Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

How to Start Your Proust Practice (Mindfulness, Happiness, Fulfilment) (Patreon)

Published:
2021-05-25 17:48:57
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:
haven't archived this post yet. have a subscription? use the importer!

Content

The Proust Project is essentially a mindfulness practice.

You can elevate your baseline happiness.

Presence, stillness, and fulfilment can be trained.

In this video, after showing you my editions of In Search of Lost Time and talking you through my rereading and journalling habits, I'm going to walk you through some personal mindfulness exercises.

We're talking about "checking in" to the present moment, full body relaxation techniques, breathing meditation, reading as a therapeutic practice, visualisation, setting clear intentions, and treating yourself with more love.

Video Timestamps:

  • 0:00 my personal Proust set
  • 4:00 the philosophy of slow-reading
  • 6:00 meeting Marcel 
  • 9:00 the Proustian sentence
  • 12:00 preparing for leisure time
  • 14:00 Proust as self-hypnosis 
  • 15:30 my rereading and weekly journalling
  • 23:45 full body relaxation and "checking in"
  • 25:00 breathing meditation
  • 26:00 an exercise in finding presence 
  • 29:00 the power of vision and visualisation

Happy Prousting, everybody!

Files

Previews only

How to Start Your Proust Practice (Mindfulness, Happiness, Fulfilment)

0:00 my personal Proust set 4:00 the philosophy of slow-reading 6:00 meeting Marcel 9:00 the Proustian sentence 12:00 preparing for leisure time 14:00 Proust as self-hypnosis 15:30 my rereading and weekly journalling 23:45 full body relaxation and "checking in" 25:00 breathing meditation 26:00 an exercise in finding presence 29:00 the power of vision and visualisation

Comments

Gem Esprey

Wow, Ben, there was so much in this lecture. It's given me much to think about - not just literature-wise but life too. Thank you. I'm very late joining in but really looking forward to the lectures yet to come and of course, the slow reading.

Lucinda Marrs

Hello, Ben. Thank you for the Proust Project! Since I’ve worked at French at various moments through my life, I read most of Proust at the university level and liked La Recherche a lot. Nevertheless I might not be rereading if I hadn’t happened upon your initiative. I find Proust’s sentences easier to read in French than in English because the antecedents/nouns, adjectives, pronouns, relative pronouns have gender. The clear grammatical connections in French make his thought simpler to follow through meandering clauses and parentheses. Also, I appreciate your remarks on his humor! Right at the beginning Combray is funny! With your encouragement and guidance I expect to find more to smile at too. Remember the gifts of furniture that the old aunts (I think) have so overthought that the chairs immediately fall apart when the recipient sits on one? Lol Bonnes lectures, Cindy Marrs

Catherine Egan

Oh my! Ben! I’m so excited to open my mind and heart to Proust. And Ben, you’ve masterfully tilled and fertilized the soil with this How to Start Your Proust practice, what a gem you are! I started Marianne Williamson’s ‘morning pages’ stream of consciousness journaling practice more than 20 years ago. To be honest, there’s years of pure drivel in my notes. But I needed that sorting out and unmucking time, amen. Now books, and my thoughts on books, and your thoughts on books are filling the pages, which is so much more edifying and purposeful. And wonder-filled! We’re here now, and that’s the best thing. Here we go! And merci! Cat

Barbara Obergfell

Thank you Benjamin. I am coming back to In Search of Lost Time after 30 years. I first read it over a year with my reading mentor. He invited four of us to join him to read and meet monthly. He’s gone now and the memory of that reading year has remained a touchstone of pleasure. I am glad to find your mentorship and company in this rereading.

HappyKnitter2020

Such a beautiful deep reflective video, thank you Benjamin. I am setting out my reflective journal ready to start reading Swann's Way. I meditate each day, to settle my mind after a busy day at work. I have also developed a routine over the last few years, journalling each Sunday morning, with a coffee and candle at the kitchen table, I have learned so much about myself, and my life from these routines. I am looking forward to what reading Proust will bring into my life next chapter. I have bought Eric Karpeles Paintings in Proust, a visual companion, it is an absolutely sublime book. I will be spending hours looking at to the art, going deeper into Proust's mind and reflect on what this means to me and why?

