The One You Feed - How to Unlock Your Creative Potential Through Writing with Natalie Goldberg

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

In this episode, Natalie Goldberg explores how to unlock your creative potential through writing. She highlights the integration of Zen principles into her writing practice and emphasizes the importance of being present and connected with one’s surroundings. She discusses the ongoing practice of writing and how it can free the mind and connect you with experiences and the world more deeply. In this episode, you will be able to: Discover the art of Zen practice to unlock your creative potential and find inner peace through writing Explore how the pandemic has reshaped the creative process and learn to adapt and thrive in the face of challenges Uncover the transformative benefits of silent retreats and how it can rejuvenate your mind and inspire your writing Learn practical ways to integrate Zen principles into your daily life for enhanced mindfulness and creativity Embrace the profound journey of facing mortality through writing and how it can bring meaning to your creative expression To learn more, click here!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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you get your podcasts thanks for joining us our guest on this episode is Natalie Goldberg, an American popular author and speaker. She's best known for a series of books which explore writing as a Zen practice. In addition to her 1986 book, Writing Down the Bones, which sold over a million copies, Natalie and Eric discuss in this interview her newest book, Writing on Empty, A Guide to Finding Your Voice. Hi, Natalie. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much.

We're going to be discussing your latest book, which I have in front of me called Writing on Empty, A Guide to Finding Your Voice. And we'll be discussing your career and writing in general. But before we get into that, we'll start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent and they're talking with their grandchild. And they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. Think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well,

which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I wanted to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, first of all, I'd like to point out, I like that grandchild. If I was a grandchild, I don't know if I would ask that. I might say, where'd you get that? Or where'd you hear that? And what does that mean? I wouldn't ask which one wins. Mm-hmm. And I like the answer, but I practiced with a hard-ass Zen teacher for 12 years. Kick-ass. hard-ass Zen teacher for 12 years. Kick-ass.

I only understand that now because, you know, America has, oh, in a way, America is like the two blend. I don't mean America. The U.S., the United States, is a blend of the good and the bad wolf. Yeah. So we would like the good wolf to win, but that isn't always true. You're not always that intelligent and that smart. And what I was saying about the kick-ass Zen teacher, who I am dedicated to for my life, he died in 1990 in the Midwest, but he was Japanese. Minnesota, right?

Yeah. Minneapolis. Yeah. But he didn't tell us anything. We just sat all the time from 5.30 a.m. till 9 at night, weekends. And then we'd sit before we went to work in the evening. We'd come back and sit. What propelled me? I don't know. And then we would do long sissions and what would he say? Well, what would I say sitting what came up? Just wild animals came up inside me. I was young, tremendous volcanoes of sexuality, rage. And then always, if it was a sission, I'd always start in my mind, cooking a pot roast, cutting the onion in my head. Did I ever cook a pot roast? No.

And I think I was a vegetarian then. So maybe I was hungry for protein. I don't know. But every Sishin I started with that. It made no sense. So maybe a stew. I don't believe in you could be all good or all bad. But it is true that what you feed is what comes forward. I think that was very smart. And I don't think that was a Zen person. Probably was someone from the Midwest, Iowa.

Probably with someone from the Midwest, Iowa. Iowa. Yeah. So what you're really known for is teaching people to write and also bringing your Zen practice sort of into that world or a way of thinking about it. I wanted to ask you a question because Zen is very much about being present and with and intimate with life exactly as it's happening. But you also say somewhere, I'm always half where I am, meaning that as a writer, your brain is here, but it's also thinking about the writing piece. How do you work that?

Let me explain that. First of all, I want to say that I'm only writing practices, only Zen practice. I know nothing else. And I only realized since I semi-retired that my students didn't know that. They thought I was teaching writing. I was teaching Zen, but slowly, slowly dripping it into the United States society, into our society. So it took five years for me to have silent retreats. Because if I had done it in 86, when Bones came out, they would have had a heart attack. So I think what's important is not everybody can sit their ass off.

Right. Why I did it, I don't know. I'm a Jewish girl from Brooklyn. I just, I wanted it bad. I don't know what I wanted, but I sat a lot. But not everybody can. So Katagiri said to me one day, he said, why do you keep sitting?

Because it was clear I wanted to be a writer. He said, why don't you make writing your practice? I said, are you trying to get rid of me? He said, no, it's just, I said, is that possible? Because this was the early years in the 70s. And I think that I finally heard him after sitting with him for 12 years. I made writing my practice. And when I wrote Writing Down the Bones, I didn't know. I was saturated with Zen.

It wasn't separate. Nothing was separate. It's sort of like we go back to your wolves. It's very smart, but the wolves are mixed up. There's not just one wolf in there right yeah i mean i think that the parable is an interesting little jumping off point yeah i think there's more than just two wolves inside of us right and we are a blend of that i think that's why i was originally drawn to the parable partially was this sense that like you have all

this inside of you and that's normal. Yeah. Right? It's really normal. Everybody has these things. And it's good to have it integrated. Yes. Even better than black or white. Yeah. To have it integrated.

