It must have been early in my days with Roshi Bob Kennedy, at one of my early sesshins with him at St. Ignatius in Manhasset, that I had an interview with one of the nuns, a Dharma granddaughter of Bob’s, a successor of Roshi Janet Richardson. It was Bob’s wonderful way that at his sesshins, other teachers present were invited to offer teishos and interviews. I made sure that I had my interviews with Bob, but I also took advantage of the opportunities to “meet” other teachers.
I think now that this interview must have occurred during my time of enthrallment with Joseph Campbell. I had a set of his audiotapes on mythology and spiritual practices, hours of tape, and I listened to them as I drove. More than twenty years later, I am still retelling many of Campbell’s stories.
I was captivated by Campbell’s image of the hero as a dragon-slayer when I walked into that interview. My Zen path had become the way of the hero. I called my demons “dragons.” To go deeper was to face one dragon after another. I made my bows. I must have said something like, “My name is ‘Ken,’ and my practice is dragon slaying.”
I didn’t have to explain what I meant by dragon slaying. She responded, “I like to think of our practice as dragon-taming.”
Over the years, I’ve had many interviews with some wonderful teachers. There weren’t many occasions when the bottom dropped out. That time, I was blown away. What I saw in that moment Bernie had been trying to show me for years: The goal of our practice was not to amputate the unwanted aspects of ourselves — Bernie would have added, “or the unwanted aspects of others,” – but to embrace them, to heal, to become whole. I had understood his words, but I hadn’t grokked what he was saying. I was too busy slaying dragons.
Dragon taming. Jishu had tried to show this to me too. She was excited about the demon work she’d done with Tsultrim Alione. I grabbed the idea if not the details. Jishu and Tsultrim were legitimating my dragon work. These days I talk more about demons. Not everyone’s demons look like dragons. Or maybe it’s just been so long since I listened to Campbell’s stories.
When Dogen urged us to study ourselves, he was telling us to get on with our demon work. When Jishu urged me to “go deeper,” she was telling me to face my fears, to open a closet door, and let a dragon out. I didn’t know what she meant. When we tame our dragons, when we befriend our demons, we bring to the dinner table the rejected aspects of ourselves. That was Bernie’s way of saying it. When we bring the rejected aspects of ourselves to the table, we are healing. We are making whole.
This is not easy work. People quit Zen practice as they quit psychotherapy when they sense that a demon is about to appear, a demon that they don’t want to deal with. It’s too frightening.
I tell my Zen students not to worry, that a demon will not appear until you are ready to deal with it, a corollary perhaps of “when the student is ready, the teacher will come.” When the student is ready, the demon will come. Have I been too cheery? While most of us have what in my psychotherapy days we called the “ego strength” to keep our demons locked in the closets of our mind until we’re ready to deal with them, some of us don’t.
I have never worried about demons getting loose in the zendo although I heard from people with long psychiatric histories that some Zen teachers wouldn’t work with them or wouldn’t let them attend sesshins. I see now that these teachers were worried about demons getting loose. Their fears reminded me of “bad trip” stories, of demons psychedelically released prematurely, who terrified but could not be stuffed back into their closets. I may have been the only person in my generation who never tried LSD. I figured I was one of those people who wouldn’t be able to get his demons back in the closet.
I look at this practice now through my shrink glasses and I can see that it wasn’t bad advice to steer fragile folks toward more ego-building therapies as preparation for Zen practice. Not all Zen teachers are prepared to deal with demons. I was never worried. Maybe it was all those years working in psych hospitals. I’d seen a lot of rampaging demons. I wasn’t afraid to work with them, and I’d learned over the years that working with a guide who is not frightened by your demons can create a safe space for dragon-taming.
Maybe I have just trusted that, at least sans LSD — I had no experience with “bad trips,” having avoided the drug scene — I would be able to help people deal with the demons that appeared.
My faith in the power of our inner gatekeepers, the jailers who have been keeping our demons locked in our closets, is intact. As we do the Zen work, our demons will appear, not all at once, but as we are ready to deal with them. We will be able to embrace them and tame them and bring them to dinner. We will be able to heal. The more I work with my demons the less frightening they become and the less frightening the demons of others. Dragon taming is our work.
Imagine a series of dragon-taming pictures, a parallel to the famous Ox-herding pictures. In the first picture, we get our first glimpse of our dragon. We are opening the closet door a crack and peeking in. And in the next picture, we open the door wide and let the dragon out.
In the third picture, we begin to befriend the dragon. Picture Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry bowing to the Hippogriff, edging up to pet the Hippogriff’s nose, mounting the Hippogriff and flying. Can we pat the dragon’s nose? Can we invite our dragon to sit beside us on our cushion? Can we invite our dragon to the dinner table?
Bernie takes me to the fourth picture. Can I see that the dragon is part of myself? That’s a hard one.
In the fifth picture, I go further. I go beyond the dragon being Other. I embrace the dragon rather than pushing him back into the closet, slamming the door.
In the sixth picture, the separation between me and my dragon has disappeared. I am one with my dragon. There is only me. I am whole again
In the seventh and final picture, I am opening another door. There is always another dragon. Zen practice goes on and on forever.
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