132 Carping

On Wednesday I met the master at 4:30. He invited me into his room. We both wore rakusus. The master had set up two chairs facing one another and he asked me to sit in the one farthest from the door. He offered a stick of incense at the small altar on the north wall of his small room. The master sat and we bowed and he asked me to begin. I told the master that I was bothered by what seemed to be his abusive behavior towards students. I mentioned the master's interrupting, namecalling, ridicule, mockery, and sarcasm.

Now the master was polite.

Reasonable.

He was what he was, said the master, and he denied that it was abuse.

"You need to give up your objection to my interrupting," the master insisted.

The master said that it was necessary for him to confront students—sometimes in a direct way. To witnesses who had not fully entered into the relationship between student and teacher, the master explained, his style of teaching might appear rude and crude.

But the master was not apologetic.

"Zen isn't about being comfortable," said the master. "It's not nice."

We spoke only thirty minutes and the master did most of the talking. With me I had brought a list of questions I wanted to ask and the master approved of that. He said he wished other students would do the same. The master had a topic of his own he wanted to bring up with me.

"I think you're stuck on peace," the master said. "Nonviolence can't be absolute."

I just listened.

The master seemed at ease—now not the least bit defensive—calm, reasonable, thoughtful, both able and willing to listen. The master smiled often. We laughed. To me it felt like a pleasant conversation between good friends. Almost immediately I had felt reassured.

"What else is on your list?" the master asked when we had come to an end.

I looked.

"Nothing," I said.

"Okay?" the master asked.

"Yes," I replied.

On my slow drive home I wondered what I had ever been so concerned about. After only thirty minutes with the master I had felt completely disarmed. Events soon made it impossible for me to hang onto the issue. Just one day before the two-day sesshin would initiate the winter practice period, Ruth was hurt in an automobile accident. She had suffered only bruises and abrasions, but she was in considerable pain, and our Camry, our main car, was a ruin. I would have to spend the weekend looking for a vehicle to replace it, and on Friday when I went to the temple to assemble oryoki sets for the coming sesshin I told the master that I would be unable to attend and I explained why. He understood. I drove to Old Mill and drove a four-year-old white Camry a second time. I made an offer, accepted the counter offer, wrote the check, and drove my Camry home in the rain. By Sunday Ruth's condition had improved, but her face was changing colors. The deep bruises around her mouth and lips were turning black. She felt better, though, so I attended zazen and morning service at the temple. It was comforting to hear the expressions of sympathy and concern from our friends in the sangha. Ryan, like me also present only for midmorning service and not the sesshin, stopped me outside, and we talked for twenty minutes beside our cars in the light rain. Ryan wanted to know how my meeting with the master had gone on Wednesday.

I filled him in.

In my practice journal I noted this fact and in response to my entry the master asked questions.

"How did your meeting with Kudo go?" the master asked.

He referred to himself in the third person, the same awkward designation I adopted in my practice journal when I wrote of the master.

"Fine," I replied.

"What was your overall feeling?"

"I felt reassured, grateful, and amused," I said. "Kudo can be funny."

"What did you learn?"

"That Kudo's feelings can be hurt just like anybody else's."

"What was settled for you?"

"The question of verbal abuse."

"What was not?"

"Nothing," I replied.

I washed three pots by hand, wiped down the counter and the stove, added detergent to the washer, hooked up the hose to the faucet, plugged in the cord, and turned on the machine. To the sound of running water, as usual our two parakeets began warbling.

The kitchen looked spic and span.

Ah!

I squeezed out a cool dab of Neutrogena into my palm and rubbed the cream into my hands and fingers, shut the two kitchen doors to muffle the roar of the washer, and joined the rest of the family in the living and dining rooms.

"How right and good it feels to do a job well!" I exclaimed to conclude my journal entry.

"Do your best and don't be attached to the result," said the master.

Yes.

Yes.

This kind of remark had begun to feel to me like carping. In my American Heritage Dictionary I looked up the word "carp": "To find fault and complain constantly; harp on petty grievances; nag or fuss."

The master had only just begun.

Days passed.