Singing the River’s Song Back to the River

In this vulnerable and alive (and hopefully only part one of a multi-part series) Way-Seeking Mind talk, Sensei Amie Diller takes us to the LA parking lot where she had her earliest spiritual memory, to Hebrew school where her rabbi told her that girls can’t be rabbis, to the Oregon woods where she took refuge from childhood trauma, to Europe where she reinvented herself at youth hostels, learned to feel okay being alone with herself, and discovered Kazantzakis and Rilke, to Brandeis and Boston where she did not meet Maslow but did meet a boy, to Maine where she experienced potato farmer and zen master Walter Nowick Roshi’s piercing presence, to becoming an au pair in Carmel Valley and landing at Tassajara, where she received her first meditation instruction and then spent three years as a resident. Amie’s talk is evidence that the most intimate, the most personal is also the most universal. We can all rejoice in her song for it is ours, too.