Not long after that the master emailed.
Hello.
The master invited me to talk with him of my returning to Zen practice at the temple.
Yes.
Door locked I rang the bell.
I waited.
Through the window of the door I watched the master descend the stairs from just above the landing and on down and then approach the door somewhat gingerly, more slowly than I had ever seen him do so before. I felt a tug of pity and concern at this sight. Before his illness and surgery I had known the master only as a big strong man. He wore a rakusu over his gray robe.
The master unlocked the door and opened it.
We smiled.
We exchanged greetings.
"Hi, Kudo."
"Hi, Bob."
The master invited me in.
I had forgotten to remove my flipflops on the porch—how quickly I forget—and the master reminded me. He waited as I slipped them off my feet and arranged them neatly on the floor near the cold air vent.
Order.
"How have you been?" he asked.
"Good."
His manner was courteous and informal.
Polite.
"We'll talk in the office," he said.
I followed.
Up the stairs he stepped, carefully, deliberately.
It worried me.
In addition to weakness from his illness and surgery I knew that for several years both of his legs, his knees especially, had been unreliable. In the not too distant past there had been at least two falls, one on a hike and another on these same temple stairs, and for a time the master had worn a metal brace on one leg. In the office the master sat in his swivel office chair at the desk and I in the padded metal folding chair at the dark wooden table.
It would be an informal conversation I gathered.
Not dokusan.
Before the master began to speak he put his palms together in abbreviated gassho.
I responded in kind.
"When people leave the temple," the master said, "they usually never come back."
He summarized.
Because I had twice visited him in the hospital and had twice inquired by email about his health when he returned to the temple he had invited me to attend the service for Buddha's birthday when Eleanor returned from Tassajara for a visit. Though I had been unable to attend, Edward had told him that I wanted to be present for James' initiation so the master had invited me.
"It seems," the master concluded, "that you'd like to return to practice at the temple?"
It was a question.
To my ears his recapitulation made it sound as if I had quit. The severance had been my doing, the master had seemed to suggest, and perhaps that was how the master saw it.
I did not object.
"You'd like to return?" the master asked.
I nodded.
"Yes."
I had said so in my email.
"I'd like permission to attend services and to sit at the temple."
The master explained.
I had not acknowledged my dark side, the master said, and if I returned to practice at the temple the master would expect me to do so or at least in my practice to work at doing so.
The master continued.
I had badmouthed members of the sangha.
More.
I had pointed fingers at Sosan Davis, the master explained, and this was why he had told me of his sexual relationship with Nananda—to help me understand how such things happened. By telling others of his relationship with Nananda I had breached the rule of confidentiality in dokusan.
I had violated the precepts.
More still.
My gossip, too, the master would expect me to work on in my practice.
My stomach turned.
Uff da!
There was nothing new in any of this.
Submit.
Submit.
A ripple of resignation and sadness moved over me.
Alas—
Nothing had changed.
Nothing.
It was a lot for me to swallow and I am sure that the expression on my face revealed my doubt and concern. It had already become clear that my fondest hopes would not be realized.
Rue.
The master paused to permit me to reply.
I thought.
"Do you understand?" the master asked.
"Yes."
I nodded.
"When you told me that I could do whatever I wanted with the information you had given me about you and Nananda and treat it however I wished," I explained, "I did not realize that you meant only that I could do whatever I wanted with the information in my practice."
Repeat.
This, too, we had already previously discussed.
The master thought.
"I wondered why you had not apologized for your misunderstanding," the master said.
Huh?
"But I did apologize!" I exclaimed.
He frowned.
"You did?" the master asked.
"Yes."
"When?"
"Twice I apologized for misunderstanding and hurting you," I said.
The master looked puzzled.
"Once in dokusan and then once again in my journal," I explained.
He thought.
"I was angry," the master said.
He looked sad.
"Too angry even to notice and remember," he said.
I remembered.
"In dokusan I cried," I said, "for misunderstanding and hurting you."
The master frowned.
"I have no memory of it," he said.
I nodded.
The master appeared genuinely apologetic about his lapse of memory and sincere.
Sorry.
He accepted my account of the matter.
Trust.
His candor touched me and I felt moved.
Truth.
I felt the deep undercurrent of gratitude and love tug at my heart.
Oh.
It pulled.
Oh.
I had forgotten it.
I smiled.
We sat several seconds in silence before conversation resumed.
I waited.
"Have you any questions?" the master asked.
I thought.
In what the master had said there were several things with which I definitely did not agree but I had made up my mind before I came that no matter what happened at our meeting I would not engage in argument. Every issue the master mentioned we had more than once discussed in detail.
"In an email you accused me of malice," I said.
The master remained silent.
I waited.
"You said what you did to hurt Nananda and me," the master stated.
"No."
I shook my head.
No.
"That's not true," I said.
No.
He relented.
Though the master did not speak he indicated by gesture and demeanor his willingness to concede the point. There were several times in our talk when it seemed to me that he and I were on the verge of a quarrel but for whatever reasons we had both backed off and held our tongues.
We were weary of our conflict.
