Emergence: The Role of Mindfulness in Creativity

Based on over 40 interviews with women artists, explains the relationship between Flow and Mindfulness Meditation through the words of the artists themselves. The book begins with the history of mindfulness in its Buddhist context; each chapter demonstrates an aspect of this state of consciousness and how a given artist, most of whom are not meditation practitioners, has intuitively entered this autotelic state. They describe their experiences with their own personal vocabulary. Eventually they all experience Emergence, the natural arising of creative ideas, once they are fully involved in the creative process. The last chapter summarizes the conditions that foster creative solutions to art and life."In this intimate book of interviews with a fascinating array of artists, Rosie Rosenzweig's experiences as a scholar, poet, playwright, and Buddhist practitioner find a creative stream of original analogies among Buddhist practices of mindfulness, ethics and compassion and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's theory of flow. Provocative and fascinating!" -Carolyn Dille, Founding Editor, Leaping Clear, Poet, Soto Zen priest."Diving deep, Rosie Rosenzweig disentangles the term 'mindfulness' from its distortions and dilutions, restoring the concept to its fullest and most dynamic meaning. Examining the twin processes of meditation and artistic creation, Emergence is nothing less than a guide to harnessing 'the innate energy in the plasma of life.' Cogent, persuasive, and useful, this little book will be a welcome companion to any artist, no matter their discipline." -Richard Hoffman, author of four poetry books including Noon until Night, two memoirs, and a short story collection. He is a senior writer-in-residence at Emerson College in Boston and an assistant professor at Columbia University in New York."I enjoy Rosenzweig's work as creative writer immensely. As a meditator, she is uniquely placed to bring insights to research exploring the intersection of meditation and arts practice, and I value her contribution to the field." -Sherre DeLys, Meditation Teacher & Australian International Sound Artist and Broadcaster researching mindfulness meditation and the creative arts.Rosie Rosenzweig, Resident Scholar in the Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center, is also a Boston theatre reviewer. Her travel memoir, A Jewish Mother in Shangri-la, explores her son's introduction to his Buddhist teachers in America, France, India and Nepal. This exploration began her studies in Buddhist and Jewish meditation. Her published articles and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and publications about these topics and the role of women in contemporary life.