The First Trial

"Yoshimura explained that Louise couldn't [study Zen at a Japanese temple] because she wasn't Japanese and would be a burden on the priest's wife. She should remain in America for a year or two while her husband studied in Japan.

"Louise became angry. 'All of you think it's better to be a man than a woman, you think it's better to be a priest than a layperson, and you think it's better to be Japanese than American. But I will always be a woman, and I will always be a layperson, and I will always be an American, and here I am.'

"Everyone was silent. [Shunryu] Suzuki turned to her and said, 'What you have just expressed is the spirit of the bodhisattva's way.'"

David Chadwick, Crooked Cucumber.


(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)