BACK HOME AND VERY FULL OF ALL THAT HAPPENED

There were two big buck on the road just as I was nearing my house. Always love to see the critters. I have gone out of my way to make my ranch a critter-friendly place.

It will take awhile to absorb all that I learned at the retreat, to process and make it useable for myself. It was very important to me on many levels…and to my work and for my book.

Entrance to the Zendo

Entrance to the Zendo

Entrance to the Zendo

Dan Siegel is the Director of the Mindsight Institute, co-Director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center and a practicing psychiatrist. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anyone—especially one so young (he’s only 52)–with such vast and diverse training who has amassed such knowledge, learned to communicate it so accessibly and with such playfulness and generosity. It was a privilege listening to him. His sessions helped us understand how the brain works and how our experiences, our relationships affect the mind and even the neural structures of the brain. Critical connections in the brain and the possibility of integrating the right and left hemispheres in the brain can be enhanced or damaged by interpersonal relationships or trauma early in life. They can also be rebuilt and integrated at virtually any point along the life span including (and most interestingly) with mindfulness meditation of the kind we did for 3 hours every day. This was a profound lunge into the neuroscience behind mindful meditation.

Beate Stolte, the co-Abbott, Roshi Joan. Me ready to work, Natalie Goldberg and Dan Siegel

Beate Stolte, the co-Abbott, Roshi Joan. Me ready to work, Natalie Goldberg and Dan Siegel

This morning, Dan, myself, Greg with the Metta Foundation and two other men sat on a porch and talked about mindfulness. As we sat there I became aware of an overwhelming sense of joy and deja vu, a sense that I had felt like this before but I couldn’t place it. A little while later as I was doing some physical therapy for my ankle I remembered: In the late 50s I drove to Big Sur in search of Henry Miller (he was away) but I ended up at the Big Sur Hot Springs Lodge which a few years later grew into the Esalen Institute. Dick Price was running the place as he did the Esalen Institute and we became very close. I had never met a man like him, devoted to the burgeoning human potential and mindfulness movement. He tried to teach me to meditate, introduced me to Alan Watts, read to me about Zen Buddhism. A man with his gentleness and consciousness was totally new to me and made a deep impression. I left Big Sur and went to France to make a movie and ended up living there but I never forgot Dick and what it felt like to be around him. Today, on that porch with those four men I rediscovered the feeling. And as the day progressed I realized that almost all the men at the retreat (and there were many men) had some of this same quality of presence, loving kindness, gentleness, respect…all searching to be of service on behalf of the wellbeing of others. A number of them were recent retirees, in their early fifties, who had decided to enter the chaplaincy. Many were therapists. To experience this in a group of women is something I have been lucky to know many times over, including at a women’s retreat last year at the Zen Center. But the male version was unexpected and reassuring.

Later in the day a woman from Holland named Irene Bakker, took me through a short version of her healing work. She does what is called “Big Mind” work. It was wonderful. To hard to explain and it’s too late at night but it will be very useful to me on the film I will do with Eve Ensler next June.

There was so much else but my mind is numb right now.

After breakfast waiting for our work assignments

After breakfast waiting for our work assignments

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Listening to Roshi Joan, Dan Siegel and Natalie Goldberg during a session.

Listening to Roshi Joan, Dan Siegel and Natalie Goldberg during a session.

Dan teaching about the brain

Dan teaching about the brain

Inside the Zendo during a session.

Inside the Zendo during a session.

View across the parking lot to the Upaya Zen Center

View across the parking lot to the Upaya Zen Center

The Upaya kitchen. That’s Sandra McDonald on the right. She’s the lead cook and when there isn’t a retreat she cooks for me and my guests. She’s a saint!

The Upaya kitchen. That’s Sandra McDonald on the right. She’s the lead cook and when there isn’t a retreat she cooks for me and my guests. She’s a saint!

See you next time.

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28 Comments
  1. It sounds like a wonderful, grounding experience. Thank you so much for sharing it with us through the photos as well as your experiences.

