Winding Road, Straight Path (Part 2)

In light of Sei’un Roshi’s passing away, I am continuing to share a short excerpt from her book “Winding Road, Straight Path.” This selection is from a section called “The Dokusan Roll.” In part one (published on Aug 1st.) she introduced us to her teacher and here she describes his dokusan room:

The dokusan room. Here, the Master receives his/her disciples privately, hence the term dokusan, a Japanese word meaning “to go alone” or “knee to knee” - the letter being especially evocative of the atmosphere of privacy, truthfulness and confidentiality. What’s said there remains there. In “the room,” the master assigns the practice, monitors and examines it. The disciple who has had awakening confirmed (kensho, literally “seeing into essential nature”) embarks upon a curriculum of koans designed to deepen and clarify that awakening - shitsunai, “the examination in the room.”

In the room, as both disciple and master, I have had many of the most wonderful moments of my life. In here, you will be asked before awakening (enlightenment) to “show Mu.” “Mu” is the point of the koan most masters assign to students aspiring to awaken, and “show” is the operative word. However, these pages are not the place for discourse; just as words fail in describing a glorious ski down a pristine slope or the taste of tea, so they are useless in describing one’s state of mind: they run circles around the matter but they can’t touch it. Action does. And master can read this action because he/she has already been there.

You sit mute, flummoxed. The handbell is rung and you are dismissed. Maybe you were there all of 10 seconds. Heck, the bell may have been rung as you enter the room! And when it’s rung, you are dismissed. You bow and leave.

(Here Sei’un Roshi continues by describing what dokusan with a student working on Mu, might look like. She finishes this little section by describing Ko’un Roshi’s dokusan room.)

”The room” needs only privacy and cushions for the roshi and the disciple. Yamada Roshi’s room was also his and his wife’s study, with the cushions placed between their two desks in a sort of “dokusan alley.” Not a lot of space but, as you’ll see, just enough.