Nineteen years after that first meeting, and four years before his sudden, unexpected death, Roshi asked four of us, in 1991, to start giving the formal private interviews to students whenever he was away traveling. It had been a topic of discussion around the Center for some time, that with Roshi traveling so much, and since all of his successors had left the Center to start their own places, new students coming in were not getting enough guidance. He set up a new category, Senior Instructor, and asked us to begin to teach.
We were not being made formal Dharma Successors. None of us had yet completed one of the prerequisites to being authorized as a Sensei, which was completion of the koan curriculum.
I think the other three new instructors were probably quite a bit farther along in koan training than I was. My struggle with koans had something to do with how intellectual I was, and how identified with my concepts. With each case it took me a long time to get down below the analytical level to fully penetrate and present its essence directly and vividly. Even so, I knew Roshi harbored some hopes for me. I remember that after my three-month period as Head Trainee in 1988 he put a picture of the two of us on the credenza/altar in his office, and for a long time after that he had only two pictures on his credenza: one of his beloved mother, and that one of he and I together.
After a while, frustrated with my slow progress with koans, I decided to try to do something about it. We had a tape library of all the talks Roshi had given on each of the major koan collections. I decided that instead of listening to the radio on my ride to and from work everyday I would listen to these taped teachings, and sequentially go through the whole system. It was an amazing experience. After a few weeks it felt like I could anticipate his thought patterns on the tapes. The teachings became wonderfully transparent and obvious. My real life relationship with him shifted, as my confidence increased. It was at about this time in 1991 that he asked the four of us to start offering interviews to new students who came for the introductory workshops. This felt like the beginning of the shift that I had been working for since being head trainee in 1988, the opportunity to move toward teaching, sharing the bounty which had been such a wonderful influence on my life.
From the first, the experience of sitting in the teacher’s seat in the interview room was spectacular. As soon as a student would walk in the room I could feel my entire mental apparatus drop off. To use some Western jargon I later learned, I became the clearing of emptiness for them to speak into. I still had a watcher present who knew this was going on, and an observer who was breathtakingly impressed by the depth, clarity, and dignity of the proceedings. There was an internal watchdog who could tell when the slightest trace of self appeared from my side, and trim it off. In Zen they say that a hairsbreadth of difference can create a gap as great as that between heaven and earth. Keeping on the right side of this divide was vividly clear and effortless. Decades of training were coming to fruition, and I was humbled and grateful to be involved. That this was happening at the same time that I was laid off from my corporate job definitely was a large part of softening that blow.
But then, my frustrations from a long series of unsuccessful job interviews started coloring my life at the Center, and I got caught up in some personal drama about recognition and empowerment. One of my fellow teachers became a Sensei and the other two were named Dharma Holders, another new intermediary stage. Rather than being happy for them, I began to feel deprived. Then Roshi invited the three of them, along with all of his more senior successors, to a very special month-long retreat at Green Gulch Farm in Marin County. I felt left out. Although I didn’t know it, when they left, it was the last time I was to see Roshi alive. They spent the subsequent month with him before he left for Japan, and it was a crucial month indeed. Among other more important matters for the history of our school, it consolidated their positions as the authorized teachers.
After Roshi’s trip to Japan and his unexpected death, as we his students shared our stories, it became clear that he had been making strong efforts to complete unfinished business with many of us before he left for Green Gulch, and while there for the month long retreat. Only in looking back did I realize the increased intensity of our relationship just before he left could be seen as a tying up of loose ends, as if he somehow knew he was going to die in his sleep of an unexpected heart attack, with no history of heart problems. [It wasn’t until some time after I wrote this that I found out that was just a cover story for an alcohol related death by drowning].
Just before they left for Green Gulch, knowing I wasn’t invited, I looked more closely at my sense of deprivation and lack of recognition. I had a strong realization that it was a replay of separation from the parents, only at a more subtle level. I experienced a dropping off of my dependency on the Zen teacher. This was helped by some intense conversations he and I had about empowerment and realization, with a strong sense we were both trying to get to the bottom of it once and for all.
“Kenzan, why does it seem you are always holding something back?”, he asked in one Dokusan (formal private interview).
“Roshi, I know you keep thinking that, but there is nothing hidden. I am absolutely, totally here in this moment. If this isn’t full presence what is? Tell me what I’m holding back NOW”, I shouted, knowing I wanted to clarify this matter once and for all.
I told him that I had finally given up on seeking empowerment from him, that I had deeply realized the goal was not about getting recognition from outside myself. He was very pleased with that, and we seemed to meet each other as peers for the first time, each fully covering the ground upon which he stood, alone and needing nothing. And of course, within a day after I told him I had let go of the need, he said something like, “You know, Kenzan, we’re going to have to figure out a way to give you Dharma Transmission without finishing koan study.” This was the last conversation we had. He left for Green Gulch, and off to Japan, and I never saw him again.
Hearing Roshi died was a shock. I was very grateful for those last discussions with him. I was thinking of this when his relics were brought back from Japan, and installed in the Founders Room where I had been giving interviews the morning he died. Outside the memorial room we had a guestbook for people to sign when they came to pay their respects. Pausing before going into the room, I stopped, took a deep breath, and wrote in the guestbook: “The true man of no rank bids farewell to the true man of no rank.”
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