Book Review: The Great Failure

In The Great Failure: My Unexpected Path to Truth, Natalie Goldberg has offered yet another unvarnished view into what it means to be human. I am grateful to her, and to the many writers who are able to pull this off.  It is not common writing, and therefore I surmise it must not be effortless, even as her prose is as natural as to read itself.

I am fascinated by memoir, my favorite genre.  I find inspiration in the realworld experiences of people, and how they choose to tell the story.  Truth being stranger than fiction, the other part of what I find captivating is the unpredictable nature of actually happens in the everyday lives of families, marriages, spiritual quests - the type of human experiences which are not normally included in 'small talk'. A myriad of ironies happen everywhere, everyday, as we pretend in our little human way that we have control over life, that it can be managed and structured by our fervent wishing and hard work.

Natalie Goldberg practices  Zen Buddhism, which has been her way to make sense of life for more than 30 years.  She is my age, the mid fifties.  We shared the same eras, the same parent generation. Ours was an age group faced with more choices than our parents, yet we were still sorting through the remnants of old paradigms in conflict with the new.  Many of our generation did not make it through.  (I have 2 siblings who are mentally ill).  Many became wildly rich.  Many are gone altogether. We will become the elders soon, the past becomes longer and more varied for those of us still grinding away at the questions, making the most of this gift-challenge of life.


Early in her Buddhist practice, Natalie found her teacher/mentor, Katagiri Roshi. He was her strongest inspiration for 12 years, a formative time which changed Natalie's life, informed her writing and inspired her to create. In the midst of Roshi's teaching, he died of cancer, leaving his student devastated and disoriented. Natalie stayed with her practice, and carried Roshi's memory like a light, trying to survive the loss of the physical presence of a beloved person, gone too soon.

Several years after his death, Natalie learned that Roshi had had numerous extra marital affairs. The man she fervently revered was not the man he appeared to be as they sat for hours in dedicated meditation. Like the grief over death, she was faced with finding the way to still love her teacher, and be with the truth.

In tandem to this struggle, she relates the experiences of her family and it's failings, which she spent much of her life coming to terms with. What a gift this type of story is, a person willing to discuss the workings of a family, the personal journey of a spiritual practice as well as the realities of their own flawed human relationships, like a marriage that didn't work. It gives me solace, assuages that nagging sense that whatever I do is not enough, and that I am not as good as someone who has managed a more conventional life.

I found this quote recently: "Success has a thousand fathers, but failure is an orphan". I think understanding failure is complex, and uncomfortable, but Natalie Goldberg has managed to write through the wall, putting light and air to our human weaknesses, offering forgiveness, setting aside judgment. It is an example of how we can each be in our own practice, noticing more, and judging less.

I bow to Natalie Golberg for her courage to write with honesty and love.

Integrating Practice With Travel and Hosting

After the past month of visiting friends in other parts of the country, being on the road, and then co-hosting a large family gathering, I'm thinking of how one continues a practice and healthy eating habits in non-routine environments. I realize that for most of my life I have let go of my routines when I traveled or spent time in other people's spaces. I am trying to amend that tendency because I love to travel, I love my friends and I love my practice. Giving up routines which keep me healthy should not be a trade-off for indulging my gypsy or my great joy in being with the loved people in my life.

The dilemma, of course, remains how challenging it becomes to practice if there is not space, or a quiet situation. Eating is even more complicated as it is a social ritual, one which I dearly love to share with others. The shear amounts of so much available food containing varying degrees of nutrition have given new challenges to all meal planning. Add to this the increase in allergies and restricted diets, and food choices have never been so complex.

We live in a culture of food abundance, so our new survival has switched from expending energy to acquire food, to expending energy to carefully select and manage what we choose to eat out of the plethora of offerings. When I speak of food abundance, I am referring to the U.S. as a whole, and do not in any way minimize those parts of the world where people are starving. It seems impossible that the 2 paradigms exist together on the same planet, and yet herein probably lies part of the clue to obesity and starvation both.

Returning to the subject of staying with a yoga practice no matter where one wakes up in the morning, I believe this is also part of the key to staying right on eating. I find, and I hope you have experienced this as well, that after my practice, my bodily desires shift. I feel less like eating empty calories, more aware of my internal organs, my interior self and less inclined to eat unconsciously. The simple act of sitting and breathing, going inside, offers us the connection to that part of our physical self which operates in it's marvelously autonomous manner. Bringing the self back to the self is the magic we can partake in every day, even if it just means finding a small space of floor to sit on, finding breath, and doing a rotation or 2.

In my family enough of us practice in some form that we actually practice together as part of our gathering. I recommend this to anyone wishing to enjoy the family reunion at a new level. It may begin with 2 or 3 people, but I almost guarantee others will join in as the practice continues into a tradition. This year we had so many family members joining in morning yoga, we had to crowd the mats. Our participation is growing, as the less inclined watch and notice how good the yogis feel afterwards. We have created a new little paradigm, which works like ultimate frisbee or a poker game to draw people together in an enjoyable activity. It is a relief to find a shared activity which is not eating!

One of my offerings as a yoga teacher is "special order yoga" which allows an individual to create a group and a time, and I will tailor a class to fit the needs of the participants. I've done this a few times in the past year, and it is very fun for all. You might want to lead your group too, give it a try!

If you have any inspirations to share about travel and social eating, post a comment!