I wonder: do teachers in high school ever talk about life and death? Today, my students were an abstracted bunch during the final meditation. Most of them tried to maintain their posture and keep focused, but I could feel their struggle.
  They sit on cushions pushed a bit from the walls, facing inward. We end, they stand, hands in gassho. I make a parting statement. "You may not realize this, but right now you are practicing life and death. Don't take this practice for granted."

School begins at 9, still early for teenagers, but at least they are getting two extra hours of sleep. Early arrivals make bagels or eat fried eggs one of the teachers cooks up each morning. The building is small, and it takes perhaps a minute to go from the kitchen to the rectangular dojang where they sit meditation.
  Two tall, deep windows illuminate the altar along the wall opposite. Meditation cushions line the other walls. I sit just to the left of the altar and instruct the students to write their intentions on the slip of paper provided. It is meant to awaken a connection to the previous week and to underline the practical nature of their efforts in school.  It should create a little tension and hover a little while they sit. Over the course of the semester, most students have begun to use the exercise and write down intentions that are modest and concrete. One student still refuses to do it at all, but he refuses to meditate as well.
   But then, this is something the student and I occasionally talk about, and when we do, I try to make sure that the conversation is one where his experience and reasoning is paramount. This may be a very small step towards mindfulness, but a consequential one. Some students need to assert themselves, and this is where they are at. I think, at bottom, the quiet start to the day still makes a difference.

Ending Well

  There is a tendency in workplaces and schools to see Friday as an unfortunate hurdle between Thursday and the weekend. If the teachers feel this, then most assuredly they are teaching this to the students. Here at TAS, Friday is something else altogether.

   For years now I noticed how joyful and lingering the students would be at the end of the day. Often it seems the bus is impatient, not the student. Some of our students seemed to regret heading home... we always have a large fraction of kids for whom home is little comfort at all. Yet there is always a powerful, conditioned force that countervails our efforts towards keeping the community focused and easy. Out of these observations arose the firm structure of the last day of the week.

  It  has taken me a while to grow into giving dharma talks. I felt unqualified, and was concerned that my classroom persona would blur the important differences between my role as a lecturer/facilitator and that of holding the center throughout the school day. I often reflect upon my one dokusan with Daido Roshi.

I was on retreat at the Zen Mountain Monastery and struggling with my inconsistent practice, my shoulder problems which was pushing me away from Sword, and the endless pressures of work and family. I had resolved to talk to Daido, and I was nervous. It was distracting me from my sitting. Dokusan was called, I raced over. The bell rang. I walked in and bowed, and kneeled or sat, I don't recall which.

  I told him a run a school based on zen. He looked like an old dragon, and rumbled quietly, "Really?" I was flooded with doubt and insincerity.

  "And I don't know what to do..."

  "Keep your practice." 

  "That's all?"

  "Yes, keep your practice." 

   But what was my practice? Sword? Sitting meditation? Running the school? I had gone to the Monastery a number of times for retreats, and was drifting far from Shim Gum Do. Sword practice was still very painful, and I felt totally alone in it. I began to deepen my meditation practice. Later, I began practicing gentleness towards myself while training sword without a sword. Everything was becoming more centered, and it was time to train hard and clearly and completely commit to my original teacher. Without realizing it, I was living a koan: "What is my practice?' I was totally devoted to finding this out, every day. 

   Fridays reflect this experience: when you begin to drift, intensify your practice, be gentle, and be firm.

The last day of the week was riddled with ambivalence; by firming up the structure and making the student's obligations clear, and providing all the support to meet those obligations, Friday becomes the peak day, and a day of marking achievement and passage.

  It begins with a dharma talk. Midday brings lunch and work practice. It ends with a meditation and an expression of gratefulness. 

What is it with Americans? Such black and white thinking! Freedom means no expectations. The school day ends, and you are free. Unless you have to go to work. Then, later, you are free. Unless someone tells you what to do. Or you can't find somebody to do something with and find a way to get there. Thankfully, there is always the internet, a vastland of miniatures, where you can choose endlessly between things to do and things to want.
Obviously, this is a pretty limited notion of freedom. What if a young person could be trained in directing her focus to whatever she wants, for as long as she wants? What if she could become fully independent and fully part of a community? That is the paradox every young person must resolve. It cannot be provided by words, or by a medication, or by punishment. It must come from within, from long experience. Structure compasses freedom, much like a range of hills define a valley.
The school day at TAS is structured to that end. On the top of the right hand margin is a link to the daily and weekly training schedule. The intent is to gently guide the student in and out of the stress of becoming fully a person.