Yes and—
Weary of one another.
Sick of it—
Tired.
Both of us I think were conscious also of his health.
Wary.
"You badmouthed," the master said.
"No."
"You laughed at Esther!" he insisted.
"No."
Sadly and slowly I shook my head.
No.
Again.
No.
I believe my expression of sadness and resignation communicated my sincerity.
Memory and belief.
No.
Once more the master relented.
He thought.
"You badmouthed Irene!" he said.
"No."
"You badmouthed Irene when you were ino!" the master insisted.
"No, I did not badmouth Irene," I said.
"You did!"
"No!" I exclaimed.
Emotion.
I paused to calm myself.
Breath.
"I had excused her absences and I had invited her to attend services whenever she felt able," I explained, "but you pressed me for details and directed me to inform Irene that she was forbidden to return to the temple or to practice with the sangha until she spoke with you."
Throughout my conversation with the master I felt myself several times on the verge of anger over what I considered his unjust misrepresentations of me and my conduct and now as I edit this account my anger returns. At my denials the master, too, exhibited signs of anger but when we even remotely approached a quarrel one or both of us stopped and breathed.
I know I did.
"You were pointing fingers at Sosan Davis!"
"No."
I reminded the master that it had been from him that I first learned of Davis.
The master listened.
"You are the one who told me he had found his soul mate," I said.
Yes.
The master nodded.
Yes.
"Then you laughed at the idea."
Yes.
Now the master smiled again.
Yes.
This detail he remembered.
Yes.
"That whole situation was very unfortunate," the master said.
I nodded.
"It was difficult for me to live with Eleanor," the master said.
Understood.
"It's not hard to see how these things happen."
I nodded.
Once more we had avoided a quarrel.
Fatigue.
Nevertheless it was clear that the master expected me to accept his version of all these things.
I respected the man.
Though my memories of our shared experience were much different from his I did not doubt his sincerity. The master believed that I refused to acknowledge what he now called my dark side; he believed that, yes, I had badmouthed; that I had badmouthed Esther; that I had badmouthed Irene; that I had badmouthed Sosan Davis; that my intention in telling others of his sexual relationship with Nananda had been deliberate; and that my conscious intention had been to hurt them both.
Except possibly for my ironic amusement at Sosan Davis's all too male failing none of it was true.
Why argue—
No.
It would have been pointless.
Deja vu.
The master explained.
If and when I returned to practice at the temple he would expect me to work on my inclination to badmouth and to gossip and on my reluctance to acknowledge my dark side.
"Do you understand?" the master inquired.
I did.
"Yes."
"Do you have a question?" the master asked.
I thought.
In our final talk when the master had resigned as my teacher, expelled me from the temple, and excommunicated me, he had said that I had been guilty of triangulation. I did not think I had ever before heard the term. He had told me that students who had problems in their practice with their teacher or with his teaching should discuss their problems not with other students but only with their teacher and that if one student did ask another about such a problem the student should be advised to seek out the teacher and to ask him. But I had many such conversations with other students, I told the master now, and it had even been my understanding that he encouraged it. Until our final talk and his definition then of triangulation, I explained, I had never heard the relationship between student and teacher so narrowly defined. I reminded the master that he had encouraged his students to teach and to help one another and that more than once in the past he had even praised me for it.
"It depends on the intention," the master said.
Yes.
The master said that one person should never talk of another behind his or her back.
Yet the master had.
I had.
Still on this principle we had no real disagreement.
Practice.
The master mentioned email and briefly we discussed it.
Many of his students had sent him emails of support when he had expelled me for my triangulation and gossip and in their messages, he said, some had been very critical of me.
I did not doubt it.
Fine.
No problem.
Emails I had written to others had been forwarded to him he said.
No problem.
"By students sympathetic to my situation," the master explained.
Fine.
To me this came as no surprise.
None at all.
I had expected it.
Yes.
For years I had assumed that whenever I emailed anything it would be forwarded to the person I least wanted to read it and I had always written with the knowledge of that possibility.
It was a wise policy and I told the master this.
Hey—
I had been a teacher forty years.
Forty!
The reason academic politics are so vicious, the saying goes, is that the stakes are so low. Besides, to my friends and associates I had never said anything about the master that I had not already said to him nor had I ever written anything about the master that I feared might be forwarded to him. Most if not all of my friends at the temple respected and loved the master. In my conflict with him I had expected them to respond just as the master said they had and for that I was glad. Even when I had been most critical I had always expressed also my appreciation and gratitude for his teaching and for all that I had learned from him and without exception I had encouraged all of my dharma friends in the sangha to honor their commitments and to continue to study and to practice under his guidance. I minded not at all that some of them had been critical of me in their messages to the master.
That, too, I had expected.
But I did wonder if that constituted talking behind my back.
I asked.
"They like you," the master said.
He smiled.
"I suppose they wanted to lend me their support but also preserve their friendship with you."
No problem.
Fine.
Then the master seemed to remember something.
I waited.
He paused as if to consider it further before he spoke.
I waited.
It was one of the concessions that had so angered Alison.
Yes.
