103 Journal

From that point on for the next three years I took part in all but one of both the fall and winter practice periods at the temple. I experienced only minor difficulty in keeping my commitments. I continued to feel anxiety—though over time it gradually lessened—in my Sunday ceremonial assignments as shoten and doan and also in oryoki during sesshin especially when I was asked to be server. I worried about making mistakes, about displeasing the master, and about embarrassing myself in front of my associates and friends in the sangha. But I continued to practice, I tried the best I could, and I made progress in overcoming my discomfort. I rarely missed my daily sittings and never missed a Tuesday evening or Sunday at the temple unless it was unavoidable. It was only my journal and then—by extension—my relationship with the master, my teacher, that over the next two years developed into a problem for me. In the beginning I wondered what was expected of me in my entries.

I asked.

"I don't necessarily expect you or even want you in your entries to write explicitly about Buddhism," the master told me.

Later when questions about our journals arose in our practice group meetings the master told others the same.

"You can just record the daily events in your life and I'll be able to make the connections to the dharma."

This made sense.

I had no fear at all of this particular requirement. I considered myself a writer, I was a teacher of college writing, and for the two years that I babysat my first grandchild on Friday and Saturday mornings I kept a journal. Indeed I looked forward to telling the master about my life—my job, my feelings, my thoughts—and also to his questions and observations. In a recent dharma talk the master had told the story of a shaman who asked all seekers to confess their darkest most horrible and embarrassing secret. My mind jumped immediately to my shameful infidelity in my first marriage, to abortion, to drugs, all long ago confessed and now in my distant past. Still, at the master's suggestion my mind raced to them. I knew, too, that some members of our sangha struggled with the journal, but at this time in my life I considered myself a man who had nothing to hide. I had made many mistakes, yes, some of them big, but I had long ago confessed them all, I had apologized—if possible—to those I had hurt or wronged and, though I continued to make mistakes, with effort and practice I had become, I thought, a man much quicker to apologize and much quicker to forgive than I had been in my youth. I was definitely not, as some of my students and acquaintances claimed to be, without regrets, but I could think of nothing I had done in my life that in my fifties and sixties I felt afraid to disclose; and I told my students often that for them I hoped, above all, that if not now then one day they, too, could live their lives free of secrets and lies. But really—

Did I?

This was the challenge and test to which the master would eventually subject me.

I did not see it coming.

"How much should I write?" I asked.

"That's up to you."

"How much do others write?" I wondered.

"Some write a page or so a day," the master said, "and others—"

He held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart.

He smiled.

Most days I wrote a page—250 words or so—and many days two pages and some days three. It came easy to me and I liked doing it. I often began my entry in the morning. On work days when my alarm went off at 4:00, I got up without delay, went to the bathroom to pee, brushed my teeth and hair, and slipped on my baggy pants and tee-shirt. I lit a candle and offered a stick of incense. I took my rakusu from its case and balanced it on my head. My hands in gassho, I silently recited the Robe Verse three times and then put on my rakusu. I did three full prostrations, set my egg timer for forty minutes, and sat. When my timer beeped I chanted—the Heart Sutra usually and the simple eko and the Merit Verse—then did three more prostrations. I waved out my candle, took off my rakusu and slipped it back inside its case, and went downstairs. There I brewed and sipped my coffee and read the morning newspaper before I shaved, bathed, and dressed for work. That routine usually took me to 6:00 at which time I would open my journal on the computer, read my previous day's entry and often edit it, then begin my entry for the new day. Usually I wrote and thought, staring at the monitor, till I left for work at 6:30. In the afternoon I might write more and then still more before I went to bed at 9:30. I'd say I averaged an hour a day on my practice journal—this in addition to my sitting and devotional practices in the morning and half hour of sitting and devotional practices in the afternoon.

I was happy.

My saying so ultimately aroused the suspicion first of my dharma friend Nikki.

Then the master.