“Writing is Breathing”
By John Diamond, M.D.
Beatrice Trum Hunter, a writer I greatly admire, writes me that “Writing is breathing.” Yes! And only a true writer could write that.
In my daily meditation, as I am made aware of my breathing, with each breath I affirm not “I am breathing” but “I am being breathed.” It’s not my doing, it is being done to me.
So I am given to believe, seemingly surrendered in the meditative state to Determinism: that all we appear to do is actually due to what in Buddhism is called, tariki, Other Power acting through us.
Sometimes, in my more meditative moments, I believe this – and at other times I disbelieve it. (But, of course, when in the state, I am given to realize that my believing or not is Determined.)
“Writing is breathing”. And as I do not breathe but am breathed, so I do not write. What appears on the page – on this page – has been written through me.
Yes, writing is as precious, as wondrous, as utterly essential, for Beatrice and me, as breathing. The more so when we are given to realize that all is Other Power.
