101 Relativity

In March, Mark and David were initiated in lay ordination, a rite similar to the monthly precept ceremony, and presented rakusus by the master. It was like Lutheran confirmation—priest in robe and vestments, candles, incense, chanting, praying, bowing, kneeling, photographs, and potluck. It moved me to see two young men kneel, pray, and promise to be good.

"Yes, I will!"

"Yes, I will!"

At the temple the master had tried to foster the use of the term "lay initiation" in place of "lay ordination." After one of his former students had been so "ordained," the master explained, this student had set up shop and advertised himself as an "ordained" and qualified teacher of Zen, a kind of lay priest, citing his rakusu, lineage papers, and ordination photos as credentials. The master considered this fraud. But later from my reading and from the master himself I learned that much the same criticism had been made of the official and traditional ordination of priests, the dharma transmission, and the lineage.

"Myths," their critics called them.

Fiction.

For the next three years Billy and I continued to correspond, but John and I, both of us for different reasons sickened, saddened, and alarmed by the war, could no longer communicate. In my search for an Islamic tradition of nonviolence, from a lecture by Scott Kugle that I found online I learned of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a contemporary of Gandhi. Here I thought John and I might find common ground. The link to the lecture I emailed to John.

Khan:

I am a servant of God. As God needs no service I shall serve Him by serving His creatures selflessly. I shall never use violence. I shall not retaliate or take revenge. I shall forgive anyone who indulges in oppression and excesses against me.... I shall lead a simple life, do good and refrain from wrongdoing.  

But John didn't get that far. He could read only to the point, John said, where Kugle declared the judgments "good" and "evil" to be subjective and relative. John could read no further, he told me. I checked the text. The intolerable declaration appeared in the first paragraph of the lecture. The same idea was expressed by Buddhist masters in chants I recited at the temple.

"If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything," says Sosan in his "Verses on the Faith Mind." "To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind."

"Do not think good or bad," says Dogen.

To me it made sense.

But to John ethical relativity like this was not the solution but the problem.

Impasse.

In his blog John posted his observations and opinions and periodically I checked them to learn how he was thinking. One post in particular—a plea for commitment, for courage, for perseverance, and for both personal and national sacrifice in the war against merciless, irrational, and implacable Islamofascists in Afghanistan and Iraq—in spite of its rhetoric touched me. It communicated a sense of patriotism, urgency, and alarm that reminded me of a painting called "Combat" by the fabulous comic book artist Frank Frazetta. In the painting an American soldier and hero, belts of ammunition slung over his two shoulders, the corners of his mouth twisted down in an agonized and terrible grimace of desperation, determination, sacrifice, and unqualified love, struggles with one arm to keep his wounded, bleeding, unconscious, dying comrade from falling below the surface of the dark water at their knees while with his other arm he fires his automatic weapon at the unseen enemy, the spent cartridges tumbling from his weapon and the splashes and trails of the rounds of enemy fire visible in the water and air. To John without comment I emailed the link to this illustration.

"Yes, that's exactly how I feel," John replied.

I did not.

Months, maybe a year, passed before we corresponded again.

War.

My family, my job, and my practice filled my life.

100 Churchy

By the beginning of March of my first year, six months since my meditation classes, I considered myself a regular at the temple and I settled into a routine that with only minor variations continued for five years. At home I sat forty minutes, cutting back from an hour to fifty minutes and then to forty each day, usually the first thing in the morning on work days and at various times of the day in the summer when I was not teaching; and depending on weather, job, and family I also incorporated a fast five-mile walk both meditation and exercise. My regular household chores I considered mindful work practice, the grocery shopping, the dishes, the laundry, the lawn in the summer, the sidewalks and driveway in the winter. At the temple every Tuesday I served as doan for evening zazen. Once a month on the evening of the Wednesday nearest the full moon I participated in the precept ceremony, Ryaku Fusatsu, and every Sunday morning each week I attended regular morning activities, often serving as jisha, shoten, doan, or zazen instructor for new people, and eventually even as ino, the chant leader, during Ryaku Fusatsu. Each year I also participated in most of the scheduled one-day and two-day sesshins and in most of the special two-hour dharma study classes that the master offered on four or five consecutive Saturday mornings during each of the two annual practice periods at the temple. In addition I continued to volunteer for temple jobs. From one to two hours a week I vacuumed the temple mats and cushions, I dusted and swept, I wiped down floors with a damp cloth, I cleaned the two bathrooms, I cleaned the four large and the six small altars, I sifted the remains of charcoal and incense from the koros, I took care of the flowers and the bouquets, and I worked in the office. I was elected to the board of directors and in my fourth and fifth years I was elected vice president, a position thankfully without duties. On Mondays, the master's day off, the temple was closed, but at least one week a month it was not unusual for me to be at the temple for one thing or another on every day but Monday—on Tuesday evening, zazen; on Wednesday evening, the precept ceremony; on Thursday afternoon, my temple job; on Friday morning or evening, zazen; on Saturday morning, dharma study or sesshin; and on Sunday morning, frequently from 8:00 to noon and after, zazen, service, dharma talk, practice group meeting, coffee and conversation. My involvement at the temple and with the master had in a very short time become a big part of my life.

