Novice

Professor Sung Bae Park taught Buddhism
to primarily Judeo-Christian kids
who needed one course in a world religion
and could fit him in their schedules.
In a suit a company executive might wear
to rally regional managers
whose spirits needed lifting
since the latest quarterly report,
he advocated blowing out the flame
of self, my heat source and my lodestar.
Proper breathing was essential
to achieve the meditative state,
he said, in which duality dissolves
and every koan we had puzzled over clarifies.
In bed at night I breathed exactly
as he told us to, the mind approaching
no-mind with each measured breath,
but after thirty minutes I began
to wonder why the universe
would not appear as one bright pearl to me,
which master Dogen sort of promised
in his essay, “Ikka Myoju.”
Professor Park rebuked me in the next class
when I asked why meditation didn’t work
in my case and how long it typically took
to see some progress toward enlightenment.
He said I needed to reread the chapter
on the fourfold practice, focusing for now
on contemplation of the body as impure;
some people in Japan still practice
skeleton meditation, watching
as the corpse’s flesh decays until the bones
show through, attachment to this world
revealed as mere delusion.
I joked, “Do they begin before or after
breakfast?” and Professor Park said
solemnly, “I like to start before.”