Speaker 1: Well, when you're writing, and you're really writing, you're not alone.
Speaker 1: You're with all sension beings. Really, you're just speaking of
Speaker 1: your time, your generation, your moment on the earth. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not alone. You're never alone.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 2: ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 2: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 2: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 2: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 2: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 2: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 2: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 2: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 2: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2: Our guest on this episode is Natalie Goldberg, an American
Speaker 2: popular author and speaker. She's best known for a series
Speaker 2: of books which explore writing as a zen practice. In
Speaker 2: addition to her nineteen eighty six book Writing Down the Bones,
Speaker 2: which sold over a million copies. Natalie and Eric discuss
Speaker 2: in this interview her newest book, Writing on Empty, A
Speaker 2: Guide to Finding Your Voice.
Speaker 3: Hi, Natalie, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: We're going to be discussing your latest book, which I
Speaker 3: have in front of me called Writing on Empty, A
Speaker 3: Guide to Finding your Voice, and we'll be discussing your
Speaker 3: career and writing in general. But before we get into that,
Speaker 3: we'll start we always do with the parable. In the parable,
Speaker 3: there's a grandparent and they're talking with their grandchild and
Speaker 3: they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 3: us that are always a battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 3: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 3: the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed
Speaker 3: and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops think about
Speaker 3: it for a second. They look up at their grandparent
Speaker 3: and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says,
Speaker 3: the one you feed. So I wanted to start off
Speaker 3: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 3: your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Well. First of all, I'd like to point out I
Speaker 1: like that grandchild. If I was a grandchild, I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I would ask that, yeah, I might say where'd
Speaker 1: you get that? Where'd you hear that? And what does
Speaker 1: that mean? I wouldn't ask which one, yeah, winsor and
Speaker 1: I like the answer. But you know, I practice with
Speaker 1: a hard ass zen teacher for twelve years, kick ass.
Speaker 1: I only understand that now because you know America has Oh,
Speaker 1: in a way, America is like the two. I don't
Speaker 1: mean America the US. The United States is a blend
Speaker 1: of the good and the bad wolf. So we would
Speaker 1: like the good wolf to win. But that isn't always
Speaker 1: true and not always that intelligent, and that's smart. And
Speaker 1: what I was saying about the kick ass zen teacher
Speaker 1: who I am dedicated to for my life. He died
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety in the Midwest, but he was Japanese Minnesota, right, yeah, Minneapolis. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But he didn't tell us anything. We just sat all
Speaker 1: the time, from five thirty am till nine at night weekends,
Speaker 1: and then we'd sit before we went to work in
Speaker 1: the evening. We'd come back and sit. What propelled me,
Speaker 1: I don't know. And then we would do long sessions
Speaker 1: and what would he say or what would I say?
Speaker 1: Sitting what came up just wild animals came up inside
Speaker 1: me I was young, tremendous volcanoes of sexuality, rage. And
Speaker 1: then always if it was a session, I'd always start
Speaker 1: in my mind cooking a pot roast, cutting the onion
Speaker 1: in my head.
Speaker 3: Huh did I.
Speaker 1: Ever cook a pot roast? No? And I think I
Speaker 1: was a vegetarian then, so maybe I was hungry for protein.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but every session I started with that,
Speaker 1: it made no sense. So maybe a stew I don't
Speaker 1: believe in you could be all good or all bad,
Speaker 1: but it is true that what you feed is what
Speaker 1: comes forward. I think that was very smart, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that was a Zen person. Probably was someone
Speaker 1: from the midwest, Iowa, Iowa.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what you're really known for is teaching people
Speaker 3: to write and also bringing your Zen practice sort of
Speaker 3: into that world or a way of thinking about it.
Speaker 3: And I wanted to ask you a question because Zen
Speaker 3: is very much about being present and with an intimate
Speaker 3: with life exactly as it's happening. Yeah, but you also
Speaker 3: say somewhere, I'm always half where I am, meaning that
Speaker 3: as a writer, your brain is here, but it's also
Speaker 3: thinking about the writing piece. How do you work that.
Speaker 1: Let me explain that. First of all, I want to
Speaker 1: say that I'm only writing practices, only Zen practice. I
Speaker 1: know nothing else. Yeah, And I only realized since I
Speaker 1: semi retired that my students didn't know that they thought
Speaker 1: I was teaching writing. I was teaching Zen, but slowly,
Speaker 1: slowly dripping it into the United States society, into our society.
Speaker 1: So it took five years for me to have silent
Speaker 1: retreats because if I had done it in eighty six
Speaker 1: when bones came out, they would have had a heart attack.
Speaker 1: So I think what's important is not everybody can sit
Speaker 1: their ass off. Why I did it, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm a Jewish girl from Brooklyn. I just I wanted
Speaker 1: it bad. I don't know what I wanted, but I
Speaker 1: sat a lot. But not everybody can. So Kydageary said
Speaker 1: to me one day, he said, why do you keep sitting?
Speaker 1: Because it was clear I wanted to be a writer.
Speaker 1: He said, why don't you make writing your practice? I said,
Speaker 1: are you trying to get rid of me? He said no,
Speaker 1: it's just I said, is that possible? Because this was
Speaker 1: the early years in the seventies, and I think that
Speaker 1: I finally heard him after sitting with him for twelve years.
Speaker 1: I made writing my practice, and when I wrote, writing
Speaker 1: down the bones, I didn't know I was saturated with zen.
Speaker 1: It wasn't separate. Nothing was separate. It's sort of like,
Speaker 1: we go back to your wolves. It was very smart,
Speaker 1: But the wolves are mixed up, right, There's not just
Speaker 1: one wolf in there.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean I think that the Parable is
Speaker 3: an interesting little jumping off point.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think there's more than just two wolves inside of us, right,
Speaker 3: and we are a blend of that. I think that's
Speaker 3: why I was originally drawn to The Parable. Partially was
Speaker 3: this sense that, like, you have all this inside of
Speaker 3: you and that's normal. Yeah, right, it's really not.
Speaker 1: Everybody has, and it's good to have it integrated. Yes,
Speaker 1: even better than black or white to have it integrated.
Speaker 1: But I'll answer your question about half of me. Fifty
Speaker 1: percent of me is always watching. I never think about
Speaker 1: my write very rarely. It's in my belly and I
Speaker 1: am composting, but I am trying to pay attention. Now.
