True Honesty In Facing Failure

One role I hold is the audio recordist. That means recording all events where the teacher teaches. During one of our lectures in the series of Buddhism for AI, I had a sense somehow that one of the mics may not be working. I got up from my seat and checked. Sure enough, it was off. I let the group know of the mistake, and fixed it immediately. As I walked stiffly back to my seat, our head teacher Soryu took the opportunity to point out how I was demonstrating a point he made earlier in that lecture, a well-known phenomenon that we communicated much more with our bodies than our words, so we’re more honest with our bodies.

He asked me, “How are you feeling?”

I replied simply, “Numb.”

He remarked to the whole group that it was clear from how I was holding my body that this wasn't really the case, and yet I also wasn't entirely lying. I made a mental note to do better at being honest even in words.

After the lecture, not long before everyone was to go sit for the evening, as I was bustling around cleaning up the audio equipment, he asked me again, “How are you feeling?”

This time I replied, “Gut-wrenchingly horrible.”

He looked surprised, and asked, “How come?”

“Just trying to be more honest.”

“At least it’s not numb. Buy why so horrible?”

I pointed to how I had failed in recording correctly.

Without missing a beat, he beamed at me, “But you’re fantastic! Don’t worry about something small like that. You have something much bigger to work on now.”

We paused, so I considered what that might be. Then he continued, “By the end of the evening sit, will you be enlightened?”

Re-invigorated, I said to myself a positive self-talk phrase he shared with us in the last 2-week awakening period—the most intense training period of the year—"Alright, let's go!" as I dashed with zeal to the zendo.