Difficult dokusan

I had a difficult dokusan. It's the first time I've ever had that. I've had awkward dokusans, dokusans where I didn't know what I was doing, dokusans where I was scared, but all of those dokusans were me, being weird, and they always ended up being enlightening later. This dokusan was different, it felt bad from the beginning, and it wasn't just me.
I showed up...late. I was so late that my teacher thought I wasn't coming. But I didn't know that when I got there. All I knew was that the only shoes outside the door were my teacher's, which meant that the person before me had finished and left. But I didn't know how long ago they had left, I didn't know if my teacher had rung his bell for me and I wasn't there, all I knew was that my teacher was now walking out of his office, toward his shoes.
As I approached the door to his office he asked, "And you are?"
I told him my name and asked if I should wait in the waiting area for him to ring the bell or if I should just come on in.
He hesitated, turned to walk back in to his office, then turned back toward me, then turned back to go back in to his office and said, "Come in..."
I stepped in and stood in the corner of his office, with my hands in shashu, attempting to be present to him as he relit the candle on his altar. As I watched him, it all came together for me: he must have met with his first student and finished before I had gotten there. Then he had rung his bell to let me know he was ready, and I hadn't answered. At one point, he must have decided that I wasn't coming, had blown out the candle on his altar, and proceeded on his way down to the ceremony in the courtyard.
Then I had shown up.
And when I showed up, I didn't apologize for being late. I simply told him my name and asked if I should wait in the waiting area or come in.
He must have wanted to say, "Uh, you already missed that opportunity- I already rang for you and you weren't there." But he didn't, he just said, "Come in."
As this occurred to me, I wanted to shrink. I wanted to be as small as possible, I wanted to do everything in my power to make this better, to not make him sit across from me when he wanted to go to the ceremony.
But all he had said was "Come in." He hadn't said I was late, he hadn't said that he was on his way to the ceremony, he had just said come in, and now he was sitting down.
I waited as he sat down and adjusted his robes. As he was adjusting his okesa, he motioned for me to proceed, to approach him and begin my three prostrations.
It was painful. I was trying to be present to him to do the prostrations in good form, but I was also trying to be present to dokusan. For me, the first three prostrations are about giving in, about clearing my mind of thoughts, about being open and receiving of what my teacher has to say instead of trying to hold on to it, to try to insert myself into it. So I was trying to do that, to clear my mind, to give in to dokusan. But at the same time, all I could think about was the fact that he couldn't go to the ceremony because of me, that he probably thought that I knew I was late and hadn't apologized, that I was all clueless and happy while he was sitting there, missing a ceremony, because I was late.
By the third prostration, I made up my mind to just ask him, to just put out there this thing that I felt was between us. I finished the prostrations and sat down on my cushion. I adjusted my posture, put my hands in the mudra position, and took a deep breath. Then I looked up at him and said, "Good morning" (this is the first time that I've actually said it first).
"Good morning," he responded.
I cocked my head to the said and asked, "Can I ask you a question?"
He paused. I imagine it took all of his patience to not say, "This is dokusan. The whole point of it is to ask questions. Are you actually asking me if you can ask me a question?"
Instead, he nodded slightly and said, "Yes."
I pointed my thumb to the window that opened on to the courtyard where the ceremony was taking place.
"Do you want to go to the ceremony? Because I can meet with you another time... I can reschedule..." I stopped short of saying 'Because, pretty much, the last thing I want to do is have a dokusan with you that is keeping you from doing something you want. I would much rather wait two months and have one where I'm not making you miss something.'
He answered, "When I thought you weren't coming, I did. But you're here now, so we might as well..." and I think he swept his hand across his body, gesturing for me to proceed.
"We might as well!" I thought. What kind of a way is that to start dokusan? I'm supposed to talk now? I'm supposed to share with you about what's coming up for me... because you have to? Because I made it before you walked out the door? Because you have no other choice in the matter? I have no interest in this, in talking to you when you don't want to be here. This is, by far, the absolute last thing I want to be doing to you right now.
But I couldn't argue or leave or suggest that we don't meet. I had honestly asked him if he wanted to go to the ceremony. He had honestly answered that he did. And he had also said that we should meet anyway. I couldn't second guess that or tell him what he should do- all I could do was receive what he had just offered to do: have dokusan with me.
And so I started talking, but all I could think about was this idea that he wanted to be somewhere else, that my words and time were a block, keeping him from attending the ceremony. I talked some more, shared what was going on with me, and then... the sound of chanting came up from the courtyard.
"f#@ me!" I thought to myself. "There's the damn ceremony- there's this reminder, of what he is missing, just showing up, sticking its face into your dokusan, just reminding you, and him, that he's NOT there."
And it kept up this way- the sound of the ceremony carried through the window and provided the backdrop for my entire dokusan. At one point, I could hear them asking for poems and I wondered if he was sad about not hearing them, or if maybe he was trying to hear them.
And then the ceremony was over, and I could hear the work meeting, and I could hear them asking for help for the One Day Sit and that's when I had to stop. I just couldn't take it anymore. It was so real, it was so present, it was impossible for me to think about my practice and what was coming up for me with actual people having an actual work meeting, and knowing that neither of us were there for it.
So I stopped talking, looked down, and took a ton of breaths to just get back in touch with what was coming up for me, what was actually coming up for me, right then.
But all that was coming up for me was, "Should I apologize for being late? Should I explain to him why I was late? Is he offended that I didn't apologize?"
