“So…connection?” I said. “It’s hard to come by, but important to have,” Joan said. “The same is true of surrender. The new code has to hang on that.”

It was an invitation to let go of rational thinking. I asked if she ever tried meditating. “I didn’t like that at all.”

“We die, and we do not die. This is the right understanding. Some people may say that our mind or soul exists forever, and it is only our physical body which dies. But this is not exactly right, because both mind and body have their end. But at the same time it is also true that they exist eternally.”

koan,

Joan said she used to read Zen Mind, Beginners Mind “every night to relax when I went to bed. It was very soothing.”

Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki,

“Has anything replaced it?” “Work hard.” She laughed. “That seems to be your all-purpose solution.” “I think we have to find another code,” she said. I asked what that code might involve. “I have no idea.” Joan was silent a few moments, staring at her hands in her lap. She said it would have to include “acceptance of what is.” She thought a moment

had to do was work harder, stop feeling sorry for herself, and start another book, and she knew she could do it.

So the Western code… “It’s not my code anymore. because I’m not self-reliant. It would be a useless code.”