Barbara Obergfell
>>160269214

Thank you for this referral. I have found a used copy of Paintings in Proust to accompany my nightly reading. I like to think the paintings will grace my dreams.

Dylan D. Erwin

I unintentionally took a different approach to my journaling and didn’t realize it until I watched this video. I do my 1-2 pages of reading and marginalia, then journal about it daily during the week as part of my preexisting daily journal practice. Then, on the weekend, I reread what I’ve read without journaling. It helps me to approach this second, post-journal and marginalia read, as an opportunity to get back to view the text in a new light. It reminds me a bit of creating music. During the week I write and record, tweaking the levels. The weekend is for listening back over to what I did. I was talking to my wife yesterday—a reader whose voracity makes me feel like a rookie—and remarked that this is my third time reading Swann’s Way, specifically, in as many years. Guys, I think I might be a Proust fan…

Sharon xx

I am so ready for this! I've been preparing for this read, this experience for 58 years! The last three years of my life have been about slowing down, recognising what's truly important, swapping the full-time role for three days a week and doing only the good things. When I said elsewhere that I'm living my best life, I really am! I've realised that I only have today so I'm doing all the good things every day! No good putting things off or saving lovely things for another day, nope, do them and enjoy them now because tomorrow is not guaranteed. I'm two pages into Proust and I've re-read them quite a few times and I'm fascinated, truly captivated. I was so worried that I wouldn't 'get him' but I do and it's magical. He writes like I think. I haven't got a specific goal for what I hope to get out of this read but I think it's going to be about my relationship with life itself - how I can enrich these my Autumn years as the last of my [six] children move into sixth form and 38 solid years of parenting a child come to a close. This is a transition I've both longed for and dreaded in equal measure - the void will be filled with literature and everything that flows from it. It's time to be me once again! That's so exciting isn't it? I'm getting better at just letting the journaling flow without too much self censorship or performance management. I've done the Morning Pages [The Artist's Way - Julie Cameron] historically which really helps you get over yourself where journaling is concerned and makes you focus on getting the words on the paper without all that procrastination. Your breathing technique is my long-term insomnia cure - it's obviously very useful as a calming technique. I am terrible for waking in the early hours and immediately thinking about work. Focussing on that method of breathing with the counting etc prevents my brain from straying into Work Worry Mode. Fantastic and inspiring lecture! Thank you xx

Sharon xx
>>60568295

PS just bought Mme Bovary in the Penguin Deluxe Classics edition and that’s translated by Lydia Davis so it’s good to hear you recommending her!

