Do it right

There's a new guy at the zendo -- I'll call him Josh. He's in his late 20s or early 30s, is lay-ordained (wears a rakusu), and has recently been getting the hang of the doan tasks (the doan rings the bells, carries incense, lights candles, etc.). Josh also takes it upon himself to helpfully tell me the right way to do things. Last week it was the right way to hold the sutra book. Yesterday he asked me if I had been to the beginner instruction held on Saturday mornings, and when I said no, he told me all about it.

Now, I've only been coming to the zendo for two months, and I still consider myself a beginner, but I don't need to be told how to sit or hold my hands. Don, the guy who is the regular doan, cocked an eyebrow and said, "Mark doesn't need beginner instruction. He's been coming for two months."

So this morning one of the priests, John, asked me for the second time if I would be interested in learning how to be doan. Josh, who was in the back straightening up, stuck his head out and piped up, "I'll train anybody to be a doan!"

"One of the guys at the zendo is a nudge," I told Jenny, my office mate this morning.

"So out of place in a zen context," she replied.

"He told me the right way to hold the sutra book."

"'Get the fuck out of my face, man, it's five a.m.!'"

"Really."

I have an ambivalent relationship to the zen "forms," as they refer to the standards for how and when to bow, walk, hold things, etc. On the one hand I respect and follow them as best I can. On the other hand, I don't find them interesting and I'm not particularly desperate to know the right way of doing things. So when Josh tells me the right way to do something, I just say "thank you." Not "Get the fuck out of my face," although that might be appropriate at some point.

I told John I might be interested in learning to be the doan at some point -- the bell-ringing looks like the most fun part -- but I felt I wasn't ready yet. And it's true. I just want to learn how to sit well. And now that Josh is around, Don doesn't need a backup.