Student Striver 7
Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form: Student Striver Visits a Live Zendo
by Zheng Dao (Fogueira)
A monk once said to Baso, "Your Reverence, abandoning the four
propositions and wiping out the hundred negations, please point
out to me directly the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the
West.." Baso said, "I don't feel like explaining it to you today.
Go and ask the head monk. The monk then went and asked the head
monk." The head monk said, "I've got a headache today. Go and
ask the cook.." The monk asked the cook. The cook said, "I used
to know the answer to that, but I've forgotten it. But I make
good soup, would you like some?" "No", replied the monk and
returned and told Baso what had taken place. "The head monk's
head is white. The cook's head is black.."
Robert E. Kennedy,
SJ, Roshi, --Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit., p. 91.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine needed a hospital chaplain. Poor dear, the only one available was me, the virtual eternal student in training in only two dimensions. This sort of thing could not go on. I thought just for grins I'd try to attend one sit at the local "real" zendo and I made an appointment to talk with the resident teacher about such things as where I might locally find a pastoral care program to train hospital chaplains.
I never ever got a good gut feeling about the place. I am not a formal kind of person. I figured if I broke down the thing into small units I could manage: shoes off . in door . bow Buddha . bow next . sit down . don't fidget . get up . walk to hall . wait for instructions. I couldn't believe I was obsessing about this more than a post 9/11 flight, orthopedic surgery or an MRI scan. I told myself I was supposed to REPRESENT, BE A MEMBER OF, THIS GROUP, TRAINING TO BE THIS GROUP'S CLERGY, and I already wanted to throw up.
I am the mother of all newbies here, I thought, no matter how old a pro I pretend to be in two dimensions. What will happen to Student Ginge when she has face time with a pro? With her future? I have to throw it all away. I mean, like really. I have to walk away and not care one damn whatsoever. These people have no right to intimidate me even in my own mind. No. Absolutely not. I vow right here right now in front of Shakyamuni and even God that I still talk to and even Master Jesus first in the lineage of the JewBus that if it is the will of the universe and I become a priest my sangha will not leave even the trace of the delusion of intimidation in the untried mind.
Watch turned off. Check.
EcumeNecklace (Buddha, pentagram, star of David, Maltese cross, dirty Chinese coin of no inherent value) inside bra so can not jingle. Check.
Cell phone (off) and wallet in pocket making unsightly bulges if I have to leave backpack with the shoes. Check.
Most of crumbs, salt and dog hair off proper black clothing (long sleeved black T shirt and yoga pants in sweltering 99 plus Texas heat with 90% humidity). Check.
Dana money ready. They get $30 instead of $25 because I don't have change. They're not even a dana-run organization, they charge for membership, at $20-100/month.
I feel as if I am about to go on the Bataan Death March.
I was on the Bataan Death March, it turned out, when I finally limped out of there without having seen the person with whom I made the appointment, the "resident Teacher".. I didn't see the point. I didn't see her. Major Major Sensei was not in the office, although I did see her glide briefly through the hall and up the stairs.
The entrance was around the back, not just around the corner from the railroad tracks, but straight arrow into a combination library and dining room. One took off one's shoesies while staring directly into the kitchen, where young white people were busily cooking. "The olive oil gives it this aroma", said a white male voice. Under normal gut conveyance circumstances, I would have said, "want some help?" They didn't even notice me to shake their head no.
I took off my shoes in the library. The kitchen staff looked through me. They did not tell me what to do. I was on my own. Well, I came prepared to wing it, no problem. I waited until a dude in a robe began gasshoing in the hall. I couldn't see at what, but it was clear that the time had come to leave the dining room slash library. I said to hell with it and followed Gassho Dude (bald, robes), who bowed to Buddha and then began fussing with some bowls.
No one else was around, so I figured I had better sit. So I sat.
Well...I sat in the wrong direction, bringing Gassho Dude to my side instantly. "Is this your first time?" he asked, gently and sweetly. "Yes", I replied, gently and sweetly. He explained the procedure and said he'd help me along, if I stood to his left.
