Writer Wednesday: Non-Flower Elements

Many years ago, right after Season 6 of Homicide: Life on the Street, I was fortunate enough to attend a three-week retreat with the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

He was the gentlest of souls — a Vietnamese monk who had helped build and rebuild homes and villages during the Vietnam War. He had real-world experience with devastation and destruction, both physical and emotional.

He wrote many books and gave beautiful talks centered on a Buddhist idea he called Interbeing.

Interbeing means “co-being”. You cannot be by yourself alone. You have to “interbe” with everybody and everything else. For instance, if you look deeply into a flower you find it is made of non-flower elements like sunshine, clouds, rain and soil. Without these non-flower elements, a flower cannot exist. So it is better to say that the flower “interbes” with the sunshine and it cannot be by itself, alone. It is the case with humans also. I am here because you are there.
— Thich Nhat Hanh

What better introduction to a contemplative prompt?

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Prompt

Find an organic or inorganic object.

It’s probably within arm’s reach.

Sit with it for a moment. What are the “non-flower” elements of your chosen object?

What makes it what it is — and if you removed one of those elements, the object could not exist?

Write down your list.

At some point, you may get stuck. Or frustrated. Or bored. Or suddenly see something new, an a-ha of sorts.

That moment is interesting. Notice it.

Keep listing the elements until you reach it. Then stop there and write about what happened in that moment.

Not a pro-interbeing or anti-interbeing essay — just simply what happened as you were doing the exercise.

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My Take

“This feels endless. Infinite. Humbling. It made me think about how often I’m so concerned about my own needs that there’s an entire world I don’t take into account — in one book. I checked the time twice while doing this. I have things to do and I’m trying to jam this in between tasks. Is there something I’m missing?

This is complex, and I don’t think it should be complex.

Maybe it will hit me later today.

Why did I suggest this??”

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Example

A book on my desk.

It’s made of paper. So: trees, water, sunshine, rain, soil, lumberjacks, millers, other workers at the paper mill, haulers, the food that feeds them, their parents, their partners, air, teachers, driving instructors, writers (it’s an anthology), pens, pencils, computers and the people who built them, editors, designers, book printers and their children.

Then the plants and animals that keep all of them alive…

…oh, and the workers who grow and harvest that food.

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Writers working in fiction, memoir, or screenplays might discover that following these “non-flower elements” can lead to surprising details about character, place, and story.

Keep it simple.

Not philosophical.

Just notice what happens.

If you try the exercise, I’d be curious what object you started with — and where the list eventually took you.

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Thich Nhat Hanh poem, Call Me By My Trues Names.