David Lynch and Novelty as Practice (reflections on the artist and the Focus of the Month)
Read the original Jivamukti Focus of the Month here for context.
Whether you personally connect to his films or not, David Lynch has some fascinating ideas about meditation, consciousness, creativity, and the human experience.
One thing to note is that his films are often surreal, dreamlike, and non-linear, breaking the viewer’s expectations of film as a narrative art. One could say the viewer is almost invited to get “lost” in the film—to enter a state of near-confusion, where it’s possible to let go of the assumptions, predictions, and expectations of a more traditional narrative. The meaning isn’t pre-prescribed or dictated to the audience. Instead, as Lynch has indicated many times, meaning is created in the unique meeting of viewer and film. This aligns with an aspect of the Buddhist concept of emptiness—where experience arises as the interplay between mind and object. Meaning is created when the mind encounters the object in time.
“I like a story that’s got some concrete structure but also holds abstractions. Life is filled with abstractions and the way we make heads or tales of it is through intuition. So people get used to films that pretty much explains itself 100% and you kind of turn off that beautiful thing of intuition when they’re looking at a film that has some abstractions. Some people on the other hand love these abstractions, and it gives them room to dream…. It's up to the people then to come up with their own interpretation. It's the viewer and the picture and sound.” - David Lynch
This sense of being lost or confused in Lynch’s films can open us to a state of receptivity, of simply experiencing and observing. The mind may begin to make associations or construct meaning from the assemblage of images, though these efforts are often challenged by the persistence of Lynch’s artistic sensibility.
Lynch certainly isn’t the only artist who has this connection between the disorientation of being lost and freedom of mind. The very famous book on the creative process, The Artists’ Way also recommends taking aimless or purposeless walks. Bruce Greirson also recommends a practice of ‘getting lost’ on a walk as a way of inducing a fresh perspective, a fresh way of seeing. (Read Greirson’s essay here)
Having learned of Lynch’s passing I’ve been watching quite a few interviews this past week and reflecting on his artistic process and perspective. To me, it seems he was deeply engaged in the work of novelty as a practice. In one interview, it’s revealed that he eats the same lunch and dinner every single day. When asked about this habit, his answer suggests that consistency in daily life creates a foundation that allows the mind to wander, imagine, and create freely:
Interviewer: Can we say you’re a creature of habit?
Lynch: Yes. Habit in the daily routine. When there’s some sort of order there, then you’re free to mentally go off any place. You’ve got a foundation and a place to spring off from.
Interviewer: And in terms of the creative process, that’s important?
Lynch: Yes, for me. The purer the mental environment, the more fantastic the interior world can be, it seems to me.
What is the relationship between restriction and freedom, or discipline and freedom? Lynch seems to find artistic freedom by limiting the number of choices he makes throughout the day. Great meditators and yoga practitioners often echo similar observations. I will never forget the image Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche offers in Turning the Mind into an Ally: meditation is like guiding the mind along a narrow mountain path to reach a place where you can see the panorama. Or, as he describes, the mind is like a stream flowing down the mountain until it eventually opens into the vast ocean. The ocean, of course, is a frequent metaphor for pure, expansive consciousness.
Most yoga practices involve restraint or prescribed elements—sometimes even ritualistic ones. Sitting in meditation or repeating prescribed movements, often the very same movements every day (just ask Ashtanga practitioners!), creates a form or foundation upon which the mind might find freedom.
In the early days of Jivamukti Yoga, Sharon Gannon and David Life would sometimes choreograph “āsana dance” performances. In 2010, I wanted to recreate one for our Tribe Gathering in NYC. I studied the choreography, and Sharon came to my dress rehearsal. She gave me just one note. If you watch her choreography, there’s always a moment when the dancer looks lost or unsettled, as though they’ve glimpsed something beyond the performance—as if they suddenly see behind the reality they’re in and are momentarily awakened. Forgive my retelling of this moment, as it’s certainly not phrased as elegantly as Sharon phrased it, and my memory may have eroded some of her exact wording. However, from that moment on, I understood this to be a statement about consciousness, seeing, and opening the eyes anew.
You can watch Sharon’s original performance here for context