Requesting a teacher

Earlier this summer I had a BIG LIFE QUESTION that I just couldn't seem to answer on my own. So, I requested dokusan with Paul. Unfortunately, it was right before he left on a trip, so his assistant let me know that I probably wouldn't be able to meet with him for a while and that she would let me know when he would be available.
In the meantime, I came up with my own ideas about the big life question and felt like I didn't need to ask it anymore. So I was a little worried about what I would ask Paul when I finally met with him. But then, a couple of weeks later, I realized that I had a question for Paul: I wanted to ask him what it would mean to be a student.
I had considered asking Paul to be my teacher for quite some time but was never really firm in this request. There were times where it felt really appropriate to ask him to be my teacher, but I couldn't find a chance to ask him. And then there were other times where I had a chance to ask him, but it didn't feel right at that moment. So I hadn't asked him and wasn't really sure if I wanted to. I knew that if I did ask him to be my teacher, I wanted to know what I was getting in to. I felt like I was entering in to a relationship with him, one that he would be present and committed to. I wanted to know what my responsibilities would be, so that I would know whether or not I could uphold them. The last thing I wanted to do was to ask for something that I didn't want or couldn't do, especially if it involved someone else willingly doing it with me.
By the time I was scheduled to have dokusan with Paul, I had come up with my own ideas about what it would mean to be a student. I had decided that when I asked him, he would say that I would be reading texts and that he would be giving me koans. So then I decided that I would ask him a second question: Why would you do that? Why would you read books and think about stuff when really, it was more about sitting zazen and putting practice in your every day life?
Before I even got to dokusan with Paul, I had kind of decided that I didn't really want to be a student. I concluded that it wasn't where I was in my practice right now. I felt like I didn't need to read books or live in monastery, I just needed to sit zazen more and attend service. I was feeling like I was different from what I perceived the residents and practitioners at the zen center were. I felt like they studying Buddhism in order to become Buddhists or monks or practitioners. I felt like I was just sitting zazen to become a better teacher, to learn about myself, to untangle the knots in my core that had been tied so long ago.
As I sat in the dokusan waiting area, I imagined myself explaining this to Paul and having him agree with me: a student path isn't the one that you're on. You have your own path and you should come to the zen center to get what you need to sustain your journey on that path. As I was imagining this, Paul actually rang the bell that meant, "I'm free to meet with you." So I rang back, and entered the dokusan room. I did my prostrations, sat in front of him, and asked: "What does it mean to be a student? What would that involve?"
He asked for clarification, "What would it mean to be a student in general or what would it mean to be my student?"
I looked away and thought about this: What did I want to know?
I realized that what I really wanted to know was what it would mean to be his student, not just a student in general, so I looked back at him and said that.
I can't recall his exact words but what I remember was something like: "It would mean that we would talk about your practice and how it plays out in your life. We may talk about your posture, we may talk about your practice, we may talk about how it manifests in your everyday life..."
I looked away again.
"Oh!" I thought. "That would be really helpful. It would be really nice to have someone to talk to about what I'm doing in the classroom and how I can be more present to the kids. It would be really beneficial to everyone involved if Paul were included in this equation, if I had the support of his life experience and the wisdom of his teachings. That seems like a really appropriate thing for me to be doing with my time."
So I looked back at him and I said, "Can I ask you to be my teacher?"
"Yes," he said.
And then I realized that I didn't really ask him to be my teacher, I just asked him if I could ask him to be my teacher so I asked, "Will you be my teacher?"
And he answered, "Yes."