Step 8: Made a list of all the persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Step 9: Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Koan: Case 20, Book of Serenity (Translated by Joan Sutherland Roshi and John Tarrant Roshi)
Dizang asked Fayan, “Where are you going from here?”
Fayan said, “I’m on pilgrimage.”
“What is a pilgrimage about?”
“I don’t know.”
“Not knowing is most intimate.”
Fayan suddenly had a great awakening.
Steps 8, 9, and 10 are about reconciling with one's past, by dealing with the present [Yes, where your feet are standing right now] while trusting in the outcome. It's a readiness to take a risk by acknowledging who we used to be and who we are now with each new encounter with others. It's about responding differently, which is a huge matter now, while "not knowing" what is about to happen next.
"Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, 'Being a Zen master means coping with one's mistakes.' Indeed, and it's a pretty lonely position. If you confess to your errors, some good students will go away. If you don't, you yourself will go away. I don't wonder at the alcoholism found occasionally in sacred halls."
- From Miniatures of the Zen Master, by Robert Aitken, 2008
