When I told my wife that I had quit the Temple and would not attend the sesshin but that I had agreed to meet with the master in private about my decision she simply, airily, dismissed my resignation out of hand.

"Oh, you'll go to sesshin," Ruth said. "He'll talk you out of it."

"No, he won't!" I exclaimed. "I'm not going to go!"

Ruth laughed.

"Of course you will!" she insisted.

"No, I will not!" I exclaimed again. "I've made up my mind!"

She laughed.

"You will."

"No!"

"You will."

"I won't!"

"You will."

"No!"

No, I had made up my mind!

Enough!

I walked down the hall to the office. I sat down at the computer. There I listed the statements that I wanted to make and the questions that I wanted to ask and did not want to forget.

I wrote and revised.

To the master:

1  My "turmoil," the main "thing I'm dealing with," is how you speak and write to me.

2  Until I understand its purpose I will not subject myself further to your verbal abuse.

3  How is it possible for me to express anything other than my point of view?

4  When you confide in me are you my friend or my teacher?

I arrived promptly at 4:00. Eleanor, the young woman who had just flown in from Laugh Out Loud, the temple and sister sangha in Pennsylvania, to attend the two-day sesshin, was cleaning the bathroom next to the master's room upstairs. His door was open as usual and he invited me in. Facing each other were two chairs just three feet apart. The master asked me to be seated in the chair furthest from the door. The master wore his rakusu and I mine. The master offered a stick of incense at the small altar on his small chest of drawers. We put our palms together in gassho and bowed. Then in our private talk as I mainly sat and listened the master explained and explained and explained and explained.

"In a monastery," the master warned, "it is considered an extremely serious matter for one to quit and to withdraw from the practice period and to break one's commitments."

Unmoved, I remained silent.

The master warned.

I sat.

The master explained.

I breathed.

The master threatened.

I listened.

"I am not saying that I will do this if you break the commitments you have made," the master continued, "but in a monastery a black mark is entered beside the name of a monk who quits and leaves during training and if he quits and leaves a second time he receives a second black mark and he may never be admitted again."

I remained silent.

"What about your responsibilities to the sangha?" asked the master. "You're ino!"

I said nothing.

"What about the sesshin?" the master asked, his face suddenly a mask of pain and disappointment. "Do you know for certain that Irene has received your email and knows she will be managing the sesshin?"

"No," I said.

"You know that she does not always answer her email!" the master exclaimed.

True.

"Has she replied?" he asked.

"No."

"Jane is on call!" said the master. "She can't serve as ino!"

I remained silent.

"Joe is so sick that when I saw him this morning he told me he didn't think he'd be able to attend!"

Further exclamation.

I was silent but I was thinking, thinking, thinking—

Thinking.