My wife was amused.

"Zen is perfect for you," she told me.

I smiled.

But she had set me up.

"You're obsessive compulsive, you're anal retentive, and you like to sit and do nothing."

I laughed.

There was just enough truth in her observation that I told the master what she had said.

"Tell her that I am none of those things," the master responded, "and that Zen is perfect for me, too."

When my practice and temple commitments interfered with our family and our social life, Ruth was annoyed. Frequently in front of me and our friends, half serious, half teasing, Ruth complained.

"Bob has gotten all churchy on me."

Hmm.

Her jab both tickled and hurt and I would smile in confusion and chagrin. Suddenly having all this religion in my life surprised and embarrassed even me. I had put it out of my life at eighteen and out of my life it had stayed for forty years. I would have bet my life that religion would never play a part in my life again.

Little had I known.

"I don't understand what you get out of it," my wife often told me.

I hardly knew myself.

In 1975 I had experienced a profound inner transformation within three months of my first studying and then seriously trying to apply to my life the principles and practices of Buddhism as I understood them from the books and tapes of Stephen Gaskin and from the example of my friend John and—though I had sat and lain down and walked in my efforts at meditation—it was foremost the practice of honesty and trying always to tell the truth that had unlocked and then opened for me the door of perception; later it was my commitment to the principle of nonviolence that permitted me to pass through and to enter a nameless realm of wonder, awe, and joy. For one full year I had played and explored like an innocent child before ordinary life returned to me and I to it. Then for twenty-five years I had struggled to understand what I was supposed to make of my experience and to do with it. Buddhism, its masters all seemed to agree, is above all the practice of meditation. On my own I had tried, but not until my friend Billy encouraged me to find a teacher and I met the master had I found rest. My sitting zazen had plugged in my bucket a leak I'd not even known I had, or so it felt, and now I loved zazen, and at the temple I liked all the people I met.

I liked the master.

99 Oryoki

For me the most difficult activity by far had been oryoki, a complex system of bows, prayers, chants, hand gestures, signals, and etiquette by which meals are served and eaten—with either chopsticks or spoon—from three bowls of different sizes. Oryoki means "just enough." The bowls, which fit one inside another, and utensils, plus a miniature spatula called a setsu used to clean the bowls when they are empty, and a napkin and a drying cloth are all carefully positioned and arranged and then wrapped inside a large folding cloth two corners of which are tied and secured by a special knot. These utensils, bowls, and cloths must be unwrapped, disassembled and, step by step, carefully laid out before food is served; then, after the meal has been eaten, the utensils and bowls are cleaned with setsu and hot water and wiped dry, the three bowls are set one inside the other, the utensils and setsu are returned to their narrow cloth envelope, the drying cloth and napkin are folded, and then all of these component parts are stacked and reassembled one on top of the other, wrapped in the folding cloth, and finally secured with the knot. It reminded me of Rubik's Cube. To fast all day would for me have been easier.

Just enough.

At my first sesshin oryoki did not cause me much anxiety, though I had not a clue to what it was all supposed to be about, since everyone understood that I was a rookie and expected me to be lost. Either Alison or Jane, each a veteran, was assigned a seat beside me at the table so they could instruct and assist me. I had never before even used chopsticks and when I struggled with my very first bite for more than a minute or two and still failed to lift even one small morsel to my mouth the master interrupted the silence and addressed not just me but everyone at the table.

"If you don't know how to use chopsticks," said the master, "use your spoon."

Mercy.

Even five years later in sesshin I still used only my spoon. To make my task easier at all five meals the two days of my first sesshin I signaled the server that I desired only small or moderate portions and I never requested second helpings. That simplified things. Though I normally eat a lot and eat fast I could not even approach the speed at which the master devoured his heaping bowls of both first and second helpings of every dish.

Just enough.

When I had emptied my bowls I sat quietly and waited for others, counting myself fortunate if I had not spilled, made a mess, or committed a mistake serious enough to warrant from the master a reprimand.

"No!"

