198 Egg

           Monday, October 23, I began my journal for the new week.

I considered.

I addressed the master's reply to a previous post.

"To what ideas, opinions, and views of myself do I tenaciously cling?" I asked.

I wondered.

I considered myself honest.

Open.

He thought me dishonest.

Dark.

"Can you help me with this?" I inquired.

I rambled.

I did not see life in terms of good and evil.

I never had.

"Where others have beliefs," I told my students, "I have only hopes and questions."

I considered myself ordinary.

Confused.

The master had told me, I recalled in this the final journal entry I would ever write for the master, that I clung to nonviolence and yet, I now explained, my belief in nonviolence was really not absolute. My commitment to nonviolence had never been tested and I had no idea how I might respond if it really were. The master had told me, too, that I clung to reason; but neither was my trust in reason absolute. What my teacher understood as my debilitating attachment to reason I saw only as my effort to be reasonable.

That effort I would never give up.

No.

"Your main practice issue," the master had called it.

So be it.

That effort I could never give up.

No.

This concluded my last journal entry for the master.

It was never sent.

Tuesday at 6:30 as usual I drove the ten minutes to Heartmind to serve as doan for evening zazen. I turned on the lamp in the buddha hall and the ceiling light in the zendo. I opened the southwest window a crack. I lit the candle on the central altar and I offered a stick of incense.

Back in the buddha hall I hit the han.

"Hello."

Eleanor descended the stairs.

"Hello."

"Good evening."

Eleanor and I entered the zendo, paused and bowed, bowed twice more, and took our seats on our cushions. At 7:00 sharp I struck the inkin three times and as I did the master entered the zendo and bowed, bowed twice more, and sat in his chair in the northwest corner of the room. I sat silent for an hour before I walked ten minutes in the buddha hall. Then I returned to the zendo to sit for ten minutes more before I began the evening chant and the master and Eleanor joined in. When I rang the inkin to end the chant we three rose from our seats, Eleanor and I brushed any lint, animal hair, and dust from our mats, and we fluffed our cushions. We bowed once at our places, turned, and bowed again. I pulled open the curtain for the master. When he stepped to the altar and bowed I rang the inkin at his second bow, in shashu, and Eleanor and I bowed with him. When the master stepped through the entrance and left the zendo I rang the inkin one time more. Eleanor and I bowed and Eleanor left the zendo. I closed the window. I waved out the candle. I surveyed the cushions and mats to be sure all were in order and I pulled the chain to turn off the light.

The master and Eleanor were talking as usual in the kitchen as they fed their big white dogs Sammy and Buddy. I retrieved my rakusu case from the top shelf of the whatnot in the buddha hall. I pulled my rakusu up over my head and off and I folded it and tucked it inside its soft cloth envelope. I turned off the table lamp in the corner of the buddha hall.

Before I retrieved my jacket from the closet I called to the master and Eleanor in the kitchen.

"Good night!"

"Good night!" Eleanor called back.

"Good night!" replied the master.

"Good night!"

There had been nothing unusual about the last evening I sat at the temple. I felt no special anxiety nor trepidation. Thoughts of this and of that and of this and of that again had arisen as usual as I sat and followed my breath in and followed my breath out and with each breath I had felt my abdomen rise and my abdomen fall and then rise and then fall and then again rise and then again fall. In the entryway I pulled on my jacket. I pulled shut the inner door. I flipped the switch on the wall to turn off the porch light and I stepped out onto the porch. There with its usual rattle and clank I pulled shut the heavy front door of wood and window. I inserted my key into its lock and with one half turn clockwise I locked it and with one half turn back I removed my key. I pushed shut the cheap, flimsy, stubborn aluminum storm door and turned its handle to secure its broken latch. With the toes of my right foot I pulled my flipflops from the bottom shelf of the shoe rack onto the porch and without sitting down I slid my bare feet into them. I descended the steps of the porch and strolled slowly down the uneven red brick sidewalk to my wife's little white Ford Ranger pickup truck parked in the street at the curb. I unlocked its door and climbed into the driver seat. I pulled the shoulder harness across my chest and buckled its lap belt. I started the engine. I pulled on the headlights. I released the parking brake. I drove casually, slowly, idly home. Though I stared at the soft white and gray glow of my computer screen and thought for what seemed like many minutes before I finally went to bed I was unable to write anything more in my practice journal.