Speaker 1: A part of me we can't help but pay attention
Speaker 1: because there's a part of us that's awake, and that's
Speaker 1: always awake, and it's taking it in even if we
Speaker 1: don't notice, even if people think we're not even there.
Speaker 1: When I write, I'm not going to say we, because
Speaker 1: when I write, I connect with that awake part of me. Well,
Speaker 1: what do you know? I didn't know that they had
Speaker 1: two blankets on the walls here, Mexican blankets. But when
Speaker 1: I write, I remember it. It comes back up because
Speaker 1: some part of me noticed, not necessarily the conscious part
Speaker 1: that's having a social hour with somebody and eating snacks.
Speaker 1: I'm teasing it. I hope that wasn't misconstrued because it
Speaker 1: wasn't not me. But what I want my students to
Speaker 1: do what people reading, I don't want them mechanizing about
Speaker 1: writing the whole time. It's just you know who you are.
Speaker 3: In your new book. Writing on Empty really starts with
Speaker 3: being in the pandemic, right and the fact that for
Speaker 3: years you said you've known what the next book is
Speaker 3: while you're finishing one, you just you always wrote, it
Speaker 3: just came. I don't know if I want to use
Speaker 3: the word easy, but you wrote and then COVID hit
Speaker 3: and it sounds like you just ran out of gas.
Speaker 3: Tell me about that.
Speaker 1: That was really good? Only in retrospect. If you met
Speaker 1: me when I was in the middle of it, I
Speaker 1: was really freaked out. Yeah. I had a good machine going.
Speaker 1: I taught, and when I wasn't teaching, I was writing,
Speaker 1: and I use as the students used me used them.
Speaker 1: I would think, how do I explain this, how do
Speaker 1: I tell them so they can hear? You know, I'm
Speaker 1: an educator. I care a lot about education, And so
Speaker 1: we used each other, and suddenly it was all cut off.
Speaker 1: My whole thirty five years of what worked didn't work anymore.
Speaker 1: Not only didn't work, I couldn't go to a cafe
Speaker 1: to write, because you've got to get out of the house.
Speaker 1: Even me who's written many books, it doesn't matter. I
Speaker 1: got to get out of the house because sometimes I say, oh,
Speaker 1: you have such a nice house. I say this to myself,
Speaker 1: why don't you just stay home? And at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I haven't written a word. I'm just busy.
Speaker 1: I'm daydreaming, which is nothing bad. I never let myself
Speaker 1: do that. But I need to get out to get going.
Speaker 1: Me too, And the cafes were everything was closed. You
Speaker 1: couldn't go anywhere, and you couldn't go near friends. Yep,
Speaker 1: you couldn't go near anybody. We were all paranoid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we didn't know what COVID was even.
Speaker 3: Yeah. One of the things you did during there was
Speaker 3: you started meeting with a friend of yours, Eddie, Yes,
Speaker 3: in a park, you know, sitting six feet apart and
Speaker 3: I'm going to dive deep here. But one of the
Speaker 3: things that you guys talked about was like what you
Speaker 3: would miss when you died? Yes? Right, Because mortality is
Speaker 3: a theme in this book. You were coming face to
Speaker 3: face with it more. Maybe the fact that you had
Speaker 3: to stop brought some of that stuff up into you.
Speaker 3: Tell me about those conversations about what would I miss
Speaker 3: when I died?
Speaker 1: Well, it's an old topic that I use for writing.
Speaker 1: It teaches people how to be specific. You know, what
Speaker 1: will you miss? You can't say I'll miss being happy.
Speaker 1: People don't ever say that I'll miss the straw and
Speaker 1: my Coca Cola bottle, you know. Yeah, if I dare
Speaker 1: say Coca cola, it makes people specific because you die
Speaker 1: in a certain place, at a certain time a certain day,
Speaker 1: and also you mean I'm going to die. In the
Speaker 1: early years, I remember I would meet people and the
Speaker 1: first thing I would say to them, is where do
Speaker 1: you want to be buried? You know? And I didn't
Speaker 1: realize because I had been in with cydergery for so
Speaker 1: long that I didn't realize that was shocking. Actually, but
Speaker 1: maybe I wanted to be shocking when I was a
Speaker 1: young teacher. I wanted to wake people up, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Eddie and I sat opposite each other in a park
Speaker 1: and then we would whisper, if you take off your mask,
Speaker 1: I'll take off mine. I won't tell anyone. We looked
Speaker 1: around because the police were there. The police would come
Speaker 1: and monitor the parks, and so we stayed far enough
Speaker 1: away and we picked topics. One of them was, Eddie,
Speaker 1: tell me what you'll miss when you die. And Eddie
Speaker 1: isn't a real talker. We're good friends, so he'll talk
Speaker 1: with me. But you know, that stumped him, and I
Speaker 1: remember him looking around and then he said birds. I
Speaker 1: thought I didn't say it then, but I said, thought, Eddie,
Speaker 1: you are so dull, And then he's not. He's very,
Speaker 1: very smart. So then he said I'll miss Mary, of course,
Speaker 1: his wife. And then by the end, like I said,
Speaker 1: two more minutes. I think I said something like that,
Speaker 1: two more minutes, and he said, I won't miss you,
Speaker 1: you know, and he said, doesn't count when I don't talk.
Speaker 3: I said, yes, running down the clock.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: I think birds would be high on my list.
Speaker 1: Well I think he heard one. Yeah, you know, we
Speaker 1: were in the you know, a park and he looked around.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm very fond of them.
Speaker 1: That's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you know the names some of them?
Speaker 3: I don't. Generally my partner, Ginny does. I sort of
Speaker 3: take the approach of being a Zen student myself of like,
Speaker 3: can I just appreciate the bird without having to categorize
Speaker 3: it or call it anything? Can I just see that
Speaker 3: thing over there? So I don't get hung up in
Speaker 3: the names.
Speaker 1: You say, hung up? But to me, the names of
Speaker 1: birds of everything is important. It honors them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a specificity, right, It's certainly from a
Speaker 3: writing perspective, it's far better to talk about the golden
Speaker 3: breasted woodpecker versus the bird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. But it's not just writing. See, I think
Speaker 1: we have a fullse idea at Zen. Yes, it's good
Speaker 1: to hear it, to just stay and listen. I think
Speaker 1: it even deepens it to know the name. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: like and I walk around and know Zinya, I look
Speaker 1: at it more. I pay more attention if you know
Speaker 1: the name or because the mind, well, as you know,
Speaker 1: the mind is very tricky and the mind can just
Speaker 1: glide over everything. Flowers, I was present, they were very nice.