I had no appetite. I was far too wired, too nervous, and too alert to feel hunger. The buddha, dharma, and sangha are called the Triple Treasure and when I emailed my good friend Billy and related for him a brief description of my experience at the two-day sesshin I referred to breakfast, lunch, and supper by oryoki as the Triple Torture. For me the Triple Torture remained an ordeal for three years. I dreaded it. From my first oryoki on, my anxiety increased at each successive sesshin just as it had in my ceremonial assignments as jisha, shoten, and doan until finally at some point in my third year at the temple I'd had enough repetitions and had made so many mistakes and still survived that my anxiety peaked and then slowly and gradually declined. Practice. But at this first sesshin in February of 2002 I more than survived. I wrote not only Billy about it but also my old friend John with whom I was now no longer able even to exchange civil opinion about the war. About Buddhism, however, John and I could still converse. John had never tried any kind of intensive all-day meditation retreat and he offered his enthusiastic approval.

"Cool!" he wrote. "I remember once trying to get you to sit."

I remembered.

"You sat down like I showed you and then burst out laughing."

Yes.

It had seemed simply silly.

To sit.

I described the climate at the temple as strict and somber and I said I wasn't used to it yet.

"Morbid," I called it.

Everyone was to observe silence, I explained, except to exchange essential information, and no one looked anyone else in the eye. The gaze was not eye to eye but downward so as not to evoke expectation, or so it had once been explained to me, and the custom bothered me. It had been just the opposite for Gaskin and John and The Farm and I had spent twenty-five years looking people in the eye. It was hard to adjust to this new convention.

"It also bothers me that at the temple no one smiles much," I added.

I had been reading book after book by Thich Nhat Hanh, who advised readers to make what he called a half smile each time we wake up and return to the breath. I was usually quite happy and content at the temple, I told John, so the impassive, cold stone face everyone seemed to wear there did not feel right. For some reason to me the general atmosphere of the temple felt funereal.

Joyless.

"But I don't want to give the wrong impression," I told John. "Everyone there is friendly and kind."

"There is this very reserved, quiet, serious vibe around Zen," John said. "It's the same here at the San Francisco Zen Center and at Green Gulch. My personal belief is that it is a cultural artifact that has nothing to do with Zen. On the other hand," he added, "I don't like the arrogant hippy tendency to mess with these old traditions."

John said that he had become a kind of spiritual shoplifter—he'd take the good stuff, leave the rest, and make his getaway.

"Tantric consumerism," John called it.

I'd had a good experience at the sesshin, I told John and Billy, in spite of oryoki, in spite of the embarrassing earthquake rumbles in my colon that must have been audible to everyone in the zendo, and—by afternoon of the second day—in spite of the pain in my legs. I explained that I had been permitted to adjust my posture, to stretch my legs, and even to walk, but by the afternoon of the second day, I said, even these measures did not really help me much.

"If I sat," I told my friends, "it hurt."

98 Sesshin

In February I registered for a two-day sesshin, an intensive Zen meditation retreat on Saturday and Sunday.

"Do you think I can manage this?" I emailed the master. "Am I ready?"

"Yes," the master replied.

I arrived at the temple at 4:20 a.m. Edward, who I had learned was ino, the head student, was already there preparing the zendo and buddha hall for the scheduled activities. Several people who had obviously spent the night there were using the tiny downstairs half bath and the sink in the kitchen to wash their faces and to brush their teeth.

By the time Edward hit the han at 4:50 there were nine of us present, ten when the master joined us at 5:00. I was determined to do well. I understood little of what we were doing or why but I persevered. Since I was new I had not been assigned any of the jobs which required instruction and experience—doan, shoten, and server at meals—so I just followed along and tried to do what others did. Just as they had my first few times at services at the temple, others present quietly showed me and the two other novices where and when and if necessary how to proceed. By late afternoon of day one my legs hurt no matter which leg, left or right, I put on the bottom or on top, but I felt competitive even though I knew how ridiculous that was and I forced myself to sit with the pain for at least ninety minutes before I got up to stretch my legs in ten minutes of kinhin. At the conclusion of the final period of zazen we did not chant Dogen's "Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen" as we normally did in the evening. Instead we stood in gassho around the statue of the sitting Manjusri, personification of wisdom, on the central altar in the zendo. The master offered a stick of incense and then together we chanted.

"I take refuge in buddha," said the master.

"I take refuge in buddha," we repeated.

"I take refuge in dharma," said the master.

"I take refuge in dharma," we repeated.

"I take refuge in sangha," said the master.

"I take refuge in sangha," we repeated.

"I take refuge in buddha as the perfect teacher," said the master.

