Long Quiet Highway : Waking up in America / Natalie Goldberg
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/ ^ir.v\ GOLDBERG Author of WRITING DOWN THE BONES and WILD MIND LONG QUIET HIGHWAY IN US $19.95 IN CANADA 124.95 imericans see writing as a way to break through their own inertia and become awake, to connect with their deepest sel res. Yes, writing can do thisfor us, but becoming awake is not easy. One must be persistent under all circumstances and it is not always exciting. It is hard. It is a long quiet highway. LONG QUIET HIGHWAY Natalie ( i( ridberg's two books on writing, WiringDown the Bones and Wild. Mind, have sold hundreds of thousands ofcopies because they address m imething deeper in the reader than simply the desire to write. They point the way t( a mc ) >re authentic existence, a new grounding within the selfand in the world. Now Natalie Goldberg takes us on her own wonderful journey ofawakening from the profound sleep ofa suburban childhood. From the high school English i lassroom where she first listened to the rain, to her fifteen years as a student of Zen Buddhism, she captures both the moments oi illumination and the long iplineofdairj pra< tice, the hilarity of error and the grief ofour resistance [< m hang She writes most tenderly and intensely about Katagiri Roshi,theZen master under whom she developed herwriting asbotha livelihood and a spiritual path. Hereweseeatrur) great teat herat work, challenging his students dail) to face their mii itinued h.u k i lap > LONG QUIET HIGHWAY Also by Natalie Goldberg WRITING DOWN THE BONES WILD MIND LONG QUIET HIGHWAY Waking Up in America NATALIE GOLDBERG •^ BANTAM BOOKS New York • Toronto • London • Sydney • Auckland A Bantam Book / March 1 993 Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint from the following: "The Memoirs of Jesse James," copyright © 1910 by Richard Brautigan. Reprinted by permission of The Helen Brann Agency, Inc.; Excerptfrom "The Wanderer Returned" from Fully Empowered by Pablo Neruda. Translation copyright © 1975 by Alistair Reid, Reprinted by permission ofFarrar, Straus S^Giroux, Inc.; No. 22 from "Mountains and Waters Sutra" from Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen, edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi. Copyright © 1985 by the San Francisco Zen Center. Published by North Point Press and reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus S^Giroux, Inc.; "The Crow That Visited Was Flying Backwards," copyright © 1984 by John Brandi. Reprinted with permission of Tooth oj Time Books, Inc.; "Simply snow falls" haiku from Inch by Inch. Reprinted by permission of Tooth of Time Books, Inc.; "Late Fragment"from A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carver, copyright © 1989 by the estate of Raymond Carver. Reprinted with permission of Atlantic Monthly Press; Poem by Katagiri Roshi in Wind Bell, twenty-fifth anniversary issue, copyright © 1986. Reprinted by permission of the San Francisco Zen Center. All rights reserved. Copyright © 1993 by Natalie Goldberg BOOK DESIGN BY GRETCHEN ACHILLES No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldberg, Natalie. Long quiet highway : waking up in America / Natalie Goldberg. p. cm. ISBN 0-^53-07245-5 I. Goldberg, Natalie. 2. Religious biography United States. 3. Spiritual life. I. Title. BL73.G65A3 1993 29l'.092—ilc20 IB J 92-31477 CIP Published atnultaneoush in the United States and ( anada Bantam Hooks arc published hv Bantam Rooks, a division <>/ Bantam Doubledaj Hell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Rooks" and the portrayal of </ rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and m other countries Marca Registrada Bantam Rooks, 666 I ifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103 PRINTED l\ III! UNITED STATES OF AMI RU A '* //(, 8 7 6 > 4 i 2 I For my teacher Dainin Katagin Roshi with boundless love, gratitude, and appreciation Acknowledgments I wish to thank Jan Best, who once again tvped the manuscript from the original handwritten pages; Jean Levshon, mv assistant and also a long-time student of Katagiri Roshi; Kate Green, for being mv main reader; John Thorndike, for his initial comments on Part I; Geneen Roth and Laura Davis, who also read Part I; the Minneapolis Public Li- brarv, for tracking down the Brautigan poem; Richard Chakrin, an old friend from Mr. Cates's class; Robert Handleman, who lived on mv block in Farmingdale; Brett Gadbois, an old friend and earlv teacher of writing and practice; Tomoe