I was waiting to have lunch with a friend at the zen center when my teacher walked in to the building. I saw him from the corner of my eye and wasn't sure what to do. He came in the door, which was at the end of the hallway, and I was sitting on a bench, right next to the kitchen. So I could see him, but he was far away, and I never know what to do in that situation. Do you wave as soon as you see them? Because if you do, there's that awkward time when you've waved, and they're still walking toward you and what do you do, just keep staring at them? So, I just looked down and decided I would wait to wave hello until he came closer. As he approached, I looked up at him, smiled, and waved a silent wave of hello. He did nothing, just kept walking, until he was directly in front of me.
"Have they started serving lunch?" he asked, looking at me sitting on the bench, outside the kitchen, not actually in the kitchen, eating.
"Yes," I answered.
And then he paused.
And I think we looked at each other for a moment, and then he continued in to the kitchen.
I laughed at myself at this exchange- this simple answering of his question with absolutely no explanation for why I wasn't going in to the kitchen even though lunch was ready. My perception that there was a second question to his first: "Why are you sitting outside if lunch is ready?" yet my refusal to acknowledge this, to enter into any conversation beyond a direct answer to his question.
"Well," I thought to myself. "All he asked was if lunch was ready, all I did was answer, what's wrong with that?"
And then I thought about the fact that he hadn't waved back at me when I waved at him.
"Hmm," I wondered. "Was I supposed to bow to him? Did he not respond because I wasn't being formal enough for him? Was I being disrespectful to him by just smiling and waving hello?"
And then I thought, "Well, sorry, but all I'm doing is waiting for lunch with a friend and all I'm doing is waving hello to you. This is an improvement from what I've done in the past (which is an attempt to busy myself with something so that I don't have to make eye contact). It's true that I didn't say hello to you, but I was myself: I was kind of nervous but I was able to smile and wave. I'm kind of a smile and wave kind of person, so, accept that."
And then my friend showed up and we went and had lunch together.
But this interchange, between my teacher and me, kept popping in to my head. I kept hearing myself justifying my behavior, explaining it, making it acceptable. And I kept seeing myself, sitting on that bench with a sweet smile on my face and that quiet wave. Yet for all my justification of my behavior, something about it seemed in question to me. I just kept wondering why my teacher didn't wave back at me. At one point, when I was picturing myself on that bench, I saw myself as a little girl, smiling, and waving.
"Oh!" I thought. "I was being a little girl when I smiled and waved at him. I was being charming and innocent and cute. I wasn't being the same person who was able to look my teacher straight in the eye for all of my last dokusan with him, who stayed in the conversation when questions were asked, maintained eye contact, and gave answers without fear or apology."
"Oh!" I thought. "He didn't wave back because he wasn't accepting the little girl that I was showing him. He knew I was capable of being the confident 42 year old who sat dokusan with him last week. He knows I'm capable of saying hello to him, entering in to conversation with him, being a grownup with him. That's why he didn't wave back- he knew you could do better than that."
And I thought about how this incident had lingered in me, that it hadn't gone away. And I thought that the reason it had lingered there was because I hadn't seen the truth of it. It had kept coming up because I wasn't seeing it; but that my teacher's refusal to wave at me had created this question in me and in questioning it, I was able to finally see the truth of the matter: I am capable of an equal grownup social interchange with my teacher. I don't have to be a six year old anymore.
And I thought how skilled my teacher was, how he had paid such close attention to me and was really helping me to come out of my hiding and be myself. But then I thought about what he had said, and what he had done, and I gave myself a reality check:
Your teacher was walking to the kitchen for lunch. You were sitting outside the kitchen, not going in. He asked you if lunch was ready and you answered yes. Your teacher paused and then went to lunch. That's all, that's all that happened.
Who knows? Maybe he really did intend to not respond to your wave, maybe he really was encouraging you out of your shell; but probably, he was just going to lunch. You however, learned a lot about yourself in this interchange, you saw the truth of yourself in this interchange. Maybe it was him that pointed it out, maybe not, but you're the one who saw the truth- you're kind of the only one who can actually see you.
And so I think that your teacher really is just a mirror for you. When they're walking around, being themselves, you can see your reflection in them in the way that you interact with them. And, for me at least, in dokusan, my teacher asks questions or restates what I have shared with him in ways that make me later see things that I was unaware of or didn't want to see. I know my teacher is skilled at this. I can feel it in how what he says to me in dokusan pushes me to see things I wouldn't have seen on my own. But I also know that he's not inside my head after dokusan. The things that linger, the things that come up, those are my truths about me, they're me experiencing these truths and, when I'm willing, staying curious about them, letting them show themselves to me, and accepting them as part of who I am.
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