ARTS: Weekly Writing Prompt

[Hensho]

Each week, I will post a writing prompt on this thread. If it piques your interest, see what you can do with it.

There are no rules. No expectations. Nothing to strive for. No length requirement. No one to compete against.

Just write, in whatever way strikes you. Maybe sit first.


Let's keep this thread as simply a list of prompts, without comment or follow up.

If you wish to share what you've written, post them to the thread called "The Dharma Cafe."


Gassho,
Hensho

satlah

[Hensho]

Prompt #1

In the prologue to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Shunryu Suzuki says to us, "When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners." Later he says, "This is also the real secret of the arts: always be a beginner."

Approach your writing today as a true beginner. Set aside whatever you have heard about your writing, all critique and all expectation. Have no thought of good or bad. Set aside any baggage you carry, any stressful or anxious thoughts. Set aside the rules to which you've bound yourself. Set aside your satisfaction in whatever you wrote before. Carry nothing with you. Just write.

Prompt: Empty your mind of everything you are carrying in it right now by writing it down. Make the longest list you can. Exhaust yourself. Get it all out. Then sit zazen. Then write non stop for 5 minutes.

[Hensho]

Prompt #2

Shunryu Suzuki says:

"Zazen practice is the direct expression of our true nature. Strictly speaking, for a human being, there is no other practice than this practice; there is no other way of life than this way of life."

Prompt: What is your true nature? Answer this question in whatever way you wish. If you feel called, share what you wrote in the Dharma Café. We will be most obliged to welcome you there.

[Hensho]

Prompt #3

Jundo says, "Zazen."

Prompt: Sit in zazen. Then write about the first thought that comes into your mind when you rise from your cushion. What has filled your mind? If you feel called, share what you wrote in the Dharma Café. We will be most interested to share in your experience.

[Hensho]

Prompt #4

Wallace Stevens writes, "One must have a mind of winter" to behold the "nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." (The Snow Man)

Prompt: Describe what it would mean for you to have a mind of winter. What do you notice? What is there that you don't see? Where does your wintery mind lead you? Read the poem if you wish, but it is not entirely necessary: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe...-56d224a6d4e90.

You are invited to share your thoughts at The Dharma Cafe.

[Hensho]

Prompt #5

Dogen writes, "When we discover that the truth is already in us, we are all at once our original selves."

Prompt: What is the truth that is already in you? If you are a fiction writer, consider creating a character who speaks your truth on your behalf. If you are an essayist or a memoirist, consider writing about what your original self has to say to the world.

As always, you are invited to share your thoughts at The Dharma Cafe.

[Hensho]

Prompt #6

Prompt is Flash Fiction / Flash Prose: Write a fictional story / Tell a personal story that incorporates this phrase into its last line: "all Buddhas throughout space and time." No more than 300 words.

Post your results at The Dharma Cafe. Indicate somehow that it is a response to Prompt #6.

[Hensho]

Prompt #7

Prompt: Find something from nature, a rock, a leaf, a feather, a seed--so many possibilities, and describe it in any way you like (prose, poetry, freewrite, blurb, etc). Then describe the space that it occupied when you found it, the space that is now empty. What is your relationship to that space? What is there and not there?

Post your results at The Dharma Cafe. Indicate somehow that it is a response to Prompt #7.

[Tai Shi]

Hensho 返書, we miss you, and wonder where. I taught in 20 and 5 year educational colleges and universities, my writing and the other friend who believed in free community college education, and when President Biden proposed tuition-free community college, the Republicans blocked this passage in California as well as the U.S. government. Free education is like Treeleaf membership and Open Door Monastery which is the fulfillment of the desire, and hope for free education, one who has followed the free book club to the level of ch 8 of Realizing Gengokoen and understanding the meaning of Koan I have read the Book of Koans, and followed to some extent the daily Buddhist meditation, and a selection of Rezai, and much Zen Poetry and the Contemporary attempts at Zen poetry, Pound and Ferlinghetti, others have witnessed beyond U.S. poetry, and even The Four Quartets, personal 10 pages of T.S. Eliot which is both Christian and "Far" Eastern myth and as the 14th Chapter of The Lotus promises equality to all races, creeds, cultures, and sexes. You may mention the science of Linguists if you like, of mention any Science of worth; or mention a scientist, or a professor or researcher of worth or write about what you precisely as chance in science of person, or include a scientist you have known of as of no scientist but science fiction. Thanks dear person. 返書e
Gassho
Missing Hensho 返書
sat/lah
Tai Shi
dedicated father of a brilliant daughter, and or a husband to a brilliant wife, or a parent or friend.

[Tai Shi]

Seed 返書
Gassho
sat/lah
Tai Shi

[Jundo]

I give as a regular contributor 4 dollars a month to Treeleaf Zendo, and I once gave 8 and 6 dollars a month, and when extra money was required, I pulled back to $4, and Jundo allows no more.

Hi TS,

Just if some folks are not clear on this, there is no requirement for a donation here. Some folks donate what they feel is right, but a penny or no penny at all is fine.

Thank you, TS.

Gassho, Jundo

stlah

[Hensho]

Ah,Tai Shi, I have been adrift, and am trying to come back. My father died during COVID. Actually, I lost 5 loved ones during COVID, and it sent me whirling. It was hard to sit and face my grief. But I am swimming back to shore with the help of my husband and my therapist. And I think I can face just sitting again. At least, I am looking at the cushion and testing out how it will be to sit in silence again. Although, I did not really ever stop being with Treeleaf and my practice. It was just. . . very different and still is. I am so glad to see my old friend Tai Shi still here among these pages, waving and smiling and helping to pull in my boat.

Gassho,

Sat, in a way,
Hensho

[Kokuu]

Good to see you back, Hensho, and I am sorry that you lost five loved ones during the pandemic. Sometimes, such as when going through intense grief, it can be too much to sit, or to sit for as long as we normally do, and going back to sit can be done gently and in increments. There is no need to start again at 20 or 30 minutes or whatever you did before but instead ease yourself back in slowly. Working with the breath at first can also be a way of easing back into being on the cushion.

As you note, practice can change what it looks like but is always there, and I imagine this has been an intense time of practice for you, even if it was not often on the cushion itself.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-