  2. You are truly blessed to have such a wonderful experience. Enjoy the moments as I know you do – thanks for sharing – lots of love from Montana

  3. I am so lucky to be a Artist trained and with degrees and to have come across the understanding of the brain. My degree in Education media has show me so much more, with my degree in Child Development,my view of Art and development of the person ,this make me feel so happy for you in this behaviorist view of Zen. As a Actor you can see the cross interface. I am a Artist and can see the use that becomes verbatim, in the behaviorist psychologist who subscribe to a Zen world. Zen was first a personal discipline than a practical or absolute apologists for the behaviorist questions of conduct. As a teacher I see the method of symbolic acts for a disciple, than the stepping-stones of self-realization that has not a hurry in this world. It is Art or as being a Artist that Zen is the beginning and the end.Zen and consciousness and the artist’s role as psychology is obscure or in whole question. Art and Zen as artist becomes aesthetic by the interaction of the psychic disciplines of Zen.
    The Actor is personally that is passion in the connection of Zen and passionate love of Nature as in poetry and art. The interesting point are that the psychologist view tend to be function or symbols and not as the forms. In Art it is the understanding of direct and beyond the scope of words , but a direct spiritual communication.
    That is my view of it, your lucky to be a Actor I see what you could be seeing.

  4. dear Jane,

    Great to read your blog. Roshi Joan is amazing. I only have one experience with her this past Spring at Scripps Memorial Hospital-La Jolla. She and the San Diego Hospice gave a one day workshop on end-of-life care, a topic near and dear to my path and healing arts practice.

    I found Big Mind to be an amazing practice and healing tool…another way of opening to experience. I first learned of it through Ken Wilber and Integral Institute online. You probably already know of Genpo Roshi, http://www.bigmind.org/Home.html. And now there is Big Mind TV online for those who want to study long distance.

    Blessings and thanks for sharing your experience at Upaya. I have been on their grounds recently since moving to NM last March. Lovely, lovely environs and people.

    Chris
    Inner Garden Path ™ to Health
    NM and So. CA

  5. You are making a movie with Eve Ensler? How cool is that! Please do tell us everything.

    I enjoyed reading your posts on this retreat because I’m in the middle of Natalie Goldberg’s book “Writing Down the Bones.” It’s so motivating to writers! Your personal experience in her mileau added fun context.

  6. Think it was a great experience for you. Undoubtedly, with each passing day, you passed over these lessons and feelings. In this photo, you look radiant and healthy. From Uruguay with love.

  7. You have been influenced by so many interesting people and experiences, not only on this retreat but throughout you life! Thank you for sharing what you have learned. It sounds like the information you learned on this retreat would be helpful on many levels to a variety of people.

    I do have a suggestion for your book because I am concerned that you will lose a large group of people who will associate these techniques or philosophy with Buddhism–as a religion. My suggestion, for example, would be to emphasize what you have learned as ‘a path to healthful living’ as opposed to using words like ‘zen Buddhism’.

    Again, I think what you have learned can be helpful to many, but I would hate to have the ‘general public’ ignore your book due to its influence from an Eastern religion. Or, have the headlines shout that Jane Fonda has now discarded her new found Christianity for the tenets of Buddhism!! That would be a shame. Be careful.

  8. hello Jane, was thinking on my experience with a well known Psychiatrist Joseph A. Pursch, M.D.,a specialist in addiction who treated Betty Ford and astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
    I have met him a few times , but was a good friend of his ex-wife . As he would say Iam do not have a addiction . Dr. Pursch has treated many stars like Sterling Hayden and I think Carrie Fisher.
    But what I found interesting is the back story of what it is like living with a famous psychiatrist and what the world sees and what life on the real day to day as one of basic frustrations.I can see the ludicrous views and the concerns of the corporate medical world of money and minds.
    Than the Zen of it all, it is at the roots; there is the system of action and the role of understanding the self and the role that comes into play with any action we creates. Irene,Dr. Pursch Ex-wife and my friend was a wonderful person she died a few years ago from colon cancer with her family at her side.

