Wannabe...

I was in my classroom one morning, thinking to myself, "I wish I could be like my teacher. I wish that when kids did things that annoyed me or disrupted the class, I could meet them with a deep breath or inquisitiveness."
And then I thought some more about my teacher, about the fact that you just don't mess with my teacher. But it's not because you're afraid of him or that he'll yell at you, it's just that you want to do what he holds you to- it's like you want to meet his expectations, because he's meeting them.

And so then I picutred myself, being like my teacher: sitting on that square box in the middle of the Buddha Hall, giving a dharma talk, all poised and upright.
And then I laughed. Because when I pictured myself up there, sitting on that box, I pictured myself being all wiggly and taking a long time to settle in to my posture, and maybe smiling at the audience while they waited for me, maybe even making a joke about "these darn robes."
"Oh," I thought to myself. "You definitely would not be like your teacher. You can't be him, you just aren't him, it's just not you."

And then I thought about the last dokusan I had had with my teacher. In it, I had asked my teacher to tell me about his experience with giving up control.
He responded by asking, "Don't you think it would make more sense for you to tell me about your experience with it?"
"No," I thought. "Why would we talk about me? You're the one with all the experience, you're the one who's been practicing longer than I've been alive, you're the zen master; I'm just the student, sitting here waiting to be taught."

Of course I didn't say any of that. I actually don't remember what I said, but I do know that I left dokusan with a lens through which to notice myself around control.
And I did, I noticed a lot about myself as a result, and grew in some ways, loosened in others, but mostly just saw myself in relationship with control.
At the time, I thought my teacher did this (put it back on me) because he knew that I was the only one who could learn about myself and control, I  was the only one who could do the learning around this, that he couldn't possibly begin to give me pointers about giving up control in my life any better than I could, because he wasn't me, he wasn't living my life.

But that morning, in my classroom, as I was picturing myself being my teacher, wanting to be just like him, and realizing that I just wasn't him, it occurred to me that this practice, isn't about being someone. It isn't about reaching some perfect behavior or poise. It isn't about achieving some moral status or place of equanimity. This practice is actually all about becoming the self- it's about self actualization, seeing the self, studying the self, being who you are.
So when I asked my teacher about his experience with control it actually didn't make sense. Why would I talk about his experience with control if the point of all this is to be who you are. Learning about him, isn't going to teach me about my self. And trying to be him, is so barking up the wrong tree. I'm walking down the totally wrong path by trying to emulate him or figure out how to be him. That does absolutely nothing for self actualization.
What I really need to do is be me in my classroom, find my own place of equanimity and poise, settle in to whoever it is that I am, and then just be it.