Yeah. But I'll answer your question about half of me, 50% of me is always watching. I never think about my writing. Very rarely. It's in my belly and I am composting, but I am trying to pay attention. Now, a part of me, we can't help but pay attention because there's a part of us that's awake and that's always awake and is taking it in even if we don't notice, even if people think we're not even there. When I write, I'm not going to say we because when I write, I connect with that awake part of me. Well, what do you know? I didn't know that they had two blankets on the walls here, Mexican blankets. But when I write, I remember it. It comes back up because some part of me noticed.

Not necessarily the conscious part that's having a social hour with somebody and eating snacks. I'm teasing you. snacks. I'm teasing you. I hope that wasn't misconstrued because it wasn't not me, but what I want my students to do, what people reading. I don't want them mechanizing about writing the whole time. It's just, you know who you are. you know who you are. Yeah. In your new book, Writing on Empty really starts with being in the pandemic, right?

Yeah. And the fact that for years you said you've known what the next book is while you're finishing one. You just, you always wrote. It just came, I don't know if I want to use the word easy, but you wrote. And then COVID hit and it sounds like you just ran out of gas. Tell me about that. That was really good. Only in retrospect, if you met me when I was in the middle of it, I was really freaked out.

Yeah. I had a good machine going. I taught and when I wasn't teaching, I was writing. And I use, as the students use me, I use them. I would think, how do I explain this? How do I tell them so they can hear? You know, I'm an educator. I care a lot about education.

And so we used each other and suddenly it was all cut off. Yeah. My whole 35 years of what worked didn't work anymore. Not only didn't work, I couldn't go to a cafe to write because you've got to get out of the house. Even me, who's written many books, it doesn't matter. I got to get out of the house because sometimes I say, oh, you have such a nice house. I say this to myself, Why don't you just stay home? And at the end of the day, I haven't written a word. I'm just busy. I'm daydreaming, which is nothing bad. I never let myself do that. But I need to get out to get going.

Yeah, me too. And the cafes were all closed. Everything was closed. Right. You couldn't go anywhere. And you couldn't go near friends. You couldn't go near anybody. We were all closed. Everything was closed. Right. You couldn't go anywhere. And you couldn't go near friends. Yep. You couldn't go near anybody. We were all paranoid. Yeah. And we didn't know what COVID was even. Yep. One of the things you did during there was you started meeting with a friend of yours, Eddie. Yes. In a park, you know, sitting six feet apart. And I'm going to dive deep here. But one of the things that you guys talked about was like what you would miss when you died. Yes. Right. Because mortality is a theme in this book. You are coming face to face with it more. Maybe the fact that you had to stop brought some of that

stuff up. Yeah. Tell me about those conversations about what would I miss when I died? Well, it's an old topic that I use for writing. It teaches people how to be specific. You know, what will you miss? You can't say, I'll miss being happy. People don't ever say that. I'll miss the straw in my Coca-Cola bottle. If I dare say Coca-Cola, it makes people specific because you die in a certain place at a certain time, a certain day. And also, you mean I'm going to die? In the early years, I remember I would meet people and the first thing I would say to them is, where do you want to be buried? And I didn't realize because I had been with Katagiri for so long that I didn't realize that was shocking, actually. But maybe I wanted to be shocking when I was a young teacher. I wanted to wake people know. Yeah, Eddie and I sat opposite each other in the

park. And then we would whisper, if you take off your mask, I'll take off mine. I won't tell anyone. We looked around because the police were there. The police would come and monitor the parks. And so we stayed far enough away. And we picked topics. One of them was, far enough away. And we picked topics. One of them was, Eddie, tell me what you'll miss when you die. And Eddie isn't a real talker. We're good friends. So he'll talk with me. But that stumped him. And I remember him looking around. And then he said, birds. I didn't say it then. But I thought, I didn't say it then, but I thought, Eddie, you are so dull. And then he's not. He's very, very smart. So then he said, I'll miss Mary, of course, his wife. And then by the end, I said, two more minutes. I think I said something like that. Two more minutes. And he said, I won't miss you. And he said, does it count when I don't talk?

I said, yes. Running down the clock. Yeah, exactly. I think birds would be high on my list of things I'll miss. Well, I think he heard one. Yeah. We were in the park and he looked around. Yeah, I'm very fond of them. That's wonderful. Yeah. You know, we were in the, you know, a park and he looked around. Yeah. I'm very fond of them. That's wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know the names of them? I don't generally. My

partner, Ginny, does. I sort of take the approach of being a Zen student myself of like, can I just appreciate the bird without having to categorize it or call it anything? Can I just see that thing over there? So I don't get hung up in the names. You say hung up, but to me, the names of birds of everything is important. It honors them. It's a further honoring. Yeah. And it's a specificity, right? It's certainly from a writing perspective, it's far better to talk about the golden-breasted woodpecker versus the bird. Yeah, exactly. But it's not just writing.

See, I think we have a false idea about Zen. Yes, it's good to hear it, to just stay and listen. I think it even deepens it to know the name. Yeah. Because when I walk around in Ozynia, I look at it more. I pay more attention if you know the name. Because the mind, well, as you know, the mind is very tricky. Yeah.