  9. Hi Jane,
    So loved this post. You probably have heard all about the Mind and Life conference in Washington, DC in October where the Dalai Lama and scientists will talk about educating children. I know Roshi Joan will be there. (She led a fantastic session at the Seeds of Compassion event in Seattle last year. She is wonderful!) The event in DC is titled Conference Educating World Citizens for the 21st Century http://www.educatingworldcitizens.org/.
    Mind and Life is on twitter, and their tweets kept me clicking on fantastic link after fantastic link the first evening I discovered it! @mindandlifeorg.
    Best wishes,
    Sara

  10. Re: connecting with the right side of the brain; I think, if you are right-handed, try writing, drawing or painting with your left hand and that should automatically access the right hemisphere.
    You are aesthetically gifted Jane, so you access the right side more than you realize. In fact, LOL, you have so much going on in (both sides of)your head I sometimes wonder how you can hold it all in without exploding. Kidding of course. You are amazing.

  11. thank for for all the documentation and photo,being totally relax in your quiet place,a jewel of eden, fit for writing and actoring!!frederique dhenein

  12. It’s nice to know you make your ranch as critter friendly as possible! I know you must feel happy and content when you are driving near your home on the ranch….returning once again….with all the animals “happy” to see you returning!! Your time at the retreat sounds very special! Maybe you will share more of what you learned there after you’ve had time to absorb and understand everything that was presented to you. I thought it was interesting about how you described some men at the retreat…that they had a ” quality of presence, a loving kindness, gentleness.” I have met some men and women with these qualities. They usually are religious people, or are people who are spiritual. I read something recently that said the same part of the brain is affected when you are praying or meditating!! That’s interesting, but I’m not sure how true that is. Your pictures were fun to see! It looks like a very peaceful place! Now you’re back at the ranch, and you rest and get some extra sleep now! Take care!

  13. Dear Jane: Forgive the love-hate thing I have with you: Adore your work but hate that we simultaneously shared Joni Evans as editor for our diet and exercise books in the 80’s–they came out the same time and guess who won?? (You gobbled up my promotion budget, too!) Anyway, all is forgiven, if you agree to my proposal below: I am writing a five-part documentary series for HBO called “Bad Sex.” I’ve written on sex and sexual health, as a sex columnist for GQ, and for CBS News, New York magazine, etc. Got bloody tired of writing about impotence when it’s women who are by far those so often left wondering “is that all there is?” even in our so-called “liberated” age. The series will tell the, ahem, naked truth about female sexuality–wants, needs, joys, betrayals, repression, liberation, lust, love, and discreet but passionate PDA (you go, girl!) –at all ages. I would love to interview you to explore your unique and mature perspective on the subject, and discuss your critical work with G-CAPP. I will of course try to contact you through the usual channels but thought I’d get a head start here. Perhaps you would like to serve as a producer as well! (I can of course provide extensive credentials.) Regards, Randy B.

  14. Jane,
    I am reading your biography right now and I feel like I connect with you on so many levels that I am wondering if you take vitamins? As I age I try to eat healthy but I also believe that supplementing my diet with vitamins is a good thing. Do you agree?

  15. It all seems very peaceful and calming. Sounds very interesting!

  16. HI Jane, So nice to read your remembrance of Dick. For so many of us, he was an introduction to that field of gentle strength and big space. Glad to know that you have connected with a circle that has those qualities. All the best to you.

  17. Dear Jane,
    I agree with you that Mindsight is fascinating and Dan Siegel an inspiration.
    I am on the board of Esalen if you ever want to return please let me know.
    We met at Jane Olson’s home.
    I enjoyed your blog a lot.
    Alyce Faye

  18. Hi Jane. I enjoyed being surrounded by your beautiful presence at the Upaya Retreat and I especially appreciate your thoughts about your experience. Counselors, writers and teachers must continually work to find unity and balance in their facilitation. It is through their own harmony, that the client’s story can safely emerge. Respectfully submitted, Belinda

  19. thanks for sharing- enjoying hearing about this retreat and the unfoldment of the book. Right smack dab in middle of reading my Life so far right now and loving it. You are such an inspiration and lovely human being.

