It amazes me that I have been
in the Bay Area for 40 years and had never met Tenshin Roshi, aka Reb
Anderson. I was delighted to spend time
with this great teacher. He is, as most
know, one of the original students of Suzuki Roshi and has subsequently been the
abbot and senior dharma teacher of the San Francisco Zen monasteries for many
years.
Reb has the amazing gift of
greeting every person with great love.
He has a penetrating, almost unnerving, look that seems to create an
immediate intimacy and friendliness. And
I was able to meet his look without fear or shyness. I particularly remember being only a few feet away
from him in the dish room. We looked at
each other eye-to-eye, in a way that one rarely fully meets another.
I must say I was a little
wary of him. I knew very little about
him (and still don’t), but I had heard he had a lot of charisma and personal
power. I spent many years with
charismatic gurus in the tradition of kundalini yoga, and while I received many
gifts of insight and love from them, I now believe that I will be very careful
about giving my complete devotion to any teacher.
Norman Fischer advised me to
have dokusan with Reb, so I set up a meeting.
I felt strangely exhilarated in his presence. We were both laughing, like two children in a
sandbox. I told him how I had once asked
Norman if he was a Zen master, and Norman replied, “Unfortunately, no,” and how
later Norman told me that I could study with Reb, a genuine Zen master. After telling him this story, I looked directly
at him and said, “Are you a Zen master?”
He smiled his enigmatic smile and said, “I don’t know.” I asked him what a Zen master is, and he said
both the “unknowable and mysterious” and “all the stories we tell about him.” I was flattered that Reb asked my permission
to tell the story at Sunday’s dharma talk, without mentioning Norman’s
name. It was interesting that Richard
Baker was there at his talk, which could have been entitled, “What is a Zen
Master?”
In my second dokusan –
encouraged by Norman – I told him about my many years with kundalini gurus and
the hurt I had suffered by their betrayals of my trust. I told him I am now reluctant to trust any
teacher. Although I am very devotional
by nature, how can I love the teacher but not the man? This is my lifelong
koan. His answer at the time was a
little vague to me. He seemed to be
linking the Perfections (generosity, etc) with how to love the teacher.
But a few days later, I
experienced an important insight, which I saw as a profound answer to my
question. Reb and I passed each other in
the dining room. We looked deeply at
each other. Afterword, I was filled with
great love and joy. I realized that it
was just love, not really directed to Reb, because, after all, I do not know
him at all. It was just love – fluid,
dynamic, alive! Anything added on is
just extra. Love is the mysterious and
pure. When we add on our stories to the
person, we open ourselves to attachment and suffering.
Wouldn’t it be a wonderful
practice to greet each person with this non-clinging and mysterious love?
Hello, Dharma Sister!
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