And the mind can just glide over everything. Flowers. I was present. They were very nice. I saw something today. You live here up in Santa Fe. We were up in Santa Fe today. And we went to Upaya, where you're going to give a talk. We sat this morning. And we took a stroll afterwards. And I saw what I think were wild orchids.

Is there such a thing? Is that what I saw? Is that possible? I didn't see wild orchids. Okay. Do you know of a pink plant? Well, I guess we're getting off topic here. My guess is you saw wild sweet peas. Do they look like orchids? Yes, they do. Okay. Wild sweet peas. Yeah. Tell me about finding your path back. I mean, that's what this book is all about. So I'm asking you to sort of shorten something, but what were some of the things that allowed you to find your way back to having things to write about, but also feeling more settled in yourself than you were during sort of this period because I didn't think I could pull off another book. I was really out in the cosmos during this time. Well, one of the things that really helped was my partner at the time said, I'll drive you. I had an artist residency up in Washington State in Port Townsend. And I was

too out of it. I thought, well, will I write about it? I'm not a writer. I'm going to cancel. She said, I'll drive you. I said, I'm that bad? And she said, yeah. In other words, get out of here. And as we were driving, we stayed overnight in Salt Lake City. And I was dead. I mean, I was blown out. I did have, and I write about it in there, a vision of my mother finally, because everyone would say to me, you never write about your mother. You've written about your father. And finally, I wrote about my mother and felt compassion. I thought, is this how she felt as a 50s housewife? So I wrote a lot about her.

But then to wake up as a writer, I was in that hotel room and we stayed overnight. And I call her something else because she doesn't want to be called by her name. So I won't say it. She was falling asleep. She's a very good sleeper and she was taking a nap. And I suddenly became curious, where are we going? And I looked at the map, because how did she pick her route? And I knew she did it.

She's a computer whiz, so I know she did it with the iPhone. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I don't believe in that stuff. And I was watching. You don't even know when you go from one state to another. It doesn't tell you that. That interests me. I think it should interest everybody. What state are you in? Metaphorically and also physically specifically. So I looked at the map. A map, ladies and gentlemen, you unfold and look and you can see different states and how they meet each other. I'm saying that because just last night, my friend told me her son has never

seen a map and doesn't know how to read one. So I was reading it and following, going to Port Towns and two hours north was the grave I have always wanted to go to. I always go to graves. And actually, I think I wrote about it in my last book or the book before. I love to go to the graves of writers and artists I love, you know, to see where they ended up. People think it's weird, but I know from Zen, or I just know, we all die. I'm acknowledging it, and I get to tell that person, whoever it is, I tell them all about how I felt about their work and stuff. And some of them have dead a long time.

So I never thought I'd be near Idaho. And I saw we were going along the southern border of Idaho. But two hours north, we could hit it. So I told my partner and she said, Sure, why not? I allotted a lot of time for us. Really? And then suddenly I started coming alive. I was started to be Natalie again, instead of a mummy, you know, just like having no idea what to do. And we drove up there and I went and found Hemingway's grave. Now Hemingway, you know, he's nuts. He was nuts. They did a documentary on him that was, you know, really revealed even worse than I had any idea. But he was my first teacher, not physically, but I would read Death in the Afternoon and Moveable Feast, and I'd study it as writing because I was drawn to it.

And really, writers are your teachers. So I went and found his grave, and was the sun was almost setting and i found it and i just sat there and poured out my heart to him now i knew he couldn't have cared less and he killed himself in 1962 a long time ago so it probably was just dust down there. But it was his dust. And I wanted to talk. Clearly, I wanted to talk to him and thank him and just go on about my life. And what should I do? And I'm lost. And, you know, I went on and on.

And I remember telling him about haiku. I just finished a haiku book. In the middle, I thought, he doesn't know about haiku. Shut up, Natalie. He doesn't care about haiku. Shut up, Natalie. He doesn't care about haiku. I didn't mention Zen, I don't think. I didn't mention anything he wouldn't like. I didn't mention alcohol because I don't drink.

But I did talk a lot about writing, which I knew he'd be interested in. And then I said, well, what should I do? Of course, he wasn't going to answer me. He probably thought I was an idiot if he was down there. What is this girl with a heavy New York accent doing here? But the answer came to me. And it wasn't any different than I've always known. Shut up and write.

Keep your hand moving, no matter what. Just like when you learned with Katagiri, sit. Yeah. You know, no matter what you felt, you sit still. You just sit with it. And it roars through you like those wolves. Yeah. But you stay there.

I went up there and I just started to write a book about how I hate the Internet, which I knew was not going to be popular. Not a big seller in today's age. No, no. But I quieted down about it. I even had a dream. You see me change in the book. Yeah, you do. Doesn't mean I'm in love with the internet now, but I understand it better. Yeah. Yeah. But what was your first question? I forgot. I don't remember now. Oh, we were talking about how you came back to life. Yes. And that's how I came back to life. And I read a book when I was up there. I was alone

for a month and I had a great time. When I was home, I felt isolated and awful, but given permission to be alone, then you could enjoy it. Choosing it consciously, like I'm going to withdraw, is different than everything being withdrawn from you. Exactly. Exactly. I really enjoyed it. And I started reading. And I read this book that nobody has important, no one has mentioned it, Dirt by Bill Buford. And I'm pronouncing his last name wrong. And it's about him going to France to learn about cooking. I just like my old love of literature. And I couldn't stop laughing. I could read till one in the morning and sleep till, you know, noon.

