Quotes by Natalie Goldberg

"Continue under all circumstances."

Whether we know it or not, we transmit the presence of everyone we have every know, as though by being in each other's presence we exchange our cells, pass on some of our life force, and then we go on carrying that other person in our body, not unlike springtime, when certain plants in fields we walk through attach their seeds in the form of small burrs to our socks, our pants, our caps, as if to say, 'Go on, take us with you, carry us to root in another place.' This is how we survive long after we are dead.  This is why it is important who we become, because we pass it on.

To stay close and intimate with experience is to stay close to the mind; the nitty gritty mind of the way things really are.

At the moment our rational mind stops, hits against a wall ... something else happens. And a bigger mind, like a pearl, rolls in a silver bowl.

As writers we need to crack open language.

That is what Zen is about.  To have an intimate connection with the world and on top of it to know about its passing.  Of course there is sadness.  But how sweet.  And at the heart of it, what bravery.  We know about impermanence, but it does not drive us into a hole.  We dare in the face of it to stand up and become intimate and not just with human beings, which is hard enough, but also with the sky, water, chairs, cows and sidewalks.  Is this not the way of the writer?  The sad thing I that the knowledge of impermanence is often not enough for human beings.  We have to hit ourselves over the head.

Katagiri Roshi says: "Poor artists. They suffer very much. They finish a masterpiece and they are not satisfied. They want to go on and do another." Yes, but it's better to go on and do another if you have the urge than to start drinking and become alcoholic or eat a pound of good fudge and get fat.

First thoughts have tremendous energy. It is the way the mind first flashes on something. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash.

We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don't have our own style. Don't worry. Writing is a communal act. Contrary to popular belief, a writer is not Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire. We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas, and soda pop of this time. It all gets mixed up in our writing.

We shouldn't forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.