<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/tbn0.google.com\/images?q=tbn:_9g_8UeETkXI6M:z.about.com\/d\/chinesefood\/1\/0\/x\/F\/1\/Lotus_Root.jpg\")
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<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Here are some recent questions and my responses (your comments welcome too):<\/p><\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/p>\n What is good work for the teacher-student relationship? For example, did you discuss personal issues much with Katagiri? Was he open to that? With students, can you do that\u2013or is that kind of thing a problem?<\/em><\/div>\n<\/em><\/p>\nGood work in the teacher-student relationship is case-by-case, depending on where the student is at and how the teacher can serve the truth in any given interaction. Therefore, there is no such thing as a single kind of \u201cteacher-student relationship.\u201d <\/div>\n <\/p>\n I didn\u2019t talk much about personal issues by themselves with Katagiri. When I did it sometimes it seemed that he either didn\u2019t get it, didn\u2019t want to talk about it, or came from such a Japanese cultural perspective that it wasn\u2019t real helpful. Some of that was probably my own resistance. Roshi did work with some students primarily on daily life issues. From my perspective, it often didn\u2019t go so well. It left him exhausted and students reinforced in their emotional needy patterns.<\/div>\n <\/p>\n How the practice impacts daily life and how to apply the practice to daily life is clearly relevant, especially to Soto training \u2013 but it\u2019s a slippery slip into psychologizing. <\/div>\n <\/p>\n I do less and less of that myself. When I was a new teacher I was more patient and willing to wander around with a student\u2019s swirling emotions, waiting for an educable \u201cZen\u201d moment. Now it seems there isn\u2019t so much time and that the fundamental issue of life and death (the primary issue in Zen) is best addressed as directly as possible. <\/div>\n <\/p>\n | ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/4330911338438640912-3405188078743124153?l=wildfoxzen.blogspot.com\")
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