I think I read till three in the morning and slept till one in the afternoon and everything was gone. I could do what I want. And one of the things I said, how important laughter was during this time of COVID, you know, and I was just having this great old time with myself. Yeah, I think levity is a spiritual virtue for sure. Yeah. Hi, everyone. One of the things that I know many of you struggle with is anxiety. And very recently, I shared some tips on managing anxiety in our newsletter. Specifically, I shared a practice on clarifying your values.

In the practice, you write down one or two of your core values and then identify one action step that aligns with them. I find that taking one positive action towards things that matter to me really helps reduce anxiety. Also, I have a reflection question. What positive experiences have you had today that you could focus on instead of your anxiety? Every Wednesday, I send out a newsletter called A Weekly Bite of Wisdom for a Wiser, Happier You. And in it, I give tips and reflections like you just got. And it's an opportunity for you to pause, reflect, and practice.

It's a way to stay focused on what's important and meaningful to you. Each month, we focus on a theme. This month's theme is anxiety. And next month we'll be focusing on acceptance. To sign up for these bits of weekly wisdom, go to goodwolf.me slash newsletter. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast,

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I am here to call it as I see it, and there's a whole lot of things catching my eyes these days. Here's a clip from one of my favorite episodes you are not a real fighter you will never be discussed anywhere in boxing history ever fake paul the movie is the apprentice and the movie is about young Donald Trump and his apprentice, Roy Cohen. Real character, obviously, both are real characters. It kind of has a Scarface vibe to it, which I thought was very interesting. Listen to the I Am Rap Report stereo podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know that companies hire the most in the first two months of the year,

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You're watering it. It's the same thing with your network. You should always be in there actively managing your network. If you don't feel confident to say a number, even admitting that to a recruiter is going to be far better than saying, well, what is your budget for the role? A lot is in the follow up, right? Don't wait to follow up. Whether you're a new grad, an established professional or contemplating a career change, Get Hired is for you. Listen to Get Hired with Andrew Seaman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you like to listen.

Interestingly, you were just talking about this freedom to kind of do whatever, whenever. But one of the things that you've talked a lot about over the years is this phrase, structure liberates, which is a phrase that I love also. Share with me how that's worked for you and what that means to you. Yeah. I think that's what blew the top off everything was during COVID, there was no structure. It all disappeared. And we had to, you know, and I like structure. And I knew when Eddie and I met, and we only met two hours once a week in the park, the same place, the same routine. And I thought, aha, that's a structure. I could make that the structure of the park, the same place, the same routine. And I thought, uh-huh, that's his structure.

I could make that the structure of the book, or at least it starts to be the structure of the book. But then he has a terrible bike accident, remember? And he's in the hospital. So it blows the structure. And blowing the structure, uh-oh, now what? But in blowing it, having been structured for a while and have your feet on the ground, then you can blow it up. But you have to have a structure, some kind of structure. A, it's very comforting. it gives you something to do and um zen was a very tight structure but i learned within that structure i learned the importance of structure because you can relax into it i mean i don't think any of us want to live a life that is as structured as zen is all of the time but there's no decision making about, am I going to do this? Am I going to do

that? Should I do what you just, the next thing is clear. You just go do it and you could just relax into it. I did behavioral coaching with people for years. And one of the biggest groups of people, and it was a surprise to me that I got were recently retired people who had said, when I retire, I'm going to do all these things. And then they retired. And six months later or a year later, they weren't doing any of those things. They were completely lost. And it's for the reason you just said. Their structure vanished. Exactly.

And I think we all need different degrees of structure. I need more so, I think, than maybe some people because I get into indecision really easily. But yeah, it's such a valuable thing in our lives. And we're never taught it or it was never mentioned. We're in it, like in the school system, but you're right. We're not taught the value of it. Yeah, we don't know the value of it. Exactly. Exactly. But there was a great value in it, in structure. And I realize now that I keep calling myself semi-retired because when I say retired, all my friends say, you're not retired. You're doing this, this, and this. But I've learned it's really important for me to make a list each morning what I'm going to do.

Otherwise, at the end of the day, I'm just daydreaming, which isn't bad. Right. Isn't bad at all. But it's, again, the two wolves. You needed a third wolf, one that does nothing. I was going to call it lazy wolf, but that's a pejorative term for the wolf, the chilled out wolf. Yeah, the chilled out wolf. That's a good one. There's a line in one of your books that I just really love. And you say, in the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act just right. I love that idea of

one positive step. Like wherever you are, wherever you find yourself, stake a claim right there with one positive thing. You know, it was hysterical when you read it. I got so into it. I thought, who wrote that? No, no. I thought, what are they going to do? What's the step they're going to take? You did say I wrote it, but I got so into it. I thought, what are they going to do? And then when you said, right, I thought, oh, yeah, I remember that one.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So for you, that's the positive step. I just love that idea of in the middle of the world or in the center of chaos. Yeah. Yeah. So for you, that's the positive step. I just love that idea. Yes. In the middle of the world or in the center of chaos. Yeah. There's an old recovery phrase, you know, just do the next right thing.

