Achilles and the Tortoise

Remember Achilles, the Greek hero who, according to Zeno, couldn’t pass a tortoise. Achilles was fast. He cut the tortoise’ lead in half and in half again and again, but he could never pass the tortoise. Zeno was showing me the “infinitesimally small.” It was a lesson I never forgot.

Zen teachers are more complicated than tortoises. On the one hand, you have to pass them, to go beyond. It is the fundamental challenge of teacher succession. As spiritual practice moves through time and space, across centuries and continents, it changes, adapts. Each teacher carries the teaching as far as he can and passes it on. The student who, out of love or loyalty, says, “I will go as far as my teacher and no further,” is no successor at all.

Maezumi Roshi, my dharma grandpa, brought our Zen from Japan to Los Angeles. He did his best to plant his Zen seeds in America, but he could only go so far. He brought all his baggage, the conditioning of an earlier time and place, with him. Bernie took the teaching and made it his own, took it deeper into America. He passed it on to me with the expectation or at least the hope that I would take it further.

It was probably inevitable that I would take it somewhere at least slightly different. Although our were similar – close in age, New York Jews with roots in immigrant-flavored socialism – our Zen experiences were so different: Bernie was “raised” in Maezumi’s Zen center. Zen became his livelihood. I never lived in a Zen center. I was never a professional Zennie. My spiritual practice was always an expense, not an income stream. Bernie’s pre-Zen professional background was mathematics and engineering. Mine was in sociology and mental health. I have never thought of myself as a Zen pioneer. And yet recently, my Zen practicing and teaching evolving in ways which as much as they owe to Bernie depart more than I had realized. It's not surprising then that my Zen practice looks different than Bernie’s and sometimes gets expressed in different ways.

And yet there is always Zeno. Bernie is still the tortoise I have never passed. It is more than seven years since Bernie died, and still I am studying with him every day. Some days, I am going back to his books – what a privilege it is to be sharing his teaching with peacemakers and Zen students who never met him – and some days I am going back to my memories. Sometimes, it’s something he said and sometimes it’s the way he sat, his cigar or his pizza.

Long ago, when I heard Zeno’s story, I pictured a very frustrated Achilles, striving, striving, striving, and yet unable to pass the tortoise. Now, I think, “No, that’s not the way it is.” There is something very peaceful, very calming in that tortoise always out ahead, always beckoning. Will my way turn out to be the going beyond that Bernie hoped for his students? Don’t know. Keep running, Achilles. Keep practicing, Ken.

Thank you, Bernie.