No Perfect Teachers

When Jishu said, “There are no perfect teachers outside, I have a perfect teacher inside,” I was very happy for her. I felt that she was signaling the shift that had taken place in her relationship to Bernie as her teacher. She was telling me that Bernie wasn’t the perfect teacher. Intellectually, I understood Jishu’s point. I thought what she was saying was brilliant. I quoted Jishu and continued to quote her all these years since her passing.

But her point was lost on me. What I felt was inadequacy. Once again, I am falling short. I don’t have a perfect teacher inside. Do I have any teacher inside? Why don’t I have a perfect teacher inside? What’s wrong with me.

I am jealous of friends whose belief in God and heaven sustains them. I am awed by people who are absolutely certain that they will be reunited with loved ones in death, that parents and grandparents are waiting for them on the other side. Okay, Jishu had a perfect teacher inside. I don’t. Poor me.

I came back to Jishu’s teaching during the years when I wondered if Bernie would ever give me transmission (make me a Zen teacher). I couldn’t make sense of what was happening (or not happening). I couldn’t make sense of Bernie. Bernie was frustrating and difficult. It was then that I caught a glimmer of a way through. It was something that I read about Hakuin’s koan system. Hakuin was a great Japanese Zen teacher who lived in the eighteenth century. Hakuin brought koans and koan study back from decrepitude by organizing koans into categories. I never studied Hakuin’s system, but I loved that he called one category, “the hard to pass koans.” Bernie was my hard to pass koan. Bernie wasn’t a perfect teacher – I was perhaps getting close to experiencing what Jishu had experienced – but in that moment I saw something else. Bernie was my imperfect teacher – he had his flaws and they were magnified in the Zen world by his stature – and what a gift that was.

Perhaps the hardest thing about Bernie was the suddenness with which he moved on in life from one totally absorbing project to another without regard to the impact of his moves on the rest of us. Bernie’s moves were always unexpected. We were jolted, hurt, disappointed. But with all his flaws, Bernie was not a failure as a teacher. He was an imperfect teacher. And what a beautiful gift that was. I was smiling. He was perfect. He was a perfect imperfect teacher, and in that moment a door opened. If Bernie could be a wonderful imperfect teacher – with his imperfections, not despite his imperfections – perhaps, I could be an imperfect teacher too.

What a relief. I don’t have a perfect teacher inside. I have an imperfect teacher inside. And that’s perfect.