Chris Ammon
3/18.03
Prof. Unno
REL 408/508


Summary of Long Quiet Highway

In Long Quiet Highway, Goldberg ushers us through her unfolding as a writer and a student of Zen. Her path begins with subtle childhood intimations that life has more meaning then being clothed, fed, given a bed to sleep in, encouraged to marry early and rich, and loved in a generic way(24). This quest for larger meaning, squelched in her daily life, was given free rein in rare moments such as in Mr. Clementes class when she was given permission to simply sit and listen to the rain. This experience in particular made a lasting impressions on her and prompted her to pursue both writing and Zazen as a means to living more deeply.

Her first impulse on her journey is to run away from the wall-to-wall carpeting of her childhood in the suburbs, But when she leaves her town of Farmingdale for college in Washington D.C. she comes to realize that she cannot get away so easily. She realizes that [p]ersonal power could not come from college or and English literature book. It had to come from within me. I had to go back and reclaim, transform, what I had inherited from home(30). Writing became her way of confronting and transforming her childhood as opposed to drowning in it. Writing seemed to free her from the constraints of her suburban background.

A crucial point in her Buddhist path comes later when she has an acute experience of oneness while teaching an unruly class in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While in front of the classroom a warm feeling permeates her chest opening red and enormous like a great peony, and it was radiating throughout my body.(58) At that point she realizes that she knew she had to stay true to that one vision(59). This experience leads her to the Lama center where she discovers Buddhism. She realizes that more than merely educating her mind, she wanted to educate her whole being. It is important who we become, because we pass it on, she observes(74)

While she pursues Buddhism, she continues to write and to teach writing workshops. She finds the two paths to be complimentary. She writes that in a sense, meditation and writing go hand in hand. The more deeply we allow ourselves to sink into the darkness of our own selves, the more we can settle into the mind of being a writer(70). Both Zen and writing gave her the experience of boundlessness.

It is when she moves to Minnesota that she meets her ultimate teacher Katagori Roshi. Roshi introduces her to Zen and helps her to discover the value of consistent practice. This translates into both her writing and meditation and she begins to approach both with a new fervor. This enables her to mentally assimilate many of the teachings and translate them into practice. But it took certain pivotal events to really grind the teachings into her on a more visceral level: her divorce from Neil, the death of her grandmother, and the death of her beloved teacher Roshi. With each of these experiences a deep level off loss and great difficulty letting gothey are the ultimate test of her practice and the ultimate lesson. As she works through the pain of these losses and pries herself from the attachments most dear to her, Goldberg discovers the bare honest truth that lies at the root of the meaning shed sought since childhood: impermanence.