The little one docs the room, which was dark even at noon, was filled with the sound of the nearby Tassajara stream. Sitting face to face, knees almost touching, my teacher, Darlene Cohen, told me, “You don’t have to be so scared.” My body jerked back a little, I wasn’t sure I heard correctly. “Excuse me,” I said, tilting my head in question, “could you repeat that?” “You don’t need to be so afraid.” I heard you right, I thought, totally shocked.
Thus began a practice that was profound and liberating for me, personally koan from fear. The thread of my koan was so tightly woven into my perception of reality that it was difficult for me to identify it. Fortunately, it was obvious to him. The gentle, solid and clear mirror he held up for me to look into slowly revealed the deep ground of fear from which I constantly operated.
It took me quite some time to see it as fear. What he showed as fear, I boasted as exemplary competence, benevolent behavior to be proud of, not belittled or changed; a behavior that faithfully resulted in annual promotions in a highly competitive corporate environment. What was that fear like? With gentle persistence, he explained how I used my competence to maintain my separation and keep people in check, how it strengthened my Self. In my über-competence, I didn’t need anyone’s help, which I found made me feel safe.
Having been born into a family karmic melting pot of award-winning dysfunction, I quickly learned that the sangha, as first embodied by my family, was not safe. This created an early misconception that all humans are insecure and unpredictable. Keeping them at bay and relying on myself really made sense and worked for decades. Armed with these early experiences, it was difficult to touch or even understand the dharma of connectedness. You want it much less.
In these first and future dokusans, we began to discover my personal koana. While understanding grew slowly, it was through his embodied teaching that I first gained greater understanding.
Darlene’s practice was to invite students to spend a day or two with her at her home church, combining formal practice with informal practice. We sat together, studied, ate and ate together, walked to the post office and shopped together. Slowly, nonverbally, my body began to trust that I was so close and intimate with her stable, reliable body. In this way, I began to experience a previously unknown relaxation. This gave me a new embodied starting point against which I could somatically evaluate myself in other circumstances.
In the early stages of our relationship, when she emphasized and trusted body-to-body practice, unbeknownst to me, Darlene designed the perfect practice for me.
During the Tassajara period, I worked for the cabin crew. In this work practice, one goes to guest cabins, makes beds, sweeps floors, empties trash cans, and cleans bathrooms. A glass was spilled and broken in the cabin which I had to clean up. I went to the crew chief and asked for a mop. He said if I wait a moment he will help me. This immediately seemed so unnecessary. All I needed was a mop, tell me where it is and I’ll get the job done in no time. As I waited, more people helped me with their requests, and I found myself growing impatient. Cleverly thinking, I interrupted and said, “If you just point to where the mop is, I’m sure I can find it myself.” “Oh, wait a moment or two and I can help you,” he replied with a smile as he happily rummaged about the sheets.
My impatience grew. It was so insensitive to me, so inefficient and frankly a waste of time. But I kept my manufactured Music cool as I simmered and waited. Finally he came over to me and said, “Let’s go get the mop.” Pleading my case again, I said, “Really, this is a one-man job. You don’t have to help me.” His answer was a sly smile. So we went to get the mop. “Now let’s get the bucket.” “Just point me in the direction and I’ll have it in a second.” “No, let’s do it together.” Which we did. After filling the bucket with some warm water and inserting the mop, she turned briskly to me and said, “Here, let’s grab the handle of the bucket and carry it into the cabin.” To which I replied, “I can take it. It’s not hard at all.” “No, he said let’s do it together.” As we walked down the path to the cabin, I silently but fiercely remarked to myself how crazy this was. OMG I’m fired up, Zen is so pathetic sometimes!
When we got to the cabin, he insisted on holding the dustpan while I swept up the small amount of glass. Yielding to his kind but unyielding approach, I dutifully sipped the glass. Then he squeezed the water out of the mop and handed it to me. As I mopped the small area, no more than a square meter, she seemed unnaturally engaged in this menial task and unnaturally happy to do it with me. Once done, he suggested we return the bucket and mop to their proper place, together of course. Taking a deep breath, resigned to the drama of “work” in my mind, we took the bucket and the mop back. I don’t remember his parting words, but I do remember that his tenor was lovely as always. I also remember my extreme reaction: a mind frantically judging the insanity of the experience. And beneath the veil of judgment, which was dark to me at the time, was the fear of spending time with a stranger. The whole experience probably only lasted 15-20 minutes, although it felt like forever to me.
What does fear feel like? Can you breathe in? To soften? Can you find the ground of your safety in between?
It took more practice on my personal koan to see the genius of what Darlene planned and executed with the help of the flight attendant. It turned out to be a dharma gate that allowed me to slowly recognize the underlying fear I was feeling, a fear that was completely out of proportion to the situation. The emerging awareness of my competence as a mask, coupled with my tactile and vocal physical response, made me stay with the experience and wonder why it was so disturbing. When I later asked Darlene about this and her role in it, she had a sly glint in her eye as she simply went silent.
What Darlene planned had lasting benefits. As I began to recognize and feel in my body the extreme limitations this fear-based competence placed on me, I willingly dived deeper and deeper into the koan with curiosity and intention. With her encouragement, I began to immerse myself more in my body, to search for this body-based wisdom. “Notice how you feel when you walk into a room of people, strangers,” she suggests. “What is created in your body? Where in your body do you feel it? What does fear feel like? Can you breathe it in? Do you soften it? Can you find the ground of your safety in between?”
The need for both presentation and self-perception as uber-competent slowly decreased. It is important that the competence itself did not decrease, but only became a competence by revealing the primary motivation. I could take it much differently. Another benefit was that the perfectionism and fixed ideas that often accompanied my deep-rooted fear began to diminish. Within the competence was a hidden need to be seen as “right,” an sub-koan that emphasized separation, which I was able to decipher with his help. As Darlene often asks, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be in a relationship?” A profound and clarifying question. After a lot of practice, I am learning more and more to relax and choose the connection.
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Extract from Alive For It All, Everyday Wisdom: The Teachings of Darlene Cohen by Cynthia Kear. Copyright ©2026. Used with permission.