Yes. Oh, that's wonderful. It's just that. Like when you're lost, just do the next thing. Do the next positive step. Don't reach for a whiskey. Yes. Sometimes it's that.

That's not a positive step. Not a positive step. If you're trying not to drink. Particularly as we're talking about Hemingway. Yeah. Did not do him any favors. On the subject of graves, you visited the grave of the one guest I most wanted on this show that I will never get, which was Leonard Cohen. Oh, yeah.

I hadn't planned to. We were just wandering around in Canada. And then suddenly I was at Montreal, where I went to summer camp. I didn't go to summer camp there, but one of the owners was from Montreal. And McGill, you know, so I wanted to go to McGill and see McGill because I was the only one in the world who knew the song. The M is for old McGill. The C stands for car's drill. And people looked at me and said, I didn't even know we had a song. So I was dying to go there. And yeah, I went to Leonard Cohen's grave. And amazingly, while you're there, you meet a woman. You know, I didn't realize, you know, when you're in it and things happen,

you don't realize how extraordinary they are. When I read it for the audio book about going to Leonard Cohen's grave, I was, how did that happen? She was shocked. First of all, I didn't know it was the sixth anniversary of his death. Isn't that amazing? It's been that long. He's been gone that long. Wow. Yeah. And there were fresh flowers, and she had brought them because it was his sixth anniversary, and she'd been friends with him. And then it turns out she was the sister to Maria, who was from Upaya. When she heard I was from Santa Fe, she said, even that I was blasé. Oh yeah, Upaya's down the road from me. And she was, oh my God, she was aware how amazing it was. I wasn't until much later. Right. Right. You met a woman whose sister studied at the Zen

Center that you teach at. Yeah. And you knew her. Yeah. It's extraordinary. Yeah. I was nervous if I was saying the right person because we didn't have a picture or anything. But the next day, she said, I'll take you out for lunch and I'll take you to one of Leonard's favorite places, a deli. I thought, oh, okay, I'll go. So we met. And sure enough, that was Maria. I really did know who she was. And I got to tell Leonard, thank you. Yes, I would like the opportunity to do that someday. Yeah, thank you, Leonard. And you go to someone's grave, you learn a lot. I knew he would be next to his mother. And it's very rare. I've gone to see a lot of artists. They're not buried next to

their mother and the whole family, the Cohen family. But he would go back a lot to Montreal to visit his family. It's rare that you stay connected with your family. So it was very touching. And Hallelujah was written at the base of his gravestone in gold letters. An extraordinary person. Yes. Yeah, he was. And he was a Zen practitioner. He was. He was. I was friends with a monk that was at Mount Baldy with Leonard. And I asked him, I said, look, I know this is a real imposition to ask this, but do you think you could ask Leonard whether he would be a guest on the show? And he said, I will ask, but you should know his Zen name means great silence,

so I wouldn't hold your breath. And it didn't end up happening. It didn't end up happening. Yep, yep. Another thing that you wrote, this line really struck me. You said, our hope is that writing releases us. Instead, maybe it deepens the echo. We call out to our past and our past calls back.

We are alone and not alone. That was pretty good. What did I say? Yeah, yeah. What did I? Old Friend from Far Away. That's from that book. Yeah, okay.

Deepens the echo. Yeah. It's a beautiful idea. I want people to understand that I'm as surprised as maybe you are or anybody when I hear it later. Because when you write, and this is the pleasure of writing, you eventually like mixing up oil and vinegar. The vinegar drops and the oil gets clear. vinegar the vinegar drops and the oil gets clear so at the beginning of my notebooks or beginning of each time i sit down it's usually i have an itch on my back my hand hurts and then you know i like to complain to to begin the wall so i can break it down and then eventually you go to a deeper place where writing does writing and you're out of the way. Yep.

And that doesn't mean that it's not Natalie writing. It's not like a soothsayer comes through me, but it's the mind with that echoing, the mind that's echoing with everybody and all mind. It's not my mind. So what did I say there? Writing doesn't release us, it deepens the echo. But the other part that I love, we are alone and not alone. Yeah. Well, when you're writing and you're really writing, you're not alone. You're with all sentient beings, really. You're just speaking of your time, your generation, your moment on the earth. But yeah, you're not alone. You're never alone. And that's what people need to understand, that writing isn't alone. It's connecting with ourselves and with everyone else.

with ourselves and with everyone else. When you're working on a book, are you also doing more free writing also? How are you managing your writing time, right? You've got a book you're working on, but I get the sense you're also writing things that aren't for the book. Yeah. Well, I'm just doing writing practice. And really, for the book, I only know writing practice. Something like that only could come out of me with writing practice. So I don't know anything else. I keep my hand going. And then when I look back, especially for poems. I used to be a poet.

