Writing Mala

Writing Mala

This assignment was inspired by Sandra's 5 day 20 minutes retreat assignment. In the Buddhist tradition (particularly Tibetan) prayer beads or mala is used to focus the mind during meditation. Prayer beads are used in different religious traditions including Catholicism, Islam and Judaism, as a means of developing and improving concentration on prayers or meditations. Traditionally, the Buddhist mala has 108 beads. Each bead represents a mantra or prayer that is said during meditation.

Using the metaphor of creating your own mala - sit, type/write for approximately 20 minutes a day until you feel you have finished your mala. (I suggest no more than 108 pages or entries).Writing on a daily basis is a good tool to open the mind and heart to whatever arises

Let something arise, without planning it before you sit at your computer/writing pad. Go into a specific feeling, image, scene  etc.  (i.e. try not to be general). Prose, poetry, prose poems, whatever arises.

Write without editing (cover the screen if you can't stop yourself); write without trying to come to an 'ending' - you can continue another time, just keep going. Look for specific sensuous detail ( what you see, smell, feel, hear, sounds of words - open your body, let what wants to be written be written).

Stop after 20 minutes and post here in the Writing As Spiritual Practice board (you can edit spelling / typos if you want, but do not make any other edits to the post).

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Re: Writing Mala

Hi Leigh-Anne,

I hope you do not mind me adding to your posted assignment. However, I found what I believe to be an excellent and detailed link to malas that I'd like to share.

http://www.bodhitree.com/booklists/malas.html

It might inspire something in the writing…


xxoo

Andrea

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Re: Writing Mala

no - don't mind at all :-) thanks.

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