Mind as Mirror

It is said that to be enlightened we must live in the eternal Now. That infinitely small and therefore infinitely great point of time is called the present moment. The universe exists only in that moment, and it is said that the wise man moves with it, clinging neither to the past nor to the future, making his mind like the mirror that reflects everything instantly as it comes before it, yet making no effort to retain the reflection when the object is removed.  - Become What You Are, by Alan Watts

                                                                 

"When I write, I author the present, and in authoring the present, I create myself.  I disappear when I write"  
- Bob Hicok

Author, Bob Hicok feels, "A poem is that focusing activity, an opportunity to give flesh to my mind, to make it actual, to give the internal a physical, external existence."

Hicok promotes writing as performative. Writers need to move. He advises students to, "Step into the moment that's coming into existence, rather than insist the moment take on a predetermined shape."

"There's a delay between you doing a thing or thinking a thing and your awareness of said doing or thinking but I still have the desire to live and write without hesitation, and from that immediacy, surprise myself away from the known patterns of my mind," Hicok says.

The creative stage of the writing process provides the opportunity to energize and disappear in each moment. Move into the mind's flow. Without judgment, let the words flicker and fly. 

Surprises arise with each bounce of words.

The senses swirl into the dance of now. 

Hear the petals send freshness into the breeze. 

Feel the ripples and dew.

Notice hidden faces, eyes of wonder.

Disappear into the immediacy of the moment. Amaze and amuse yourself. Let the words spread, splay, and sprout from the fingertips. 

“The perfect man,” says Chuang-tzu, "employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing; it refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep.”