Natalie Goldberg « i like zen

Natalie Goldberg

National day on writing

Wow. There’s a national holiday to celebrate writing practice.

Earlier this month, Congress agreed to designate today, October 20th, as the National Day on Writing to officially recognize the following:

“… the social nature of writing invites people of every age, profession, and walk of life to create meaning through composing… writers continue to learn how to write for different purposes, audiences, and occasions throughout their lifetimes… the National Day on Writing encourages all Americans to write, as well as to enjoy and learn from the writing of others…”

I’m not particularly patriotic but I do feel an odd sense of pride today. What other government encourages their people to write and to enjoy and learn from the writing of others?

It’s as if Natalie Goldberg just became President of the United States! I think about who might be on her Cabinet… Katigiri Roshi, Bob Dylan, Ernest Hemingway, Allen Ginsberg, Jamaica Kincaid, Patricia Hampl, Rob Wilder, Thich Nhat Hahn… and other truth seekers of their time. I can see them now… slow walking across the front lawn of the White House. I see congressional members sitting in silence and doing timed writing practice on debate topics. They take turn reading their writings… no commenting… practicing non-judgement… no good, no bad.

The House of Senators and Representatives become a sangha… practicing the universal responsibility of compassion. When there’s misunderstanding, they look to Natalie’s rules on writing and reflecting: “Continue under all circumstances. Don’t be tossed away. Make positive effort for the good.”

OK, maybe a “Zen party” in our political system is too good to be true. But it is amazing that writing practice is a national agenda item for America.

I remember the feeling of “putting myself out there” when I extended my writing practice to blogging. I paced from the living room to dining room thinking, “this is just garbage. Who exactly is going to read this stuff?” And then another writer and friend sent me a message, “Just read the blog…found it quite full of space and inspiring. Keep going!”

Receiving these simple words of encouragement led me from pacing to posting my next entry. Sometimes, more than the burning desire to write, we need encouragement. In my own practice, I have realized that writing is not enough. Just like suffering is not enough. You must transform emptiness into empathy and enthusiasm. With each practice, I face the fear and find the joy in sharing my writing. In this way, I both live and die with each practice. Natalie Goldberg encourages us to see writing practice as a way of “living twice.”

The practice of writing, reading and listening to one another is a tremendous offering of compassion and kindess. It enables us each to slow down… putting pen to paper… mindfully inking our crooked paths to truth… writing what’s in front of our faces… becoming fearless and free. We begin to attain the knowledge that when we practice, we practice not just for ourselves but for others. Alone and in the aggregate, we practice believing in ourselves. Facing the fear of writing and having friends who nicely tell you to “shut up and write” is all part of the practice. Today, we are lucky to have the backing of the entire country… America, let’s pledge allegiance to the pen… pick a topic… ten minutes… go!

Natalie Goldberg / Zen / memoir — No Comments
20
Oct 09

Going Home

Husking rice,
a child squints up
to view the moon.

Forming a mantra of sorts, I recite over and over this haiku from Basho. Poetic displacement allows me to deeply ponder how I, a thirty-something year old business woman, am also a third world child. I see myself, a starry eyed child, harvesting the magic of night and imagining how many villages occupy the earth. Scattered grains of rice are glued to the night sky and tell the story of many lives, many moons. Somehow, I am casted – a displaced speck of rice – transplanted across the ocean… to a life busy with business trips, rush hour traffic and the desire to write my memoir.

It is when life gets its busiest, that I think, “I could just as easily be in a rice field.” Then the lens to life brings everything into focus with the right perspective: life is a wondrous journey. Having humble beginnings as a constant backdrop to day-to-day living is a gift. It reminds me that everything relies upon everything else. My present moment is a result of actions and inactions taken by others both known and unknown to me. This is the river of life… past, present and future flow simultaneously in one moment.

I think about my story… almost dying in an impoverished refugee camp to reliving my past with writing retreats in posh zen settings. I think about how I was a one-year old baby among four brothers, one sister and my parents. There were eight of us divided into two canoes on the Mekong River. Under the watchful eye of my aunt, who signaled us to cross when the communist guards were away, we would escape in broad daylight. As rice farmers, we were accustomed to relying on the river for living. However, on that day, it served as our life line.

I have yet to return to Laos. But day-to-day, the desire grows to “go home.”

There is a chapter entitled, “Going Home” in “Writing Down the Bones where Natalie encourages you to “go home” and return to your roots so that you can be free – so that you stop avoiding anything that you are. This doesn’t mean that we become stuck in our past but that we recognize that it has and always will shape our lives. There is oneness in our beginnings, endings, past, future and present. Acknowledging this allows us to understand ourselves, our family and our world.

I recently watched a talk on TED of Chimamanda Adichie, a Nigerian writer who is my age, on the danger of a single story. She encourages us to delve deeply into our own stories and to see that the story of our lives is very much like a river… filled with many contributers and tributaries. When we recognize this, we have great understanding that the present moment is backed by a rich past and serves as fertile soil for our fateful futures.

With such truth, we can “go home” in each waking moment. With thoughtful breaths, I am the baby crossing the Mekong as much as I am the busy American aching to write her memoir… to study how one soul carries the spirit of both the east and west. Hopefully, I will visit Laos soon.