Speaker 3: I saw something today. You live here up in Santa Fe.
Speaker 3: We were up in Santa Fe today and we went
Speaker 3: to Upaya where you're going to give a talk. We
Speaker 3: sat this morning and we took a stroll afterwards, and
Speaker 3: I saw what I think were wild orchids. Is there
Speaker 3: such a thing? Is that? What I saw?
Speaker 1: Is that wild ords?
Speaker 3: Okay? Do you know of a pink plant? Well, I
Speaker 3: guess we're getting off topic here.
Speaker 1: My guess is you saw wild sweet peace?
Speaker 3: Do they look like orchids? Yes? Wild sweet Peace? Tell
Speaker 3: me about finding your path back? I mean, that's what
Speaker 3: this book is all about. So I'm asking you to
Speaker 3: sort of shorten something. But what were some of the
Speaker 3: things that allowed you to find your way back to
Speaker 3: having things to write about but also feeling more settled
Speaker 3: in yourself than you were during sort of this period
Speaker 3: that was difficult?
Speaker 1: It was really hard. Well, first, I want to say
Speaker 1: I'm amazed and very proud of this book because I
Speaker 1: didn't think I could pull off another book. I was
Speaker 1: really out in the cosmos, you know, during this time. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the things that really helped was my partner
Speaker 1: at the time said I'll drive you. I had an
Speaker 1: artist residency up in Washington State in Port Towns, and
Speaker 1: I was too out of it. I thought, well, well,
Speaker 1: I write about I'm not a writer. I'm going to cancel.
Speaker 1: She said I'll drive you. I said, I'm that bad,
Speaker 1: and she said yeah, in other words, get out of here.
Speaker 1: And as we were driving, we stayed overnight in Salt
Speaker 1: Lake City, and I was dead, I mean I was
Speaker 1: blown out. I did have and I write about it
Speaker 1: in there a vision of my mother, finally, because everyone
Speaker 1: would say to me, you never write about your mother.
Speaker 1: You've written about your father. And finally I wrote about
Speaker 1: my mother and felt compassion. I thought, is this how
Speaker 1: she felt as a fifties housewife? So I wrote a
Speaker 1: lot about her, but then to wake up as a writer.
Speaker 1: I was in that hotel room and we stayed overnight,
Speaker 1: and I call her something else because she doesn't want
Speaker 1: to be called by her name, so I won't say
Speaker 1: she was falling asleep she's a very good sleeper, and
Speaker 1: she was taking a nap and I suddenly became curious,
Speaker 1: where are we going? And I looked at the map
Speaker 1: because how did she pick her route? And I knew
Speaker 1: she did it. She's a computer whiz, so I know
Speaker 1: she did.
Speaker 3: It with the iPhone.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't believe in that stuff. And
Speaker 1: I was watching. You don't even know when you go
Speaker 1: from one stay to another, it doesn't tell you that
Speaker 1: that interests me. I think I should interest everybody. What
Speaker 1: state are you in? You know, metaphorically and also physically specifically.
Speaker 1: So I looked at the map. A map, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: you unfold and look and you can see different states
Speaker 1: and how they meet each other. I'm saying that because
Speaker 1: just last night my friend told me her son has
Speaker 1: never seen a map, yeah, and does not read one.
Speaker 1: So I was reading it and following going to Port Towns,
Speaker 1: and two hours north was the grave I have always
Speaker 1: wanted to go to. I always go to graves, and
Speaker 1: actually I think I wrote about it in my last
Speaker 1: book or the book before. I love to go to
Speaker 1: the graves of writers and artists I love, you know,
Speaker 1: to see where they ended. Up. People think it's weird,
Speaker 1: but I know from Zen or I just know we
Speaker 1: all die. I'm acknowledging it, and I get to tell
Speaker 1: that person, whoever it is, you know, I tell them
Speaker 1: all about how I felt about their work and stuff.
Speaker 1: And some of them are dead a long time. So
Speaker 1: I never thought i'd be near Idaho. And I saw
Speaker 1: we were going along the southern border of Idaho, but
Speaker 1: two hours north we could hit it. So I told
Speaker 1: my partner and she said, sure, why not. I allotted
Speaker 1: a lot of time for us, really, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: I started coming alive. I was starting to be Natalie
Speaker 1: again instead of a mummy, you know, just like having
Speaker 1: no idea what to do. And we drove up there
Speaker 1: and I went and found Hemingway's grave. Now Hemingway, you know,
Speaker 1: he's nuts. He was nuts. They did a documentary on
Speaker 1: him that was, you know, really revealed even worse.
Speaker 3: Than I had and we knew.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he was my first teacher, not physically, but
Speaker 1: I would read Death in the afternoon and Movable Feast,
Speaker 1: and I'd study it as writing because I was drawn
Speaker 1: to it, and really, writers are your teachers. So I
Speaker 1: went and found his grave and it was the sun
Speaker 1: was almost setting, and I found it and I just
Speaker 1: sat there and poured out my heart to him. Now
Speaker 1: I knew he couldn't have cared less. And he killed
Speaker 1: himself in nineteen sixty two, a long time ago, so
Speaker 1: it probably was just dust down there, but it was
Speaker 1: his dust. And I wanted to talk clearly. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to him and thank him and just go
Speaker 1: on about my life and what should I do? And
Speaker 1: I'm lost, and you know, I went on and on,
Speaker 1: and I remember telling him about Haiku. I just finished
Speaker 1: a Haiku book. In the middle, I thought, he doesn't
Speaker 1: know about Haiku. Shut up that only he doesn't care
Speaker 1: about Haiku. I didn't mention zen. I don't think. I
Speaker 1: didn't mention anything he wouldn't like. I didn't mention alcohol
Speaker 1: because I don't drink. But I did talk a lot
Speaker 1: about writing, which I knew he'd be interested in. And
Speaker 1: then I said, well, what should I do. Of course,
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to answer me. He probably thought I
Speaker 1: was an idiot. If he was down there, what is
Speaker 1: this girl with a heavy New York accent doing here?
