This is another archived rumination on creative process and some of the influences that have informed my work, 2003.
I think the one main book that has artistically inspired me, which I picked up during my five minute Zen phase a few years ago, is Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi. The entire book is interesting but the main chapter that gets me is, Beginners Mind. It's focuses on the importance of always maintaining a beginners mind in what ever we pursue. It has been increasingly relevant to me in the practice of teaching, because i have found that the biggest barrier students struggle with in their ability to aproach new information is to maintain an open and untainted mind. This is even more important for the teacher or the 'expert'. That I think is the point, as long as there is no 'finishing point' to learning, we can always be open to new ideas and learning. I think this lesson becomes more relevant with the more advanced somebody becomes in their practice. So I find a deep support and humility in remembering to not get caught up in thinking I know everything in my field - and to remember that it is the 'not' knowing that is the most important aspect of wanting to know. We culturally freak out if we 'dont know', and that is precisely what holds us back from a depth in a creative process. We need to not know in order to ask the questions we are exploreing, otherwise there would be nothing to explore in the first place. Or, even worse, as is often the case, people just 'tell' you what you are supposed to think. I think it is the 'asking' rather than the 'telling' that
brings people into a conversation through art.The chapter talks about a baby who is empty of ideas, and therefore everything has a deep resonance and meaning. As we learn more we assume certain outcomes and assume certainties. We also become dulled by repetition. In the book he uses the example of zazen practices (sitting meditation), that when you first start it is all new and easy to hold excitement and focus, but after two three four or a thousand times it gets harder to maintain the sense of doing it for the first time. You have to work harder to empty out what you think you know and be able to fill up as if it’s for the first time. We only can bring in information and experience if there is openness of space to fill it in with. If we start from a point that already purports to 'know' than there is no room to fill in new 'knowing'. I find this is extremely difficult to find. This may all sound spiritual and philosophical, but I think it’s really basic and deeply true for anyone who has struggled to find greater depth within their work – whatever the medium or profession. When I was a young dance student all I was focused on was becoming an 'expert', now when I look around at all of the 'experts' they often seem lacking (I am not speaking to the measurability of technique but to the poetry of creation). Because they hold ideas in the past as though they are ideas of the present, and that is impossible, as we are always just arriving into our present.
