Nothing on My Mind

by Erik Storlie

  And this one is still tired—this one who kept nodding at five in the morning beside me, head sinking down, down, then jerking awake; then down, down, again jerking awake. Once he hit the top of his head on the wall with a thump. Even when Roshi makes an occasional round during zazen with his roshi’s stick, sharply striking sleepy sitters twice on each shoulder, within a minute this sleepy one is nodding again. For the first two days it irritated me. And on the morning of the third day during the first period of zazen, Roshi, patience frayed, leapt from his seat screaming, “Wake up now! Wake up! Wake up!” and hammered the back of the poor sleepyhead with his roshi’s stick in hard, crackling blows. Now I feel sorry for him. I know his frustration and struggle. He’s a beginner. I admire that he sticks with it and will finish.

  And this one. She’s fiercely determined and tight as a drum. She hissed a correction at me five days ago in the kitchen. I’d failed to bow to the kitchen altar before helping to serve lunch. “Don’t bug me with your trip,” my eyes shouted back. But now it’s okay. “Be strict. Be fierce,” I silently encourage.

  This one, he’s struggling with his divorce. What hell to be here thinking about money and kids and a life falling apart! He came anyway. “Hang in there, old man,” shouts my body, as the periphery of my vision caresses his, and we pass each other slowly near the altar.

  Then it’s my turn for dokusan. I go upstairs, worrying, wondering about my lack of progress, my endless compromises among teaching, wilderness, family, friends, and zen.

  With a bow at the door, I enter Roshi’s upstairs study, then make three bows to the floor. Roshi, seated on the floor on his cushion, returns them. I sit wearily on the round black cushion that faces him a few feet away, carefully adjusting my posture, continuing in silence for many minutes until he asks, “Do you have some question?”

  “Oh, yes,” I say. “I’m just not getting anywhere in my practice. I try to come to zazen every day, and I sit all the sesshins, but it seems like nothing’s happening. Then at school I’m under pressure all the time. You really can’t do a good job when you’re teaching as many classes and students as they give us, and the next thing I know I’m angry at students who don’t do their work and still want good grades. Then I get home and my wife’s pregnant and, of course, she needs time. And we have to do different things to fix up the house before the baby arrives.”

  “At school,” Roshi offers, “when you feel distracted, you can just sit for a few minutes quietly at your desk in your office and let your mind come to rest. That may help you.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “I do that sometimes, and I can try to do it some more. But how can I use the Zen Center to deepen my practice more?”

  Roshi frowns, the corners of his mouth draw down, and he says, “That is maybe the question of a Pratyeka Buddha. Maybe you should ask how you can make use of yourself at the Zen Center to deepen your practice!”

  “Zap!” I think. “That wasn’t really such an innocent question. Usually he’s not so attentive to the nuances of English.”

  “Yes, okay,” I say, “it’s not that I just want to use the Zen Center, but I guess what I can’t seem to deal with right now is that my whole life seems like a distraction, like it’s constantly blocking me. Sometimes I just want to get rid of it. I wish I could focus completely on zazen. I know I can’t do it now, but wouldn’t I make faster progress if I just gave up everything and did nothing but zazen?”

  Roshi explodes. I’ve never seen him so angry. Though one hand still rests lightly in his lap on the palm of the other hand, thumb tips lightly touching in the Buddha’s mudra, he hisses, “That is a very stupid question!”

  Stung, I shoot back, “Okay, if that’s a stupid question, tell me what is a smart question.”

  Steely now, Roshi looks me in the eyes and says with quiet contempt, “That is also a very stupid question.”

  Stumped, furious, I sit for a few minutes, heart pumping, mouth bitter with adrenaline, determined not to say one single word more. I make my bows, Roshi quietly returns them, and I return to the zendo to sit.

  Walking down the carpeted stairs, resentment floods me. So this is what I get for all my efforts and my sincere questions—a slap in the face. A goddamn slap in the face! If I’m not going through all this to get enlightened, what am I doing it for?

  Back at my seat, carefully adjusting my posture to keep pain evenly distributed among my spine, ankles, and knees, the words return. “That is a very stupid question!”