Bill Freeman

Ben – Listening to your podcast, I feel like I was part of the rehearsal! Much of this is what we discussed last week; yet, more developed with an explicit structure and takeaways. I have bookmarked this video for relistening. It is rich in so many ways. It is a great roadmap. As I shared, I began reading Proust a few weeks ago, complemented by listening to audio during my daily walks with my dog. The combo works: reading first and then listening later. The audio is excellent for pronunciation and immersing me into the flow of Marcel’s internal dialogue. While I am barely into his work, reading these extended sentences (I counted a 101-word sentence) can be a bit jarring since my mind waits, like a drooling dog for promised table scraps, for the subject-verb-object structure . . . and waiting. The audio has a beautiful, conversational quality where this written awkwardness is missing. The spoken word flows. It makes more sense; there’s an added richness. There is a seductiveness to these exhausting, extended sentences that draws me in; I want to hear more with the audio. There is intimacy. It is undoubtedly far from Tolstoy and Austen (preposterous to have Tolstoy’s name so close to Austen’s) – perhaps a bit closer to Crime and Punishment but much more polished and far less frenetic. I am reading Edmund White’s biography,” Marcel Proust: A Life.” In his opening pages, he quotes Graham Green: “Proust was the greatest novelist of the twentieth century, just as Tolstoy was in the nineteenth . . ." As one gay man writing about another, White provides a nuance that rings true and insightful. He doesn’t make the “hero’s error,” of drawing Proust larger-than-life and unrelatable. For me, embarking on “The Proust Project” marks 2021’s Pride celebration and all that entails post-Trump. (For those outside the U.S., please appreciate that so many of us are traumatized by the past four years, the January 6th Capital siege, and the morphing of whatever remains; it will take years to process) There is so much that I found helpful in your presentation: mindfulness, journaling insights, prompting questions, a very doable structure, structure without the usually prescriptive fussiness of other methods that I see myself folding into an established daily practice (i.e., yoga, WHM, breathwork, cold showers) BUT as a weekend add-on. A sentence, a page – how refreshing. As well, I LOVE the fact that you state that Descartes was wrong!!! I have come to believe that; his dictum - cogito ergo sum - has (I think) destructively framed Western thought and psychology- esp. the faulty break of mind-body. We, most definitely, are not our thoughts . . . the best proof being a simple following of a random five minutes of repetitive thoughts. I love the Buddhist naming of this randomness as “the monkey mind.” Happiness. The leader of the sangha that I belong to once shared a definition of “happiness” that he ascribed to Werner Erhard: “If you want to be happy, CHOOSE what you already have.” For me, this is brilliant and a mooring that I frequently return to. It is the essence of mindfulness and the seduction of the breath. We already are; we are equal to each moment, all the answers are within. For a practical matter, I look forward to buying your journal with inviting paper and a pen with ink that welcomes the paper. My current journals feel foreign to the pen. A final note about your polished yet comfortable presentations: what comes off as easy conversation is the hard-won product of immense preparation, thought, and digestion. I am amazed at your ability to produce such high-quality verbal and written content with grace and beauty. Thank you. You are a master teacher with the required humility of a true student. Again, rich insights with such value. Thank you.

hardcoreliterature
>>60804095

Bill - I'm glad you picked up on that. Our meeting most certainly helped refine my thoughts and helped give shape for how I could best direct what I wanted to convey. Seeing you light up as we speak is also a wonderful bonus. I do so treasure our talks. Your counting of Marcel's sentences, and listening to him read aloud, is so in the spirit of our approach to his work that I'm in awe - you came to these methods by yourself, intuitively, by virtue of a solid, nuanced, considerate, empathetic approach to literature. Incredibly impressive stuff - this reading style is rare in this day and age! I must pick up White's bio myself, sounds like a good one (I know it's revered). Ah, Descartes, in my humble opinion, was indeed wrong. He took his own self for granted and never questioned it - this is a very similar vein in which I dislike Plato. The premise from which these endlessly influential philosophers start from is shaky - thank God I don't read Freud or Plato for their premises or conclusions. What a ride they gift us though :) Thank you for your wonderful comment as always. The insights you discover are those you bring!

Florian Pesantes

The first two days of my life with Proust have passed. I did as recommended. The Wim-Hoff breathing exercise, stroking and smelling the book after relaxing the muscles, then slowly reading and with my voice, not too loud. Few lines so far, one and a half pages. Copying some half sentences in my dark Leuchtturm notebook with the thin Japanese pens. At first a just likeable, soothing experience. Sometimes I wondered what Ben would like me to find, but I felt I shouldn’t focus to much, keep the judgement and analysis away. Certainly there’s something with the senses that is the key to the beginning. Now hours after the second lecture I listened to the trains passing below our balcony and a childhood memory came back, me lying on the oriental rug, the cheek on the rough surface watching dust dancing in a sunbeam and far away the buzzing of the occasional car on the country road. Time would have no measure and my thoughts no direction. Now I know, that I’m onto something. Thank you. The books look really precious. I’m tempted to treat them with gloves.

