Last weekend I was lucky enough to catch Abbess Blanche Hartman’s lecture at the San Francisco Zen Center. She is Anny’s favorite teacher (mine is Paul Hellar… not that we should play favorites or anything 
). An awesome lecturer she is… always able to keep things down to earth and hit close to the heart.
One of her favorite stories to tell is when she attended her first lecture with Suzuki Roshi, the founder of SFZC. Like many others who started their journey in Zen, she was at a point in life full of confusion and self-doubt. Suzuki Roshi started the lecture by saying,
“You are perfect just as you are.”
“Surely he can’t be saying this to me, since he doesn’t even know me!” She cackled during the lecture.
It stirred some notion in me that is often forgotten but so crucial and fundamental - to believe in the self - despite mistakes, pains, jealousies, and ignorance in the past. Ironically, taking up this idea suddenly makes expressing and improving the self so much easier and palatable!