The writer's job, says Pico Iyer, is to watch his moods and thoughts, as captivating yet passing as the seasons, and decide which are worth sharing. The writer's job, declared Thoreau, is to "watch his moods." Perhaps this is everyone's job, and yet the writer has the rare luxury of sitting still in a quiet place with not much to look at other than what's inside him. He [...]
About Pico Iyer
The Man Who Told the Future
In the back streets of exotic Kathmandu, Pico Iyer and his friend Kristin hear a prophecy that shatters their youthful dreams. The Royal Astrologer knows them better than they know themselves. Kristin and I were scuffling around the back streets of Kathmandu on a lazy November afternoon. We’d already gone to the zoo that day, and been unsettled to see a brown bear [...]
Leonard Cohen Burns, and We Burn with Him
“God is a fire,” said Nikos Kazantzakis. “He burns and we burn with Him.” Art, passion, and Zen are fires too—burning the self, leaving behind only ashes and essence. They burn in Leonard Cohen’s heart, says his admirer Pico Iyer in this 2013 profile, and light up the darkness for us. In his great book of changes and homemade koans, Silence, John Cage defines the purpose of [...]
Whatever Way the Wind Blows
So-called objective reality, Pico Iyer finds, is as fickle as the weather. Maybe that’s because it’s as much mind as matter. When you scramble up the unpaved paths that link guesthouse to teahouse in the exiled Tibetan center of Dharamsala—the spiritual home of Tibet today (and of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama)—you can feel yourself subject to an optical illusion. On many days [...]
Heart of the Dalai Lama
For thirty-five years Pico Iyer has been a friend, observer, and student of the Dalai Lama. In this exclusive and heartfelt essay, he reveals the simple human secret that makes His Holiness the most beloved spiritual figure in the world. "When I was your age," the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is telling a group of six hundred or so young female students at Chikushi Jagakoen school in [...]
The Folly of the Weather Forecast
Not knowing the future helps Pico Iyer keep his hyperactive mind at bay. Then, whether it snows tomorrow or dawns radiant, every moment is a happy surprise. I never read weather forecasts. As soon as I read one, tomorrow is clouded for me, even if it is sunshine that’s predicted. A part of me is making plans, or second-guessing the heavens; a part of me is saying, “I should be [...]
Pico Iyer on “The Art of Stillness”
Pico Iyer – renowned author and world traveler – has written a new book called The Art of Stillness, which Kirkus Reviews has described as “[not] a meditation guide or a New-Age tract but rather a celebration of the age-old practice of sitting with no goal in mind and no destination in sight.” We reached out to the frequent Lion's Roar contributor (see below for some links to [...]
Various Positions
One of the many graces of I’m Your Man, Sylvie Simmons’ new biography of Leonard Cohen, is that she has excavated some choice pieces of wry wisdom from years of Cohen’s sessions with his intimates and the press. Herewith, a few enduring Cohenisms. “There’s no point in refusing to acknowledge the wrathful deities. That’s like putting pants on the legs of pianos like the [...]
An ICU for the Soul
Photo by Benjamin Ellis. When a friend is dealt a heavy emotional blow, Pico Iyer suggests to her that silence and stillness might be the best medicine. Sometimes, it seems, you've got to retreat before you can move forward. A retreat house is “An emergency room for the soul,” I had written, meaning nothing, in a piece I sent to a friend. She had recently lost a love, and I [...]
Pico Iyer on Graham Greene, the Dalai Lama, and “The Man Within My Head”
Pico Iyer's name and face are likely familiar to you; he's been a frequent contributor to the Lion's Roar magazine, writing about the Dalai Lama, music, travel, and more. And for more than twenty-five years, Pico has covered the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan situation for Time, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times Op-ed page. Well, now readers [...]