To view Chimamanda’s video, click here.

Natalie Goldberg / Writing Practice / Zen — No Comments
5
Oct 09

Contact

I sat cross-legged on a leather ottoman in the front lawn counting my breaths when two friends made contact with me through text messages.

“Wow. You have to see the moon. It’s beautiful.”

“A beacon of light to guide us through the night.”

It was low hanging, full and fuzzy with a tangerine glow. The end of the street became the edge of the galaxy where the moon looked more like Mars. My mind quieted as my eyes became transfixed on the moon’s slow rise. From the horizon, it moved behind the branches of a live oak. I sat admiring the illuminated mosaic. The cicadas ended choir practice when I noticed how high the moon hung into the night’s sky. By then, it had lost its orange hue. Bats fluttered and swooped over my head.

Remnants of the morning’s garage sale surrounded me. Two tall birch bookcases, a size seven pair of Solomon rollerblades, a computer monitor, a 14″ TV, two queen sized mattresses encased in card board boxes, a grey felt hat and other random objects that the two car garage had manage to collect.

There was also a matching leftover piece to the ottoman; a scalloped armchair tanned and stained with memories. The pair used to sit in front of a stone wall and fireplace in a house in Stone Mountain, Georgia. The same house that hosted my wedding and the divorce of Carl’s parents. Memories flashed and faded as I sat, sunken in the leather square.

I missed my dead brother. I worried about my fragile father. I listened to the non-singing cicadas. I texted back my friends. Retreating into the night, I sat with many thoughts that mirrored slow moving clouds covering and uncovering a soothing source of light. Sometimes I felt blanketed by a broad, tender connectivity of many things and people. The bright dot in the sky reflected our collective experiences: death and divorce… love and loss… pain and progress. Somehow, life’s polarities coexist within us and are in harmony like sun and moon. People are as complex as the cosmos. Our lives and bodies contain multitudes of emotions and experiences. Each one of us serves as a microcosm that could take many lifetimes to explore.

So, what keeps us moving when we feel pinned to the pains of life? What makes us hopeful in moonlight when we sit in the depths of our own darkness?

This weekend, I read a few pages of Linda Goodman’s “Love Signs,” a book that a friend loaned to me. The first few pages contained insights and perhaps answers to such questions.

“Love is man’s and woman’s deepest need. It’s not the threat of illness or poverty that crushes the human spirit, but the fear that there is no one who truly cares – no one who really understands. We all reach desperately for love, no matter how healthy, wealthy or wise we may be, because the alternative is loneliness.”

Another book that I am currently reading, “The Power of Kindness” by Piero Ferrucci, talks about the need for us to touch and be touched … to make contact with one another. The author advises that “in the contact with another, we feel naked. We are exposed, defenseless. All we have is our being.”

I think about my most recent conversations and contact with family and friends. Strong connections are felt only in real moments of honesty and vulnerability, I realize. Truth is the only way souls communicate and connect. Our relationships and friendships are the only instruments and paths for growth… for love. The alternative is distance and introversion from human kind and “human kindness” which will imprison us to our own solitude.

I remember Natalie Goldberg quoting Jack Kerouac: accept loss forever.

I think about my recent contacts with death. I sit with the emptiness it leaves. Deep emptiness and empathy form craters on my heart’s surface. I sit accepting their loss forever: my grandmother, my dogs, my brother and my nephew. I know that others simultaneously sit with me. Under the same night sky, we silently witness the transformation of our own souls. We feel deeply the poetic teachings of Ryokan, “when I think about all the sadness of others, their sadness becomes mine.”

Piero Ferrucci writes, “When nothing interferes with death, a contact full of pathos is possible, a freeing of feelings and intuition. Pain opens us. However isolated we may feel, we are still in relation to millions of others. Contact is a door through which kindness can flow.”

Natalie Goldberg / Writing Practice / Zen — No Comments
20
Sep 09

Beginner’s mind to blogging

The messages one needs for self-study and growth are delivered in many ways in life. A moment of truth can be realized in a half moon. Reading an honestly written book can trigger great transformation. For me, both have been true.

I read, “Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America” by Natalie Goldberg over ten years ago and attended my first “Writing Down the Bones” workshop with Natalie three years ago in Sedona, Arizona. A Zen student, Natalie teaches sitting, walking and writing meditation to help you listen, reflect and convey your own truths.

The rules for writing practice are simple:
1. Don’t be tossed away.
2. Practice for the greater good.
3. Keep lists of writing topics.
4. Write for ten minutes – go!
5. No crossing out.
6. Read to another person (but know that you can always pass).
7. Be kind to yourself and give yourself permission to write the worst shit in world history!

So, I am taking a creative leap forward and extending my writing practice from jotting in moleskine journals to now my first blog. The purpose is to keep practicing and to keep showing up…and of course, to keep giving myself permission to write. Through this process, I find myself simultaneously reflecting on the details of my life while also detaching from them. It’s a way for me to focus on “what” is occurring as opposed to obsessing over “why” it’s occurring. It’s a way of being present.

By sharing my writing and experiences, I hope to motivate others to pick up a pen and practice…creating a sangha of sorts. Encouraging and allowing one another to sit, walk and write is one of the kindest things we can do to bring peace to ourselves and others.

i like zen