On Saturday I took a break from weight-lifting to go to the Kwan Um School of Zen’s Dharma teacher retreat at the Providence Zen Center. During a semester where my days are overloaded with the mundane details of college teaching–classes to prep, papers to grade, emails to answer–Zen teaching is a welcome respite, something that requires no preparation, only careful attention. On Saturday morning, my longtime Dharma friend Ji Hyang and I led a workshop on “Zen & the Arts,” which we planned about five minutes before the session began. In college teaching, flying by the seat of your pants is a neglectful thing. In Zen teaching, it’s all but expected.
Although I had to leave before my fellow Dharma teachers started telling jokes, the half-day I spent in the company of other long-time practitioners reminded me why any trip to PZC feels like tapping into a mighty power source. Being prepared is a good thing, but sometimes it’s necessary and proper to drop the reins and trust yourself to the wide open meadow of your own creative mind.
Hoarded Ordinaries 
Oct 16, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Aaaah, how sorry I was to have to cancel. Missed doing that workshop and flying by the seat of pants with you.
What a welcome photograph.
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Oct 16, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Ah yes. Seat of your pants. Every time is the first time. I used to plan things to pieces, and then worry over something forgotten. I’ve gradually eased off that way of doing things, and now I err on the side of overadlibation. [Yes, that’s a word.;-)]
The first time I gave a reading without rehearsing beforehand it turned out to be the best one I’d ever done. Now I rehearse the poem after I’ve written in, and that’s it. Before readings, it’s more giggling and poking each other in the ribs than whispering into a bowl, speaking lines in a foreign accent or reading into a mirror.
Your workshop sounded good, worth doing.
Teresa
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Oct 17, 2007 at 6:38 pm
We missed you, Mumun, as always. But I trust you’ll have plenty of opportunities to fly by the seat of your pants without me. 😉
Compared to professors who give prepared lectures, I tend toward “adlibation” myself, too. But college teaching, unlike Zen teaching, requires assignments, and grading, and other kinds of prep-work. So like it or not, I can’t just waltz into class with a lit book and wing it.
Oh well… 🙂
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Oct 20, 2007 at 10:13 am
Those mealy fruits are great photographically. Its nice in the way that rusty warehouses used to seem to me before I overdosed on the city here in Brooklyn. I copied your photo of red apples lying in the grass under the tree and may use it in my powerpoint when my biology class gets up to reproduction in January.
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