After I asked Paul to be my teacher and he said yes, he asked me to tell him about my practice. I had recently had a change in my practice so I asked him if he wanted me to tell him where I was now, or my history of practice. He said that I should talk about whatever seemed appropriate.
I decided to talk about my recent changes in practice. I explained that I had inadvertently taken ten days off of practice because I had been sick and that I noticed how much it affected me. I talked about how when I wasn't sitting, I started using my thoughts to control the future, how I was grasping at things, and how I was trying to control the kids and my classroom. I explained that it made me realize how much sitting had actually helped me and how that kind of motivated me to get back into sitting regularly, and twice a day. I also said that in some ways, zazen was kind of annoying me because I had been apart from it for so long that it was hard to get back in to it.
Paul talked to me about this, and what I took from what he said was that while it's true that we need to practice to sustain our ability to be present and not get caught up in our thoughts, we also need to be able to develop the skill to remain "upright" when we are faced with times like what I had described. That yes, it's obviously important and necessary to meditate regularly but that I can't totally rely on that to be some "fix it" for keeping myself from grasping or trying to control things. I also need to develop the skill to remain present even when I haven't been sitting.
I thought this was really instructive because I really did think that all I needed to do was just sit more, and everything would be okay. It was interesting to see that I need to develop the skill to deal with when I can't just go sit more and also to see that just sitting more isn't going to solve all my problems.
But I also have to admit, that I noticed that I was disappointed. Part of me had really wanted Paul to be impressed by my dedication to sitting, to say "Wow! Twice a day! That's impressive that you're willing to do that." But he didn't, and when he didn't, I noticed this feeling of disappointment and I thought, "This isn't about showing off. You don't need to impress Paul- he's not looking for you to be a good student, he just wants to know what you're doing so that he can give you feedback on it."
Later, as he was explaining something to me, I offered my conclusion of it, my "Oh, so it's like this..." version of what he had said. But as I heard myself saying it I thought, "No, it isn't about figuring it out. It isn't about your version of what he says. You're not here to co- construct some great understanding of this practice, you're here to listen. Let his teachings flow over you, and then let them sink in in the spaces where you are actually open to them. Don't make his teachings into neat and isolated lessons that act as final pieces in your puzzle of understanding. And don't think that it's your responsibility to "get" them, that Paul will like you better if you understand what he is saying. He is offering his teachings, that's all, receive them as they are."
At one point, as he was describing something, I started to give an example of how I had done that in my practice, to say "Oooh, look, here's my example of how that works." But then I thought "You didn't come to dokusan with Paul to hear yourself talk. You can hear yourself talk anytime you want. This is a time to listen. There's a person in front of you who has been practicing longer than you have been alive. Listen to him."
At one point, Paul said something to the effect of, "This practice is about being honest, not so much about getting it right."
"I think I chose the right teacher for me," I thought to myself. "Honest, I can do. Honest is safe, I know where it is, I know how to do it. Getting things right? Not so much."
Next we started talking about zazen. The way I remember it, he asked me what I focused on during zazen and I said that I focused on letting my breath breathe me: on waiting for the breath to come naturally instead of me making it happen. We also talked about the fact that for me, focusing on my breath felt like I was focusing on something whereas when I paid attention to my thoughts, it felt more like I was pushing them away or blocking them. For me, it felt better to to focus on breath than to push away my thoughts. Paul suggested seeing my thoughts as the same as sounds.
I hadn't really thought about this before, and when he said it, I thought that seeing my thoughts as sounds would help me detach from them, see them as separate from me, not read in to having thoughts as bad or as something I need to control, they are just as much a phenomenon as the sounds outside. Then he mentioned the fact that the self was a mental construct. So I decided to make the connection that if the self is a mental construct and during zazen you're not thinking, then in zazen, you're also not creating more of the self.
I thought this was pretty amazing, I thought I had just had this really cool realization and I thought that Paul would say "Exactly!" but he didn't. Instead, he paused, and from the tone of this voice I concluded that it was more complex than what I was seeing. I got the feeling that my "realization" was kind of a beginner's mistaken understanding of it, and that made me sad. It kind of made me feel like Paul was somewhere over there and I was over here; that I was just a beginner and he was an expert, which...is pretty much true.
And then, I think in order to to help me see beyond my somewhat simple understanding of the self, Paul offered an example from Dogen. And as soon as he said the word Dogen, I freaked out.
"Oh my gosh he's talking about Dogen! And he's talking about Dogen casually, like this is something we talk about, or something we will talk about," and I got really scared. "I'm sitting across from someone who knows so much about this practice, and he's talking to me, about this practice, as if I do this practice, as if I have this knowledge. I can't talk about this practice like that. I don't know anything about Dogen or Buddhism or history or theories. Am I supposed to be talking with him about this as if I have that knowledge? I don't have that knowledge."
Suddenly, I saw Paul in the room all by himself. He was sitting where he was and there was this space to his right which was bordered by all the books on the shelves and I pictured him talking in to this space and I imagined that people in that space were studying Dogen and talking about the history of this practice and I wasn't there at all.
But as he continued to talk, I realized that his offering of Dogen was one that I had heard before. It was the one about how to study the self is to forget the self, or something like that. I realized he wasn't offering some big Dogen example and in fact, I had had my own life experience with the idea that studying the self actually helped the self to kind of diminish.
And then it was just Paul, and he was talking about practice. And yes, I had felt left behind when he mentioned Dogen but Paul wasn't asking me to discuss theories with him, he was just mentioning Dogen. I don't have to be an expert and he's not leaving me behind.
Next, we talked about my posture so I sat zazen; which was fine, until I settled in. Once I settled in, I found that my gaze was settled at Paul's abdomen. This felt really awkward and I thought, "Should I change my gaze so I'm not staring at his abdomen?" But then I thought, "No, that would be silly because then I wouldn't be sitting zazen the way I normally do so he wouldn't be able to give me feedback on it." I took a couple of breaths and then I thought, "Oh wait, am I not supposed to be sitting zazen right now? Am I totally wasting my dokusan time by sitting zazen and Paul is just sitting there waiting for me to ask him a question?"
And then I thought, "If Paul wanted you to stop sitting zazen, he would tell you. Let him be the teacher, let him lead you through whatever it is you're doing right now. Just be in this moment and respond to a request if he makes one. Otherwise, just be."
At one point, Paul finished talking and I just looked at him. I didn't have anything to ask so I just kept looking at him. I started to think, "What do I do now?" but then I thought, "Just be present" and so I was: I had nothing to ask and he hadn't asked anything of me, so I just kept looking at him.
I think that's when he said thank you, and I said thank you back, and we bowed to each other.
I got up and started to fluff the extra cushion I had sat on. Then I put it aside and started to fluff the one that was there originally. As I was doing this I thought to myself, "Paul probably needs to get somewhere. He doesn't need to wait while you fluff the extra cushion. You're only fluffing the extra cushion so that he knows that you know how to follow forms and because you want to leave things the way they were when you got here. You don't like to leave traces of yourself because you don't want to make others take care of you." But then I thought, "Yeah, but Paul needs to know this about you too. Don't hide your quirks from him. He can't help you to see yourself if you hide yourself from him."
I did my three prostrations and as I approached the door, I asked Paul the same question I always ask Paul as I approach the door, "Should I leave the door open or closed?"
He looked at me, smiled, and gave me the same answer he always gives me, "Open."
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