I recently met up with writer, theatre director, and owner of the creativity and remarkable living website Let’s Sandbox, to talk about creativity, meditation and spirituality. Here’s the interview:
You say that you’ve just started meditating. What intrigued you or inspired you to start meditating in the first place?
When you live in London where life is so manic and crazy and the world feels so haphazard and you’re trying to do so much all of the time…sometimes you just need time for stillness.
I used to treat my gym sessions as my meditation but it would make my brain even more crazy. So, I started to look into other meditations — trying all various kinds.
How does meditation help boost your creativity?
My major art forms are writing and theatre directing and I guess writing is something that could pass as meditation at times because you feel like your thinking mind stops working. If I’ve done meditation before I start writing it seems that my head is a lot clearer and I’m much more open to new ideas.
When I meditate and I return to my writing, I have a lot more clarity — I become like a vessel and I have the thoughts and ideas I could not have had otherwise. I think it makes the entire process of creation more powerful.
For me, meditation is retreating back to this state where you are almost neutral and you go to that place where there’s relatively no thinking and that helps you relax and it puts my mind to rest and empowers my creative work.
Meditation is like a cleaning mechanism in a way — I don’t know whether that’s detrimental to meditation but meditation helps to clean up my mind — and body I guess. It leaves you feeling much more at ease.
You mentioned in one of your blog posts that you went on a meditative walk where you were listening to meditation music at the same time. Is this typical of your meditation practice? What do you normally do to meditate?
Walking meditation is what I like to do halfway through the day or evening especially if I’ve been inside for a long time.
I’ll go on a walk and put on meditation recordings; for example, Deepak Chopara has really nice healing meditations. I also listen to healing affirmations first and then change that to more meditative music.
This morning I was walking from the gym listening to the gratefulness meditation where you focus on your heart and thank people for what you’re grateful for in life.
I also focus on my breathing when I walk and try to be more mindful of the World around me which is what Eckhart Tolle advocates. He says notice the things around you but without judgement; for example, the couple having an argument, a mother pushing a pram, people laughing … So meditation for me is about being aware of yourself in the World and realising that we are the consciousness behind the thinking, which is really a weighted concept.
From your perspective, how do you feel when you’re in that meditation and you’re saying ‘I’m not my thoughts, I’m just watching them. I’m just an observer.” How does that make you feel. Does it make you feel calmer and more relieved that we’re not just our thoughts. Do you feel more detached or do you feel more connected? What’s going through your mind at that point?
Well, I’ve only had a few glimpses of it. I guess the moment of observing I’m conscious. The moment you stop thinking, you’re no longer observing. I don’t feel I’m particularly good at inhabiting that concept but the moments where it did work for me and I came to realise I wasn’t just my thoughts — these were the moments where I’ve probably been most relaxed.
Then you realise that whatever you think can’t cause you any pain — your thoughts can remain very neutral.
So at times it can be very scary. Then your ego comes on with a screaming voice and starts telling you how stupid you are and that you are your thoughts and your story. And I guess, some of our thoughts aren’t pleasant. If, for example, someone criticises us, we often don’t want to identify with it whereas the opposite can be said for when we receive praise.
Those moments when you go beneath thinking, they are very cool but it’s very hard to make them last, because you go back to thinking.
Do you have a goal with meditation? Is your goal to have that sense of inner peace all the time or is it to enhance your creativity?
Well I guess it’s the latter. I’m trying to use it to enhance my creativity. I’m a little, I don’t want to say pessimistic, but I don’t think I could achieve a state of not thinking almost. It seems like a paradox to me. Although I’ve had brief glimpses of it, it’s still very hard to achieve that state.
So, I think the need to meditate for me comes from the fact that I get stressed easily and I find things overwhelming and can get impatient at times. So the goal, is to be more at peace and at ease with myself.
