Abstract
Everything is creative nonfiction. This postmodern concept refers to the decentralizing, fragmenting mood of what has taken place ontologically and epistemologically over at least the past 30 years or, as some argue, since the Enlightenment. More specifically, postmodernism might be understood as a systemic and ever-reaching breakdown in master narratives throughout Western thought. This idea is instructive in its relationship to the notion of practical spirituality. The term practical spirituality is postmodern in and of itself, trending away from master narratives of religion and religious practices. Groundlessness is commonly understood as giving up the pain that comes from attachment to people, places, things, and concepts: it is the openness that one experiences when he or she realizes that there is nothing to which one can hold. Therefore, groundlessness offers us a way into practical spirituality, a lens through which to view conflict (spiritual, interpersonal, social, global). Groundless underlines the postmodern; the postmodern has finally caught up with and given us the genre of creative nonfiction, which, one could argue, is everything.
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Notes
- 1.
Chögyam Trungpa “explores the meaning of freedom in the profound context of Tibetan Buddhism. He shows how our attitudes, preconceptions, and even our spiritual practices can become chains that bind us to repetitive patterns of frustration and despair. He also explains how meditation can bring into focus the causes of frustration, and how these negative forces can aid us in advancing toward true freedom” and, as Chödron writes, “When I took to heart the teachings presented here, a curious change slowly began to take place. I became far more open to the pain of myself and others; far more open to laughing and crying; far more able to love and accept and see my interconnectedness with all beings” (Foreword xii).
- 2.
Chödron became a Buddhist nun in 1974 and has since written ten books on practical spirituality.
- 3.
Shenpa, a Tibetan word, is central to Chödron’s teachings. The term is roughly translated as attachment, “feeling sticky,” though it is more accurately understood as that which hooks us: a concept, a feeling, a rigid way of seeing. This triggers one’s reaction of closing down and shutting off openness to groundlessness. Groundlessness is the basic, fundamental quality of being.
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Gunn, E.S. (2018). Creative Nonfiction Is Everything: Postmodernism, Groundlessness, and the Dual Portrait. In: Giri, A. (eds) Practical Spirituality and Human Development. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0803-1_10
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