everything is not illuminated

and perfection isn't real

The first time I went to my Zen teacher’s studio,¹ I asked him what I now know is a ridiculous question. Watching him with curious eyes—I’d never been in the company of a Buddhist priest before . . . was he animal, vegetable, mineral?—I asked him, “Do you ever get angry?” The man exuded calm so I had to wonder, but the question itself seemed to spark something in him since he straightened and looked at me squarely, “Of course I do. I’m human.”

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It was the first of many loving corrections from an extraordinary teacher who’s been an integral part of my life now for almost 18 years. Flint’s adjustments to my words and deeds are powerful and skillful—some subtle, some direct—and they consistently do the most important thing for any student of personal development, which is that they conjure my own wisdom and my own understanding, inviting those resources to flow from the deep, even if it takes a day, a week, a month, ten years for one particular wave to…