The double standard.
"I have discussed my students with other Zen teachers," the master admitted.
The master blushed.
Pink.
"Sometimes I need help."
I waited.
The master grinned but it looked awkward.
Fake.
"That's been no secret," the master said.
I waited.
"I have mentioned it in the past," the master said. "I have never hidden the fact."
Yes.
I did remember one time he had mentioned it.
But a student, too, sometimes needed help in understanding his teacher. What was the difference, I wondered, between a teacher speaking with another teacher about a student behind his back and a student speaking to another student about their teacher behind his back?
I had done so many times.
But never with any motive other than to understand the teacher, the teaching, the practice, and the Way. Though I had only recently learned its proper name, right up until the very end I had considered "triangulation" a good thing. In spite of all that had transpired as a result I still did.
Do.
The master had paused to allow me to respond.
He waited.
The master had once mentioned in my presence that he had discussed a student with Nananda.
I had forgotten whom the master had said he so discussed.
Daly perhaps.
One of the dissidents—
Maybe Mark.
Ryan.
Or Kent—
One of them I thought.
Yes.
When or why he had told me I could not now recall. I had not liked the sound of it but neither did I really care. In my own teaching I had frequently consulted with other teachers about students. Unlike the master, however, I had never even considered trying to forbid or to prevent my students from speaking with one another about me. It would be futile.
Headbanging.
I wondered, too, about the master's indictment of me before the board of directors at the meeting I had been forbidden to attend. To this day I have still not been told by anyone exactly what the master said about me there other than that the master had read aloud from the temple statement of ethics and alleged that I had violated several of the precepts.
The master had done neither when he had expelled me.
I wished he had.
His allegation that I had engaged in malicious gossip about other members of the sangha was for me by far the most painful of all. Ever since the master had stated it in his email to the sangha I had raked and sifted the sand of my memory for the recollection of some negative and critical remark that I might have made about my friends and my associates at Heartmind and in my search I had come up empty.
This I told the master.
I asked:
"Can you cite even just one specific example of my badmouthing a member of this sangha?"
For several seconds the master thought.
I waited.
Unable to remember any such instance the master blushed.
"No."
He could not.
"No."
A formal hearing, Ruth had suggested, would have been to my advantage.
Maybe so.
But what, really, would have been the point?
It made no sense.
There was nothing that I wanted to win.
No goal.
I had no interest in discrediting my teacher.
None.
Just the opposite.
Yes.
I wanted if possible to continue to receive his instruction.
To learn.
Were the institution—the Iowa Zen Center and Heartmind Temple—the main thing, then, yes, perhaps it might have been best for the organization to proceed with a hearing. But as much as I valued Heartmind the reason I had first come to it and the reason I had stayed was its teacher and his teaching. If the master felt sincerely, as the master obviously did, that I was a malicious gossip who had repeatedly badmouthed him and my friends at the temple, that I had deliberately violated the rule of confidentiality in dokusan only in order to hurt him and to hurt Nananda, and that my egoistic and stubborn denial of my dark side had made me in his view a Zen student impossible for the master to teach—
Then why argue?
Why—
For me to do so made no sense.
None.
I had sought his appraisal.
I got it.
Though I felt the master had misjudged me his judgment I had to accept.
So be it.
But both expelled and excommunicated and then indicted before the board I had felt no moral obligation to withhold the details of what had happened and why when shocked and curious family and friends inquired.
Indeed in a sense I believed that I had been slandered.
I felt unconditionally released from any and all vows, promises, and rules of confidentiality and utterly and totally free to express my version of events and the truth of my life as I had lived it.
Enough.
"Anything else?" the master asked.
"No."
The master explained that normally he asked a practitioner to participate in duties at the temple but that in my case he felt it would best if I attended events for two or three months first. The master asked that I talk with him once a month or so about my progress. The master invited me to attend the two-day sesshin scheduled for Saturday and Sunday but I explained that because my mother was visiting for the weekend I would be unable to do so.
I inquired about his health.
"Good!" the master said.
I smiled.
The master said that he felt he had been getting stronger each day though he was not certain that he could perform all of his usual duties at the sesshin. Before his illness and surgery he had weighed 260, the master told me, he had dropped to 225 before he began to recover, but in recent weeks he had gained another ten pounds, and the master looked good.
I was glad.
"I'm learning to live with this bag."
He pointed.
"Is it liquid it collects?" I asked.
He thought.
"Slush," he said.
"Oh."
The master smiled.
We had talked for fifty minutes and we chatted amiably as the master followed me out of the office and then carefully down the stairs to the front door so that he could lock it after me. I retrieved my flipflops from the floor of the buddha hall and carried them barefoot to the porch. The master waited just inside the screen door as I set them down and slipped first one foot into them and then the other. We talked of the wonderful spring and early summer weather we had experienced so far. It had been moist and cool and green.
"Perfect!" I said.
"It's supposed to get hot again today," the master said.
"Yes."
I felt a cool breeze caress my warm face, neck, and ears as I looked up from my feet to say goodbye.
"Thank you, Kudo."
"Take care."
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