Wild Fox Zen
I had dinner with a friend tonight featuring some really good conversation, including lots of ideas about future zen(web)inars and even a bit about Keep Me in Your Heart Awhile. At the class here last week I couldn’t remember the title so it seems like it might be time to direct a little attention to my dear child.
Here’s my friend’s favorite story from the book which occurred during a trip to Japan with Roshi to look for monasteries where he could send students:
WE BEGAN OUR FINAL NIGHT at Taizoin (Roshi’s temple) with a celebration with the (all male) temple elders. During the meal, Roshi told me later, the elders asked him to come back and live at Taizoin. They offered to rebuild the temple if he would return. Roshi gave them an evasive answer but he told me that he was thinking that he might move back to Taizoin to retire and train Westerners in Japan himself.
The women of the village created a feast of innumerable forms of seafood, most of which I had never seen before. Ben, a picky eater even in America, a regular meat-and-potatoes guy, had an internal list of a dozen acceptably edible items and seafood—let alone small, dark, slimy creatures—was not on the list. In collusion with some of the temple elders, an alliance formed with winks and smiles, I helped convince Ben that the little critters were all forms of soy protein. Ben ate them reluctantly and reported liking one or two. When I confessed our ruse, everyone laughed and the difference between the Japanese and the Americans faded further from our minds. Beer and sake flowed. Most of the Japanese men turned into radish heads from alcohol flush reaction. I felt at home. Somehow we found things to point to, make up some English/Japanese-ish expressions and laugh loudly.
A couple hours into the party I slipped out of the temple to use the outhouse. On the way, I was amazed to see an almost full moon hanging over the Japan Sea. As I stood in awe, I heard footsteps crossing the gravel temple driveway heading in my direction. I glanced back to see Roshi a few feet away, apparently also heading to the outhouse. I pointed at the moon. We stood together for several minutes enjoying the moon, then Roshi asked, “Outhouse?”
“You first,” I said as I motioned for him to go by.
“No, no,” he said as he leaned into me and put one arm around my waist. We stood again in silence. I was enjoying the moon and was so fulfilled to have this contact with Roshi but I also really needed to pee. At his lead, we opened our pants and peed together like two little boys on the playground, being bad.
As he peed, face to face with the moon, Roshi murmured, “Ahhh! Dosho-san. . . .”
The pilgrimage for me was complete. I’d come to Japan to experience Japanese Zen and to check out other Zen masters. I’d found a deeper certainty that I was with the right guy, Katagiri Roshi, that Zen is always this close—and is a real pisser.
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