  “Oh, fuck you!” I fume to myself. “So you don’t like my quarrels over new ceremonies that drive people away. So you’re disgusted that I don’t accept even the lay ordination. Damned if I’m going to wear that ridiculous black ceremonial bib around my neck and get a Japanese name.

  “Yeah, sure, I should’ve told eighty-year-old Uncle Albert over bourbon and lutefish on Christmas Eve, ‘Oh, Albert, by the way, I’d prefer it if you didn’t call me Erik anymore. My Buddhist name is Tofu-kuku.’ It was bad enough to put him through a Buddhist wedding ceremony.”

  Finally the period is over. We all rise slowly, bow, fluff our cushions, and begin walking our slow circle around the room. I notice the muffled voices of Roshi and another student penetrating the thick hardwood floor above. I hear his laughter, then the student’s, quieter, subdued, and I smile.

  “Erik, wake up,” I say to myself. “Your dilemma is repetitive and boring.”

  Passing the altar, I slow almost to a standstill, my foot creeping forward only a few inches with each step. I want to enjoy the Christmas cactus that Tomoe-san places there every year. My eyes linger on the gorgeous red explosion, blossoms tumbling in arcs off the oak altar top. Christmas sesshin after Christmas sesshin, I savor this cascade of red, this contrast to black mats and round black cushions, to the polished oak floor, to the austere thing we do here. Today, in midstep, drawing near, thinking of Christmas and the Christ child, I resist an impulse to fall down on my knees and worship.

  Outside, northwest winds blow over the mile of frozen lake. Subzero gusts rattle the old ill-fitting casement windows and send cold drafts billowing along the floor. Inside, we twenty sitters hear the frustrated grind of a failing car starter motor. Listening, despite our aching knees and backs and necks, we’re grateful to be doing nothing and going nowhere. The motor pulses slower and slower. Then silence.

  We sit. We sit. We sit. It’s now after dinner, the last period of zazen. “Well,” speaks a wry voice in my head, “did you take all this trouble to get your own personal zen master living in Minneapolis and then expect him to kiss your ass?”

  “No, of course not,” I think. “But don’t I deserve a little sympathy and support after all the years of hard practice, all the time and money I’ve donated to zen?”

  “Oh, come on,” says the voice, “shut up, Storlie. Don’t take yourself quite so seriously. Maybe it’s time for you to burn down your little hermit’s hut. And by the way, to hell with Roshi, too. He’s got his own problems.”

  My left knee, the site of an old cartilage surgery, aches with a fierce burning. Soon pain drives all thought clean out of my head. Maybe I’d better change position, ease up on that place.

  “No, to hell with it.

  “Remember what Roshi says about sesshin: ‘It’s like putting a snake in a tube. For a little while, anyway, the snake cannot make a choice—it can only be straight.’

  “Remember what he says about sitting: ‘Just keep your mind on the mat.’”

  So I sit! I sit! I sit! Hammer blows to the chisel, chisel biting the mind stone, again! again! again! Every nerve, every fiber in my body glows with a fierce concentration that devours the pain in my knees. The palms of my hands, the soles of my feet vibrate with fire. My eyes glare at the line where the baseboard meets the floor. My skull fills with painful, concentrated energies begging for release, yet suddenly gleeful, awake, watching themselves.

  The bell rings. The day is over.

  Slowly, I pull on coat, hat, mittens, and boots an
d walk out into a star-studded twenty-below night.

  At a two-day sesshin later that winter, Roshi asks during dokusan, “How is your life now? Is it okay?”

  “Well,” I say, “things seem to be going a little better. You know, you always say enlightenment is like an eel. You grab it, and suddenly it’s gone through your fist. I’m getting a little better at doing all the things I have to do without feeling so frustrated, just doing each thing with full attention. And I’ve tried to take time at work sometimes to calm my mind. But I still get very angry at students.”

  “But sometimes you have to get angry at students. That is pretty natural, part of being a teacher, don’t you think?”

  “Well, yeah, up to a point, if it doesn’t go too far.”

