On this past Friday’s Howie Rose Show (Burlington, VT), we hosted classical flutist, jazz musician, and senior student of Andrew Cohen’s teaching of Evolutionary Enlightenment Rodrigo Tarraza to speak about meditation and why he can’t live without it. Specifically, we wanted to know about the relationship between meditation and creativity.

What he had to say was both moving and surprising. According to Tarraza, meditation and creativity are both completely related and completely unrelated. Rodrigo spoke about how when he meditates he really doesn’t care about being creative at all and that when he’s engaged in the act of creativity, he isn’t focused on coming from any kind of meditative state. Making this distinction is important, he said, because in order to be fully creative or fully immersed in the emptiness of the ground of being in meditation, you need to be able to give your self completely to both. He stated over and over again how in meditation you have to be willing to go all the way, to let go of the world and the mind completely, for the sake of meditation itself.

Perhaps his most interesting point he made was that there have been many extraordinarily creative people who have never meditated before. And there are many profound meditators who are not creative. But for him, the committed practice of meditation has helped to cultivate a deep trust in life that allows for a new way of being and most importantly, creates the space for a new way of working creatively with others.  This topic is so significant for us postmodern narcissists, because as Rodrigo pointed out, our minds are crazy!

Make sure to watch the short video clip of Rodrigo speaking to Andrew Cohen about meditation at a retreat all set against a backdrop of him performing with his jazz fusion band, Unfulfilled Desires. It’s very cool.