"I take refuge in buddha as the perfect teacher," we repeated.

"I take refuge in dharma as the perfect teaching," said the master.

"I take refuge in dharma as the perfect teaching," we repeated.

"I take refuge in sangha as the perfect life," said the master.

"I take refuge in sangha as the perfect life," we repeated.

"I have completely taken refuge in buddha," said the master.

"I have completely taken refuge in buddha," we repeated.

"I have completely taken refuge in dharma," said the master.

"I have completely taken refuge in dharma," we repeated.

"I have completely taken refuge in sangha," said the master.

"I have completely taken refuge in sangha," we repeated.

To bells and bows we filed out of the zendo and to bed there at the temple or—for me and five others—at home. I had hardly slept the night before and my legs, back, and neck ached, but I felt more wired than tired, and that night again I barely slept. For months I had been slightly troubled by my being expected to participate in chants that I did not understand or—even worse—that I thought I understood but with which I believed I could not agree. Now the word "perfect" was stuck in my mind and all night long and then for several weeks after the sesshin I wondered and worried about its meaning.

The perfect teacher? The perfect teaching?

The perfect life?

These were concepts that I had been taught about Jesus and Christianity and from which I had freed myself. If there were or had ever been a perfect teaching and a perfect teacher, would our world be still at war?

Perfect—

It made no sense to me and I tossed and turned.

I had again set my alarm for 3:30 so that I'd have time to make coffee and ready myself before I left for the temple. On day two of the sesshin both of my legs were totally shot by noon and during the final period of zazen I could sit only twenty minutes at a time before I had to get up and walk.

We sat.

We sat.

We sat.

With the usual bells and bows at 4:50 in the afternoon we followed the master out of the zendo and assembled in an uneven line in front of the main altar, our hands in gassho, and three times we chanted the Three Refuges in the original Pali language. "Dudyampi," the master had explained to us on another occasion, simply meant "for the second time" and "tatyampi" meant "for the third time." In each line the final word was sung to one of three variants of a simple, beautiful, and mysterious minimal melody.

We chanted.

Buddham saranam gacchami

Dhammam saranam gacchami

Sangham saranam gacchami

Dudyampi buddham saranam gacchami

Dudyampi dhammam saranam gacchami

Dudyampi sangham saranam gacchami

Tatyampi buddham saranam gacchami

Tatyampi dhammam saranam gacchami

Tatyampi sangham saranam gacchami

We bowed.

The sesshin was over. The master thanked us, we thanked him. Doan and shoten and others familiar with the drill did what needed to be done to put the temple back in order. We gathered our things, said goodbye, put on our coats, and sat on the porch to pull on our shoes. I felt both satisfaction and relief as I drove home to tell my wife all about it. My fellow practitioners and I had sat, we had walked, we had eaten, we had washed and dried the dishes and put them away, we had cleaned the temple, we had listened to dharma talk by the master, we had chanted, we had bowed, we had even taken short breaks though we were not permitted to sleep, to talk, or to read, but mainly we had sat.

97 Sexism

But a short time later there occurred another provocative discussion in the master's absence. On this occasion several women present expressed their discomfort with the long list of exclusively male names in the lineage and with the full prostrations which accompanied its recitation at every morning service.

"It's so blatantly sexist," one woman complained.

"I agree," said another.

So did I.

There was mention of the garudharmas, "the eight heavy rules and duties," a relic of systemic discrimination in ancient Buddhist sanghas that in some parts of the modern world—Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia—apparently still obtained. I had never heard of them. According to the legend of the Buddha's teaching, though a monk might reprimand either monk or nun, a nun could not reprimand a monk; a nun even if she had been ordained for a hundred years must bow in reverence at the feet of a monk even if he had been ordained just that day.

"A monk may teach a nun," the Buddha said, "but no nun may ever teach a monk."

The early life of the Buddha was also discussed. In order to be free to seek the truth of life, suffering, and death wherever his investigation led him, Siddhartha had left his wife and child.

"His son," Daly said, "he named Fetter."

I hadn't known.

This problem of the lineage never went away. The master explained and defended the tradition as best he could; and in his own language he demonstrated a constant and careful effort to employ words gender equal or gender neutral. But for a few women new to the temple and for me and for two or three others who attended regularly the daily recitation of the male lineage continued to raise doubts and evoke questions. My wife and I were feminists and in general I shared her opinion.

"It's absurd."

The inescapable inference seemed to be that even full realization and enlightenment did not necessarily transcend the ethnocentric prejudice and bigotry of the specific cultural milieu. Sexism, racism, classism, and nationalism, it seemed, at one time or another had infected Buddhist sanghas all over the world despite the presence of supposedly enlightened masters and fully realized teachers.