  “Anger is part of our human life. When it’s like the thunderstorms here in Minnesota, it’s okay. They just come and are very noisy and exciting. Then they are gone and the sky is blue again. Anger is just anger. But it’s pretty natural when you are caught by it.”

  “Yeah, it’s hard not to be caught. But I’ll keep trying. What I’ve been noticing now, though, is that my zazen really works when I’m absolutely involved in all the other parts of my life, without hesitation, completely, not trying to escape them. Then, in some way, all of those parts—dealing with students, getting the house ready for the baby, even keeping the car going when it’s below zero—helps my zazen. Or really, I guess it’s more like it’s part of my zazen.”

  “Ah, yes,” Katagiri says excitedly, vigorously nodding, “that is exactly right! You know, you can’t just pick up one side of the piece of paper. But human beings always want to do that. I do too.”

  We sit together for long minutes, peaceful together, silent in his study.

  Finally I say, “You know, Roshi, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ordained, even as a lay Buddhist. Somehow it doesn’t fit for me. It wouldn’t be right for my family and friends. And the people I teach with would never understand. Everyone would just think I’m crazy. How can that help anyone—or help them to learn zazen?”

  Smiling, he says, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Just have the good spirit of a zen student. Just sit.” He bows, I bow, and I leave.

  Roshi calls and asks me to join him at the “Smorgasbord of Religious Cultures,” a gathering hosted by a new age church near the University of Minnesota. He’ll give a presentation on zen there. He’s often reluctant to participate in such things, but we hope this will help advertise our existence in Minneapolis.

  After the presentation, at the end of the afternoon, one of the organizers, an enthusiastic middle-aged woman, urges us to attend a final session led by a mystical dancing rabbi. Shy and not very ecumenical, Roshi politely declines.

  “Oh, please, Katagiri Roshi,” says the woman. “We’ll be so sorry if you don’t enjoy this experience with us.”

  Pressed, reluctant, Roshi agrees.

  We walk downstairs into a large basement room and join about thirty people sitting in a circle on the floor.

  The rabbi—giggly, clad in a black robe—talks about “transcendence with and through body,” then stands in the middle of the group and begins to move in graceful circles, hands stroking the air.

  “Easier,” I think, “than getting up at four-thirty in the morning and sitting zazen all day until you collapse into bed.”

  There’s a tugging at my sleeve. I turn. It’s Roshi. He inclines his head toward a side door near us, whispering, “We can go now.”

  What? In front of these seekers, sitting rapt on the church basement floor, we should insult the mystical rabbi? He looks to be, after all, a nice middle-aged gentleman.

  I hesitate, but Roshi holds my gaze, insistently nodding toward the side door. We get to our feet. The faces of the workshop participants follow us as we head for the door.

  Ducking quickly through it, we find ourselves in total darkness. Damn! Then our eyes become accustomed to a dim light creeping in underneath the door, and we each explore an end of a long basement hall, feeling with our hands for a light switch or another door. Long minutes pass. No luck. Then finally, to my relief, at the top of a stairs, I find an exit door.

  It’s locked.

  The escape is foiled. We’ve no choice but to go back. I open the door, Roshi goes through, and I follow him back into the workshop. We try to walk quickly and unobtrusively through the room, but the rabbi halts a sacred movement in midstep and, along with the entire assembly, observes us quietly, his eyebrows raised.

  As I drive Roshi back to the Zen Center, he says nothing about the incident, nor do I. We drive in silence. I’m mildly amused. I understand Roshi’s impatience with what he considers frivolousness. On the other hand, we were guests.

  That Saturday, at the end of his regular lecture, he describes the religions smorgasbord and all the different things he saw. Finally he tells about the mystical dancing rabbi.

  “Ah, but the Katagiri is very ignorant,” he concludes, laughing ruefully. He raises one hand high above his head and with the other measures down to the floor. “The Katagiri ignorance is very deep, like this, as deep as the ocean. Can you imagine what I did? I walked out! I just walked out!”

  He motions sweepingly with one black berobed arm, index finger jabbing toward the side of the room. He makes the noise small boys make when they fly toy airplanes. “Sssshoooo! I just walked out. I didn’t want to stay. I am always pigheaded, you see. Even after so many years of practice, I am always so pigheaded. So maybe next time I can do better. I will try to stay.”