Speaker 1: But the answer came to me, and it wasn't any
Speaker 1: different than I've always known, shut up and write, keep
Speaker 1: your hand moving, no matter what, Just like when you
Speaker 1: learned with kydigeary Sin, you know, no matter what you felt,
Speaker 1: you sit still and just sit with it and it
Speaker 1: roars through you like those wolves, but you stay there.
Speaker 1: I went up there and I just started to write
Speaker 1: a book about how I hate the Internet, which I
Speaker 1: knew was not going to be popular and.
Speaker 3: Not a big seller in today's age.
Speaker 1: No, no, but I quieted down about it. I even
Speaker 1: had a dream, you know, you see me change.
Speaker 3: Yeah in the book.
Speaker 1: You doesn't mean I'm in love with the internet now,
Speaker 1: but I understand it better.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what was your first question? I forgot.
Speaker 3: I don't remember now. Oh we were talking about how
Speaker 3: you came back to life.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, And that's how I came back to life.
Speaker 1: And I read a book. When I was up there,
Speaker 1: I was alone for a month and I had a
Speaker 1: great time. When I was home, I felt isolated and
Speaker 1: you know, awful. But given permission to be alone, then
Speaker 1: you could.
Speaker 3: Enjoy choosing it consciously, like I'm going to withdraw is
Speaker 3: different than everything being withdrawn from you exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it, and I started reading, and I
Speaker 1: read this book that nobody is important. No one has
Speaker 1: mentioned it, Dirt by Bill Boufford, and I'm pronouncing his
Speaker 1: last name wrong. And it's about him going to France
Speaker 1: to learn about cooking. I just like my old love
Speaker 1: of literature, and I couldn't stop laughing. I could read
Speaker 1: till one in the morning and sleep till you know, noon.
Speaker 1: I think I read till three in the morning and
Speaker 1: slept till one in the afternoon, and everything was gone.
Speaker 1: I could do what I want. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I said, how important laughter was during this time
Speaker 1: of COVID, you know, And I was just having this
Speaker 1: great old time with myself.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think levity's a spiritual virtue for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 3: hi everyone. One of the things that I know many
Speaker 3: of you struggle with is anxiety, and very recently I
Speaker 3: shared some tips on managing anxiety in our newsletter. Specifically,
Speaker 3: I shared a practice on clarifying your values. In the practice,
Speaker 3: you write down one or two of your core values
Speaker 3: and then identify one action step that aligns with them.
Speaker 3: I find that taking one positive action towards things that
Speaker 3: matter to me really helps reduce anxiety. Also, I have
Speaker 3: a reflection question what positive experiences have you had today
Speaker 3: that you could focus on instead of your anxiety. Every Wednesday,
Speaker 3: I send out a newsletter called a Weekly by to
Speaker 3: Wisdom for a wiser, happier You, And in it, I
Speaker 3: give tips and reflections like you just got And it's
Speaker 3: an opportunity for you to pause, reflect, and practice. It's
Speaker 3: a way to stay focused on what's important and meaningful
Speaker 3: to you. Each month we focus on a theme. This
Speaker 3: month's theme is anxiety, and next month we'll be focusing
Speaker 3: on acceptance. To sign up for these bits of weekly wisdom,
Speaker 3: go to Goodwolf dot me slash newsletter. Interestingly, you were
Speaker 3: just talking about this freedom to kind of do whatever whenever.
Speaker 3: But one of the things that you've talked a lot
Speaker 3: about over the years is this phrase structure liberates, which
Speaker 3: is a phrase that I love. Also share with me
Speaker 3: how that's worked for you and what that means to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's what blew the top off everything
Speaker 1: was during COVID there was no structure all that you know,
Speaker 1: and I like structure, and I knew when Eddie and
Speaker 1: I met, and we only met two hours once a
Speaker 1: week in the park, the same place, the same routine,
Speaker 1: and I thought, uh huh, that's his structure. I could
Speaker 1: make that the structure of the book, or at least
Speaker 1: it's arts to be the structure of the book. But
Speaker 1: then he has a terrible bike accident, remember, and he's
Speaker 1: in the hospital, so it blows the structure. And blowing
Speaker 1: the structure, oh now what. But in blowing it, having
Speaker 1: been structured for a while and have your feet on
Speaker 1: the ground, then you can blow it up. But you
Speaker 1: have to have a structure, some kind of structure. It's
Speaker 1: very comforting, it gives you something to do. And Zen
Speaker 1: was a very tight structure. But I learned within that structure.
Speaker 1: I learned the importance of structure because.
Speaker 3: You can relax into it. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 3: any of us want to live a life that is
Speaker 3: as structured as Zen is all of the time. But
Speaker 3: there's no decision making about am I going to do this?
Speaker 3: Am I going to do that? Should I do what? You?
Speaker 3: Just the next thing is clear. You just go do it,
Speaker 3: and you could just relax into it. I did behavioral
Speaker 3: coaching with people for years, and one of the biggest
Speaker 3: groups of people, and it was a surprise to me
Speaker 3: that I got we're recently retired people who had said
Speaker 3: when I retire, I'm going to do all these things,
Speaker 3: and then they retired and six months later or a
Speaker 3: year later, they weren't doing any of those things. They
Speaker 3: were completely lost. And it's for the reason you just said,
Speaker 3: their structure vanished exactly. And I think we all need
Speaker 3: different degrees of structure. I need more so, I think
Speaker 3: than maybe some people, because I get into indecision really easily.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's such a valuable thing in our lives.
Speaker 1: And we're never taught it or it was never mentioned.
Speaker 3: We're in it like in the school system, but you're right,
Speaker 3: we're not taught the value of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we don't know the value of it exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: but there was a great value in it in structure.
Speaker 1: And I realize now that I keep calling myself semi
Speaker 1: retired because when I say retired, all my friends say,
Speaker 1: you're not retired, you're doing this this. But I've learned
Speaker 1: it's really important for me to make a list each
Speaker 1: morning what I'm going to do. Otherwise at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I'm just stay dreaming, which isn't bad, right,
Speaker 1: isn't bad at all, But it's again the two wolves.
Speaker 1: You need a third wolf, one that does nothing.
Speaker 3: I was gonna call it lazy wolf, but that's a
Speaker 3: pejorative term for the wolf, the chilled out wolf.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the chills out wolf. That's a good one.
