Diane Shainberg’s "Next Question"

As a Zen teacher, I have little tolerance for student philosophizing. I tell them, “It’s not that I have anything against philosophy, it’s just a different practice than Zen.” To study with me is to study Zen, and as Dogen said – not his exact words – to study Zen is to study the self.

I have a warm spot in my heart for Diane Shainberg. She died much too early. It was Diane who sent me to Bernie. I met her when she spoke about spirituality and psychotherapy to our Staten Island clinical social work organization. I picked her up in Manhattan and drove her to the conference venue. We really connected in the car, but there was a moment in the Q&A following her talk which horrified me. It could be a koan.

Dennis asked a question – I don’t remember the question – and Diane responded. “Why does that matter to you?”

“It doesn’t. I’m just curious.”

“Next question.”

Diane was turning to the audience. She had no time for disinterested questions. I thought Diane sounded harsh. I was new to Zen. Zen was new to our clinical social work group. I wanted my colleagues to like Zen. I was afraid that Diane sounded rude, harsh. I hadn’t yet gotten to koan study. Chao Chou’s Dog was the first koan. We all started there.

A monk asked Chao Chou, “Does a dog have Buddha Nature?”

Chao Chou answered, “Mu!”

We’re told that mu is an indicator of negation, sometimes translated as “no.”  Is Chao Chou saying that a dog doesn’t have Buddha Nature? How could that be? Even beginning students of Buddhism have heard that Shakyamuni said that all beings have Buddha Nature.

That’s not what Chao Chou is saying. He could as well have said, “Next question.” He may not even have been turning away. The monk was the only other person in the room. “Do you have anything else today, anything that matters to you? Why does it matter? Why do you care? Go deeper.”

Chao Chou too had at first sounded cold, but I came to see how grandmotherly he was. He would do what he could to keep the monk from wasting his life on questions that didn’t matter. That day at the clinical social work conference, I was so far from appreciating Diane’s compassion. Life is too important, your life, to waste your time on questions that don’t matter.