This morning I gave consulting interviews at the Cambridge Zen Center, and as always there was a pot of hot tea waiting for me when I went into the interview room to begin. Sunday mornings when I give interviews are hectic: I have to get up early enough to do my morning chores before I leave, so by the time I arrive at the Zen Center, I’ve already taken the beagle out and in, loaded the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen litter box, and fed the cats. It feels good, in other words, to sit down to a hot pot of tea someone else prepared: a chance to play guest.
I usually take about three sips of tea before I ring the bell for the first interview. While everyone gets settled on their cushions in the main meditation room, I get settled on my cushion in the interview room, making sure I have everything I need close at hand: a clock so I can keep an eye on the time, and a box of tissues I can offer to anyone who comes in with a heavy heart. (Sometimes I think the most important job a senior Dharma teacher can do in consulting interviews is listen without judgement while calmly doling out tissues.) Once I’ve determined everything is in place, I pour a cup of tea and take approximately three sips, breathing in the tea’s aroma, feeling the heat of the cup in my hands, and savoring the warm flavor on my tongue. The Zen Center is a ritual-rich place, and these three sips of tea have taken on an almost magical meaning for me. Before I can ring the bell that says “I’m ready to listen to whatever question or issue you want to talk about,” I have to make myself present to a simple cup of tea.
A lot of profound, powerful, and deeply humorous things happen in the interview room: all that consulting interviews are, after all, is a chance for two practitioners to sit down and talk face-to-face behind a closed door. But sometimes I feel like the most powerful moment for me personally is the moment or two before I ring the bell, when it’s just me holding a cup of tea in my hands, wondering what sort of questions will walk through the door.
Before I set my teacup down and ring the bell for the first interview, I spend a moment looking at the drawing of Kwan Seum Bosal, the bodhisattva of compassion, that hangs above the interview room mantel. In the guise of an eleven-headed goddess with a thousand hands and eyes, Kwan Seum Bosal looks like a harried mother with heads instead of eyes in the back of her head: ever watchful, and ever ready to lend a hand (or a tissue) when someone is suffering. Before I set my teacup down and ring the bell for the first interview, I silently invoke the spirit of Kwan Seum Bosal, whom I recognize as a representation of the compassion we all possess. Once I ring the bell for the first interview, I have no way of knowing what flavor of suffering will walk through the door. All I can hope for is that like Kwan Seum Bosal, I’ll find a way to be present in the face of whatever arises.
Hoarded Ordinaries 
Jan 18, 2015 at 10:04 pm
i find this blog disturbing, because having stayed/lived in Cambridge for a while, I suddenly got flipped back by the graffiti, I never noticed it much at the time but I think it has its own ‘style’ ! :o)
I think the ‘dokusan” or zen interview is damaging, both to the teacher and recipient, it’s way too intrusive into both lives for any sort of sanity, a sort of suburban idiocy, but that’s what zen has degenerated to o o . . .
for the vast majority of people zen is always was and always progresses as a form of borderline personality aggrandizement and really it sends one literally batty to have contact with it !
50% fake which is it’s usual implementation, (down to minus 1050% on reddit zen !) doesn’t cut it, 90% real is what it takes and actually that is celibacy for that sort of attention but then I look at stupids like gesshin (http://thatssozen.blogspot.com.au/)
lorianne you will be tempted to remove this, my interview advice is “don’t” : o()
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Jan 18, 2015 at 10:07 pm
excellent graffiti photos btw ! :o)
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Jan 19, 2015 at 5:48 am
I never cried in dokusan, but I sort of wish I had! 🙂
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Jan 19, 2015 at 11:08 am
As a point of clarification, what my (Korean) Zen School calls “consulting interviews” are different from dokusan. In Japanese Zen schools, dokusan is when a Zen student meets with a Zen master to work on koans. In my school, we call these “kong’an interviews,” with “kong’an” being the Korean word for “koan.”
I don’t give kong’an interviews because I’m not a Zen master. Instead, consulting interviews are simply a chance for students to ask questions of a senior Dharma teacher: someone who has been practicing a long time but isn’t a Zen master.
So whereas kong’an interviews are more formal, consulting interviews are more like asking an older Dharma sister/brother for practice advice. This is why they are often more personal than kong’an interviews: instead of asking a student to solve a riddle about a Zen master who lived somewhere long ago and far away, consulting interviews are about whatever’s going on in a person’s life at the moment.
Consulting interviews are completely voluntary. On any given Sunday, lots of folks choose not to have a consulting interview, either because they don’t have any pressing questions to ask or because they don’t resonate with whoever is giving interviews. So if a person finds consulting interviews disturbing, invasive, or less than wholly authentic, they don’t have to have one: no harm, no foul.
(For the record, I’ve cried in both kinds of interviews, although not yet in the teacher’s role!) 🙂
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Jan 19, 2015 at 5:57 pm
lorianne, I’ve done interviews with a wide range of ‘traditions” including toni packer and really regardless of the “name” they are just private conversations between someone overoptimistic as to expecting any real sense or attention from another person already blatted out from having done endless boring interviews that day . .
the reality of zen or what zen is about or any ‘quality’ mysticism like Emily dickinson is the same as literature actually, real understanding is so rare it’s one per generation or of that order and the vast wash of the “unwashed’ just swamps everything/anything ? and really one is dependent in the final analysis not on one’s contemporaries but the reading of the great souls who have left some sort of written record for us . .
the ants mill about in their nests with names, interviews, procedures, organizations thinking they are doing something and squash in their limited way any truer reality that dares to pop up its head !