Katagiri and the sangha of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, and also the sangha of evervone, w herever vou are, and of all things; and Jonathon Lazear, mv agent, and Toni Burbank, mv editor. Introduction I here is an order of Buddhist monks in Japan whose practice is running. They are called the marathon monks of Mount Hiei. They begin running at one- thirty A.M. and run from eighteen to twenty-five miles per night, covering several of Mount Hiei's most treacherous slopes. Be- cause of the high altitude, Mount Hiei has long cold winters, and part of the mountain is called the Slope of Instant Sobriety; because it is so cold, it penetrates any kind of illusion or in- toxication. The monks run all year round. They do not adjust their running schedule to the snow, wind, or ice. They wear white robes when they run, rather than the traditional Buddhist black. White is the color of death: There is always the chance of dying on the way. In fact, when they run they carry with them a sheathed knife and a rope to remind them to take their life by disembowelment or hanging if they fail to complete their route. After monks complete a thousand-day mountain marathon within seven years, they go on a nine-day fast without food, water, or sleep. At the end of the nine days, they are at the edge of death. Completely emptied, they become extremely sensitive. "They can hear ashes fall from the incense sticks .. and they can smell food prepared miles away." Their sight is vivid and clear, and after the fast they come back into life radiant with a vision of ultimate existence. I read about these monks in a book entitled The Marathon Monks of Mount Hiei, by John Stevens (Shambhala, 1988). It was just before I went to teach the first of four Sunday afternoon x Introduction writing seminars at The Loft in Minneapolis. I was excited by what I read and naturally I wanted to share it. I stood behind the podium and carried on to fifty Midwestern writers and would-be writers about how the monks became one with the mountain they ran on, how they knew the exact time each species of bird and insect began to sing, and when the moon rose, the sun set, the wind changed direction. I was twenty minutes into the seminar's two hours, telling about the monks, when I looked up and paused. "I guess you want to know what the marathon monks have to do with writing? "Well, they have everything to do with it. The way I see it, you either break through in your writing—say what you really need to say—or head for Mount Hiei. As a matter of fact, take a gun with you next time you go to a cafe to write. If you don't connect in your writing that day, just shoot yourself. Vague writing on Monday—off with the little toe. Tuesday, no better—the big toe. Get the idea?" Why do the marathon monks go to such extremes? They want to wake up. That's how thick we human beings are. We are lazy, content in our discontent, sloppy, and asleep. To wake up takes the total effort that a marathon monk can exert. I told my class on the last day of the four-week seminar, "Well, you have two choices: Mount Hiei or writing. Which one will you choose? Believe me, if you take on writing, it is as hard as being a marathon monk." There is a story about Hui-k'o, the Second Ancestor of Zen, who found Bodhidharma in a cave where he was meditating for nine wars. Bodhidharma was the first patriarch, or ancestor, of Zen in China and, in tact, he brought Zen there from India. Introduction xi Day and night, Hui-k'o begged Bodhidharma for the teachings. "Please, master, I beseech you. Make my mind peaceful." Bod- hidharma ignored him and continued to sit in meditation. This went on for a long time: the beseeching and the ignoring. Then one evening in December, there was a huge blizzard. It snowed all night and all the next day. Hui-k'o just stood outside the cave without moving, until the snow was waist high. He was waiting to be recognized by Bodhidharma. Finally, he took out a knife and cut off his left arm. He threw it in front of Bod- hidharma. You can imagine the red blood on the white snow. With this, Bodhidharma looked up and asked what he wanted. There is another Zen story about a beautiful woman who came to a monastery and wanted to practice. The head monk said, "If you want to join a monastery, first you must get married and raise three children. Then you can come back." She did this and returned years later. She was still refused entry into the monastery. The head monk said she was too beautiful.