On Noticing Joy

What Birding, The Bhagavad Gita, and Writing Have in Common

yad yad vibhūtimat sattvaṁ śhrīmad ūrjitam eva vā
tat tad evāvagachchha tvaṁ mama tejo ’nśha-sambhavam

Understand that whatever is magnificent, eye-catching,
brilliant, and grand, is a form of mine.

-Bhagavad Gita 10.41

We are cyclical creatures— in our thoughts, habits, desires, etc.— and the arrival of spring underscores how much we rely on the world’s cues of return. As the sun stays out longer and the first daffodils rear their heads, so many of us get the dopamine boosts we’ve been desperately missing in the winter months. As part of this renewal, we often turn a critical eye to our hibernating selves and vow to get a fresh start. We do spring cleaning, exercise more, and begin shedding our coats a little too early. For me, that includes returning to my writing practice. I, like a lot of writers, feel a certain amount of shame when I think of all the ways that I have procrastinated on writing projects. It makes me question if I have the self-discipline and passion necessary to really be a writer. However, just like the flowers steadily gathering nutrients and sunlight before they bloom, writing takes place in so many quiet, near dormant, moments and the act of returning to it is valuable in and of itself. Ruth Ozeki, the Zen Buddhist priest and author, said in an interview that meditation and writing share a similar principle, in that:

…this practice of return is something, I think, that’s very useful for writers to cultivate, because that’s exactly what we do on the page. We’re writing something and very often a self-critical thought will come in and suddenly we’re distracted. And then the instruction there is to sort of relax, relax the body, relax the mind, and just return.

The more we can accept that indeed the practice is just simply returning, as long as you continue to return, you’re doing the work. It sort of takes some of the pressure off. And it also gives you the resilience to continue to practice. I wish that I had been taught some of this when I was college age because I think I would have started writing a lot sooner.

I have also been thinking about writing as a practice of noticing, as my writer friend Heather McCabe calls it. Any time we are able to pay consistent attention to something, whether it’s chanting the Bhagavad Gita or taking in your surroundings on a walk, we have the chance to return to the sense of awe and curiosity that came naturally to us as children. Lately, this has manifested for me in the form of birding. Whenever it’s nice out and we have some spare time, my partner, Dan, and I will walk to the fantastically named Vale of Cashmere in Prospect Park to look for birds. When I was just starting out, I would get frustrated at how quickly Dan was able to find and identify the warblers and woodpeckers flitting around the tree canopy, whereas I would barely focus my binoculars in time to get a glance in. Over time, though, I began to notice the telltale flicker that meant a ruby-crowned kinglet had just alighted on a branch, and I could recognize the lilting melody of a white-throated sparrow. I felt a little thrill as I was able to name birds without looking them up. Now, I find myself more attuned to the details of the park and the shifting weather patterns that bring migrators back to New York. This kind of noticing is especially important for escaping our own ego and getting in touch with something bigger than ourselves. In an article for the Atlantic, researcher Dachner Keltner described a study in which they had a group of participants go on “awe walks” where they tapped into their childlike sense of wonder to look at the mundane world around them with fresh eyes. They were instructed to notice details that they usually passed without a second thought: light playing through leaves, interesting graffiti, the sound of water rushing over pebbles. They were also asked to take selfies on these walks. With each passing week in the study, participants began to experience more moments of gratitude and wonder. Additionally, the awe-walkers began to center themselves less in the selfies they took, opting to show more of the environment around them, such as a blooming tree or towering bridge. It was as if the line between the self and the world became blurrier.

This is another benefit of attentiveness: getting out of our heads. When we can hone in on the specific, fascinating details surrounding us, we are better able to grasp the interconnectedness of everything. We remember that we are not the main character, or even a side character, but rather one word in a sentence, dependent on all other words for our current state of being and meaning. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist Zen master, uses the term “interbeing” to talk about the Zen Buddhist concept of “dependent co-arising,” where each individual creature is like a wave arising out of the context of the ocean before fading back into itself (cue The Good Place wave monologue). “The verb ‘to be’ can be misleading, because we cannot be by ourselves, alone,” Hanh wrote in his book The Art of Living. “‘To be’ is always to ‘inter-be…’ To inter-be and the action of interbeing reflects reality more accurately. We inter-are with one another and with all life.” In other words, we are fools to think that we are alone. All you have to do is pay attention to the way that you exchange breath with the trees, or the way a sparrow makes a nest, reuniting twigs with the elm they fell from. Observation allows us to transcend any illusion that we are greater than or less than anything else in our world. It lets us embrace everything with equal respect and acceptance, even the things we hate or love.

