160 Pissed

We students continued in our temple jobs, cleaning the zendo and buddha hall, mowing the yard, weeding the flower gardens, cleaning the altars, arranging the temple bouquets, keeping the books, bringing in the mail, the usual, and in the absence of our master together we monkeys managed the zoo. I was usually at the temple three days a week, some weeks four days or even five. On Tuesdays I served as doan at evening zazen, on Fridays as doan at morning zazen, and on Sundays I was present as ino to be sure doans, shotens, and jishas were assigned and present for midmorning zazen and service, and in general to supervise temple activities. One Wednesday evening a month I attended Ryaku Fusatsu, and on half a dozen occasions I filled in for morning or evening doans who for a variety of reasons were unable to serve as scheduled. Then when I learned that Irene had not been serving as scheduled I filled her spots—since I had the summer off from my job at the college and was more easily able to do so than my temple friends—or I asked others if they could. At home I sat, walked for exercise, mowed the lawn, visited family, babysat my two grandchildren, read, and worked on my book. Things had gone well, there had been no serious upsets, and though I continued to wonder about the master and my conflict with him I hoped the worst was past.

The master returned.

On Wednesday morning at his invitation I had coffee with the master after zazen and morning service. The master was in good health and good spirits. But when he had checked his mailbox there had been in it an unsigned handwritten note which he read and then handed to me so I could read it. It seemed to be from an apparently sincere and well-intentioned but anonymous Christian—the handwriting looked feminine—who briefly described the glorious benefits of her belief and then concluded:

"Jesus loves you!"

This sort of condescending and patronizing drivel from Christian fundamentalists drove the master mad. He explained that both he and Nananda were fed up with it. Nananda, he said, years ago had been ecumenical in spirit and had not shared his own indignation but now, after having been on the receiving end of such Christian prejudice for many years, she had come to share much of his resentment. The master repeated for my amusement what he said was one of her favorite remarks.

"Too many Christians and too few lions."

But his telling me this joke served only to remind the master of the many times over the past twenty-five years that he had been patronized in this way and the master said again what I had heard him say in one form or another perhaps a dozen times in the five years I had known him.

"I wish the person who wrote this note were here right now so I could tell her to take her note and her Jesus and shove them both up her ass!"

The master grinned.

I smiled.

"They mean well," I said. "They have good intentions."

No.

The master frowned.

No.

"They consider us deluded and feel it their duty to set us straight," I explained.

No.

He looked disgusted.

No.

"Then it's partly our fault," the master replied. "We haven't gotten the word out."

I waited.

"We haven't informed them and educated them," he said.

I nodded.

We walked back into the house and sat at the kitchen table where the master mixed cereal, yogurt, and soymilk in his bowl. As he ate, together we visited and drank coffee.

The master was still thinking about the note that had been left in his mailbox.

"It really pisses me off!" the master grumbled.

But that evening when I returned for zazen—besides the master I was the only one there—the master called my name only a minute or two before I was to hit the han to call people to the zendo and asked if I would come upstairs. The master had something he wanted to tell me. When I climbed the steps, the master was standing in front of the door to his room adjusting his robe in the hallway.

The master looked serious.

"I have been thinking about this anger I have toward fundamentalist Christians," he said.

I waited.

"I have decided I need to do something about it."

It seemed a kind of confession, an admission, an acknowledgment, and I thought at first that the master was going to apologize for his intolerance and for his language and seek therapy or perhaps enroll in a class in anger management—but no—this was not the plan the master had in mind. The master had several good friends, he said, who were members of the Christian clergy and he was going to tell them how he felt—patronized and even insulted—about the insensitivity with which some Christians approached him and representatives of other nonchristian religions. He was not angry and bitter anymore; he was contemplative. The master had mentioned that morning that some of us—the master had used the generic "we"—needed to assert ourselves on this issue to let Christians know that their conduct in this matter was inappropriate. Now the master had settled upon this strategy.

"So what do you think?" he asked me.

"Good," I said.

I did not share his annoyance.