  20. HI Jane
    Love that photo and your writing.The months ahead will be very busy for you but I cant wait for the publication of your book.What fun you’ll have promoting it.

  21. Glad to hear the retreat went well. I wish the world go on on one big retreat and come back devoted to making the world a better place and give peace a chance.

  22. Thanks for this Jane.

  23. I’ve spent time in the spring-fed hot tubs on the cliffs at the Esalen Institute watching whales swim and otters play. I did ‘mind/body’ work there. Indescribable beauty. The air, the trees, the food, the wonderful loving people, the legends of Big Sur.

    I see a Buddhist therapist. She ‘prescribed’ meditation. I’m 46 and I think this is the first time in my life I’ve been able to have a decent relationship with myself. Lots of other great stuff falls out of that like being being more fully present with my mother who has Alzheimer’s.
    I was able to quit taking anti-depressants. I also quit smoking and drinking. I highly recommend meditation. I am not very good at doing it regularly or for very long (can’t imagine meditating for 3 hours, I can barely do 5 minutes), but it still helps. Just a few moments of connecting with myself…it is good medicine.

    The retreat sounds fascinating. Thanks for telling us about it.

  24. Hi Jane,
    Don’t know if you had a chance to see “August: Osage County” while you were on B’way, but I’d love to see you in the movie as Violet….what a juicy part and you would be fabulous!

  25. Hi from Thomaston GA
    I can’t imagine writing to you this way..but I guess its the modern way of communicating! My wife and I own the historic 1927 RITZ Theatre in Thomaston…and not only area we familiar with most of your great movies, we admire you as a person and what you have done in many ways over the years. To be a brief as possible at this time:
    Our theatre marquee, put up in the 40’s is falling down. We started a fund raiser a couple of years ago to replace it. Slowly we’ll get there! Well the FOX Theatre in Atlanta through their Institute department applied on our behalf to the Georgia Trust for a grant in their “places in peril” projects. Through the grapevine we have heard that we are very likly to be included as one of their ten projects later this year. That announcement will be made in Atlanta on November 4th. The Georgia Trust wants us to plan a “Spotlight” event at the RITZ soon after. This will be a free admission happening to announce the plans for the new marquee. This evening will also be a look back in movies from 1927 as a history of the RITZ. Plus there will be some entertainment to make the evening ‘rock’. Now I want you to be there that evening as a true ‘marquee’ of the cinema ( You may not have been called that before, but you are right out in front in movies, like the marquee is right out in front of the RITZ) Anyway it would be a great honor for us and Thomaston to have you make an appearance at our “Spotlight” evening. You would make us stand out and be noticed. Dates in mind right now are Nov. 12/19 or Dec 10th. Of course we could and would move our date to fit in with your schedule.
    Please, Please consider our invitation.
    Oh yes, NM is beautiful. We lived in Las Vegas NM and renovated the old KIVA Theatre there 16 or so years ago before moving to GA to renovate the RITZ. We spent our cash on the inside and new equipment and now try to keep the classic, courthouse square theatre open seven days a week.
    Thanks for reading this. Thanks for your movie magic.
    Cheers,
    Malcolm & Amy Neal
    Owners, RITZ Thomaston GA
    [email protected]

  26. It sounds like you had quite a lot of wonderful experiences at this retreat. It must be a rewarding feeling to have met all these amazing people and to have grown more in this area.

    I really look forward to the Eve Ensler film you will star in.

    Best,
    Amanda

  27. Hi Jane.

    I’m an American Sikh and I practice a form of meditation called Naam Simran. Basically, you sit cross legged and repeat a mantra “Satnaam Vahe-guru” which means “God’s name is true. Wonderful God.” I found that if you do this for 15 to 20 minutes a day, your mind feels relaxed and focused.

    Also, I want to say that your are an inspiration to us all and keep up the good work.

    ~Amar

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