Fear of dokusan

I have to say that I was actually fine going to dokusan this time. I had had an unsettling last dokusan, but as a result had finally come to understand that dokusan was actually all about you. Your teacher could only respond to what you offered about yourself and often, it wasn't what they said, it was what you responded to that made dokusan what it was. It was totally up to you to make dokusan what it was and, honestly, it really was all about you- you shared yourself with your teacher and they responded. When I had done that (just shared myself) in my last dokusan, though it had been unsettling, it had been so because I was finally looking at myself.
So I knew that, honestly, all I had to do was show up for dokusan and share with my teacher what was coming up for me. I also knew that, honestly, dokusan was going to be whatever I made it- it had no affect on my teacher, his evaluation of me, his acceptance of me, etc. All of this was just for me. I suppose you could say your teacher is just along for the ride but I think they play a little bigger role than that. Still, I really knew that dokusan was for my benefit, no one else's.
And then it actually was the morning that I was going to dokusan. And then I was in the building and it was 15 minutes away. And then I had to go upstairs...and I got a little scared.
See, I sprained my ankle a week ago so I have to sit in a chair. I had asked my teacher's assistant about this, whether or not I could sit dokusan with my teacher if I were in a chair, and she said it was no problem, I could just grab a chair from the hallway.
I laughed at the nonchalance of this response- just grab a chair- and then worried about how I was going to get a chair into the dokusan office: were there even chairs in the hallway? What if someone was sitting on them? Can you put a chair on the tatami mats? And what's the order of things when you bring a chair into the room- do you do prostrations first? Where does the chair go while you do the prostrations? I finally ended up just acting out the situation in my bedroom at home, and came up with a plan for how to bring the chair into the room. But then I got worried about the dokusan waiting area- what if there wasn't a chair there? I had been told that at my time slot, there were people ahead of me and so I might have to wait and I wondered how long I could tolerate sitting on the floor with my ankle. I figured I'd just sit in a chair if I had to but then I worried about the bell- how would I ring back to my teacher if I weren't sitting next to the bell?
I got into the building, gingerly walked up the steps, bowed to Suzuki Roshi, and peered around the corner. There were fancy shoes outside my teacher's door so I knew someone was in with him. I spied chairs in the hallway and figured I could sit on them to wait but then, as I approached the waiting area I saw... a chair! I wasn't sure if it had been put there for me or not but I was grateful for it anyway.
I sat down, settled in, and as I leaned forward in the chair, I got mad.
"This isn't fair," I thought. "Before I sprained my ankle, I was totally leaning forward. I had actually done what he said in last dokusan and now, he's going to tell me again to tilt my hips forward and stick my chest out but I already know how to do that. It's not fair that it's going to look like I haven't made any progress when I've made total progress. And I worked hard for this progress. I trained myself to lean forward so much that someone actually adjusted me backward so I know I got it right."
And then I took a deep breath, and tried to feel my breath move through my body: belly, abdomen, chest... chest, abdomen, belly. I worried again about my posture but then reminded myself that it was about me, not about posture, it was about breathing, freely.
After a couple of minutes, I started to worry. I wondered if I had been squeezed in to the schedule, if the person before me had just started, if they would finish right before lunch and he'd have to see me during his lunch. I decided that I would be brief, that I would only ask what was necessary, and started to plan what I would say.
"Nope," I stopped myself. "That's not what this is about. You say what comes up for you, not what you think you should say. Let it be, let it happen."
But then I was still sitting there, worrying about being a burden to him, making him see me. I started picturing him, seeing me bring in that chair, being annoyed with me for having a sprained ankle again, thinking I was a woosie for not being able to tolerate sitting on the floor with him for dokusan. I tried to breathe again, to focus on my breath, but noticed how scared I was.
"Wow," I thought. "You're actually scared of dokusan. Are you afraid he's going to ask you questions that will unsettle you again?"
And I thought about that- about how I had handled the questions and that didn't frighten me. I remembered how, even though they were unsettling, I had maintained eye contact, met my teacher, been myself, and hadn't felt afraid. But still, I definitely felt afraid.
"What is this?" I asked myself. "What is it you're afraid of?"
"Rejection," I answered. "You're afraid he's going to reject you. You're afraid he's going to think you haven't worked hard enough or that by just showing up and being present you're not putting in enough effort..."
