Writing in the Spirit of Service - a podcast by HTI Open Plaza

In this episode of OP Talks, Rev. Dr. Tony Tian-Ren Lin talks to celebrated author Sandra Cisneros about her new poetry collection 'Woman Without Shame' (Knopf, 2022) "Art," she says, "is the medicine that heals our heart from the darkness that overwhelms and transforms us. You need to create art not to distract you but to bring you in touch with this darkness that is inside us. Art's mission isn't to entertain or distract. Art's mission is for making you sit with your wounds and transform those demons before those demons transform you."

In this post-pandemic world, where politicians have failed to lead, and the world seems heartbroken, Cisneros continues to turn to her spiritual teachers: the late Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh and Pema Chödrön, an American Buddhist teacher, author, nun.

If she had to give anyone writing advice, Cisneros says she would tell them to write in the spirit of service. "What the writing has taught me is [that], whatever I create with love--on behalf of those I love, with no ego involved, no personal agenda—siempre sale bonito; it always turns out well," she advises. "When you write, you have to be in some place of service, generosity and absolute humility."

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