Dear Reader,
Every artist and writer worth their salt knows that true creativity requires the razor-sharp stroke of the editor’s pen. The bloody line that sends words screaming and marshalls whole paragraphs into the fiery furnace colloquially known as the cutting room floor. However, this process goes beyond the words on the page. According to the Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki, the final step of all creative action is self-forgetfulness, a self-editing of sorts that dismisses all claims on that which is created. Suzuki notes that “we cannot and own what we create for ourselves.” In fact, all creative action is a form of self-giving, a relinquishing of self for the sake of gift. The true artist embodies this non-attachment. The I that dominates the ego disappears into the givenness of creative action, realizing that all creation flows from a self-same singular source and that all the artist’s work comes from this same gift. This posture engenders the artist with a certain measure of creative freedom, and the artist, in turn, becomes the steward of creativity, not its arbiter. This dividing line allows the artist to create free of the self or ego, and the artist then can create for the simple pleasure and nothing more. This is the goal of all artistic action, to create for the sake of creation, to create not for ourselves or our own needs for validation but to create as generous givers freely giving to others that which has been given to us.
My poem Suzuki Once Said is a celebration of that truth and embodies my own artistic philosophy. It is, of course, idealistic, but what creator isn’t?
Enjoy!
SUZUKI ONCE SAID
To create is to give,
to offer the world
something unique and new,
to say with one, loud voice:
"Listen! I am here!"
and in that next moment
give up all sense of self—
all creation simply
returning to it's source.