One Time, One Meeting

Path of stone over water, Nanjing, South of China

If you have ever sung in a choir, you know that certain disciplines apply. You must sit up straight at the edge of your chair. You must breathe from the diaphragm. And you must open your mouth more widely than you otherwise would—widely enough to accommodate three fingers. Although these principles are simple, it is easy to forget them, especially if your mind is elsewhere.

Such was the case one morning in 1961, when I and other members of the Clinton High School A Cappella Choir sat upright at the edge of our chairs, rehearsing Michael Pretorius’s beautiful carol “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.” Leading us was our director, John De Haan, a tall, ruggedly-built man with a gentle but commanding presence. Glancing in my direction, he noticed my half-open mouth. “Open your mouth, Ben,” he said, quietly but firmly, in his deep bass voice. “This is my life’s work.”

Although I was only sixteen at the time, I did not fail to recognize John De Haan’s profound commitment to the art of music. I opened my mouth. In the decades since, I have observed that same deep sense of vocation in friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, whether their line of work has been college teaching or musical performance, artistic creation or law enforcement, dentistry or the ministry. And I have found it particularly conspicuous among Zen teachers and practitioners, who are engaged in what the Zen-trained teacher Toni Packer has called “the work of this moment.” For one of the chief aims of Zen practice is to attain a continuous awareness of what is occurring, within and around us. That job is endless, and it requires total presence of mind. For the dedicated Zen practitioner, it might be said, one’s very life becomes one’s life’s work.

In formal Rinzai Zen, multiple practices support that work. There is, to begin with, the central practice of zazen, or seated meditation, in which we begin by following the breath and proceed to a direct encounter with ourselves and our surroundings. There is the practice of chanting, which reunites body, breath, and mind and grounds us in the here and now. There is samu, or work practice, in which we commit full attention to the task at hand, and kinhin, or walking meditation, in which we walk for the sake of walking. There is the practice of bowing, which heightens our social awareness and promotes attitudes of gratitude and respect. And, not least, there is the practice of dokusan—the face-to-face interview between student and teacher, in which the student reports on his or her practice, and the teacher responds. All of these practices help us “come back to presence,” as Zoketsu Norman Fischer ably puts it. They strengthen our ability to be present, both for ourselves and other people.

With respect to our relationships with others, the practice of dokusan deserves special mention. Also known as sanzen, that practice commences when the teacher rings a hand bell, and the student, who has been sitting in zazen, responds by striking a larger bell. Moments later, the student arrives at the dokusan room, makes three bows and a prostration, and sits in the seiza (kneeling) position before the teacher. What follows will depend on present conditions, including the student’s depth of insight, the role (if any) of Zen koans in the practice, and the respective states of mind of student and teacher. The teacher may question the student, or sharply correct erroneous perceptions, or merely listen. Pithy advice (“Just sit!”) may be offered—or none at all. Yet in my experience one rarely leaves the dokusan room without feeling that something important if not momentous has just occurred. Two minds have met, in a way that minds rarely do.

To replicate the depth and intensity of dokusan in one’s everyday encounters is not always appropriate or desirable. In polite conversation it is not the norm, and it can come across as unnaturally earnest, if not offensively assertive. But to develop the capacity for such exchange is both a formidable challenge and a worthy objective. Just as John De Haan devoted his life to creating complex polyphonic music, we can endeavor to treat each of our meetings in the spirit of ichigo ichie: as “one time, one meeting,” unprecedented and unrepeatable. Through successive acts of single-minded attention, we can cultivate wisdom, compassion, and equanimity in a world of turmoil. Although such a practice is unlikely to make us rich, famous, or materially successful, it is work enough for one life.

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John De Haan (1925-2008) directed the Clinton High School A Capella Choir in Clinton, Iowa for thirty-nine years. Tributes to his dedication may be read at http://www.asimas.com/ASIMAS/snell/obituaryDescription.jsp?domain_id=300&deceased_id=180957.

Photo by Stougard