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/lit/ - Literature

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6055278 No.6055278 [Reply] [Original]

I want to be a good writer (at least the best writer that I can be). I have been working with the craft of literature and smithy of the word for more than 15 years now.

I also suffer with anxiety and other emotional problems, and want to use meditation and Zen as ways of achieving peace of mind.

I don’t know, however, if the ambition of creating great art can actually go together with the Zen practice. I think they might go along just fine (since even martial arts can be a path towards enlightenment), but books about the matter would be of great help.

Are there any good books about the relation between a career in the arts (especially literature) and Zen practice?

Thanks.

>> No.6055295

I don't think you need to go much further than The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac for a modern appraisal of white drifter Zen

>> No.6055365

>>6055295
>The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac

Sorry for the ignorance, but he doesn’t seem to be a very wise and serene man. How could he give lessons or comment something when he didn’t mastered the thing he teaches?

>> No.6055395

There's the book of the five rings by Musashi Miyamoto, he supported the idea that once you master an art (he said a way, but it's the same in this case) you master them all. After finding no challengers in the country he went to become a painter and writer. I doubt he was the best at it, but he was good.

Still,
>tell me books that fall under my bias
is a silly topic starter. You should be open to challenging your ideas.

>>6055365
By talking about other people who do. You read Kerouac for the people around him and the eventual self destruction.

>> No.6055871

i used to subscribe to buddhist tenets but found it anithetical to writing. characters and their motivations drive plot. seeking to free yourself from desire is in opposition to learning this writing fundamental. i still meditate and believe in the essential nature of suffering as the ground of existence &c but i've found taoism to be a better mindset as an acknowledgement of the turns of fortune and finding harmony to your circumstances. /blogpost

anyway, the book you're looking for is Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

>> No.6056738

>>6055278

Cant art and zen be linked?