Wet Eyes, Shaking Hands: Devotion to the Teacher

Last updated on Nov 29, 2022

Thinking back, I recall my days at Entsū-ji
And the solitary struggle to find the Way.
Carrying firewood reminded me of Layman Hō;
When I polished rice, the Sixth Patriarch came to mind.
I was always first in line to receive the Master’s teaching,
And never missed an hour of meditation.
Thirty years have flown by since
I left the green hills and blue sea of that lovely place.
What has become of all my fellow disciples?
And how can I forget the kindness of my beloved teacher?
The tears flow on and on, blending with the swirling mountain stream.

I first traveled to Japan at 21 on a one-way ticket, determined that I was either going get enlightened or die trying. I slept under bridges and in graveyards. I ate flour mixed with water for every meal for months. I meditated for hours-and-hours-and-hours every day. It was Nirvana or bust.

Before traveling there, I received the contact of an American Zen master in Kyoto. Jeff Shore was a hippie who ditched the long-hair and psychedelics to move to Japan and practice Zen under one of the 20th century greats, Fukushima Roshi. Jeff was one of the first people I really met in Japan after arriving. Following one of his weekly meditation sessions, he invited me and a few others out to a nice local restaurant. After days of eating flour-and-water from a plastic box, I was ecstatic.

I can't remember the name of the place, but I do remember the clay walls washed in a warm beige, the handmade vases with bare branches zagging out accompanied by single white flowers, and my perfectly fried shrimp tempura. I struggled to get a bite with the chopsticks but when I finally succeded, sweet Buddha. It tasted like the food of the gods. He got the bill - something which I secretly prayed for - and then we parted ways.

It would be months later before I returned to Kyoto again and started training under him. Jeff was happy for me to join for daily morning and evening sits together, but was adamant I couldn't stay at his hermitage. After all, I was a scraggly, smelly backpacker who he'd only met once. He thought that I was staying in some hostel nearby. I wasn't. Instead, I was sleeping under a nearby bridge.

Over time, I became closer with his students. Casper, a Dutchman pursuing a PhD. Judy, his sister-in-law who was there on full-time retreat. Alex, another American pursuing a PhD on, of all things, Ryokan. And a grab-bag of engineers, artists, and other folks. They started to invite me for tea, breakfast, lunch, dinner. And at some point, my secret got out and back to Jeff.

He confronted me one day while we sat over tea, "What the hell are you doing? You can't be that poor. Go and stay at a proper place." I nodded, fluttering with anxiety and pride and shame. I knew I was going straight back to that bridge that night and that was that.

A few days later, while we were doing a private practice interview, Jeff asked me again where I was staying. I refused to answer. "Stay here," he insisted. I was so relieved, especially with winter already starting. I'd end-up living at his hermitage for months. I used up his electricity like crazy making endless pots of green tea or udon noodles. I even ate some of the food he or others left in the fridge without permission. And I didn't pay a single penny. I was poor, I told myself. I was practicing the Way. He'd understand. And despite his tremendous patience and generosity, my pride and stubbornness made for a poor student.

When I finally left him and Japan to travel to Southeast Asia to check-out Theravada, I left him a long, overwrought note. And then we parted ways. Or so it seemed. As time passed and I grew up a bit, I saw how ungrateful I was for everything he offered me: friendship, entry to the most elite temples, instruction, love, food, shelter, patience with my selfishness, greed, and stupidity, a fiery scolding when I needed it. I later wrote to him thanking him and apologizing for my pettiness. As I wrote it, tears welled in my eyes and my hands shook. Not only out of shame and regret, but also gratitude and awe at what I'd stumbled upon.

Devotion and love of an authority figure's become a dirty word. Not without reason. History's full of well-respected holy men (and women) using their power to cheat, abuse, and brainwash. And as traditional institutions and the hierarchies they enforced begin to crumble around us, devotion seems like a backward step.

What if they hurt me? What if they use me? What if they're not as wise as I think they are? What if they lead me astray for years? What if they're not really the right one for me? What if this is all just a big con, a spiritual pyramid scheme that everyone's so deep in that they've either convinced themselves it's true or dropped out? What if.... What if... What if...

It's terrifying to trust and love another human, especially one with the power of a teacher. But without trust and love, what's the point? At a certain time, you have to just let go and give yourself to that person completely. That doesn't mean it's easy. It's hard. Very hard. Something which Ryokan alludes to in the first few lines:

Solitary struggle. Carrying firewood. Polishing rice. Hours of meditation. This is not joy. This is a grind. Brutal. Exhausting. And yet essential for the mind to flower.

And while Ryokan describes his journey as a "solitary struggle to find the Way," the many allusions, Layman Ho, the Sixth Patriarch, his master, his fellow practitioners, it's clear that his personal journey is also a collective journey. His Zen ancestors preserved the teachings which so transformed him. His own friends and teacher passed them directly to him through both instruction and example. He cries for this lineage of awakening which he's had the fortune to taste. He cries for the millenia of generosity, ruggedness, wisdom, strength, and compassion that allowed him to be the man that's now writing that poem. He cried as I cried for Jeff Shore and my other teachers and friends, grateful of the man that greets me in the mirror each morning.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Those two words were exactly what I wrote to Jeff months later-and again years later, after I'd moved on from his hermitage and tutelage. This is what devotion to the teacher means. I've seen others and myself do the little song-and-dance of devotion. The clutching of hands. The moist eyes. The high-pitched or soft celebrations. So often, it's just a bunch of bullshit that's done because it's what we've been told we should do, but it's saccharine nonsense.

Real devotion is what Ryokan captures hear: seeing his lineage's heart in his heart, his lineage's teachings in his thoughts, his lineage's firmness of spirit in his spirit, his lineage's bones in his own bones. They've become a part of him and he, likewise, has become a part of them. And so the poem ends: his own tears mixing with the rivers and flowing on. Preserving and transmitting the very thing for which he now weeps and whispers, "Thank you."