Speaker 3: There's a line in one of your books that I
Speaker 3: just really love, and you say, in the middle of
Speaker 3: the world, make one positive step, in the center of chaos,
Speaker 3: make one definitive act. Just right. I love that idea
Speaker 3: of one positive step, like, wherever you are, wherever you
Speaker 3: find yourself, stake a claim right there with one positive thing.
Speaker 1: You know. It was hysterical when you read it. I
Speaker 1: got so into it. I thought, who wrote that?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, I thought, what are they going to do? What's
Speaker 1: the step they're going to take? You did say I
Speaker 1: wrote it, But I got so into it. I thought,
Speaker 1: what are they going to do? And then when you
Speaker 1: said right, I thought, oh, yeah, I remember that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So for you, that's the positive step.
Speaker 3: I just love that idea. Yes, in the middle of
Speaker 3: the world or in the center of chaos. Yeah, there's
Speaker 3: an old recovery phrase, you know, just do the next
Speaker 3: right thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's one.
Speaker 3: It's just that like when you're lost. Just do the
Speaker 3: next thing, do the next positive step.
Speaker 1: Don't reach for a whiskey.
Speaker 3: Yes, sometimes it's a positive step, not a positive step
Speaker 3: you're trying not to drink. Particularly as we're talking about
Speaker 3: Hemingway did not do him any favors on the subject
Speaker 3: of graves. You visited the grave of the one guest
Speaker 3: I most wanted on this show that I will never get,
Speaker 3: which was Leonard Cohen.
Speaker 1: Oh. Yeah, I hadn't planned to. We were just wandering
Speaker 1: around in Canada, and then suddenly I was at Montreal
Speaker 1: where I went to some camp. I didn't go to
Speaker 1: summer camp there, but one of the owners was from
Speaker 1: Montreal and McGill, you know. So I wanted to go
Speaker 1: to McGill and see McGill because I was the only
Speaker 1: one in the world who knew the song. The M
Speaker 1: is for old McGill. The C stands for her courage drill.
Speaker 1: And people looked at me and said, I didn't even
Speaker 1: know we had a song. So I was dying to
Speaker 1: go there. And yeah, I went to Leonard Cohens's grave.
Speaker 3: And amazingly, while you were there, you meet a woman.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't realize, you know, when you're in
Speaker 1: it and things happen you don't realize how extraordinary they are.
Speaker 1: When I read it for the audio book about going
Speaker 1: to Leonard Cohens's grave, I was, how did that happen?
Speaker 1: She was shocked. First of all, I didn't know it
Speaker 1: was the sixth anniversary of his death. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1: He's been gone that long? And there were fresh flowers
Speaker 1: and she had brought them because it was his sixth
Speaker 1: anniversary and she'd been friends with him. And then it
Speaker 1: turns out she was the sister to Maria, who was
Speaker 1: from you Pia. When she heard I was from Santa Fe,
Speaker 1: she said even that I was blase. Oh yeah, pu
Speaker 1: Pie is down the road from me, and she was,
Speaker 1: oh my god. She was aware how amazing it was.
Speaker 1: I wasn't until much later.
Speaker 3: Right, right, You met a woman whose sister studied at
Speaker 3: the Zen Center that you teach at, and you knew her. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was nervous if I was saying the right person,
Speaker 1: because we didn't have a picture anything. But the next
Speaker 1: day she said, I'll take you out for lunch, and
Speaker 1: I'll take you to one of Leonard's favorite places, a deli.
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, okay, I'll go. So we met and
Speaker 1: sure enough that was Maria. I really didn't know who
Speaker 1: she was. And I got to tell Leonard thank you.
Speaker 3: Yes, I would like the opportunity to do that someday.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you, Leonard. And you go to someone's grave,
Speaker 1: you learn a lot. I knew he would be next
Speaker 1: to his mother, and it's very rare. I've gone to
Speaker 1: see a lot of artists they're not buried next to
Speaker 1: their mother. And the whole family, the Cohen family, but
Speaker 1: he would go back a lot to Montreal to visit
Speaker 1: his family. It's rare that you stay connected with your family.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: So I was very touching, and Hallelujah was written at
Speaker 1: the base of his gravestone in gold letters.
Speaker 3: An extraordinary person, Yes, yeah he was.
Speaker 1: And he was the same practitioner.
Speaker 3: He was he was. I was friends with a monk
Speaker 3: that was at Mount Baldy with Leonard, and I asked him.
Speaker 3: I said, look, I know this is a real imposition
Speaker 3: to ask this, but do you think you could ask
Speaker 3: Leonard whether he would be a guest on the show.
Speaker 3: And he said, I will ask, but you should know
Speaker 3: his zen name means great silence, so I wouldn't hold
Speaker 3: your breath and it didn't end up happening. It didn't. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Another thing that you wrote. This line really struck me.
Speaker 3: You said, our hope is that writing releases us instead,
Speaker 3: maybe it deepens the echo. We call out to our past,
Speaker 3: and our past calls back. We are alone and not alone.
Speaker 1: That was pretty good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, did an old Friend from Far Away? It's from
Speaker 3: that book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, deepens the echo?
Speaker 3: Yeah, a beautiful idea.
Speaker 1: I want people to understand that I'm as surprised as
Speaker 1: maybe you are or anybody when I hear it later.
Speaker 1: Because when you write, and this is the pleasure of writing,
Speaker 1: you eventually, like mixing up oil and vinegar, the vinegar
Speaker 1: drops and the oil gets clear. So at the beginning
Speaker 1: of my notebooks, or the beginning of each time I
Speaker 1: sit down, as usually, I have an itch on my back.
Speaker 1: My hand hurts, and then you know, I like to
Speaker 1: complain to begin the wall so I can break it down.
Speaker 1: And then eventually you go to a deeper place where
Speaker 1: writing does writing and you're out of the way.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean that it's not Natalie writing. It's
Speaker 1: not like a soothsayer comes through me. But it's the
Speaker 1: mind with that echoing, the mind that's echoing with everybody
Speaker 1: and all mind. It's not my mind. So what did
Speaker 1: I say there?
Speaker 3: Writing does it releases, it deepens the echo. But the
Speaker 3: other part that I love, we are alone and not alone?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, when you're writing and you're really writing, you're
Speaker 1: not alone. You're with all sension beings. Really you're just
Speaker 1: speaking of your time, your generation, your moment on the earth.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're not alone. You're never alone. And that's
Speaker 1: what people need to understand that writing isn't alone. It's
Speaker 1: connecting with ourselves and with everyone else.