In the master himself, however, I saw none of this prejudice.

I let it go.

But as we tidied the kitchen after coffee and tea and doughnuts one morning several weeks later I listened as Edward and Mark talked about their relationship with the master. Both had been yelled at, they said. I had witnessed dozens of corrections and stern reprimands but nothing I would call yelling.

I said so.

Both Edward and Mark looked askance.

I waited.

"Hasn't he ever yelled at you?" Mark asked.

"No."

"Really?" Edward asked.

"Never."

"Maybe he sees that I need it and you don't," Mark concluded.

I wondered.

In January I attended the annual meeting of the sangha.

I was curious.

At evening zazen and even at Sunday service I saw only the same ten or twelve people. At the annual meeting of the entire membership I thought perhaps I might see fifty.

No.

In attendance were the same ten or twelve men and women I saw at every other temple event.

Hmm.

We were obviously a small group.

96 Who

I explained to Mark one Sunday morning that at the temple I felt like the cowboys and cavalry in old western movies who in their arrogance and their ignorance violated ancient taboos and mistakenly led their party across forbidden and sacred Indian burial grounds.

"I'm afraid I'll desecrate something."

He understood.

Mark told me that on the days he was assigned to be doan he felt the same anxiety I felt. I wondered if there were a Buddhist equivalent to mistaking the Christian communion wafers and sacramental wine for a snack. Slowly ever so slowly and gradually with practice and repetition this terrible anxiety passed and eventually, finally, in my fifth year at the temple I was able without nervousness to serve on Sunday not only as jisha and shoten but even as doan. But all of this was way way off in the future. In November just a month after the end of my meditation class I had filled out a form and become a member of the Iowa Zen Center and I was now paying monthly dues. In January in an email to the membership the master said that there was one temple job—doing office work two hours a week—still unfilled and the master invited volunteers. I signed up. Now on Tuesday at 4:30—for the two hours before I readied the zendo for evening zazen—I wrote thank you notes to donors and contributors, stamped and addressed envelopes, photocopied temple brochures and materials the master needed for his dharma classes and workshops, made changes to the temple data base, and occasionally, if there were no other office tasks for me to do, with feather duster, broom, and dust mop I cleaned the office and wiped down the floor with a damp rag. During these months there occurred one unusual incident the full significance of which I did not understand until later.

One weekend I had been out of town and missed the Sunday service. Alison first emailed me and then called to fill me in on what had transpired. Following the World Peace Ceremony, held the first Sunday of each month, the master moderated group discussion in place of his usual dharma talk. During discussion, Alison told me, there had been a political argument and in the course of the debate the master had so sternly reprimanded Edward for a comment he made that Edward had felt insulted, had excused himself, and simply left.

"Right in the middle of the discussion!" Alison said.

Now she worried.

"I'm really concerned," Alison said. "It was bad, really bad."

I just listened.

"I'm afraid that Edward might not come back at all," she said.

The following Sunday the master was out of town on business and absent from the temple but Edward was in attendance. Daly, not only one of the temple regulars but president of the temple board of directors, had been asked to give the dharma talk and, because of what had happened the previous week, in her talk Daly addressed the subject of "right speech," one of the precepts of the Eightfold Path, the fourth of the Four Noble Truths taught by the Buddha after his Enlightenment. After reviewing a list compiled by the poet and monk Ryokan of bad speech habits to be avoided, Daly concluded her talk by suggesting that the sangha consider new procedures in its group discussion. The master had abused his authority, Daly implied, and she recommended that the sangha invite someone other than the master to moderate discussion. Then out of the blue Daly said that because I was a teacher the moderator of our group discussion each month might be me.

"Me?"

I was not unwilling but I didn't really know what this was all about.

Daly explained.

"The moderator of our discussion should not use the position as a bully pulpit."

Edward remained silent.

He asked to be acknowledged only after everyone else had spoken.

"Edward."

"I don't think we should change our normal procedures just because I lost my temper and got mad," Edward said.

That seemed to most of us an enlightened concession.

We adjourned.

For me the most awkward moment did not come until the next Tuesday afternoon when I reported as usual to work in the office. The master had returned to the temple on Monday and he was eager to know what had happened in his absence on Sunday. It was not unusual for the master to ask me about events at the temple when he had been absent but this time there was an edge to his inquiry.

"What was the subject of Daly's talk?" the master asked.

"Right speech," I said.

"What inspired it?" the master asked.

