Getting Back to the Yellow Pad
- Details
- Published on Thursday, 26 January 2012 15:11
Sometimes I have to get back to my yellow pad.
I do love my computer, of course. It has made my life easy in so many ways, and it has certainly opened a window to the world for me as a writer....
Still, there are times like the moment of this writing when I need the yellow pad, times when I need the contact between pen and paper, the barely mediated flow from heart to hand, the engagement of the whole body-mind process of finding my way through the enchanting thicket of words. It has to do, as I see it, with authenticity, with absolute directness.
...So this is what I have come to think about. The essays in [Mind Work] are, to my way of thinking, all about that stripping down and stripping away, that need to get to the core of being, in order to fulfill what it is I’m given to do with my life. For much of our early lives we are driven by the need to establish an image of who we think we are, or who we are encouraged to believe we might be in the eyes of others, or even who we think we ought to be. To this end, we work hard to assemble fabrications of the self to which we soon become attached in the sincere belief that these fabrications are indeed our selves. And there is not just one, there are many of them, intertwined, inseparable, often bringing us suffering and confusion in their conflict with each other as we act them out. We work hard at being our “selves.”
The thing is, none of them are real. Each one is provisional, a product of our imagination, our desire, our fear, our need. Each one, in what I have come to understand through the teachings of the Buddha, is its own delusion—and if I qualify that understanding, it’s because I consider myself a journeyman Buddhist, an amateur. An escapee from the Anglican faith in which I was brought up, I do not go much for the trappings of religion, still less for the dogma that too often accompanies them. But the idea of delusions makes perfect sense to me. We live with them, for the most part, unaware of the extent to which we have become their servants. We can, however, choose to open up our eyes and recognize them and, in recognizing, free ourselves from their subtle, unsuspected tyranny. And in shedding delusions, we have the opportunity to leave behind those selves that no longer serve us and, indeed, too often stand stubbornly between us and the fulfillment of our mission on this earth. This is the path to authenticity, to the creative core.
This is what I call “mind work.” It requires nothing but the hardest things: clarity, right intention, honesty, vigilance and effort
—Peter Clother, excerpted from Mind Work
Announcing Mind Work, a New Book by Peter Clothier
- Details
- Published on Saturday, 14 January 2012 22:00
Peter Clothier is one of those gifted writers who can write honestly about himself without sounding boastful or self-deprecating. Parami Press is proud to introduce Peter's third collection of essays, one which goes straight to the heart and spirit of the creative life and introspective. Mind Work: Shedding Delusions on the Path to the Creative Core is an uncompromising self-examination, conducted in the belief that the closer we come to core of the individual “self,” the more we discover about our shared humanity, and the more we open ourselves up to creative inspiration.
The essays in this collection are, to my way of thinking, all about that stripping down and stripping away, that need to get to the core of being, in order to fulfill what it is I’m given to do with my life. For much of our early lives we are driven by the need to establish an image of who we think we are, or who we are encouraged to believe we might be in the eyes of others, or even who we think we ought to be. To this end, we work hard to assemble fabrications of the self to which we soon become attached in the sincere belief that these fabrications are indeed our selves. And there is not just one, there are many of them, intertwined, inseparable, often bringing us suffering and confusion in their conflict with each other as we act them out. We work hard at being our “selves.”
The thing is, none of them are real. Each one is provisional, a product of our imagination, our desire, our fear, our need. Each one, in what I have come to understand through the teachings of the Buddha, is its own delusion—and if I qualify that understanding, it’s because I consider myself a journeyman Buddhist, an amateur. An escapee from the Anglican faith in which I was brought up, I do not go much for the trappings of religion, still less for the dogma that too often accompanies them. But the idea of delusions makes perfect sense to me. We live with them, for the most part, unaware of the extent to which we have become their servants. We can, however, choose to open up our eyes and recognize them and, in recognizing, free ourselves from their subtle, unsuspected tyranny. And in shedding delusions, we have the opportunity to leave behind those selves that no longer serve us and, indeed, too often stand stubbornly between us and the fulfillment of our mission on this earth. This is the path to authenticity, to the creative core.
—Peter Clothier, from the Preface of Mind Work
