Long Quiet Highway: Waking Up in America
Natalie Goldberg
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 0553373153
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The author of Writing Down the Bones recounts her journey awakening from the profound sleep of a suburban childhood, describing her fifteen years as a student of Zen Buddhism, her writing, and resistance to change.
one evening. I had been laboring alone to read it in my little cubicle of a dorm room. The verses bounced off my mind. I couldn’t absorb them. Who cared about Achilles? He had nothing to do with me. I never fought a battle or knew a Trojan—who were they anyway? Then suddenly on a Wednesday night in a seminar class, with Doskow’s help, I saw the wild heroism of Achilles at the moment just before he is about to go into battle. His best friend has just been killed by Hector, a Trojan, and Achilles
rule of “only French spoken in this class.” I was quick that morning: “Je sais! Je sais!” I yelled out. She froze near the window, catching herself in midswing, and saw what she was up to; the whole class, including Madame, broke down laughing in huge relief. “Na-ta-lee,” she said in a sweeping staccato, “someday you will come visit me in Paris.” I was delighted, but I knew that was ridiculous. I had the great fortune to live near New York City. My aunt Rachel told me, “After New York, there is
this.” I liked Mr. Clemente and I wanted to hear what he liked. It is much harder—almost impossible—to enter the teachings, even of poetry, on our own. Somewhere along the way someone showed us the beauty of one poem, so then we could enter other poems. Jack Kerouac, the famous Beat author who wrote On the Road, read the Buddhist sutras and tried to sit meditation alone without a teacher. It was too hard. He did not succeed in any regular practice. He died an alcoholic, choking on his own vomit
stitches, and handed it back to me. “Do it again,” she said. My mouth fell open, tears stung my eves. I leaned over the material and tried to match the two black cottons together again. I was thick-skinned, stubborn: Over the next few weeks, I finished in time for ordination. But here I was ten years later with Tomoe, about to sew. I now understood these were Buddha’s robes we were handling. I would try harder, but I knew in the past ten years I hadn’t become a better seamstress. Except for an
She was one of Roshi’s oldest students from the early days in San Francisco and had become a close friend of his family. They wanted a simple pine box to place him in. They got one with a Jewish star on it. They took off the star and someone said, “Save it for Natalie.” It was a star with a circle around it. For three days, Roshi’s body was in the zendo and we could sit with it at any time. By the time I arrived that night, it was the end of the first day. I bowed and walked into the zendo and