Natalie Goldberg: Petites madeleines as dharma

A simple cake, a petite madeleine, expounded the dharma to French writer Marcel Proust. Some years later, Proust’s writings expounded the dharma to our beloved Natalie Goldberg who now expounds the dharma to us. While eating these “squat, plump little cakes”, Proust describes a mystical experience that “immediately rendered the vicissitudes of life unimportant to me.” He goes on: “Acting in the same way that love acts by filling me with a precious essence or rather, this essence was not merely inside me, it was me.” Marcel Proust did not forget his moment of awakening and continued to explore and write about it. In the same way, when we encounter Zen, we don’t stop. We keep practicing. Natalie says it this way: “My understanding of Zen is you continue”. This talk is a practice in listening to and receiving each other, the world, and Proust.