It’s Not About You

In my first year of residency at MAPLE, I was made the drummer. The drummer worked closely with the chant leader in the morning and evenings in the zendo to leads the group in chanting practice. The drummer was supposed to follow the chant leader, and the group would follow the drum since it was loud.

For several months, it was difficult for me and the chant leader to be in sync. He would use various hand signals to try to indicate if he wanted me to speed up, slow down, or change volume, as I struggled to hear his voice at times. I often felt tension in the way we related in these roles. The chant leader seemed like he was working through his own patterns of tension, and there would be significant differences in the group’s chanting on days he seemed more relaxed or more tense.

Sometimes he would take some days off, and another resident would fill in as the chant leader. On one of these days, I noticed how it seemed relatively easy to drum with this other resident leading chanting, and I wondered what the usual chant leader and I could learn from him to improve our flow.

Later that morning, I saw our head teacher Soryu in the main hall and told him that I was wondering about this and hoped to help the chant leader in some way. Soryu replied to me, ‘you should be kind to him’. Surprised at this response, I asked, ‘am I not kind enough to him?’ Soryu said, ‘It’s not about you!’