Make It Your Story

At the big, Santa Barbara Zen Peacemaker gathering in1999, Bernie asked each of us to choose a persona, an alter ego, which we’d use in our study to provide an alternative view of a text. I chose Martin Buber. Why didn’t I choose Thomas Merton? Merton had become an important companion on my spiritual journey shortly after the second volume of his journal was published in 1996. He helped make my spiritual practice normal. Why Buber? Was it the Jewish connection? When I made my stumbling entry onto the spiritual path, I read I and Thou, the Buber classic, required reading for spiritual beginners, but it didn’t resonate. Martin, it seemed, had been assigned to me by the Universe. It was only later, when The Tales of the Hasidim, Buber’s retelling of classic tales, landed in my lap, that I felt the connection. In the years since, Buber and his Tales became more and more important. I was inspired by Buber’s path, working his way from translation to retelling. He was shining a light on my own growing awareness of myself as a storyteller and of the connection between peacemaking and storytelling. Buber was bearing witness to the storyteller’s practice.

Stories are the Zen way of teaching too. The koans are our stories, as deep and elusive and profound, as the tales of Hasidim. I studied them in translation, was expected to memorize the translations, and often to recite the memorized koan to my teacher before offering my response. I always rebelled against the memorization. With multiple, differing translations of most koans, why memorize one English version? Would it be better if I could understand and memorize a Japanese version? Or a Chinese? These after all are stories that were collected and written down. How different is this from the process of the Hasidic tales? Still, I felt a guilty obligation to the published texts. When I began teaching, invariably basing my weekly dharma talks on koans, I would read the koan translation to sangha. (I rarely had them memorized). It took me years to shift away, to shift to retelling the koan story, to making it my story. Buber’s example inspired me. His Tales have remained beside.

Recently, after many years, I have returned to Merton, planning to reread his journals and finding unread on my shelf, his The Way of Chuang Tzu. What a surprise. Merton offers not translations but his own impressions, retellings of the work of the old, Chinese master. I am stunned. Merton had come to a place so similar to Buber.

I am going now another on my journey. My way of working with students on koans is now shifting as well. I have never pushed students to memorize koans. It’s always been okay for them to read the koan aloud first before offering their response. Either way, I am now adding a step: “Now, tell me the story in your own words.”  This step comes easier to some than to others. The more I work with it, the more important this step seems.

Make it your own. Don’t get tangled up, struggling with the pronunciation of Chinese names. Or with the Japanese pronunciation of Chinese names. “Become the koan” has always been standard koan practice advise. “Make it your story” may be an important step in that direction.