But for a book, right now I'm having a wonderful time in that I'm just diving deep and I don't care where it goes. And I don't know if one is connected to the other. I just go. And oddly, I didn't think my right hand would ever fail me because I handwrite. But it's been hurting. And so I save it, you know, for writing. So I do a lot of things. I brush my teeth now with my left hand.

I do lots of things with my left hand to save my right hand. I only know writing practice. And what is writing practice for you? It's showing up, keeping your hand going, and getting to that place of writing does writing, and you're out of the way, which is so freeing. Yeah. It's so freeing for the other people, for us. And you can hear it when your students, You can hear it when your students, when we read to each other, sometimes they're just alive. Yeah. It's alive.

But it doesn't mean it's alive like grass. It's alive. They're present to their life. Yeah. And it's just, it's fabulous. And it's their life. I read that all the time. Louise Erdrich, many writers.

You mean my life? You mean my Jewish life in Brooklyn is valuable enough to write about? That's my main interest, is having people have an encouragement that their experience is valuable enough to write about. Because we didn't think so. You know, we thought only Whitman, high on a hill, struck by lightning. Whitman's wonderful. But we had this idea with writing down the bones that broke the idea. Anybody could write.

Anybody. And you can't believe when bonesones came out, who I heard from, coal workers, vice president of insurance agencies in Florida, would call me and say, in the old days, you looked people up in the phone book. And he called me and said, we have nothing in common. I'm sure he was politically and everything different than me. He said, but I wanted to write and you gave me the way, you know, so it broke it open. And interestingly, over the years, Bones came out 35 years ago. It's been translated all over the place. And I was with Henry, Henry Shookman, who's a friend of yours, when Wild Mind, my second book, came out.

And it was more about writing practice. And England just tore it down. And Henry was luckily there. And I read it aloud to Henry. And Henry said, don't pay any attention. They're just uptight about literature. literature. And sure enough, France and Israel, who they both honor literature so much that they were the last ones to translate. Interesting. But I lived long enough to see them do it too.

It's interesting you say that because you clearly spend a fair part of the book talking about how you don't like the internet. You've changed a little bit, but still not your thing. Exactly. Right. One of the things though that I think has been interesting about the internet is that it has allowed and given permission for people to write and publish directly to the world, right? This podcast goes out to a lot of people, right? And I didn't need to get permission from any ABC news or anybody to do it. We just did it and gave it to the world. And the internet has done that. I think for better and worse, it has democratized to some degree, the ability to write and create and give it directly to people without the gatekeepers we used to have. I appreciate that because I didn't understand that

just now. That I would be radical about and would like. What I didn't like about it, and I saw it in my students as time went on, their minds were being taken from them. Their memory, everything. And nobody could tell me how to just describe how to get to their house. I've taken tremendous pleasure in, well, the big cottonwood on the corner, you turn when you see that big cottonwood. You know, nobody and nobody. And I think people have gotten ruder, like I'm going to Portland and I'll ask someone in Portland, Portland, Maine, I'll say, and I'm saying this a few years ago when I was there.

I said, this restaurant, is it near here, this street? And they said, I don't know. Look on Google. They're very rude now. Or they'll pull out Google. I said, how long have you lived here? 20 years. You don't know the street?

It's supposed to be right around the corner. So I think it's taken people away from themselves, too. I like what you're saying. But also, you know, talk about structure. I'm going to say something that's, I guess, dangerous. Now, maybe it isn't. I'm not in the world of the computer so much. So, you know, when it was, what was it, Arab Spring. And everybody thought, see how fabulous it is, all these cell phones. And I thought, they don't have structures. They don't have structure for what they want afterwards. And it scared me, and it proved to be true.

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and my gift to you is a free subscription to the I Am Rappaport Stereo Podcast, where I discuss entertainment, sports, politics, and anything and everything that catches my attention. I am here to call it as I see it, and there's a whole lot of things catching my eyes these days. Here's a clip from one of my favorite episodes you are not a real fighter you will never be discussed anywhere in boxing history ever fake paul the movie is the apprentice and the movie is about young Donald Trump and his apprentice, Roy Cohen.

Real character, obviously, both are real characters. It kind of has a Scarface vibe to it, which I thought was very interesting. Listen to the I Am Rap Report stereo podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know that companies hire the most in the first two months of the year? Or that nearly half of workers are worried about being left behind? I am Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn's Editor-at-Large for Jobs and Career Development. And my show, Get Hired, brings you all the information you need to, well, get hired. People are forming opinions of you even before you log into the Zoom or walk into the room.

And so you really have to think about what is it I want to display. You don't plant a garden and then just walk away and expect it to thrive. You are in there pulling out the weeds. You're pruning it. You're watering it. It's the same thing with your network. You should always be in there actively managing your network. If you don't feel confident to say a number, even admitting that to a recruiter is going to be far better than saying, well, what is your budget for the role?