  It’s the fall of 1979. I teach full time. I am now the father of an infant girl. Desperately I try to juggle these demands while maintaining full involvement in Zen Center activities. Roshi has announced that he will lead a three-month practice period that begins in a few weeks. I want to sign up for it. But it would take me out of the house mornings at 4:45, as well as two evenings a week and much of the day Saturday. Further, I’d have to sit a two-day sesshin each month and the seven-day rohatsu sesshin before Christmas.

  I call one morning before my classes to arrange to talk with him. He’s free, so I walk over to the Zen Center to ask for some kind of flexible schedule.

  I enter the back door, leave my shoes in the basement on a shoe rack, and walk upstairs to the Katagiris’ apartment. I knock, he opens the door and we bow to each other, and he leads me down the hall to his study. We sit down on zafus, he on his side of his long, low desk, I on the other side.

  As we chat about some details of the financing of the country land purchase, Tomoe-san brings us cups of tea. She asks about the new baby, and I thank the two of them especially for making lovely patches to go in the baby quilt that Zen Center members had put together before the birth.

  After she leaves, I launch into my question. “Roshi, I want very much to do the practice period, but with my teaching and the new baby, I don’t see how I can do it. I really shouldn’t be out of the house so much.”

  Roshi nods and looks at me expectantly.

  I go on, “I wonder if you would make me a schedule for a practice period that I can do myself. I could talk with you regularly, maybe once a week. I know family life must be part of my practice now. But I want to practice zazen hard.”

  Uncomprehending, Roshi says, “It’s okay if you can’t do the practice period. There is no problem. You can just pay attention to your teaching and to your family. For some time into the future, you will have to be pretty busy.”

  “I know, Roshi,” I say, “but I don’t want to lose the thread of my practice. It seems like my life just gets busier and busier, and I can’t really focus clearly on zazen at all. So my idea is that you could write up a schedule that I could keep strictly, but maybe not so many evenings away from the house. I could do all the morning zazens. And the lectures. And several sesshins. Then we could talk at certain times. That could help me to keep a strong practice.”

  The corners of Roshi’s lips turn firmly down. “So it is your idea that you should have your own s
pecial practice period?” His emphatic enunciation of the word conveys impatience and contempt.

  “No, no,” I say, “I don’t really want a special practice period. But if you’re not willing to do this, it’s okay.” I’m embarrassed, sorry now that I came to him with my struggle. I didn’t think that I was asking to be special. But I wanted him to help me practice as hard as I can.

  A voice in my head grumbles, “He sure has plenty of time for the budding new priests!”

  “It is not necessary,” he says, “to do practice period at this time. Maybe some time in the future you can do it.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I’ll see. Maybe I can arrange to handle this practice period, after all. Most of the time I’d be gone will be in the early morning when the baby’s asleep.”

  “You should think carefully,” says Roshi. “Do you have any other question?”

  “No,” I say. “Thank you very much.”

  We bow and I leave.

  Back in the basement, sitting on the stairs, pulling on my shoes, I’m upset, filled with angry questions. “Does he really think that the only reason I’m doing this is just to be special? I really do want to practice hard. Is he going to be my teacher or not? And I have to work. How does he expect me to pay bills? And my damned generous Zen Center pledges? I’m a father now, too. How does he expect families to raise kids?”

  At home, that evening, I discuss the practice period with my wife. She agrees reluctantly that I can do it. The next morning, after zazen, I sign up.

  It’s the last of a series of rancorous meetings debating plans for the country land. The Zen Center has recently purchased a tract of beautiful undeveloped pasture and woodland in the hills of southeastern Minnesota. We’re preparing to seek funds for buildings.

  Roshi and several newer members of the group want these buildings designed after Eiheiji, Dogen’s temple in Japan. There will be separate large halls, a Buddha hall for chanting and services and a zendo for zazen. In the zendo, there will be cupboards for personal belongings at each sitting place so students can sleep together. The goal is to recreate Dogen’s original thirteenth-century practices.