Organ Mountain Zen



Monday, October 7, 2013

Apologies

With palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



My apologies to those who attended this recent Zazenkai for my lack of presence both in body and mind. I had an unexpected physician’s appointment that morning and had just come off of a very late night doing an Honor Flight escort. I want to apologize as well to those students who sought dokusan only to be confronted by a sleepy teacher!



Self awareness is an essential part of a student’s life and, as a teacher, I continue to be a student. We teachers are also students and sometimes forget that we are fallible human beings with our own issues that need desperately to be addressed. There are those of us who are so full of ourselves that we cannot hear our students as they are. There are those of us who seem to think we no longer need to practice self awareness, convinced we know the Dharma. To the extent this is so, is the extent to which we are far away from the Dharma and, concomitantly, both ourselves and our students.



I cannot speak for other teachers in Zen or even in my own lineage, but as for me, my practice is a 24/7 process of failure. Weekends like this past one are great teachers. I am humbled by them and desire very much to learn from them. My hope is that other teachers, as well as students, are equally committed to self examination.



Please practice with this.



Gassho

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