A lot is in the follow up, right? Don't wait to follow up. Whether you're a new grad, an established professional or contemplating a career change, Get Hired is for you. Listen to Get Hired with Andrew Seaman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you like to listen. I mean, there's no doubt that our current technological age, I think like all technologies, brings a host of positive and negative benefits. And the ubiquity of devices at this point, I think anybody who's a thinking person in today's day and age will say, yikes, right? I've got a weird relationship with these things.

And if I'm not careful, I have more of a relationship with these devices than I do anything else. And that I think collectively most people would be with you on that's not a good thing. Yeah. Well, it scared me because I saw it with my students and I lost interest in teaching because it was way beyond me at that point. I was like, wow, I think people are coming around now. people trying to have more space in their life. There's been a big resurgence to your background, Jewish background of digital Sabbaths, right? Where, you know, Shabbat, where people will take a day a week where they just don't connect to anything digital, you know, and there's been more of that sort of happening. I want to talk about working with your mind. You've got a line about, you said, I've never gained control of my mind. And now here's the great line. How do you dominate an ocean?

But I began to form a real relationship with it. So talk about that idea of, because I think a lot of us are thinking that in meditation practice or in our day-to-day lives that we've got to control our thinking. You'll never get there. You know that. Yeah. Okay. When I first started Zen or sitting, I don't even want to call it Zen anymore because it separates it out. Just sitting still with my mind. First of all, I had no idea. I thought all the time. Right. And most people don't. About pot roasts. Yeah. Yes. I didn't know that I was thinking all the time, and I didn't know that I couldn't stop it.

Right. It's a revelation, isn't it? Yeah. That you can't make it a pancake and fry it and eat it. You just can't stop your mind. So that was just that, on that level and eat it. You just can't stop your mind. So that was just that on that level, meeting it. And then having a relationship. Of course, you can't dominate the ocean, but you learn to swim in it. You can get a few swimsuits and you can learn how to dive under

the waves, you know, and have a relationship with the ocean and a relationship with your mind. You know, sometimes I sit down to write for a whole notebook, maybe a month I'll spend filling a whole notebook. I have never landed in the whole notebook. I'm just, it's a month where I can't land, but accepting that and not trying to, you know, get somewhere with it. Just, you know, the ocean has a hurricane, is picking up a hurricane. And just no matter what I do, I can't control it. Right. Well, I think it's interesting.

You're talking about, you know, very hardcore Zen practice with your teacher, which, like you said, when you're on Shishin, which means retreat, you are sitting an extraordinary amount of time, you know, an uncomfortable amount of time in many, many ways, right? Agonizing, right? So there's a lot of structure that's trying to hold things in place. And yet it's very easy, I think, to take that structural mind and apply it to your mind when you're sitting there. But when you're sitting there is when you sort of have to let the control go. It's a weird dichotomy, right? Yes.

In a way, it's friendly in that it's made everything so structured so you could bear or not be devoured by the wildness of your mind. We've seen people who don't know about structure and just go off in their mind all over the place. I was sitting next to a mother last night who was talking about her son. He had problems with drugs and stuff, but more than that, he was wild. Like I'll tell you one thing he did. They said he came at Christmas. He's in L.A. and they're on the East Coast. He came in a bathing suit.

But he didn't get that it was warm in L.A. So, of course, you wouldn't travel in a bathing suit anyway. That's how wild he is. But then he landed in December and was freezing. So I loved it. And I thought, that kid, if he could harness his energy, he'd be fabulous. Right. That is sort of, at least for me, has been a really tricky thing, which is tamping down or putting some containers around that wildness, right? I mean, I was a homeless heroin addict at 24. Like, it was imperative that I do that. Uh-huh. I won't say away, but deeper underground where it gets really hard to find. And that's been a challenge for me is how do I balance the wolves kind of back to the beginning? How do I allow that energy that was there that drove my use, which was a seeking of

sort, right? And I think seeking is good. It was a seeking for connection, which I still have. It's been an interesting thing to try and integrate. Yes, exactly. And I couldn't communicate to that mother. She was wonderful. She's a wonderful person, and I love her.

But I could see her agony around her son. Yeah, of course. And she can't make things happen for him. No, no. Yeah. I mean, I've been in recovery since I was 25 years old. So I've talked to hundreds at this point, families of, you know, addicts and it's heartbreaking. You know, you just, you can't, there's not much you can do. Yeah. There are things you can do, I think, that make

it worse. I think there are clearly things you can do that make it worse. And there are things that might make it more conducive for that person getting better, but ultimately is out of your hands, which most things really are. Well, you just said that beautiful line. You probably didn't hear yourself saying it, that at 24, I had to do this. And I wish that mother could hear that. Who knows where people need to go? Yep. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. If my mother were not alive and occasionally listening to this podcast, we would have a tremendous discussion about mothers, but I'm not going to go there right now. I'm just going to say it's on my list. And I'm like, I'm always like, well, we'll come, we'll talk about it after. Okay. So what do you think has been the lesson that has taken you the longest to learn?

