Vocabularies of Being

Sam speaks with poet and essayist Jane Hirshfield. They discuss Jane’s poems “Habit,” “Many-Roofed Building in Moonlight,” “​​A Cedary Fragrance,” “It Was Like This: You Were Happy,” and “Three Times My Life Has Opened,” all of which she recites.

They also discuss Jane’s experience as a member of Princeton’s first graduating class with women; the creative power of beginner’s mind; poetry as a hybrid art form; Jane’s years-long “detour” at America’s first Buddhist monastery; distinguishing between lineages and teachers; various frameworks of Buddhist practice; Jane’s experience with psychedelics; the Japanese poem that changed Jane’s life; the deliberateness of practice vs. the automaticity of routine; how a Miles Davis record inspired Jane’s first glimpse of non-duality; the fundamental unknowability of other people; and other topics