I started to interrupt myself, "But he isn't rejecting you, he won't do that..."
But then I interrupt myself again, "Don't excuse this, don't explain it, just feel it, actually feel this fear."
And so I did. I said to myself, "This is fear, this is fear of rejection." And it was weird, as soon as I felt it, my shoulders dropped and I felt little and light and safe.
"See," I said. "That's all it was.. fear. It just needed to be seen. You're fine now."
And I went back to breathing but I still felt scared.
And then I rationalized it. "Of course you're scared. You were unsettled last time. You're afraid of what he might say this time. You're just a frightened little student, that's all," and I met myself with compassion. "It's okay to be afraid."
"It's okay to be afraid?" I asked myself, incredulously. "Fear is okay?" I asked, surprised by this notion.
"Fear is an emotion, just like happy is an emotion, they're just emotions. And you are a feeling person, you just are. And right now you are feeling- just feeling, that's all."
And then I pictured myself, going in to dokusan, being frightened like I had been so many times before. But then I remembered how I had been last time, how I had been confident, how I had been myself without question or doubt.
"I don't want to be afraid this time. I don't want to cower or worry in dokusan. I want to just be in dokusan, and I can do that. I've done that. And my teacher isn't judging me or rejecting me- I'm the only one who's making this fear, and I don't have to."
And then someone walked up, and sat down, and I worried that they had been in front of me in the schedule and that they were upset that now they had to wait for me and I wondered who was supposed to go first and so I looked at my watch. It was past the time that I had been scheduled so I knew they weren't supposed to be there before me but still, I felt bad, and decided again what I really needed to ask in dokusan.
"Okay, remember to ask..." but that question was a question of convenience, of technicality, it wasn't actually what I was noticing in my practice. "I know you want to ask that but that's not what's coming up. You can only say what's coming up and you won't know what's coming up until you get there."

Fortunately, about two minutes later, the bell rang, and I rang back. I saw my good friend, who I hadn't seen in a long time, coming out and sitting down on the chair in the hallway. I bowed to her and she smiled huge back at me but I was so focused on getting the chair into the office I just pointed to it and said, "I need the chair..." and she hurriedly got out of it and gave it to me.
I stepped into the room and did the forms that I had practiced for bringing in the chair. Instead of being met with a look of annoyance, I was met by my teacher immediately removing the cushion so that I'd have a place to put the chair. I did three prostrations, put the chair on the zafu, settled into my posture, looked up, and said good morning. He pointed to my ankle and asked, with a with a tone of both curiosity and care, "What happened?"
I told him about it, how frustrated I was with it, what I was going to do about it, and though I shouldn't have been surprised by this, he met me with tenderness and confidence. And then we moved on.
I shared what I had been noticing about myself- in my relationships with my extended and immediate family, in my willingness to let things happen, in my social interactions in the zendo, and in my response to seeing myself. He shared some anecdotes from his own life, some perspectives on life in general and how we often respond to them. I asked some questions for clarification which led to other sharing about what was coming up for me. Some of his answers brought up stuff in me and I let it- I think we both saw the associations of my life with the questions I was asking about others- both saw that I was experiencing that too.
And then, it was weird, I felt like I had been seen. We had only talked about the two things that I had been curious about in my practice, just those two things. They weren't questions, they weren't things I had felt unsettled about, they were just what I had noticed, and shared. But we had looked at them, together I guess, talked about them, and that was all. It wasn't like I was settled around them now or had some new way to be- just that we had seen them, within the lens of this practice, within the joy and beauty of this practice, and we had connected- or, at least, I felt connected- because I had shared. And I felt done. I felt like saying thank you, and bowing, because I was grateful, and feeling met.
But something in the conversation lead me to something else- something I had been meaning to ask and had planned to bring up at his next Q and A but there it was, coming up, so I asked it- and then suggested we could talk about it at length another time. Instead, he offered a brief answer, which was extremely helpful, and gave me the tools that I needed to begin to help my friend.
And then my teacher bowed. Somehow he knew it was over too (or maybe he didn't, maybe it was time for lunch). I stood up and moved the chair so that I could do three full prostrations. He said I could do three standing bows instead, so I did. And then I bowed to the door, opened it, returned the chair to the hallway, and went home.