Wild Mind

Right in the middle of action, we stop and see something else, but it is not only Hemingway’s words that convey this. It is also the measure of his breath and sentences that conveys it.

unctuation had real significance. It signaled the beginning and end of thought.

“And if punctuation is about thought,” I thought, “then in order to punctuate, we have to know our mind, to know what we think, and when one thought stops and the other begins. We have to understand the journey of thought, how thought moves around in our mind.”

Then I recited it to her. ‘in order to be an artist, one must be deeply rooted in the society.’

Now it is September, several months later. I understand something now that I didn’t then. Success is different from love. I mixed them up. I thought if I wrote a book I’d get the attention I had wanted a very long time ago from my parents for just being alive and being myself. That wasn’t the only reason I wrote. I wrote because I never felt so whole and alive as I did when I wrote my first poem. I was complete. I created something from myself and nothing was want

. That was the original flame. It was good enough, but along the way I mixed it all up. I thought it could heal the world; it could heal me; it could do everything, because I felt so good when I wrote. I took one step ahead of the ordinary good act of writing. I wanted to become successful, noticed, famous, so I could finally get the love and attention I didn’t get as a child.

I took writing outside writing. I took my life outside life. I wanted to throw it way ahead of me, thinking it would cure something way behind me. “If I get famous, then... ,” “If I get this book finished, then... ,” “If I win this grant, then... ,” “If I get published, then...”

We need to let writing be writing and let it give us what it gives us in the moment. If we connect with anything in the moment, it frees us of the past, present, and future. We are just there. If we are chopping wood, we are chopping wood; brushing our teeth, brushing our teeth; walking, walking.

have to be willing to be uncomfortable and poor, maybe for the rest of your life. You have to have a big vision and enter the sangha [spiritual community] of writers all over the world, past, present and future, for eons. So keep your well-paying job while you test out your commitment.”

Clarity and perseverance are difficult in American society because the basis of capitalism is greed and dissatisfaction.

is good to try different things, but eventually we must settle on one thing and commit ourselves. Otherwise we are always drifting and there is no peace. To stay with one thing gives us an opportunity to penetrate our lives and be free.

you lonely?” I asked him.

“Of course,” he answered. “But I do not let it toss me away. It is just loneliness.”

Writing is very lonely,” I stressed again.

“Anything you do deeply is very lonely. There are many Zen students here, but the ones that are going deep are very lonely.”