Sailing Home: An Interview With Zen Teacher Norman Fischer

Yesterday Zen teacher Norman Fischer visited our Zen center to talk about and read from his new book, Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer's Odyssey to Navigate Life's Perils and Pitfalls. And after what must have been a long day, he gave me some time for an interview.

In the interview, called Sailing Home: An Interview With Norman Fischer, the author and poet discusses the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and how they can either confuse us or help us sail along. He also talks about honoring our spiritual experiences in a culture that devalues them.

"The mystery (and pain!) of our lives is that we are where we need to be, but we don't know it," Fischer writes in the Introduction. This is a hard lesson. You may have been in life situations that were nearly unbearable. How can this have been where you needed to be?

In my experience, although it may take years, eventually I can look back and understand how an experience in which I felt trapped and suffocating was really a wind in my sails. I just didn't know it at the time.

Hindsight is grand, but how can we understand "now" this way? Answering this question is central to Sailing Home, which combines the rich mythologies of The Odyssey with Buddhist, Judaic and Christian thought to illuminate the spiritual path. I hope you enjoy the interview.