Thursday the master emailed.

"I need to talk to you."

Need.

The master asked if I could meet with him in the next day or two at a time convenient to me. I reminded the master that as usual I was scheduled to serve as doan at early morning zazen and service on Friday, and normally I could have met with him then, but I explained to the master that my daughter had asked if she could stay the night at my home on Thursday and if immediately following zazen and service in the morning I could give her a lift to work. I told the master that I could talk with him at any time later that same day and the master informed me that he would schedule a time and let me know in the morning.

Fine.

I did not know what to expect.

I prepared.

I wanted very much very very much to maintain my relationship with the master, to continue my practice with the sangha at Heartmind, to finish my book, and if possible to publish it. I reread again the last journal entries I had actually submitted to the master—first and foremost my question about the inclusion of his "mistake" with Nananda in my book and the potential effect of its inclusion upon our relationship—and that evening I decided to send a short email to let the master know exactly how I planned to proceed.

"It has become obvious to me that the best procedure for me, the only workable procedure for me, is for me to use my own best judgment and just write the very best book that I can."

I thought.

"When I have done that," I added, "before I do anything else I'll ask you to read it and respond."

I thought and I clicked on "send."

No matter.

The master had made up his mind.

Enough.

Friday morning I arrived at the temple at 5:30 and as doan I performed my usual duties. Edward, as usual, served as shoten; and Eleanor, as usual, served as jisha; the master of course as doshi.

We sat.

Then we four adjourned to the buddha hall for the morning service. Three times together we recited the Repentance, prostrating ourselves and pressing our foreheads to our mats at the conclusion of each recitation.

All my past and harmful karma—

Born from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion

Through body, speech, and mind—

I now fully avow.

Three times together we recited the Three Refuges, the Three Jewels, kneeling and prostrating ourselves and pressing our foreheads to our mats at the conclusion of each refuge.

I take refuge in buddha.

May all beings embody the great way,

Resolving to awaken.

I take refuge in dharma.

May all beings deeply enter the sutras,

Wisdom like an ocean.

I take refuge in sangha.

May all beings support harmony in the community,

Free from hindrance.

Three times together we recited the Vows of the Bodhisattvas, kneeling and prostrating ourselves and pressing our foreheads to our mats at the conclusion of each recitation.

Beings are numberless; I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable; I vow to realize it.

Together we four chanted the "Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra" and then "Harmony of Difference and Sameness" and then also together—I myself reading from the sutra booklet I held in my hand because I had not yet memorized them as the master had requested—we chanted the names of the men in our lineage, kneeling and prostrating ourselves and pressing our foreheads to our mats whenever the master did. When I had struck the bowls and bells for the last time and we had honored all of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, present, past, and future, and one another with our deep final bows, I organized the ritual instruments and objects at the doan seat and cleaned my mat and fluffed my cushion. The master walked over as I did so and bent from the waist to speak to me.

"Ten o'clock?"

I smiled.

"Fine."

Any outcome seemed possible.

Any—

Even enlightenment.

I thought the master might berate me for even asking the question I had asked and deny me permission to publish anything of his past romance with Nananda.

Forbid it.

I thought the master might inform me that if I did publish the story it would indeed end our relationship.

Warn me.

I thought the master might permit me to publish the story and to continue still as his student.

Bless me.

This was the resolution for which I hoped.

Fool.

In this scenario I would finish my book, the master would help me to edit it, the two of us would arrive at an amicable compromise by which I might tell honestly the story of my practice with him, and the master would approve of his portrait, the tale of his "mistake" having been told, his reputation both as a good man and as a good teacher intact.

Integrity.

This was the book I wanted to write.

Truth.

Trust.

Happy ending!

Or perhaps we would only talk and talk some more just as we had talked so many times before and this godawful wrestling would go on and on and on.

Pain.

Endless ordeal.

Pain.

I did not know what would happen.

Egg.