A lot of meditation practices stem from traditional Buddhist practices where Monks would practice non attachment and live in ashrams and monasteries. Do you think that you can still meditate and still achieve this expanding sense of bliss but still carry on living your day to day life? Do you think ancient meditation practices are still relevant today?
Well that’s a very tough question.
Once or twice a year I go to a monastery. It’s a Catholic monastery. I don’t consider myself to be religious — more spiritual. And I discovered this particular monastery which is very open in a sense that it doesn’t want to impose any dogma on you.
When you’re there you’re invited to have dinner with the monks each night. There’s usually around four or five monks that are there and I always get the feeling that they do live secluded lives but they still live their daily lives and they have their chores etc, but they’re very mindful and peaceful.
During one of my stays at the monastery, this 90 year old monk was holding a Buddhist meditation practice and usually in the Catholic church they’re not very excited about mixing religions but so I went there and we did the Buddhist meditation with this monk and others who also wanted to try it. And I guess meditating in that environment, you are more likely to achieve that state of nirvana, enlightenment or whatever you want to call it.
Alain de Botton who set up the School of Life mentioned in one of his books that societies used to be very religious, we used to believe in God and we had this sense of unity with the unknown or the universe and now we don’t and most people struggle with that. And he said that in this world where there are no beliefs meditation is the thing that can connect you to the unknown or source of divine energy… So, I think it is a necessity to meditate in order to reconnect to that part of ourselves we’re no longer as aware of.
There’s also a book by a guy called John John Gray, How to get what you want and want what you have.
There was one particular chapter in it where he was talking about one vitamin in particular which was called God’s love. And what he also said was that we must find means to connect to something above us in order to feel fully loved and happy in our lives.
Our lives are comprised of different types of love. You have family love, then peer love, then intimate love… And I think one of the integral parts in our lives is that love of a divine nature. I’m not sure if it’s easy to meditate and have it as a daily practice but we should try and do it to reconnect with that divine nature.
Why do you think we’ve lost this connection to something greater than ourselves?
I find that many religions are very outdated and are very reluctant to adapt themselves to modern life especially if you look at catholicism or various denominations of Christianity — they’re against homosexuality for instance. Safe sex can be a sin a well — this does not go along with the modern reality that we live in.
In a way, these religious ideals can end up making people angry and they end up breeding separation rather than uniting us, and I think that many people don’t see any point with being part of a religion. I completely sympathise with this. I grew up as a Catholic yet I don’t think I am one and I oppose what they teach to be sins, such as loving the person that I love.
Why do you think religions and to an extent, some meditation practises come with so many rules?
Historically, religion in a way helped control the masses so with this in mind, I can see why you’d need a rule book. If you look back to the middle ages, everyone was accountable to God. If you did something bad, you’d think that God was going to punish you so influencing society with this belief helped to keep them intact.
Sometimes I feel that religion is very different to spirituality. I have been to many churches where I felt there was no sense of spirituality or faith. There was just the rule book, the dogma and people quoting the bible. In a way, having the rule book helps us to avoid having to do the work ourselves.
However, there are people who use the bible as a means to an end and that doesn’t allow them to grow. So the religions in themselves become very old fashioned. As a result, many people are left to create their own spiritual path.
For me it would be very difficult to live on this Earth believing that there was nothing greater than ourselves. I’m convinced that we are here for a reason and there is this divine source. And I don’t want to label it with a cross or any other symbol. It’s just there as an energy flow — it’s important.
Is there anything else, related to meditation, that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to discuss now?
When we meditate we have the chance to connect to something greater than us and become more in tune with ourselves. You could liken it to tuning an instrument. I also think that playing and being creative can also help us to lead happier lives.
If you look at your life through the eyes of a curious child you discover the sense of joy and wonder in whatever you choose to do — whatever your profession is this outlook allows you to explore new things with it.
I think meditation, creativity and play go hand in hand almost. Well, at least, I’m trying to combine them all to see what happens.
Photography by Jurate Rutkauskas
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