The art (and poetry) of living in the moment The art (and poetry) of living in the moment
Fabrice Midal
03 Jul 2019
Meditation teaches us to experience the present moment. In our culture, art does the same. Through art, we have the chance to take a fresh look at the world.
Meditation, poetry & art
Meditation has something in common with art: it’s about seeing the present moment. Looking at a work of art, I don’t need to understand it or to go through an analytical thought process. If a song moves me, I don’t need to get caught up in the why. Art’s truth doesn’t need philosophical, religious, sentimental, sociological or psychological explanations. It simply shows itself, and we experience it. That’s exactly the space of meditation.
In the Western world, poetry opens a field of presence. A poet can’t repeat what everyone already knows. They have to say something fresh and lively, to lend us their eyes to see the world like we are newborns.
Finding beauty in what is
Beauty has often been considered something holy and distant. When we see paintings or photographs – of animals, landscapes, women or men – they are shown as ideals of beauty, not as who or what they are. Most artists show things that are perfect but not realistic.
Meditation teaches us to deal with imperfection and to be okay with it. It makes us see how moving and simple it can be. That cloud. That glass. That flower. That person. Nothing is perfect, but why does it have to be when it is so real?
To be here and nowhere else
Meditation has strong similarities with philosophy (especially Nietzsche) and almost every modern poet. In one of his letters, German-speaking poet R. M. Rilke says: “What deceit, to divest us of images of earthly delight in order to sell them to heaven behind our backs!”
What if the only thing we had to do was to be here, simply and profoundly? And to leave behind our dream of an impossible ideal?
We have to come back down to earth. We have to learn to love being there. That’s one of meditation’s gifts: it brings us close to life and reality.
Poetry and meditation teach us how to step into the present.
