So I jumped to that other tape and cut out some parts and another tape I started to make a while ago which has music on it and developed into Sally talking to Hillary and things. I was going to whack out a lot of that and send it to you, but I just can't take the time to do all that. So I'm finding a place and inserting the tape. It's now 2-0-4, something like that, 2-0-2. Car is just going by. Japan closes up early around, around, I don't know, bars and night places usually close at 11, 10-30 and people have to be out of them around then. A few late nights, but basically the city is completely closed by around 10, by around, pretty active until about 11 and then bang, it's quiet. And a few people go home, but by midnight it's shut up.

[01:07]

Okay, where are we at? I've got to get up to go to Kobe tomorrow with the tape for Graham to work on and Graham wants to, because we're coming down to take us to the Kabuki, which we shouldn't do, but he's been planning to do something like that with us to give us a taste of Japan for months and we never see him and he comes up here and sort of complains, he drops in on Sundays two or three times now and he complains, why don't you ever phone or come down, no, you don't need money, we just, I've got so much work to do I'm not seeing anybody, but if he will go, so we have to get down there in order to leave for Osaka, Osaka is between Kobe and Kyoto, so we go and it's about an hour ride on the train to Kobe, so we take a train to Kobe and leave Sally there with David and Julia, their kids, and then get back on the train to be in Osaka by ten or something, so we have to leave here, get up at six in

[02:13]

the morning, so now two, so, sacrifice, sacrifice for you Peter, so I can get these tapes off to you, I'm sorry, sooner, so I'm picking up from where the last tape left off sort of, in between I've listened to what I did put on the first half of that tape a week or so ago, whenever it was, and I've listened to a skimmed, one disadvantage of tape is you can't scan, I scanned as best as I could in every five minutes or so of the first side or three or four minutes, and the second side I listened to quite a bit of, and the end of the first side and all the blah blah blah, and I left it in the middle, tape out, I left it in the middle, if I could go back to it, a little more, where the hell did I put it, I found it, um, duh, you sure understand what you mean about it takes you so long to write

[03:15]

even a few sentences in the wind bell, in each sentence you spend X amount of time, I don't know if you know I spend the same amount of time on anything, but just absolute constipation, it's not a constipation, that's not right, it's some possible kind of, not standards even, just I know, I don't know, you know, but anyway, whatever it is, it's, that's the way it is, for both of us, to some extent I guess, okay, what you say on your tape is extremely interesting, I went over again, I think that inadvertently I gave you some of the information you want, about my first year as a student in relation to Suzuki Roshi and things, when I talked about Graham, I got a little confused there, because you say you don't, you want it up to sort of the end of 62, well I didn't start much before 62 actually, I came to, excuse me, I came to Japan and came to

[04:23]

America, to San Francisco, in about November of 61, I guess, and married Ginny in May of 62, did I come in November of 60? Anyway, if I married Ginny in May of 62, that's right, I, that's right I think, so I was born in 63, I, that means I came in November of 60, and started sitting in, something like August, July, the earliest June or July, probably July at the earliest, but really sort of consciously around July, July, August, September, consciously I began sitting around September of 60, August, late August say, of 60, you know, I don't know, what Sashin, week Sashin, anyway, somewhere, I would say August is a sort of like, a date I began to experience, so I may have been there a couple times in July or more, I don't know, something

[05:25]

like that, maybe June, maybe June, July, check it out, because of the shouts over Alan Watson, I went to in the spring or early summer, probably in the spring, I may have actually known about Zen Center all that summer, I can't remember, but if I did, you know, I went to a lecture now and then, I can't, you know, the stories about the way I started, I think, should I tell them or not, not right now, anyway, by the way, there's one of my notes, I'll come to it, you know, what threw me off was you said you wanted up to 62, you know, anyway, I guess I'm back to that same again, rather sleepily, but anyway, so from whenever it was in there, I just, by the 62, a year passed, maybe, yes, maybe say a year passed, geez, I don't know, I know what you want, I know what you're doing, but God, if I can remember anything, though I do find interesting to

[06:27]

hear Betty Warren talk about the way they sat in seats and things, let me try to, I'll turn the microphone off, think a minute, see if I can conjure up an image of what it was like, I know one thing we were scared of all the time, which is really probably pretty important, I don't know if I mentioned before, we were always afraid that Roshi was going to leave, of course, that, again, had something to do with creating a sangha, because it gave a feeling of we better make it work while he's here and get us coherent together, and would it fall apart when he left, it made it clear, like, do we only exist because of him, will we fall apart, or we have relationships among ourselves or just to him, that's, we're back to that old theme, but there was that fear every time he came to the lecture room, or there's somebody start talking about Japan, people start, everybody get nervous, like, is he going to say he's going to go back to Japan now, we didn't know, that was an important element in that early period, the feeling that Roshi might leave, you don't have that now, so it's a big difference, I just played that part back to see if I was recording, probably hadn't

[07:29]

checked it now, and let me re-emphasize, it really is a big difference, I mean, the difference in feeling between trying to find a practice with the teachers may only be there for a while, and one who's going to be there, who's committed to staying there, and committed to you, well, we felt we could fall into Japan, or we could go to Japan, I at some point decided I'd just go to Japan if he went, and study with him there, but it introduces a kind of friendly element to it, like here's our nice friend who's here from Japan, and it's nice practicing with him, and boy, let's live it up while we can with him, and it was a sort of funny, sort of whiny atmosphere, heady kind of fun atmosphere of, this is exciting, because since there wasn't a lifetime quality, but it was just, this is beautiful time to have this marvelous beautiful man here now, and let's make the most

