Flow Writing

As fingers move across the keyboard in this exercise, I ask myself tons of questions, some remain unanswered some I try to answer. Like; is there a meaning with this existence, why are things happening around me as they do? How am I going to react to it? Does it shake the stillness inside me, is okay to rock the boat once in a while? Í am practicing flow writing as I am trying to write a book, but in order to be a better writer I need to exercise. To be a writer is to pour ones heart and soul out on a piece of paper. This is often the reason why critique or criticism of ones works, if one has an open heart while writing, is like a stab in the heart. The creativity that once flew in ones veins have dried up and the heart closed again. But when one manages to actually write something which is great, something where the writer touches the readers soul or heart, then it is a true joy to be a writer, but not it is hard because as I look at the paper I worry, is my work really good enough, Do I have to be better at writing before I can publish anything? Is the book going to be long enough? Will the idea of being a writer fade away as crazy idea in my head, like the last flowers in the late autumn releases the hold of its last leaves, and let them wander through the wind. For then to settle at some distance rock deep in the forest of hope, longing to be closer to the source of life. No, the life of a writer definitely has its ups and downs all life, if one does not write from that empty place inside, one is just twisting reality on words. Words that sometimes are crumbled by my mood and temper at the given moment, and yes I know, this text is absolutely nonsense, but it is without thinking, just writing, following the flow of nature, coming from that empty place, which I can barely touch, only for brief moments at the time. When I grasp for it, eager to reach it, I just smiles and slips away. Like a cat. I remember on episode at Kanshoji with a Cat, where I tired to pat it, but every time I went closer to the cat it went away, I tried in vain. Until an older monk came to me and said “cats have the strangest ways, if you try to reach them with all your might they slip away, but if you sit still they will come to you”. Behold, this was a new insight into the mysteries of life, taught to me by a silly cat. Life is actually like this, the more we try to fight with it, and the stronger it binds us down to the ground. But when we start to listen to our prisoner, start to know him better he releases the grip and suddenly we are able to breathe.
Sometimes when I am alone, sitting on my pillow I wonder, where is this world going, does it really exist outside of my head? As I sit staring at the wall, yes I am from the wall-gazing school of Zen, I sometimes think “this is crazy, why am I Staring into a white wall” Then I realize it, I am trying to capture the cat, as only for a short time, just a glimpse. The cat is perhaps just a mirage of my mind, a concept that I am trying to capture inside my head, but nonetheless I am trying. I promise to let go of it when I have caught it. I just want to hold the cat of the universe one small second. What the heck am I babbling about, a cat and the universe, let make it clearer, I am just writing, and I am writing to no one, so I am in my right to babble as crazy as I want to, and as much as I wish. Perhaps am I just bloody crazy after all, or maybe I am loosing my mind tonight, I certainly hope so, that would be great, as long as it is not my head. I still want to be able to wear my hat.
Sometimes I wonder if there are people like me out there, trying to figure out how the world is put together, without thinking too much about it. Not speculating, but just trying to reach it, for just one moment, to feel the unity of existence. Because where do I start and where do you begin, where do we start to love and where does it turn into hate? Is hate really just a reflection of our inability to love? Heck, I don’t really know. I am just guessing and guessing, but my guesses are as good as any, as valid as a professors. A professor has just practiced more, is more skilled a thinking, but hey, to touch the ground or look up into the sky does not require thinking in particular, only a willingness to really see the sky or to really touch the ground, without thinking “hey, the earth is cold”. But just to touch it, just to fell its coldness of warmth, just to be with whatever is there in that given moment.

Now this flow writing exercise has come to an end, the meditation pillow is calling me, and I’d better obey.