Florian Pesantes
>>61366227

So you know, that I’m not just leisurely consuming Proust’s pages, and as I’m not an advanced but aspirational Benite (with one “n”, mind you) I certainly picked up on the topic of the book that dropped from the protagonist’s hand when he entered the realm between alertness and dream. The rivalry between François 1er and Carlos V. I tried to find the answer to the question as to which book he might refer (and why) and I couldn’t find anything in the normally omniscient internet. I searched probably the wrong hexagon. At least I remembered that this was how I read in childhood. Being inside the book, standing with Troy against the Greeks, with Aphrodite and Hector against Achilles and Athena and especially against the perfidious Odysseus. Maybe someone here would know about the tale of the kings and it’s significance? Otherwise I’ll have to enter the realm of lucid dreams.

Florian Pesantes

Yesterday I had a chat with my colleague cardiologist who commutes from Strasbourg, Alsace. Somehow we came to talk about Proust. His first word: Madeleines, so I’m having quite a giggle at reviewing of this video. He has never read the books, although his wife is a university lecturer with specialty -guess- Proust. Two daughters he has, studying philosophy. So we agreed that he was the only proletarian in his family. ;-)))

Florian Pesantes

From an interview with William C. Carter, the man who has read Proust 10-12 times in ‘mint’ 2014 by Mayank Austen Soofi “In Proust’s case, I think he helps us to see the world as it really is, not only in its great beauty and diversity, but he makes us aware of how we perceive and how we interact with others, showing us how often we are mistaken in our own assumptions and how easy it is to have a biased view of another person.”

hardcoreliterature
>>61584083

Ha! You know, I've been wondering recently - how does everyone seemingly know about the Madeleine scene even if they haven't read the book? I'm looking forward to making some of my own and seeing what comes about at some point... But I have a few more favourite scenes in Swann's Way, I must say :)

Par

Hi Ben, I had a question for you. What made you say we'll have more leisure time in ten years? Is it a theory of yours based on the development of AI etc.? Or based on research? A book ? If it's a book, please share the name with us. Cheers !

Dee

INCREDIBLE. And I am joining in from today. A big thankyou to the universe that I no longer have to carry out strange projects like these on my own. And thank you Ben.

hardcoreliterature
>>74261781

Hi Susan - you're right! It's based on where I see AI / job automation going in the future, and is something that has occurred to me over the course of my reading. I'll see if I can hunt out any books and writers I would recommend on this subject for you :)

hardcoreliterature
>>75589122

Yay! I'm so happy that you're joining in the Proust fun, Dee. It's such a lovely reading ritual to follow along with. I would place Proust up there with Shakespeare when it comes to rewarding reading projects!

Diego Chalco

I recently joined this club, and it is no exaggeration to state that this one of the best book club out there. I like the pace we are taking. One question, at this pace, when are we planning to finish all the books?

Lori Miller

I LOVE the idea of weekly journaling. I’ve always struggled with a journaling practice, but a weekly time sounds lovely. Alright, no more Proust videos for this week. Time to practice my practice: Body check-in, one page a day, listen as I go to sleep, journal on Sunday. Wish me luck, better yet discipline.

Pina Baker

I’m so excited to start reading Proust after this very inspiring informative video. Thank you so much Ben. My plan is to read throughout the week after dinner and then on Sunday mornings, after yoga, I’ll do my re read and journaling. I can’t wait for my lovely Nordic blue Leuchtturn journal to arrive.

Tina Matuchniak

Yes, I know I'm two years too late to this party, but I just happened upon Benjamin on youtube, who just happened to be talking about reading and motivation, which just happened to strike a chord with me in this moment of despair at my alienation from reading, which just happened to make me very sad after almost fifty years of identifying as a voracious reader, who found herself in a funk and more than a little cross that she couldn't find a single thing to read in every bookstore in all the cities of the world because they were simply, well, not her cup of tea, but Proust, that's another matter, a mystery, an enticement, one she couldn't resist, one that gave her hope that maybe she could find herself, again, a reader.