Malinda Lo

This morning I wanted to share a quote that landed in my in box on Monday via the Tricycle Daily Dharma. I’ve been getting the Daily Dharma for some time now (maybe years!) and every once in awhile it’s a particularly good teaching that I save in a little folder called "pick-me-ups." Seriously! Anyway, Monday’s was excellent, partly because it comes from the incomparable Pema Chodron. I also loved it because it applies not only to life, but to writing. Here it is:

Blocked

The river flows rapidly down the mountain, and then all of a sudden it gets blocked with big boulders and a lot of trees. The water can’t go any farther, even though it has tremendous force and forward energy. It just gets blocked there. That’s what happens with us, too; we get blocked like that. Letting go at the end of the out-breath, letting the thoughts go, is like moving one of those boulders away so that the water can keep flowing, so that our energy and our life force can keep evolving and going forward. We don’t, out of fear of the unknown, have to put up these blocks, these dams, that basically say no to life and to feeling life.

– Pema Chodron, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review , Vol. I, #1
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

I feel like getting ready to write is just like letting go at the end of the out-breath. Every morning before I sit down to write, I meditate. It allows me to practice letting the thoughts go, moving the boulder away, and letting the story in.

Here’s to a great day.