136 Clank

On Friday I served as doan at morning service. I told Edward I couldn't stay after to sweep because I had promised my son I'd hurry home to babysit Katy. For an hour we sat.

Then the master conducted the service.

When I hit the big bowl early once, the master corrected me.

Nikki praised my chanting but she said I was a tenor and suggested I lower my voice in the register—if that's the right term—so that she and the others could more easily harmonize with me. Since in the past I had heard speeches from both the master and Nananda on the irrelevance of such a handicap I did not tell Nikki that I knew nothing about music.

Then the master had come over to the doan seat and lectern and explained to me that I had been hitting the butt of the baton too hard on the rim of the big brass bowl, the bell, the keisu. Just the previous week Edward had told me the same thing and I had already forgotten. I watched from my doan seat in the buddha hall as the master knelt down to show me both the proper way and the improper way of striking the bell. First the master demonstrated the proper method.

Clank.

Clank.

Clank.

The master looked up at me.

Yes.

Our eyes met.

Yes.

He made certain that he had my full attention before he then demonstrated how I struck the bell.

"See this chip?" the master asked.

I looked.

He held the heel of the baton toward me so that its chip was visible.

I nodded.

"Yes."

"That is what will happen if you hit the bell the way you were hitting it," he explained.

I waited.

The master demonstrated the improper method.

"Like this."

Just as I had been doing it for over a year and just as I had been taught to do it by both Alison and Edward previous to the master's instruction, the master muted the bowl by gripping its rim with the fingers and thumb of his right hand and then with considerable force he struck the sharp hard edge of its rim three times with a downward almost vertical blow of the heel of the baton in his left hand.

Clank!

Clank!

Clank!

His third blow sent a chip of wood the size of the tip of my little finger flying off the knob of the baton and up into the air and then down beside us onto the dark brown hardwood floor.

Whoa!

We both looked down at it for an instant in mutual astonishment and chagrin.

I did not laugh.

"See?" exclaimed the master. "That's what happens!"

The master handed the baton back to me and I tried several times with the baton to hit the bell as the master had instructed; but in what appeared to be irritation, embarrassment, and impatience the master had already gotten to his feet and was on his way to the kitchen.

Edward now also offered correction—of my rolldown on the inkin.

Yes.

I knew my timing had been faulty.

Of all those present at morning service only Hal offered me no correction and instruction.

I had always welcomed such correction and advice.

How else would I improve?

But Edward still always apologized to me before he explained what I needed to know. This little kindness touched and moved me. Perhaps Edward remembered the anxiety I suffered in my ritual assignments in the past and tried to go easy on me. About my forgetting what I had been told, the master had this to offer in his comments on my journal:

"Sometimes you are the kind of horse that does not run until the whip penetrates to the bone!"

I recognized his allusion.

It was the retelling of this parable from the Samyuktagama Sutra in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki that thirty years earlier had totally transformed my understanding of compassion, of Christianity, and of religion in general. Here it is in its entirety.

In our scriptures it is said that there are four kinds of horses: excellent ones, good ones, poor ones, and bad ones. The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver's will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one does, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn how to run! When we hear this story, almost all of us want to be the best horse. If it is impossible to be the best one, we want to be the second best. This is, I think, the usual understanding of this story, and of Zen. You may think that when you sit in zazen you will find out whether you are one of the best horses or one of the worst ones. Here, however, there is a misunderstanding of Zen. If you think the aim of Zen practice is to train you to become one of the best horses, you will have a big problem. This is not the right understanding. If you practice Zen in the right way it does not matter whether you are the best horse or the worst one. When you consider the mercy of Buddha, how do you think Buddha will feel about the four kinds of horses? He will have more sympathy for the worst one than for the best one.

Enlightened understanding.

Love.

Wisdom.