are ready, silently repeat these phrases to yourself: “May I be safe”; “May I be happy”; “May I be healthy”; “May I live with ease.” Try five minutes and see what that does for your mood.

2. Enter: Cretin
I often call upon writers to channel their literary heroes for advice and inspiration. But in this case, I ask you to summon up your literary foe. Imagine the writer, or lit-world pest who most sticks in your craw. You are a superhero and you have a super-rival. This is a person who is deeply oblivious to your fabulosity and whom you detest with a passion!
Now, for ten minutes write out a scene in which you hail victorious. It is your moment of glory –– whether you’ve won the Oscar and Hollywood Hackzoid is in the audience to see it, or whatever scene most taps in to your revenge fantasies. Write in detail and fully commit to your victory and to his or her utter humiliation. Sweet, huh?

Okay, you did your Metta meditation, you worked out some of your anger with the above revenge exercise. Now….

3. “Freudian Slip”
Imagine one of your characters is in a foul mood. The mixed up voices in his head are distracting him, and he inadvertently says the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time. Now, he’s got to squirm through the awkward explanation of what he meant or deal with the damage he cause or both. He must respond to the tension, conflict or crisis he just unconsciously created. Work on this scene for ten minutes, minimum, and remember what Henry James said: “Readers love to watch characters suffer.” “The Master” was not suggesting that readers are sadistic, merely that they, and we, seek to understand humanness, not the presentation of a story, but the emotional experience of characters who are as real as we are.

It seems incongruous to say it now, but I shall: Peace out!

For more: www.bangthekeys.com
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