Tomorrow night is the Shuso Entering Ceremony, so technically I'm not a shuso yet. Even so, I can already feel the shift starting to happen and it's put me off balance and out of sorts. I don't know who I am right now. This is both a little scary and a little exciting. There is so much opportunity for failure, so many places to make mistakes--that's the scary part. The excitement is in the connection, grace, giving and receiving, celebration, full-on immersion in the dharma and sangha. Practicing with this means surrendering, over and over, to not know who I am. To be brand new.

I can't do shuso, I'm not even sure if I can be shuso, but I can walk, blind and foolish, into the experience and see what happens. . . It helps that there will be cookies.