Memoir Guides
On Constantly Being in the Present From Finding Freedom When we think of what seems like the enormous amount of time we have in life, we all have a tendency to put things off that we could do today. This is because we live with promises that life is long and that time is constantly on [...]
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The History of the Zen Nuns’ Practice Excerpt from Naked in the Zendo Early in my Japanese monastic practice, I had a wonderful trip to Eiheiji, the head temple for Soto Zen in Japan. Eiheiji has the stature and grandeur of the Vatican in Rome. Its scenery, dignity, deep practice, and beautiful furnishings inspire reverie [...]
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Sutra 5 An Excerpt from The Mama Sutra I’m speeding down Sir Francis Drake Boulevard on a glorious fall day, running through yellow lights, completely stressed out, trying to get to the meditation hall on time. I’m teaching the daily yoga classes at a women’s meditation retreat at Spirit Rock, a Buddhist retreat center in [...]
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We Won’t Last Forever | An Excerpt from Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home
Death A Long Distance Call On a Wednesday morning, sitting in my old blue Volvo in a parking lot after just getting a facial—my cheeks redolent with cream, all pores clean—I called the Cancer Center in Santa Fe, persuaded an oncologist to look up my chart. The oncologist I was assigned to was on vacation, [...]
Art in a Time of Global Crisis | An Excerpt from Painting Peace
The Power of Art This short essay was written in 1987, when no one had any idea whether the Cold War would ever come to an end. We are still in a global crisis, but in another form. The Necessity of Political Art Art in a period of widely-perceived global crisis can never be the [...]
When Life Changed Forever Off to Colorado Life changed forever the day I set out in my sky-blue VW Bug heaving with everything I owned. An old carpenter’s chest, a gift from my mother and stepfather, had been carefully packed with watercolors, paintbrushes, and other art paraphernalia and small, cherished belongings. A single suitcase that [...]
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“This is something that needs explaining, how light emerges from darkness, how comfort wells up from sorrow. The Earth holds every possibility inside it, and the mystery of transformation, one thing into another. This is the wildest comfort. That's what this book is about.” (xi) In an effort to make sense of the deaths in [...]
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Single White Monk by Shozan Jack Haubner is a prescient book—not only for its teachings, which are deeply rooted in real-life stories and the humble wisdom that comes from making mistakes and learning to face them, but for its lack of pretension around issues involving sexual abuse and all the opinions, hurt, and life-changing consequences that [...]
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Brad Andrews describes his travels to the Kiso Road in Japan inspired by William Scott Wilson's Walking the Kiso Road. In early April of this year I made a solo trip from Brooklyn, NY, where I live, to Japan. It was my first trip to the East, and one I had contemplated for years before [...]
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On 14 April 2010, my aunt was wrapping up her prayers and enjoying her morning tea when she felt the windows in her room rattle and the bed beneath her shift. She ran out of her room to join the rest of the family in the yard. “Tsering Wangmo, Kyegu is gone. Everything is gone [...]
Continue Reading >> Aligning with the release of her new book The Great Spring and the thirtieth anniversary edition of Writing Down the Bones, February 19 is officially Natalie Goldberg Day in Taos, New Mexico. Writing Down the Bones has sold over a million and a half copies and has been translated into fourteen languages. The deceptively simple writing manual started a [...]
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