For “Routine Excellence,” GQ asks creative, successful people about the practices, habits, and routines that get them through their day

On the day I reach artist and musician Devendra Banhart, he’s running a little late, having gotten too absorbed in his morning meditation ritual. It’s the first thing he does in a day, which, given his job making albums or creating visual art, can include writing poems, recording music, painting, or drawing. But none of that happens without meditation. “The world generally considers sitting down, closing your eyes, not listening to anything—that is insane, it considers that a fucking insane waste of time,” he says, over the phone. “So it’s kind of a nerdy thing—what is this insane thing? Yet my entire existence, any semblance of sanity is completely dependent on me doing that every day.” 

GQ: What does your morning practice look like?

Devendra Banhart: I have a very dark bedroom and there are some steps that lead up to an even darker room, the shrine room. I go straight from my bed to the shrine room and meditate in the style that was taught to me by Prem Rawat. It's Raja yoga. I sit for an hour doing these particular mudras. A mudra is a hand position. So if you see a picture of the Buddha touching the earth, that's called Earth Witness position. It's almost like knowing about chords, and how you've got to put them in a particular order to make a song. 

After I sit and meditate, I do something called a sang ceremony. It’s a smoke offering that was taught to me by my other principal teacher, Neten Chokling Rinpoche. It sets the day up to get into an offering attitude. What can I offer today? Then within that there's a moment of acknowledging what's known as “mother recognition”: considering that everyone's been my mom and I've been theirs at one point. Even if you don't believe in that, it doesn't matter, it makes it harder to hate people or be angry at people.

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about something that this amazing mythologist Martin Shaw said: "Go from living with uncertainty to navigating the mystery." Before I come into the world, I think about that. Today I can be living in uncertainty because I don't know what's going to happen and there's a stress element to that—or I can think, I'm going to navigate the mystery of today. Then I make coffee and read a little bit of poetry. Right now I've got Ted Hughes, Gary Snyder, and some amazing Polish poet, Anna Kamienska. I gotta prepare myself before I read the news, because it's never been more apocalyptic.

Don’t you also practice Tonglen?

I can't believe we're talking about Tonglen—motherfucking yes! Tonglen is the practice of taking in and then sending out. Right now, I’ll usually practice it when reading something about Ukraine—about someplace in Ukraine being bombed. If you read about individuals that have been killed, if you can click on that and get their name, and just close your eyes for a moment and breathe in all the pain, suffering, anger, and fear, and send out love, strength, and healing. You can say the name of the person, and think of those people that you just read about. Then you do it again, breathing in all the pain, suffering, anger, and fear, breathing out healing, wisdom, peace, love, and strength to the families and the loved ones of those people. Their mom and dad and their families and their children, all the suffering that ripples from that. Even the person who caused that suffering, the suffering that they must be experiencing to cause that, and how much that must hurt their families when their families know that one of their children is causing that suffering.

We’re talking about these things that need to be experienced... That's why I often recommend [Buddhist nun] Pema Chödrön’s compassion cards because it's interactive, a physical card that you read. The other stuff maybe requires a little bit more work. A big moment for me with this stuff was seeing a cookbook next to a book about Buddhism, and realizing that the cookbook doesn't have any food in it. There's no Buddhism in the Buddhism book. There could be a photograph of water and it's not going to be the same thing as a glass of water, it's not going to quench my thirst. So these books, they're incredibly useful, but they really require our effort. You've got to go get the ingredients and chop them up and make the meal. 

Because you do seem to do so many different things and get so much done, I'm curious how you think about productivity?

So it’s about once every two years that I’m inspired to write a song or put the paintbrush to the canvas or pen to paper—

Wait, really? How is that possible?

I never, ever, ever, want to actually do this thing that I love more than anything. I have to do the thing and then I get inspired doing the thing. So I'm not thinking I'm going to go out there and get inspired. That's why it has to be a daily practice. Every day if you can write down one line then, okay, cool, that's enough—or if you can fill up a couple notebooks, or really get into painting. If you can do a little bit or a good amount every day, that will decrease the chasm between you and doing the discipline. This is how I personally feel, but I also feel like this seems very important—I feel like there's a danger in the context of art using words like important, but fuck it—to honor the responsibility that comes with having your own personal gift. Because I really do think that each one of us has a gift. That's what “follow your bliss” is. It doesn't mean just drink ayahuasca all day long. “Follow your bliss” means honor the responsibility of the gift.

Do you write and paint and make music all in one day, or how does that usually shake out?

I'm more into painting because I've been working on music for some time. Those are the two main things I do. Basically, if I'm writing songs, the lyrics that don't need music turn into poems. It's just music right now and feels like I've been working at it enough so it's been enough of a break from painting that it's exciting to paint. Then that helps with the visual aspect of what the music might look like. So, they're supporting each other. Painting is so much more mysterious. It doesn't really have to be about something. There's still some architecture that needs to click in the place, but it doesn't have to be as precise as with songs—at least for me. Sometimes I don't necessarily want that word to rhyme, but I have to. My songwriting at this point feels like it has to be honest, that's it. Because people really can tell when it's bullshit. But with painting, I can just have so much fun being juvenile, just drawing dicks, pussies and tits. 

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How do you know when you're done painting, or writing, or mixing?

With songs, it's when you want to share them. With painting, it's when you're exhausted because you get caught in the flow. Time disappears. You stop when you are going to piss your pants or your throat is so dry because you haven't had a sip of anything for hours and hours, and you can't even move, you're in the same position. That's the best, when your body is going, “Ah!” It wakes you up from the flow state, from that trance. 

Can you speak to the ways in which your meditation practice intersects with these creative practices? Do you find there are ways they speak to each other or help one another?

I think that they're totally intertwined. It's cool that people get into meditation in order to optimize their coding capacities, or to get smarter, or to get more creative. Those activities themselves are meditative, but they're not meditation. It's important to make that distinction, some people might say like, "For me, my meditation is going out to the sea and looking at the sea." No, it's not, you're not meditating. That's meditative, but that is not meditation. Those are wonderful activities, go out there, stare at the sea. Yes, get into that, but remember those are meditative activities and not meditation. Fundamentally, you're not doing it for those reasons. You're doing it to get closer to your own heart, to become kinder, to become more present and therefore more compassionate. You're getting to know yourself more. Also, the real meditation starts when you stop meditating. I create this perfect space, this little shrine room just for meditation. But that's not the world, it's not real. The real meditation is, what do I take with me when I'm done sitting? This is when things get hairy, when things get challenging. This is where it's a daily practice to respond and not react. 

Do you have a habit, practice, a book, or something that you've recently discovered or started doing that you wish you'd started sooner?

There's a whole literary genre that's called Dino erotica. It's dinosaur-based erotica. My friend Abby turned me onto it so I've got right now wet hot Allosaurus summer.

Come on. Really?

I swear. This is what it said, "She was a country girl looking for excitement. He was an apex predator theropod." This is a whole world of romance, erotic novels where humans and dinosaurs are fucking, and it's so rad. So I wish I'd gotten into Dino erotica sooner.

When did you discover it?

Like a week ago. I was like, “Where's this been my whole life?”

The rest of your life will be consumed with Dino erotica.

Everything I just said, I'm done with all of it. No more meditation for me, I'm now doing strictly Dino Erotica.

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Clay Skipper is a Staff Writer at GQ.XInstagramRelated Stories for GQMusic