A woman about 5 years younger than myself (red hair, yoga pants) was asked by GD to be "Greg's geekee", which was his version of the word for jikijitsu, the monitor person. Greg turned out to be an imposing gent who resembled Uncle Fester's brother separated at birth dressed in what looked like grey prison pajamas covered in a nice black rakusu. Greg appeared to be a man of unknown rank, but whoever he was, I got to watch him do whatever he did directly in front of my face. He was the Up Front Prostrator. He prostrated to the Buddha, The Geekee prostrated to him, and so did I. I prayed I would be able to get up and down in some kind of rhythm. I managed.
Geekee Grrl pointed out sutras in the same frantic but polite way a Christian might finger a hymn. The chants were Gregorian, but it was some other Greg; he could not sing at all, but GD had a good voice which tended to go flat or fade out at mysteriously random times, leaving Geekee Grrl to pick up the slack. I sang in tune and began to have fun but it was over way too fast.
I missed the proper bow to the cushion sequence and had just gotten onto the zafu when I realized I was again facing the wrong direction and had to about-face by doing a butt-scuttle and not look either at GD or the others while doing so.
Ah, my first and last zazen as "official", earthly priest candidate! How pretty the blank, blank wall that somewhere on the continuum Bodhidharma's Graves-laden eyes were still caressing! How lovely the yawp of the bluejays, the banging of old hippie castiron woks, the hum of the air conditioner. How amazingly gradual the pain of almost dislocating my right knee. How enthralling the realization not only that my self was truly dissolving, just like the grownups told me it would, but that the function of a major nerve in my left leg along with it.
I appeared to be paralyzed.
My left leg had gone completely numb. Not a sleepy foot, a paralyzed left leg, accompanied by a right leg completely in spasm. My left leg would not bear weight, and in 30 minutes I would not be able to get up. And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it except to hope The Universe would provide good ole Ginge, student of Master Astaire, the one who made it all look so DAMN easy, a graceful and haunting way to fall flat on her face.
So the non-paralyzed upper part of my body relaxed and I listened to the bluejays, the air conditioner and the gauche cough of Greg. I did not breathe noisily. I shifted from one spasm to another silently. Now and then the skull emptied and only bluejays, air conditioner and spasm remained.
Finally, in the corner of my eye I saw GD began to shift, and gongs and clappers gonged and clapped. I managed to rise to my feet, stagger to the Buddha, gassho with great gratitude and exit. Greg's stone face grinned at me as he told me to stand in the hall and wait.
Gasshoing was done all around. "Hey", said GD, his face relaxing. I gave my name. "Is this your first time?" asked Greg. "Yes", I smiled.
"How did you hear about us?" asked GD.
"The Internet".
"Oh".
"Been practicing long?" Greg wanted to know.
"Thirty years by myself", I said.
"Well", he offered, with his best flight attendant sort of smile, "the beginner classes are a good review."
Another round of gasshoing occurred.
Stares then, all around. Silence.
GD then made a sort of shooing motion with his hand, and there was a general motion toward the exit. No sign of the woman, the sensei, I was supposed to meet. I didn't know how to get past the shooing to croak out some type of question, like, "hey, I'm supposed to meet the sensei! Where is she?"
I found myself in the dining room where a meal was about to begin . a meal to which I was not invited. Greg sat down expectantly, ogling the perfect yellow egg salad, the green green romaine or even fancier lettuce, the wheaty wheat bread. "Looks yummy", I opined.
No response. I was, apparently, in the words of VM Don Henley, already gone. I didn't even want to put on my shoes, they were a crowd. I limped painfully down the steps . closing the door carefully and silently . and when I knew nobody could see me but the bluejays I put on my shoes.
It took me a 20 minute limp to the local park before I could move without pain in some kind of balance. I stared at the young grackles and agreed with VM Francis of Assisi's previous assessment: they were my sangha. They were, as my husband observed, my peeps.
My sangha will be in a kitchen where everybody cooks; in a room where we all sit every which way and loose; at a lunch table where all are welcome to eat their fill and talk their talk. An all-pervading luminous and simple sangha, like the geography of Mind, and so damn unofficial.