Speaker 3: When you're working on a book, are you also doing
Speaker 3: more free writing? Also? How are you managing your writing time? Right,
Speaker 3: You've got a book you're working on, but I get
Speaker 3: the sense you're also writing things that aren't for the book.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'm just doing writing practice, and really for
Speaker 1: the book. I only know writing practice. Something like that
Speaker 1: only could come out of me with writing practice, So
Speaker 1: I don't know anything else. So I keep my hand
Speaker 1: going and then when I look back, there's energy, you know,
Speaker 1: there's energy with some words and they're really alive and
Speaker 1: that I've allowed, especially for poems, I used to be
Speaker 1: a poet, but for a book right now, I'm having
Speaker 1: a wonderful time in that I'm just diving deep and
Speaker 1: I don't care where it goes, and I don't know
Speaker 1: one is connected to the other. I just go. And oddly,
Speaker 1: I didn't think my right hand would ever fail me
Speaker 1: because I handwrite. But it's been hurting, and so I
Speaker 1: save it for writing. So I do a lot of things.
Speaker 1: I brush my teeth now with my left hand. I
Speaker 1: do lots of things with my left hand to save
Speaker 1: my right hand. I only know writing.
Speaker 3: Practice, And what is writing practice for you?
Speaker 1: It's showing up, keeping your hand going and getting to
Speaker 1: that place of writing. Does writing and you're out of
Speaker 1: the way, which is so freeing. It's so freeing for
Speaker 1: the other people, for us. And you can hear it
Speaker 1: when your students, when we read to each other. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they're just alive. It's alive. But it doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: a lot like grass. It's alive. They're present to their life, yep,
Speaker 1: and it's just it's fabulous and it's their life. I
Speaker 1: read that all the time, Louise Eredrick. Many writers, you
Speaker 1: mean my life, you mean my Jewish life in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: is valuable enough to write about. That's my main interest
Speaker 1: is having people have an encouragement that their experience is
Speaker 1: valuable enough to write about. Because we didn't think so,
Speaker 1: you know, we thought only whitmen high on a hill,
Speaker 1: struck by lightning. Women's wonderful. But we had this idea
Speaker 1: with writing down the bones that broke the idea. Anybody
Speaker 1: could write anybody. And you can't believe when Bones came out,
Speaker 1: who I heard from coal workers vice president of insurance
Speaker 1: agencies in Florida would call me and say, in the
Speaker 1: old days you looked people up.
Speaker 3: In the phone book. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he called me and said, we have nothing in common.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he was, you know, politically and everything different
Speaker 1: than me, he said, but I wanted to write, and
Speaker 1: you gave me the way, you know, So it broke
Speaker 1: it open. And interestingly, over the years, Bones came out
Speaker 1: thirty five years ago, it's been translated all over the place.
Speaker 1: And I was with Henry, Henry Shukman, who was a
Speaker 1: friend of yours when Wild Mine, my second book, came out,
Speaker 1: and it was more about writing practice, and England just
Speaker 1: tore it down and Henry was luckily there and I
Speaker 1: read it aloud to Henry, and Henry said, don't pay
Speaker 1: any attention. They're just uptight about literature. And sure enough
Speaker 1: France and Israel, who they both honor literature so much
Speaker 1: that they were the last ones to translate. Interesting, but
Speaker 1: I lived long enough to see them do it too.
Speaker 3: It's interesting you say that because you clearly spend a
Speaker 3: fair part of the book talking about how you don't
Speaker 3: like the Internet. You've changed a little bit, but still
Speaker 3: not your thing exactly. One of the things that I
Speaker 3: think has been interesting about the Internet is that it
Speaker 3: has allowed and given permission for people to write and
Speaker 3: publish directly to the world. Right. This podcast goes out
Speaker 3: to a lot of people, right, And I didn't need
Speaker 3: to get permission from any ABC News or anybody to
Speaker 3: do it. We just did it and gave it to
Speaker 3: the world. And the Internet has done that, I think,
Speaker 3: for better and worse. It has democratized, to some degree,
Speaker 3: the ability to write and create and give it directly
Speaker 3: to people without the gatekeepers we used to have.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that because I didn't understand.
Speaker 3: That till just now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that I would be radical about and would like
Speaker 1: write what I didn't like about it, and I saw
Speaker 1: it in my students as time went on, their minds
Speaker 1: were being taken from them, their memory, everything, and nobody
Speaker 1: could tell me how to just describe how to get
Speaker 1: to their house. You know, I've taken tremendous pleasure. And well,
Speaker 1: the big cottonwood on the corner you turn when you
Speaker 1: see that big cottonwood, you know nobody and nobody. And
Speaker 1: I think people have gotten ruder, Like I'm going to
Speaker 1: Portland and I'll ask someone in Portland, Portland, Maine. I'll say,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying this a few years ago when I
Speaker 1: was there, I said, this restaurant is it near here?
Speaker 1: This street? And they said, I don't know. Look on Google.
Speaker 1: They're very rude now or they'll pull out Google. I said,
Speaker 1: how long have you lived here? Twenty years? You don't
Speaker 1: know the street. It's supposed to be right around the corner.
Speaker 1: So I think it's taken people away from themselves too.
Speaker 1: I like what you're saying, but also you don't talk
Speaker 1: about structure. I'm going to say something that's I guess dangerous.
