You can run and you can hide
5 Buddhist hindrances and how they impact my creativity
Creativity requires the jump into space, the willingness to burn. But the easier thing, the comfortable thing, will always beckon. As I sit down to write this, hampers are full and the kitchen is cold and bare, no dinner started, no steamy pots, veggie chops, or preheating ovens making me sweat.
When I review a list of hindrances to my writing practice, it reminds me of the hindrances of Buddhism. These five hindrances are mental states that impede mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. They stymie our ability to show up as our best selves on the page, on the fretboard, at the sketchpad.
Sensual Desire - Ahhh sale email from Nordy’s Rack! The pantry stash of Tate’s cookies, the urge to get in the hotter and soak instead. These are those things I chase for pleasure and to fulfill the “yeah, baby” zone of my dopamine receptors. Shopping, chocolate and getting lost in a good book also are my sirens’ songs, pulling me away from the work. My decision to use these distractions as a reward—after I’ve written my daily grand o’ pages—allows me to have my creativity cake and (yum!) eat it, too.
Ill Will - negative emotions like anger, hatred, aversion, and resentment. Alas, this manifests for me in loss of confidence and when my eyeballs are dry and tired from my day job at the computer. Also, I sometimes shit-talk myself so much that I resent my urge to even try.
Richard Bach said, “A professional writer (or painter, or musician) is an amateur who didn’t quit.” Sometimes my soul sickness is a species of despair—who’s listening, who cares, Jesus, Patty, stop wasting your time! The aversion sets in. But, my dear ones, I push through, I persist. I remind myself it is called a writing practice and:
decide to just sit down and do it for five minutes. Set a timer.
speak into my iPhone Notes app or,
create a sketch instead, if all else fails.
Once I get started, the energy feeds on itself and I can usually go longer than I’d ever dreamed.
Sloth and Torpor - don’t you love those words? Sloth with its saliva-ish hiss and the dreaded torpor, a shambling, lurching word, like one of Jules Pfeiffer’s Lethargarians in The Phantom Tollbooth. Sluggishness, dullness, and a lack of energy for the Buddhist was often counteracted by “carrying water chopping wood.” Doing something that requires sustained strength, but something simple.
Physical exercise does it for me, too. Taking a walk or doing a sun salutation can re-animate the gloopy, maroon, lazy blood in my veins, aerate it, make it red and flowing and fresh. (That was kind of a gross image. Sorry!)
Restlessness and Worry - Oh my poor scurrying, circling mind! The Buddhists believe excessive worrying and an agitated mind can lead to rumination and anxiety—freeze us in our tracks or make us physically ill. Hey, many modern doctors believe the same thing. For this, I use my journal to purge these thoughts, or write a little prayer and put it in my “God Box.” I can often approach the keyboard with less anxiety if I just remind myself to breathe.
Anxiety by James Callaghan Skeptical Doubt- Confidence hasn’t been a problem for me when it comes to my writing. I mean, I have been making a living doing it for a very long time. Sure, they’re marketing materials but you still need to make sure they have juice, have verve. Even the most technical pieces I make have to hold the reader’s attention, deliver a path into something and then lead them back out.
Doubting my voice and my ability to tell a story that is 1/completely mine and as such, is a gorgeous artistic act of audacious joy and 2/doesn’t regurgitate form or genre as a safety net, but somehow subverts those guardrails into something that shines, bursts, flies up and out of stricture, entering the unknown. Yep, that’s what I’m trying to do here. And if I let doubt poison me, my wings will be heavy and my light will grow dim.
So, just for today my creative friends, let yourself be enough. Forgive yourself if you can’t practice today, if the hindrances have been activated, and call it self-care. But please, please try again. The world needs your absolutely original self. The world is waiting to hear what you have to say.