Cedar Waxwings on a branch, Credit: Gary Bendig

When I first read the Bhagavad Gita, I was really hung up on its insistence that we detach ourselves from all worldly things, whether that was material goods, primal desires, or the people we love. According to the Gita, the most enlightened person is the one who finds nothing either desirable or undesirable, who “derives neither joy nor sorrow from the objects of the world” (5.20). Krishna says that an enlightened mind “is not drawn towards external perceptions. His joy is derived internally. He enjoys undisturbed bliss” (5.21). This troubled me, because while I acknowledged that it was probably best to let go of sorrow, it felt counterintuitive to relinquish joy derived from the world. At so many low points in my life, I have turned to delight and wonder to keep me going. Most of my favorite media is centered on the idea that beauty is a sacred and powerful force in our lives, from Ross Gay’s reverent musings about the natural world and our loved ones in The Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude to the quiet moments of delight found in movies like Perfect Days and The Great Beauty. This kind of worldly joy has also been integral to my most spiritual experiences, such as bathing at the confluence of sacred rivers in Southern India and taking in the splendor of the Sagrada Familia in Spain. How could delight at the world not be part of enlightenment? However, just like birding, I only needed to spend more time with the Gita to see what I had missed before.

In the tenth chapter, Krishna is enumerating all the powerful, worldly forms that he takes on, from something as solid as the Himalayas to something as ephemeral as the syllable Om. He ends the chapter in what I privately imagine to be an exasperated tone by saying, “I am the seed for everything, Arjuna! There is nothing in Creation that is not I. Everything in existence, is a form of mine… Understand that whatever is magnificent, eye-catching, brilliant, and grand, is a form of mine” (10.39-42). Re-reading this shloka reminded me of an earlier one in chapter four when Krishna says, “Once you become enlightened, you will see God in everyone and everything, in yourself, in me, in all objects including even a pillar, and in all living beings” (4.35). The Bhagavad Gita is not suggesting that we ignore all the beauty that calls out for our attention, but rather it cautions us against becoming so enamored with it that we forget the bigger picture. Whether you believe in a higher power or not, the reason we love the things we love often goes far beyond their material existence. This world is not meant to last forever, as permanent as it seems to us in our myopic lifetimes. There is no point in holding on so tightly to material delight like it is something that can be possessed. Rather, it’s the attention we can spare in our increasingly busy and cluttered lives, that is important. I think often of a moment of noticing from Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead when the dying pastor John Ames describes a memory of seeing a couple playing in the rain. In the memory, the man pulls on a branch and showers droplets on the woman, who laughs and only pretends to be angry. He says:

I don’t know why I thought of that now, except perhaps because it is easy to believe in such moments that water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables or doing the wash. I wish I had paid more attention to it. My list of regrets may seem unusual, but who can know that they are, really. This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.

Practices like writing and birding remind me of the inter-being that is woven throughout our lives, and they remind me to be humble in my estimation of what is deserving of my notice. What starts with a gasp of joy swiftly turns into an appreciation for all that I have yet to understand and all that I cannot perceive. These practices remind me that nothing is greater than any other thing, as we are all ultimately one. Instead of limiting my experience of joy to certain, obvious beauty, they endear me to the supposedly unremarkable miracles playing out everyday around us. The trick lies in acknowledging the world’s offerings while preventing myself from coveting or admonishing them. This, too, is a practice, and like all others, it requires time and patience. In the meantime, I will work on being attentive to this interesting planet.

---

Noticing Practices

Noticing takes many different forms, and you may already have a practice without realizing it. What are some ways that you are attentive to your world?

For some suggestions of other ways to cultivate mindful attention, try out some of these prompts and practices below. Let me know in the comments if you have anything that helps you notice more, too!

---

Take a walk with a notebook. Note down everything that catches your eye, no matter how small, whether it’s a crack on the sidewalk or a broken stop sign. When you return home, read over the list. Do the same walk again on another day, and write down a new list. See what new things you’ve discovered, and what caught your attention again.

Pick a color. Now, go on a walk and notice as many things as you can that are that color. Use each instance of color to lead you to the next.

Journal about your day from the perspective of someone or something else. What do they notice? What do they think is important to write down?

When a sight, sound, movement, or place attracts your attention during your daily life, consider that moment an “art experience”. Find a way to record an impression of this momentary “art experience” using any appropriate means or media. Share these experiences with each other and make them available to others.

-Pauline Oliveros, composer, find more of her Deep Listening practices here.

Free write for 7 minutes using the phrase “I remember…” as your starting point. When one memory runs out, start again with “I remember.”

-from Prof. Sarah Heidt at Kenyon College

Ross Gay did a writing workshop with Girls Write Now and led us through some beautiful prompts in his soothing, unhurried manner. You can watch the clips and do the prompts with him here.

What feels sacred to you in this moment? Use this playlist while you write.

-Sally Familia, a dear poet friend

If you’re interested in birding, I would highly recommend going on a birding tour with a local guide. I went to a free one at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden with Dan, and that’s really what kicked off our birding craze. The Merlin Bird ID app is also incredibly helpful for beginners, as are the Sibley’s Guides to birds.

See you next time, and happy noticing!