I did not like this line of questioning. I was still new to the temple, I had little knowledge of how things worked or how they were supposed to work, and now I had been somehow pulled into a dispute between persons I had known only six months. Was any of what little I had been told confidential? I did not believe so but I was not entirely sure. Though I had not requested lay ordination I already considered the master my teacher and I knew that my new friends Alison and Daly and Edward also considered the master their teacher. So far at least I saw no need for secrets and certainly no need for lies—anathema to me for twenty-five years—yet neither did I want to betray the confidence of the several people who had confided in me and asked for my help.

"What inspired it?"

"I'm not really sure," I stammered.

The master waited.

"I was absent the previous week," I explained, "but I gathered from her talk and from the discussion afterwards that on the Sunday before you'd had a disagreement with Edward?"

"What did people say about it?" the master asked.

Oh man!

I wish at this point I had declined to say more but—

"Several people questioned, I guess, the manner by which you asserted your authority."

"Who felt that way?"

Whoa!

"Two or three," I said though the number had been twice that.

"What are their names?"

No!

I did not like this interrogation at all. It did not feel right to me. I should have said how I felt but at the time I did not have the presence of mind to do so. Time passed, a minute perhaps, as I considered my situation.

The master waited in silence as I thought.

He was our teacher—

A priest.

"People were mainly concerned about Edward," I said finally.

"Who?" the master insisted.

"They worried that his feelings had been so badly hurt that he might not return at all."

"Who?" the master insisted.

I hesitated.

"What are their names?" the master demanded.

I decided to trust him.

"Alison and Daly expressed the greatest concern for Edward," I said.

The master nodded.

"I'll talk to them," the master said. "I'll call tomorrow."

"Good," I said.

"Was Edward present?" asked the master.

"Yes."

"What was his reaction to all this?"

I repeated what Edward had said.

The master grinned.

"It sounds like Edward handled it all better than anyone!" he exclaimed.

I hoped for the best.

The master very briefly summarized for me then what had provoked him to reprimand Edward in the discussion I missed. In an exchange of opinion about politics and the military, the master said, Edward had directed a disparaging remark about homosexuals to one of the gay members of the sangha. That, the master explained, had been the reason for his stern reprimand. I nodded. The master returned to his room. I returned to my job on the data base.

I heard nothing more of the matter.

95 Doan

"You seem committed," Edward told me when I arrived one evening.

"I am," I said.

"We need more evening doans," he said. "Do you want to learn?"

I hesitated.

I wanted to learn but I wasn't sure I wanted to be doan. That office seemed complicated, a position of responsibility, and I enjoyed having to do nothing at the temple but watch, follow along, and do as others did, bow and chant and sit and breathe. I was still a novice. There was so much I could not keep straight—how to bow and when, which direction to face, when to sit, and when to stand. At every service still, I felt ignorant, awkward, and uncomfortable, and then as doan there would be the han and the inkin to master. I played no musical instrument, I possessed no musical talent whatsoever, yet each evening the doan began the concluding chant by singing its title.

"I'll show you right now," Edward said.

"All right."

"Good!" he said. "This will help us out a lot."

"All right."

Edward showed me how and when to turn on the porch light, the table lamp in the corner of the buddha hall, the overhead light in the zendo, how to check and to organize the mats, the cushions, and the sutra books in the zendo, and if necessary to clean up animal hair, cat vomit, or the dead rodents that Rosie sometimes left in the zendo as gifts, how to set the thermostat, how to open the window a crack, how to approach the altar, how to light the candle, how to offer a stick of incense, how to hit the rolldown on the han, how to ring the inkin to begin and end zazen, how to begin and end the evening chant, how to pull open the curtain for the master, how to perform the final bows and rings of the inkin, how to extinguish the candle, close the window, and turn out the light. Edward provided a list of the instructions that I could study at home. For three weeks we arrived early and under his supervision I practiced. When I felt ready, though I was nervous as hell, I served as doan and afterwards as we sat on the porch and put on our shoes Edward offered correction and counsel. Then I was on my own. Sunday mornings, too, I was asked to participate, first as jisha, the personal attendant who assists the doshi in offering incense to begin the service, and then as shoten, the temple aide who prepares and lights the altars, lays out mats and cushions in the buddha hall for the service, hits the rolldown on the big temple bell to announce the start of the service, and prepares coffee and hot water for tea. These little jobs filled me with intense anxiety. I did not know why. For many weeks when I was asked on Sunday to serve as jisha, in retrospect a relatively minor and simple assignment, I would sit in zazen and worry that I might commit an unpardonable blunder or totally forget some crucial task and make a gross mistake. To be shoten was even worse. This assignment, like doan, was made long in advance and off and on all week before I served on Sunday I rehearsed in my mind all of my duties and responsibilities. None of this anxiety made any logical sense, of course, as the master more than once reminded me.