And then I thought to myself, "Should I tell him that? Should I tell him how I'm feeling right now?"
But then I thought that was lame. I thought it was lame to bring him into my drama about being late. And I thought about myself. What was it about me that needed him to know that I hadn't been late on purpose? What was it that I wanted him to know about me?
And then I thought, "No, that's not what I want him to know about me. I already know that I'm not late. I already know that I'm not the kind of person who would show up late for dokusan. I don't need him to know that about me- that's something that I'm secure in. If he doesn't know that, there's nothing I can do about that."
And then I thought about just ending it right there- just letting it be over so that he could get on with his day.  But at that point, the ceremony was over, so me ending it wasn't going to solve the problem of him missing the ceremony, it was over anyway.
And then I realized that this was my dokusan, that I probably wouldn't see him for another two months, and I felt like I had missed this opportunity, that I hadn't said all the things that I wanted to and how sad I was about that.
But then I thought about not grasping at dokusan, about not trying to make dokusan into a certain thing, and then I got even sadder, because I had come in to dokusan that morning with the intent to just talk about my practice, and how I actually had had things to say but that instead, I had just hobbled along, barely saying those things I had thought of but not really feeling them because all I could think about was the ceremony and whether or not my teacher was mad at me for being late.
After what felt like a long while, I settled enough to look up, at my teacher.
He was smiling.
I was encouraged by this. I wondered if he was proud of me for settling, for taking a breath. And so I started talking, about my practice, still a little feebly, but making it through.
We talked some more, and I still considered telling him how I was feeling right then and there, how difficult this was for me. I also reconsidered telling him about the whole late thing, but finally decided against it.
And then I felt like I was done, and so I stopped talking, and looked at him. And then he started talking, and I listened. And then I thought we were done again, and so I stopped talking, and looked at him, and he talked again. I wondered if he was doing this on purpose, if he knew this was hard for me, if he saw that I wanted to continue but didn't have it in me and so he was talking to keep it going, until I was actually done.
And then at one point, my occupation with explaining about being late changed to feeling of gratitude to him, for meeting with me, when he could have gone to the ceremony instead. And that felt nice. That felt like something I would be fine sharing with him. And then I noticed that too- that I was only willing to share with him what was coming up for me when it made me look good, when it was pleasant and harmonious.
Shortly after that, I think we both knew that it was done, and so we bowed to each other.
And then I bowed again, and said, "Thank you, for meeting with me, when you wanted to go to the ceremony."
"You're welcome," he said. And then he said that it was like we had been at the ceremony anyway.
I joked about it being "satellite participation" and he said that it felt like the ceremony came up to meet us, that we were a part of it.
Of course, I didn't feel this at all. I was haunted by the damn ceremony, taunted by it, it felt like a constant reminder of how much of a burden my dokusan had been. But my teacher seemed fine with it, so maybe he actually did get to attend the ceremony, in a whole new way.

After dokusan, I felt pretty bad. I felt like it was a total bummer of a dokusan. I felt like I hadn't been myself, hadn't been present, hadn't said the things I wanted to and hadn't even been able to express what was coming up in the moment when it actually happened. I analyzed myself in dokusan, tried to pick apart what had worked and what hadn't. I also tried to forget dokusan, to let it go, to let what happened to just be what happened. But every time I tried to do that, it just kept coming up- all day long and into the next morning. And every time it came up, I found myself trying to say things that I hadn't, wishing that I had said things to my teacher, wishing that I had explained myself better. I began to wonder if what had upset me in dokusan was the fact that I had stifled myself, that I hadn't been forthcoming, that I hadn't been willing to just be honest, to be myself with him.
I spoke with a friend about it and they sympathized with me: about being late without meaning to, about keeping my teacher from attending the ceremony, about the awkwardness of the entire situation. That made me feel better, to hear that it really was difficult, that it really is hard when you do that to your teacher, intentionally or not. And then later, she sent me an email, explaining that my dokusan experience was actually pretty common. She said that we all have awkward dokusans, that teachers and students often struggle with having such an intimate interchange in such a short time and under different circumstances. This helped too.
But it wasn't until mid- day the next day that I finally got some clarity around it. I was reliving it again in my mind, saying the things that I wished I had said and I imagined my teacher saying "Oh! Is that what happened? Why didn't you say that?" and then having him smile, and our dokusan being perfect and harmonious, from that point on.
And that's when I realized that all I really wanted, was a pleasant dokusan. It wasn't so much that I needed to express myself, it was more that I didn't like it when there was discomfort between us- when I thought he might be mad at me, or that we didn't get along.
And then I said to myself, "It's okay to have an unpleasant dokusan. You're not always going to get along with your teacher, you're not always going to see eye to eye. Your doksuan can be difficult and awkward. You are two people, trying to meet, and things can happen that set you off. And both of you will respond to them the best you can, and you will continue. That's what happened today. It was awkward, it was difficult, and in the end, you felt grateful to him, for staying. And in the end, he was smiling, and noticing that he attended the ceremony anyway. And that was all- you made it through, you stayed, and so did he."
And that's when I was able to let it go- when I accepted that my dokusan was difficult- it just was. It wasn't me, it wasn't him, it was the things that happened and how we responded to them. And that allowed me to see the other parts of dokusan- that we both had stayed, that he had smiled at me, that I had genuinely felt grateful to him and expressed it, and that we had experienced this, together.