Oh, what a great question. That I'm ignorant. I really am very ignorant. And I'm not putting myself down. I'm just ignorant, kind of stupid. Dumb is different. Dumb, I was trained that dumb is good. In Zen, it was very good to be dumb. And as a writer, it's good to be dumb. But I'm just sometimes stupid and, you know, and thick-skinned and ignorant. And I wanted to mention, I think 12-step is absolutely wonderful. Yeah. Yeah.

Brilliant. Just brilliant. Yeah. It saved my life a couple times, for sure. For sure. Ignorance is a term that Buddhists use a lot. We talk about it. What does it mean to you?

Numb. Unaware. Right in the middle of being aware i'm incredibly unaware you know i could be teaching brilliantly but i'm not i'm not awake to think dynamics as they are now that i've been semi retired what's wonderful is i've slowed down and I notice things I'd never noticed. You know, I just, I notice about politics, about countries, about human beings, about refugees. Can you imagine having no place to settle and then not knowing the language? Of course, for me, that's the worst of all.

You can't communicate. You don't know anybody. I just didn't get it. And I have many students who were from other countries. And, you know, I was teaching them writing practice. You know, I wrote a book in 2004 called The Great Failure, where I find out that Katagiri had been sleeping with some of the students.

Oh, I wish I'd read that one. I'm going to have to check that out. Yeah. Nobody talked to me for a year after it. No one. And still people are not talking to me. Yeah. And that was really hard for me.

But what I'm thinking about Katagiri, he gave us this incredible dharma. I'll love him forever. I'm dedicated to him forever. And he was a suffering human being. The two wolves again, right? Yeah. Just because he had great wisdom didn't mean that it drove out those other elements. Yeah.

Which is the way we'd like it to be. Yeah. Which is the way we'd like it to be. Yeah. Well, especially as Americans, we have very idealistic ideas about people. Yeah. I don't know who it was who said, don't meet your teachers or don't meet your idols. Another line about like a dead teacher is good because they won't disappoint you. Right. Like they, you know, because humans will, all of them, all of us in some way, shape or form. Now some more than others. Yes. you know, because humans will. Yeah. All of them. All of us. Yeah. In some way, shape or form. Now, some more than others.

Yes. You know, I'm fascinated by what you're describing with category and some of the impropriety. I'm fascinated by in sort of like watching a car crash in a way, what happens to those communities? It kind of breaks my heart to see what happens in those communities. Uh-huh. Because people respond differently and get very polarized. There's a great book by a guy named Shozan Jack Hobner. He was the monk who knew Leonard Cohen at Mount Baldy. And their teacher, when he was like 105, had revelations come out. And the book details really just as a leader in that community for him, how difficult it was. I used to think about that with all the people who love Chogyam Tronka Rinpoche, right? I would think- He was my first teacher.

Yeah. So he was that very imperfect person. Are you able to separate the message or the art from the artist? Because you talked about doing that with Hemingway, right? Yeah. Hemingway was a very imperfect man in a lot of ways. He behaved in ways that many of us today would say, ugh, you know. Yeah. But you revere him in a way. How do you separate those things?

I know now. I went to Katagiri thinking he walks his talk. But I understand nobody does. You do for a while. But to see a whole human being is not to be ignorant, is the willingness not to be ignorant. I'm very idealistic. I was uncomfortable with Trump.

I didn't understand. And luckily I was glad I had the excuse to get married and move to Minneapolis, where it's freezing cold and married and move to Minneapolis. Yeah. Where it's freezing cold, nobody would move to otherwise. And there was Katagiri sitting alone. And I thought, he's perfect. Yeah. But in a way, it was great that I thought that because I really went full hog.

Yes. You know, and when I finally found out, it was six years after he died that's how hidden it was i didn't know what to make of it but i wasn't destroyed i was destroyed by writing the book and people no one talked to me yeah from your old community silence yeah yeah and i knew during that year i'd either i'd either die or become my own person become my own authority and you're still here so yeah so eventually i did yeah but it wasn't fun yeah i have a really complicated story like that in my past i had a high school teacher who i would not have graduated high school without him. I was going to be expelled after my sophomore year. And this guy took a great interest in me and really turned my high school career around.

And I spent time with him in the state of Washington on Whidbey Island. Well, years later, it comes out that some of the other boys that he was with were molested by him. And I never had any of that. So it's this complicated thing. He was this lifesaver for me and a monster for other people. It's really complicated to hold both those things. And that's kind of what we're talking about. You have to put your arms around both. That's what I said. People said to me, why did you have to write that about Katagiri? He gave us the Dharma. He brought it from Japan. I said, well, figure this. I was 17 and I adored my father, just adored him. We had a great relationship. But my 15-year-old sister was being abused by him. Don't you think that would have changed me how i felt about my father right it's a willingness

you have to very large you have to you know be very large as i just said that i'm holding my arms out as though i'm yeah you know 400 pounds and i'm wondering if some people, that isn't their effort to become large. You know, in this country, we don't know how. And so we eat instead. But we really want to see in a large way. Yeah. We want to be able to hold it all. We want to be able to integrate the wolves back to where we started.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap up. Thank you so much. I've really enjoyed this conversation. It's been wonderful. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community.

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