Natalie Goldberg - The Great Failure: My Unexpected Path to Truth

She knows theres no success like failure, And that failures no success at all.

B OB D YLAN

Dont worry if you write the truth. It doesnt hurt people, it helps them.

D AININ K ATAGIRI R OSHI

W ITH ORANGE LEAVES STILL CLINGING to branches in that unusually mild stretch of late fall, on a sweet street in quiet St. Paul, I was about to slip my key into the front door of the apartment building. I was returning from Zen Center, where I came to study for two months. It was Monday at nine in the evening; no one was on the street. Suddenly I jerked my head to the right. One step below me in the entryway stood a beautiful man, shining face, almost clear eyes, in his late teens, aiming the barrel of a shotgun right at my neck. Feeling the small opening circle on my skin, I jerked my head.

How dare you! I was about to be outraged when he hissed, Dont make a move. Give me your purse.

On my left shoulder dangled a small black backpack with three hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills. Just that day I had been to the bank. To my chest I clutched my spiral notebook, the hefty 463-page Book of Serenity containing one hundred Zen dialogues, and a thinner black paperback, Transmission of Light .

On my right shoulder was a big blue plastic bag advertising a pharmaceutical company in white letters. My friend, a dermatologist, had picked it up for me at a medical convention. This bag held my old brown sneakers, black pants I bought when I returned a gift sweater that was too small, a Bob Dylan T-shirt a student had given me fifteen years ago, and a pair of good socks. I had gone to the gym only three times in the last month. That afternoon was my third time.

Cmon, give it up.

I looked at him. He was nervous. Was this his first? Or was he on drugs? In a magnanimous moment I handed over my exercise bag.

This is your purse? He took a step back and surveyed me.

Yes, I said emphatically.

You sure? I nodded my head up and down in earnest. We were having a fashion disagreement.

He turned and ran. I bolted through the front door. I had fooled him. He could keep those worn gym shoes. I felt a small victory.

F IVE DAYS LATER I was standing on the podium during a conference at a Marriott Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Seven hundred people were staring up at me. The title of my talk was Riding Your Wild Horses. I was supposed to be speaking about creative writing, but the night before I had decided to change the whole lecture. In St. Paul Id been studying Zen koans, short interchanges between teachers and students from eighth-and ninth-century China that cut through conditioned ways of seeing, enabling a person to experience ones true nature. I wanted to talk about that in my keynote speech, then to link it up to my being robbed, another kind of wake-up experience. I was sure it would work. I loved giving talks. Eventually, Id meander over and tie it up with writing to fulfill the obligation of my original contract. This felt adventuresome and I was pleased. I made three notes on the smallest torn-off corner of a piece of paper and went to bed.

A tall lovely man who had read my books introduced me. I stepped onto the stage and thanked him. I took a sip of water and began by telling an ancient teaching tale.

Te-shan, a learned Buddhist scholar, piled up all his sutrasthey weighed a lotput them in a bag on his back, and headed south. Te-shan thought the Zen practitioners in southern China who espoused direct insight not dependent on book learning had it all wrong, and he was going to set them straight. On the wayof course he walked, maybe for a portion of the journey taking a boat down the Yangtzehe met an old woman selling tea cakes on the side of the road. He stopped for some refreshment. But the old woman, instead of setting out the provisions, inquired, Whats on your back?

They are commentaries and teachings of the Buddha.

They are indeed! Well, if youre so learned, may I ask you a question? If you can answer it, the food is free, but if you fail, you get nothing.

Our Te-shan with all his book learning thought this would be simple, like taking candy from a babe. He agreed.

The woman then askedand with her question I could feel my audience fading, that vital link between speaker and listener suddenly going limpIf the mind does not exist in the past, and the present mind does not exist, and theres also no mind in the future, tell me with what mind will you receive these cakes?

What is she talking about? Before the old womans question, the audience was willing to come along. After all, everyone loves a story, and certainly Natalie Goldberg was leading up to those wild horses advertised in the catalog. Maybe the old woman will even pull them out of her cakes. Oh, the audience was hopeful. I could feel it. This was a conference full of crystals, psychics, healing dances, drums, auras, afterlives.