None of us are Perfect

I have been working with my impatience forever. Slowly, I’m learning to be patient with myself. Sometimes, it seems that it’s taking me even longer to learn patience with others. There’s an old koan, “Hyakujo and the Fox,” that talks to this challenge, although it’s taken me years to begin to appreciate it. Here’s my brief retelling.

Hyakujo is the abbot at a mountain temple when he notices a stranger attending his talks. The stranger approaches Hyakujo and reveals that he is not a human being, but in a previous life he had been the abbot of this temple. Because of a teaching error he made, he has been reborn for 500 lifetimes as a fox.

Being reborn as a fox sounds like a serious punishment. “Five hundred times,” that’s crazy. The fox-teacher misspoke, misled students. I understand. I’m trying to guide students, say things, do things, which will help them to go deeper, to move toward the realization of the oneness of life. I make mistakes. Sometimes, students misunderstand, and I don’t notice. Sometimes I flat out get it wrong. Other times I notice that my opinion has changed. Was I wrong before? Am I wrong now? Am I misleading? Am I confusing?

The fox-teacher wants a priest’s funeral when he dies.

Will Hyakujo perform a priest’s funeral for a fox? 

Later that day, Hyakujo goes out with his monks and on the other side of the mountain finds the fox body. He performs the priest’s funeral.

I love this. Hyakujo is a very great teacher, and he knows that we all make mistakes. I’m doing my best and I’m making mistakes. If Hyakujo can give a fox a priest’s funeral, I can forgive myself. I look around me at other Zen teachers who seem to me to misspeaking. What do I do? Condemn their “errors”? They’re doing their best too. All teachers make mistakes; we all mislead. We’re human. And yet if we are lucky, we keep teaching. Hyakujo honors the fox-teacher without denying his mistakes, honors him for his courage to teach.