Question
Well, you must recognize yourself quite a bit in the description you give of me: when it comes to being reactive, nervous, aggressive, and sometimes rude, admit you are pretty good at it yourself.
You ask nothing of anyone and owe nothing to anyone? In that case, don’t hold mondos; I wouldn’t have come to bother you. Don’t tell me you don’t owe something to your master, who had the patience to teach you, and to all the masters before him! If they hadn’t done their work, and if Deshimaru, reasoning as you do with me, had said, “Yeah, whatever, I’ll stay in Japan,” what would have become of you if you hadn’t met him? When I ask how Zen masters die and you say, “What’s it to you?” then what are Zen masters for, and don’t we take them as examples? And if everyone is a Zen master, or almost everyone, then the way masters die concerns me just as directly as it concerns you.
Me, important? Do you think I am still at the point of believing that? I sent you three questions more than two months ago, or thereabouts (not a week), and I had the patience to wait, a little, then a little more. But Zen doesn’t mean being a sucker, you agree? So after that, enough; I had to step in more forcefully.
But a tendency toward impatience—yes, I have that tendency. What can I say, nobody’s perfect, but at least I am working on it.
Thanks for your answer. Deep down, you’re a good guy. You remind me of the kids I teach boxing: bad boys on the surface, good guys underneath. Deshimaru understood that well, and he must have loved you a lot to want to box with you (I know what I’m talking about).
It’s a shame we have to get in your face and show you a fist before you finally show your big, generous heart and the child within you whom you haven’t forgotten. Sometimes you’re a 56-year-old kid too. Damn, you’ve got quite a shell, just like my kids from the housing projects, who protect themselves behind a loudmouthed exterior, playing the bad boys because in reality the only language they want to hear is love: to be acknowledged as you acknowledge your son as an heir and told, “Don’t worry, I love you.”
I’m no f**, don’t worry; I’m talking to the tender, good kid inside you, and don’t worry, I’d never hit you. When you lay down your weapons in front of you and finally show yourself humbly as you are, then I love you, you stubborn mule. Eric Lerins.
Before I go, did you know that aggression comes from ad-gressere, meaning to move toward another? A little aggressiveness isn’t bad; it lets you reach out to the other person and establish communication when it is absent. What can you do? Sometimes it comes to that. I said a little aggressiveness, no more.
Eric Lerins
Answer from Master Kosen
OK to the bodhisattva of boxing.
Kosen