Speaker 1: Now maybe it isn't. I'm not in the world of
Speaker 1: the computer so much, so you know, when it was
Speaker 1: what was it Arab Spring and everybody thought, see how
Speaker 1: fabulous it is all these cell phones every and I thought, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't have structures. They don't have structure for what
Speaker 1: they want. Afterwards, Yeah, and it scared me, and it
Speaker 1: proved to be true. You got to know where you're going.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's no doubt that our current technological age,
Speaker 3: I think, like all technologies, brings a host of positive
Speaker 3: and negative benefits and the ubiquity of devices at this point,
Speaker 3: I think anybody who's a thinking person in today's day
Speaker 3: and age will say, yikes, right, I've got a weird
Speaker 3: relationship with these things. And if I'm not careful, I
Speaker 3: have more of a relationship with these devices than I
Speaker 3: do anything else. And that I think collectively most people
Speaker 3: would be with you on that's not a good thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it scared me because I saw it with
Speaker 1: my students, and I lost interest in teaching because it
Speaker 1: was way beyond me at the point I get it, like, wow,
Speaker 1: I think people are coming around now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are certainly lots of movements of you know,
Speaker 3: people trying to have more space in their life. There's
Speaker 3: been a big resurgence to your background Jewish background of
Speaker 3: digital sabbaths right where you know shabbat where people will
Speaker 3: take a day a week where they just don't connect
Speaker 3: to anything digital. Yeah, you know, and there's been more
Speaker 3: of that sort of happening. I want to talk about
Speaker 3: working with your mind. You've got a line about you said,
Speaker 3: I've never gained control of my mind, And now here's
Speaker 3: the great line, how do you dominate an ocean? But
Speaker 3: I began to form a real relationship with it. So
Speaker 3: talk about that idea of because I think a lot
Speaker 3: of us are thinking that in meditation practice or in
Speaker 3: our day to day lives that we've got to control, are.
Speaker 1: Thinking you'll never get there, you know that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, when I first started zen or sitting, I don't
Speaker 1: even want to call it zen anymore because separates it
Speaker 1: out just sitting still with my mind. First of all,
Speaker 1: I had no idea I thought all the time, and
Speaker 1: most people too. Yeah, yes, I didn't know that I
Speaker 1: was thinking all the time, and I didn't know that
Speaker 1: I couldn't stop it, right, Yeah, that you can't make
Speaker 1: it a pancake and fry it and eat it. You
Speaker 1: just can't stop your mind. So that was just that
Speaker 1: on that level meeting it and then having a relationship.
Speaker 1: Of course, you can't dominate the ocean, but you learn
Speaker 1: to swim in it. You can get a few swimsuits
Speaker 1: and you can learn how to dive under the waves,
Speaker 1: you know, and have a relationship with the ocean and
Speaker 1: a relationship with your mind. You know, sometimes I sit
Speaker 1: down to write for a whole notebook, maybe a month
Speaker 1: I'll spend filling a whole notebook. I have never land
Speaker 1: in the whole notebook. I'm just it's a month where
Speaker 1: I can't land, but accepting that and not trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, get somewhere with it. Just you know, the
Speaker 1: ocean has a hurricane, is picking up a hurricane, and
Speaker 1: just no matter what I do, I can't control it.
Speaker 3: Right. Well, I think it's interesting you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 3: very hardcore Zen practice with your teacher, which, like you said,
Speaker 3: when you're on shashine which means retreat, you are sitting
Speaker 3: an extraordinary amount of time, you know, an uncomfortable amount
Speaker 3: of time in many many ways, right, agonizing, Right, So
Speaker 3: there's a lot of structure that's trying to hold things
Speaker 3: in place, and yet it's very easy, I think, to
Speaker 3: take that structural mind and apply it to your mind
Speaker 3: when you're sitting there. But when you're sitting there is
Speaker 3: when you sort of have to let the control go.
Speaker 3: It's a weird dichotomy, right.
Speaker 1: Yes, in a way, it's friendly in that it's made
Speaker 1: everything so structured so you could bear or not be
Speaker 1: devoured by the wildness of your mind. We've seen people
Speaker 1: who don't know about it structure and just go off
Speaker 1: in their mind all over the place. I was sitting
Speaker 1: next to a mother last night who was talking about
Speaker 1: her son. He had problems with drugs and stuff, but
Speaker 1: more than that, he was wild. Like, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: one thing you did. They said, he came at Christmas.
Speaker 1: He's in LA and they're in on the East coast.
Speaker 1: He came in a bathing suit, but he didn't get
Speaker 1: that it was warm in LA. So of course you
Speaker 1: wouldn't travel in a bathing suit anyway. That's how wild
Speaker 1: he is, right, But then he landed in December and
Speaker 1: was freezing. So I loved it, you know, And I
Speaker 1: thought that kid, if he could harness his energy, he'd
Speaker 1: be fabulous.
Speaker 3: Right. That is sort of, at least for me, has
Speaker 3: been a really tricky thing, which is tamping down or
Speaker 3: put in some containers around that wildness, right. I mean
Speaker 3: I was a homeless heroin addict at twenty four, like
Speaker 3: it was imperative that I do that. And yet you
Speaker 3: can then drive all the wildness I won't say away,
Speaker 3: but deeper underground where it's really hard to find. And
Speaker 3: that's been a challenge for me is how do I
Speaker 3: balance the wolves kind of back to the beginning, how
Speaker 3: do I allow that energy that was there that drove
Speaker 3: my use, which was a seeking of sort, right, And
Speaker 3: I think seeking is good. It was a seeking for connection,
Speaker 3: which I still have. It's been an interesting thing to
Speaker 3: try and integrate.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. And I could communicate to that mother. She
Speaker 1: was wonderful. She's a wonderful person and I love her,
Speaker 1: but I could see her agony around her. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: and she can't make things happen for it, no, No, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I've been in recovery since I was twenty
Speaker 3: five years old, So I've talked to hundreds at this point,
Speaker 3: families of you know, addicts, and it's heartbreaking. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: just you can't. There's not much you can do. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there are things you can do. I think that make
Speaker 3: it worse. I think there are clearly things you can
Speaker 3: do that make it worse, and there are things that
Speaker 3: might make it more conducive for that person getting better,
Speaker 3: but ultimately is out of your hands, which most things
Speaker 3: really are.
Speaker 1: Well, you just said that beautiful line. You probably didn't
Speaker 1: hear yourself saying it that. At twenty four, I had
Speaker 1: to do this. Yeah, and I wish that mother could
Speaker 1: hear that. Who knows where people need to go?
Speaker 3: Yep, exactly exactly. Yeah. If my mother were not alive
Speaker 3: and occasionally listening to this podcast, we would have a
Speaker 3: tremendous discussion about mothers. But I'm not going to go there, right,
Speaker 3: I've just got to say it's on my life, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm always like, well, we'll talk about it after, Okay.
Speaker 3: So what do you think has been the lesson that
Speaker 3: has taken you the longest to learn?
Speaker 1: Oh? What a great question. That I'm ignorant. I really
Speaker 1: am very ignorant, and I'm not putting myself down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just ignorant, kind of stupid, and dumb is different dumb.