"If you screw up," he joked, "we haul you out to the garage and beat you with a rubber hose."

But when others or I did make mistakes in the ceremony his frustration and annoyance were obvious and frequently he would stop in the middle of the service to express his extreme displeasure in frowns and scowls and to issue stern corrections and reprimands.

"No!" the master would remark. "Pay attention!"

It was obvious to me that all of my anxiety was just plain old ego, the result of my not wanting to embarrass and to humiliate myself in front of my teacher and the ten or twenty other people present, but this knowledge of its origin could not spare me its pain. It was clear that I had arrived at the temple with a high opinion of myself and I definitely did not want to be exposed in public as just one more dumb klutz who could not do or could not remember how to do what he had been told and shown. In my own defense I will say only that I wanted very much to please both my teacher and the members of my sangha so that their experience at the temple was a good one. Not counting weddings, baptisms, and funerals, it had been forty years since I had attended a church; and this absence and my complete lack of familiarity with temple ritual, protocol, and etiquette evoked in me an exaggerated sense of reverence. My nervousness was obvious and I made no effort to hide it. I even talked about it, hoping that my acknowledgment might alleviate it.

94 Promises

I returned for more of the same the very next night on Wednesday and again on Friday and then again for zazen and mid-morning service on Sunday. So much remained foreign and unfamiliar to me that I always arrived early—by 6:30 on weekday evenings and by 8:30 on Sunday mornings—and often even earlier so that I could observe and learn as doan and shoten prepared the temple for zazen and for special temple services new to me. Unnecessary speech was discouraged but whenever it seemed appropriate and an opportunity arose I asked questions of shoten and doan. This schedule I maintained for three weeks. One Wednesday evening when I arrived there were eight or nine persons present, at least twice the normal number at evening zazen, and the shoten and doan were busy making special arrangements. They set up a chair and two small tables in the buddha hall and on each table they placed special objects—koro, incense, candle, flower—and there were other deviations from the procedure I expected.

"Is there something special going on tonight?" I asked Mark.

"Oh, yes," he said, "Ryaku Fusatsu."

"What's that?"

"The precept ceremony," he explained.

"Should I not be here?"

"No, no, nothing like that," he said. "I'll show you."

Mark gave me a hurried summary and demonstration of what would happen and what I should do. That evening we sat as usual in the zendo, but for only half an hour, then we filed into the buddha hall, and one at a time each of us knelt at one of the small tables and offered powdered incense before we found places at mats and began the precept ceremony. I was totally lost and just followed along as best I could. Four or five chants were repeated three times each, one of them quite long, and at each line or two of a chant we made a full prostration, forty or fifty total. It was intensely aerobic and by the time we sat on our cushions my legs ached and my tee shirt and baggy cotton pants were damp with sweat. Together we vowed first to accept and to maintain the three collective pure precepts and then to accept and to maintain the ten grave prohibitory precepts. The master led us in the recitation.

The declaration:

"A follower of the Way does no harm."

The question:

"Will you receive and maintain this precept?"

In unison we replied:

"Yes, I will!"

The declaration:

"A follower of the Way does good."

The question:

"Will you receive and maintain this precept?"

In unison we replied:

"Yes, I will!"

The declaration:

"A follower of the Way lives to benefit all beings."

The question:

"Will you receive and maintain this precept?"

In unison we replied.

"Yes, I will!"

Then to a series of ten similar declarations and questions together we promised to esteem and to honor the buddha, the dharma, and the sangha, to respect the property of others, never to misuse sexuality, never to abuse drugs, to eschew gluttony, slander, ill will, and deception, to be open and honest, to be nonjudgmental, humble, and kind, to be loving in our relationships, to be nonviolent, and to cultivate inner peace. Of the ten prohibitory precepts only one seemed much different from the Christian principles of ethical conduct I learned first as a child from my parents and then, much later at the urging of my friend John, studied and tried seriously as an adult to practice both before and after my psychomystical experience.

The declaration:

"I cultivate letting go, I do not attach to anything, not even to the teaching."

The question:

"Will you receive and maintain this precept?"

In unison we replied:

"Yes, I will!"