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Jan 20, 2015 at 6:00 am
Interesting! At our Zendo, in the White Plum lineage of Japanese Zen, the term “dokusan” was used to refer to any private interview time between the Roshi or one of the other teachers and a student. It didn’t have to be about a koan, necessarily, although if a student was working on a koan that would certainly be discussed. But we were free to talk about other things too — particularly students who weren’t yet working on koans. I guess it’s all just terminology in the end, right?
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Jan 20, 2015 at 8:17 am
I too have noticed the teaching of an individual how to be a multiple or dissociative. If a human just popped along being this way, they would not be accepted and not be called sane. it is strange the parts about ripping the self into what would be termed a psychosis in a patient with such a diagnosis. I am sharing my observation as, I took the time to have my three sips of tea while I was reading and again after reading comments. It can be difficult not to read and to identify words and tones based upon ones reactions to the words. I think that I feel concern and dismay at the person that has or has had such an experience to be so vehement about it. I suppose such vehement sharings cannot be argued with or removed, as they truly DO happen, what the person shared is valid, no matter how philosophy or teaching would wish or direct it to be otherwise. I still consider, especially when dealing with a teaching or a religion, how I may or may not have the human individual on a pedestal, or perhaps they, thru spiritual materialism, have themselves there–how does this color my perception? what do I do with it? MUST I do anything at all? Does my choice remain mine or is it someone else’s?
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Jan 20, 2015 at 11:52 am
I guess I’ve been lucky to have had clear-eyed teachers…or to have had low standards in terms of what I expect from a teacher. I’m not sure there’s anything a Zen teacher can “teach” that I wouldn’t be able to discern through my own practice: the process of returning to the present moment, in other words, is the real “teacher.” My teachers have pointed the way, but ultimately I have to walk the path.
So if a teacher is tired or distracted or less-than-fully-present, that’s not necessarily a problem; that just “is what it is.” (Heaven knows I’m often tired, distracted, and less-than-fully-present when I practice, so why should I expect more from a teacher?) I don’t expect Zen teachers to be perfect, so I see Zen interviews as being two flawed human beings sharing a face-to-face encounter, warts and all.
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Jan 20, 2015 at 2:06 pm
There’s much in this post which resonates for me. (And when I meet with congregants — not quite the same as what you’re describing, but not entirely different, either — I too try to ensure the box of tissues, the cup of tea, and the quality of presence which you describe.)
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Jan 20, 2015 at 5:24 pm
“I guess I’ve been lucky to have had clear-eyed teachers”, it all looks sane until you step back and ask “should I even be doing this at all’ ? and “is this just a bunch of nuts who don’t understand what they are on about !”
I studied with john loori and in the end the conclusion I came to was he was a sophisticated con artist with schizophrenia and I don’t think seung sahn was sane either !
people can be sincere and partially informed, but that doesn’t make them right !
in the old ch’an records you can see authentic celibate monks like joshu who with a life time’s work got things sorted out somewhat, I don’t know that they would claim to be “clear-eyed” . .
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Jan 21, 2015 at 7:54 am
I want to share that your response made me laugh, and then to laugh again at myself…then I muttered….
‘the should comes from the self and is a thing that only the self, the individual can decide” which to me, is hilarious in a dual and non-dual context
osip I offer to you the argumentative cookie of the day to go with your tea, it is so interesting to watch arguments of sway, when sharing just for sharing’s sake might flood one with grounding and expansiveness.
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Jan 21, 2015 at 8:02 pm
‘the should comes from the self and is a thing that only the self, the individual can decide”
isn’t the “deciding”‘ a “should” ?
what is “should” without “deciding” ?
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Jan 22, 2015 at 5:20 pm
for me, deciding is. Deciding is not between binary choices, for example outcome of a decision…do this, do that, do not do this, do not do that, decide not to decide–all potentials
only you and your insides can decide(see above) what is a should and what actions or otherwise might follow–only your own insides can decide for you what is a decide, or what is anything. If we walk alongside each other, we might get to see a bit of each others stuff, or our perceptions of that stuff, but it still all belongs to us as individuals
Loraine I am enjoying the discourse though I can stop if any of it is detracting from your wishes or intent. 🙂
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Jan 21, 2015 at 9:33 am
I’ve not personally studied with any of the teachers you mention, including Seung Sahn: I’ve only read his books and seen him in a couple of talks. So I can’t offer an opinion about the sanity of people I don’t know.
In terms of the question “should I be doing this at all,” I practice Zen because it helps me weather the ups and downs of my life. That’s all. It’s not a matter of Zen or Zen teachers being “right” or “wrong”; it’s a matter of “does this practice work for me?”
If Zen practice works for you, DO IT. If it doesn’t work, don’t do it. If a teacher makes sense to you, listen to them. If they don’t make sense, let their words go in one ear and out the other. The true test, in other words, is experiential: does this teaching help me live my life?
I hope (?) that the people who voluntarily come to consulting interviews with me find something helpful there. If they don’t, I’m sorry for that, and I hope they find a teacher who DOES speak to them. Life is too short to waste on a practice or a teacher that isn’t helpful.
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Jan 21, 2015 at 7:59 pm
I don’t think you have understood what i wrote and actually seung sahn would understand his not being sane . .
this is what I mean by suburban . . which of course is sane . . ! :o)
enlightenment of course is to be sane amongst the insanity that calls itself ‘sane’ ! :o)
when he said “do it” he meant don’t proxy onto others !
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Jan 22, 2015 at 9:15 am
Lorianne, I tried to “like” this reply, but it didn’t seem to work — so I’ll just leave my “like” in a comment. 🙂
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