Speaker 1: I was trained that dumb is good. In Zen, it
Speaker 1: was very good to be dumb, and as a writer.
Speaker 1: It's good to be dumb, but I'm just sometimes stupid
Speaker 1: and you know, and thick skinned and ignorant. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention I think twelve Step is absolutely wonderful. Yeah, yeah, brilliant,
Speaker 1: just brilliant.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It saved my life a couple of times, for sure.
Speaker 3: For sure. Ignorance is a term that Buddhists use a lot.
Speaker 3: We talk about it. What does it mean to you?
Speaker 1: Numb, unaware right in the middle of being aware, I'm
Speaker 1: incredibly unaware. You know, I could be teaching brilliantly, but
Speaker 1: I'm not awake to think dynamics as they are. Now
Speaker 1: that I've been semi retired, what's wonderful is I've slowed
Speaker 1: down and I notice things I'd never noticed, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I didn't notice about politics, about countries, about
Speaker 1: human beings, about refugees. Can you imagine having no place
Speaker 1: to settle and then not knowing the language. Of course,
Speaker 1: for me, that's the worst of all. You can't communicate,
Speaker 1: you don't know anybody. I just didn't get it. And
Speaker 1: I have many students who were from other countries, and
Speaker 1: you know, I was teaching them writing practice. You know,
Speaker 1: I wrote a book in two thousand and four called
Speaker 1: The Great Failure where I find out that Kindagiary had
Speaker 1: been sleeping with some of the students.
Speaker 3: Oh, I wish i'd read that one. I'm gonna have
Speaker 3: to check that out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nobody talked to me for a year after it,
Speaker 1: No one, and still people are not talking about Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was really hard for me. But what I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about Kydagiary, he gave us this incredible dharma. I'll
Speaker 1: love him forever. I'm dedicated to him forever. And he
Speaker 1: was a suffering human being.
Speaker 3: The two wolves again, right, Yeah, just because he had
Speaker 3: great wisdom didn't mean that it drove out those other elements.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Great, which is the way we'd like it to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, especially as Americans, we have very idealistic ideas
Speaker 1: about people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know who it was who said don't
Speaker 3: meet your teachers or don't meet your idols. Another line
Speaker 3: about like a dead teacher is good because they won't
Speaker 3: disappoint you, right like they you know, because humans will,
Speaker 3: all of them, all of us, in some way, shape
Speaker 3: or form, now some more than others. Yes, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm fascinated by what you're describing with category and some
Speaker 3: of the impropriety I'm fascinated by in sort of like
Speaker 3: watching a car crash in a way, what happens to
Speaker 3: those communities. It kind of breaks my heart to see
Speaker 3: what happens in those communities because people respond differently and
Speaker 3: get very polarized. There's a great book by a guy
Speaker 3: named Jozanne Jack Hobner. He was the monk who knew
Speaker 3: Leonard Cohen at Mount Baldy and their teacher when he
Speaker 3: was like one hundred and five. Revelations come out and
Speaker 3: the book details really just as a leader in that
Speaker 3: community for him, how difficult it was. You know. I
Speaker 3: used to think about that with all the people who
Speaker 3: love chogim trunka Rimpha, right, I.
Speaker 1: Would think he was my first teacher.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he was that very imperfect person. Are you
Speaker 3: able to separate the message or the art from the artist,
Speaker 3: because you was talked about doing that with Hemingway, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Hemingway was a very imperfect man in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: He behaved in ways that many of us today would say, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, but you revere him in a way. How
Speaker 3: do you separate those?
Speaker 1: Well? I know now I went to Kindageary thinking he
Speaker 1: walks his talk, but I understand nobody does you do
Speaker 1: for a while. But to see a whole human being
Speaker 1: is not to be ignorant, is the willingness not to
Speaker 1: be ignorant. I'm very idealistic. I knew I was uncomfortable
Speaker 1: with Trump. I didn't understand, and luckily I was glad
Speaker 1: I had the excuse to get married and move to Minneapolis,
Speaker 1: where it's freezing cold. Nobody would move to otherwise, And
Speaker 1: there was kinda Gary sitting alone, and I thought he's perfect.
Speaker 1: But in a way, it was great that I thought that,
Speaker 1: because I really went full hog.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know.
Speaker 1: And when I finally found out it was six years
Speaker 1: after he died. That's how hidden it was. I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to make of it. But I wasn't destroyed.
Speaker 1: I was destroyed by writing the book and people no
Speaker 1: one talked to me from your old amy silence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I knew during that year i'd either I'd either
Speaker 1: die or become my own person, become my own authority.
Speaker 3: And you're still here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So eventually I did. Yeah, but it wasn't fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I have a really complicated story like that in
Speaker 3: my past. I had a high school teacher who I
Speaker 3: would not have graduated high school without him. I was
Speaker 3: going to be expelled after my sophomore year. And this
Speaker 3: guy took a great interest in me and really turned
Speaker 3: my high school career around. And I spent time with
Speaker 3: him in the state of Washington and wo'd be Island.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: Years later it comes out that some of the other
Speaker 3: boys that he was with were molested by him, and
Speaker 3: I never had any of that. So that's this complicated thing.
Speaker 3: He was this life saver for me and a monster
Speaker 3: for other people. Yeah, it's really complicated to hold both
Speaker 3: those things. And that's kind of what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: You have to get your arms around both. That's what
Speaker 1: I said. People said to me, why did you have
Speaker 1: to write that about Kindergary. He gave us the dharma,
Speaker 1: he brought it from Japan. I said, well, figure this.
Speaker 1: I was seventeen and I adored my father, just adored
Speaker 1: and we had a great relationship. But my fifteen year
Speaker 1: old sister was being abused by him. Don't you think
Speaker 1: that would have changed me how I felt about my father? Right,
Speaker 1: it's a willingness. You have to very large, You have to,
Speaker 1: you know, be very large, as I just said that,
Speaker 1: I'm holding my arm. I'm sad as though I'm you know,
Speaker 1: four hundred pounds, and I'm wondering if some people that
Speaker 1: isn't their effort to become large. You know, in this country,
Speaker 1: we don't know how, and so we eat instead. But
Speaker 1: we really want to see in a large way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we want to be able to hold it all.
Speaker 3: We want to be able to integrate the wolves back
Speaker 3: to where we started.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I think that is a great place to
Speaker 3: wrap up. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 1: It's been wonderful. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.
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