When the precepts had been conferred there were more chants and more bells and more bows. For two days my thighs and lower back remained slightly sore from the dozens of full prostrations I had done on Wednesday. I returned for zazen on Friday night and for service on Sunday and for zazen again on Tuesday the following week. Then in the course of his dharma talk one Sunday morning the master mentioned just in passing what he considered the minimum he expected of serious practitioners—a regular daily practice at home, our sitting at the temple once a week, our attendance at service on Sunday, and our participation in special temple events. I had been wondering myself how I could continue to attend as often as I had and from then on I limited my evening sitting to Tuesday. There were never more than five present even counting the master and most of the time it was just the master and the doan, always Mark or Edward, and I. In a metropolitan area the size of Council Bluffs and Omaha, about half a million people, I had expected to see at zazen fifteen or so regulars, maybe as many as thirty. The actual number did not bother me but it was a surprise.

Few.

93 Dogen

On Mondays the Zen Center was closed; but on Tuesday I went to evening zazen from 6:55 to 8:30 and again on Wednesday and Friday. I liked sitting at the temple in the evening. I'm early to everything. I arrived at 6:40 or so and there were never many people present, usually just Mark and Edward. The doan had arrived at 6:30 and turned on the porch light, the table lamp in the corner beside the couch, and the light in the zendo. At 6:50 the doan opened the window a crack, just how much depended on the weather, he lit the candle in the zendo, and he offered a stick of incense to the brown statue of Manjusri, the sitting buddha who is the personification of wisdom. At 6:55 the doan hit the rolldown on the han and the three of us entered the zendo and sat. At 7:00 the master joined us and three times the doan struck the inkin.

Bing—

Bing—

Bing—

I was determined to impress my teacher and without stirring I sat the full ninety minutes in half lotus—my left leg down, my right leg up—in spite of the pain I experienced the last half hour. I liked the soft, dim, yellow light of the candle and the ceiling light which hung from chains over Manjusri and the curling smoke of incense which sailed over my head and out the window. I could hear small birds twittering at the feeders in the backyard, the occasional boink boink of a blue jay, and twice I was startled when Sammy barked and ran barking out the doggy door in the kitchen. At 7:40 I heard the loud whop whop whop of the police helicopter as it twice circled the neighborhood. At 7:50 I heard the master roll from his cushion and brush his mat, walk through the buddha hall, climb the stairs to use the toilet, and then come back down to walk kinhin for five minutes on the creaking and moaning hardwood floor of the buddha hall before he returned to sitting. At 8:20 the doan announced for my benefit—the others present were already familiar with the routine—the page of the sutra to be chanted and I pulled the thin white booklet from under the front of my mat and held it as I had been instructed while the doan sang the title—"Universally Recommended Instructions for Zazen"—with an up down up lilt on the final syllable before the master, Edward, and I joined in.

The Way is originally perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization? The true vehicle is self-sufficient. What need is there for special effort? Indeed, the whole body is free from dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of traveling around to practice? And yet, if there is a hairsbreadth deviation, it is like the gap between heaven and earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.

The chant, written a thousand years ago by Eihei Dogen, the founder of Zen Buddhism in Japan, is a thousand words long and took between five and ten minutes to recite. Its central section, as indicated by the title, comprises the step by step directions for sitting zazen, just as the master had instructed me and my classmates at our five Thursday evening classes, and statements of philosophical and psychological principle. Just as at service on Sunday morning we four this evening chanted in a rapid monotone without inflection or pause until the falling, dying, extended final syllable of the last word.

Honored followers of Zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not doubt the true dragon. Devote your energies to the way that points directly to the real thing. Revere the one who has gone beyond learning and is free from effort. Accord with the enlightenment of all the buddhas; succeed to the samadhi of all the ancestors. Continue to live in such a way, and you will be such a person. The treasure store will open of itself, and you may enjoy it freely.

As our voices faded to silence the doan struck the inkin.

Bing—

We bowed, knelt, brushed, fluffed, stood, bowed, turned, bowed.

We waited.

The master bowed, knelt, brushed, fluffed, stood, bowed, turned, bowed.

He stepped to the altar.

He bowed.

He took a baby step backward and bowed.

Bing—

We bowed.

The master turned and exited.

Bing—

We bowed and filed out.

The doan, last to leave, closed the window, extinguished the candle with a wave of his hand, and turned out the light. The master fed his dog Sammy in the kitchen. We three men left the temple. No conversation. This scheduled temple activity was concluded and we were expected to leave promptly. Edward and I sat in the white plastic patio chairs on the front porch. I slipped on my sandals, Edward his shoes. Mark turned off the porch light. He pulled shut the heavy front door and locked it. He pushed shut the storm door and turned its handle to latch it. He pulled his shoes from the rack and sat on a porch step to put them on.

"Good night."

"Good night."

"Good night."

Down the steps we went, into our cars, and home.