[08:29]

of it, and he responded, either had that feeling to himself, or responded, if his experience was anything like mine in Japan, he thought a lot about what the hell is he doing here in this country, because some real gut differences between Japanese-American, boy is it, I knew it in America, and boy, I know it here, and it must be the same for the Japanese, in reverse, it's just something seemed really, you know, what are these people doing, they're just, that's just inhuman, or it's just strange, or it's just blah, you know, so he may have at the same time felt that, but he didn't convey any of it to us, the negative side, he conveyed a kind of bubbling, kind of big smile, happy to be in sun, sun, lighty, shiny California, and I look back at now, really feels nice, it was so, somehow sunshiny, it was, the Woody Lee feel was, it was a terrible feeling, you know, real scare, but at the same time, we kept, everybody urged him to stay, of course, always, and we'd say,

[09:31]

oh, other people would say, oh, please stay, don't ever think, you know, sir, but at the same time, there was a kind of champagne, bubbly, go-to-the-head quality of the fact that this marvelous man was there for a while, and emphasized the fact that we were lucky to have him, rather than emphasizing the fact that his presence obligated us to practice, and do you see the difference? Once he did, I don't know if I'm making it clear, but once he decides to stay, then it's sort of our obligation to practice, and a sense of seriousness enters, which wasn't there before, of just luck in having him. I don't know if it's, it's not just that we had, we, once he decides to stay, we're obligated to make it worth his while. It's not exactly that, it's, well, I think I conveyed it well enough, maybe. There's a big

[10:35]

difference. His presence then was like having a, like in the early, very early spring or late winter, when suddenly it's warm, and there's a few sunny days, and how nice those sunny, special those sunny days feel. Well, I think for, well, for me, and to some extent, and I think for others, to some extent, that Suzuki Roshi's presence at that time felt like that. These special warm days that are really nice, and won't occur again, but while we have them, it's really, these are the most beautiful days. Of course, because we knew the days were, as you know, those days in early spring or turn cold again, you knew that he'd go to Japan, probably, or a good chance he might. So, there was a kind of emphasis on the pleasure of being there, and sitting, etc. In a way, there isn't such an emphasis on the pleasure of it in the same way at all anymore, I don't think. Still

[11:37]

trying to conjure up what it was like in my mind, patience. Talking about myself, I know that for those first couple years, I think for two years there in the beginning, I sat twice a day, every time this period, and every lecture I went to without fail, I took notes of every lecture. I have books of notes, I brought them with me in Japan, of every lecture he gave at that time. I mean, you know, like, as much as I could write them down in my rapid handwriting. So, I spent, I don't know, 15-20 hours a week there. Of course, at that time I was also practicing all day long with kind of my special mantra, mantra koans. I think Roshi too, at that time, I know, I was hearing one of the lectures, sort of a hodgepodge, I don't know if they're all being recorded down at Tassajara, but if you have any control over that thing, if you can get them recorded, it really is marvelous

[12:42]

having them here. It's such a pleasure and a joy for me and for the others, Caucasian students here to come down, just to listen to his voice and talking. It's just, you just don't hear anybody talking about Buddhism, you know, they all talk this Taisho language, this elaborate, formal Buddhist language, you can't understand a word, even if you know Japanese well, mostly. And for me, it's the way I am now, it's very good to be able to listen to something. I listen to it two or three times, and it's a way I can get material, because being busy, as I talk about too much, I can, while Ginny's cutting my hair, I listen to a tape, or while I'm eating, I listen to a tape, or while I'm reading, no, I don't read, that's not good, while I'm writing a letter, you know, I write for a while, and then I flip off the, I mean, I flip off the letter, I stop the letter when I need to sort of pause, when somebody would pick up a cigarette, you know, a little break, I sort of like flip on the tape recorder where it's at, and I listen to a little Roshi talking away,

[13:43]

and I get to the feel of his lecture for sometimes three or four sentences, or a little while, flip it off, go back to my letter, it's marvelous, I feel I don't need any companionship at all, except that, I have some other tapes, poetry conference tapes of Duncan and other things, I sometimes put them on too, and I listen to the tape you send me, and more than once, a tape Mike and Trudy send me more than once, that's sort of nice to have those too, anyways Roshi said in one of the lectures today, he said, as the older students remember in the beginning when I first came to Japan, I emphasized way-seeking mind, and he didn't, maybe it's true, that he didn't emphasize practice, like Shikantaza, and how you practice, and what you do so much, because he didn't know if he could make the kind of commitment that he, but he emphasized, so he emphasized us finding our own way-seeking mind would help us find the way, even if he wasn't there, maybe something like that was a difference in the teaching, maybe too, because he didn't

[14:45]

expect us to stay, or himself to stay, I didn't know whether we'd stay, there was a kind of, he was in having sport with these Americans, who were instead pleasant, he just thoroughly enjoyed himself, and didn't have any expectations of them, or really of himself either, he seemed to be having a good time too, there's a middle period there, where he coughed and was sick a lot, but that was before that, 1961-62 period was before that, before that cough, cough, cough period, and there was something special about it, I don't know how it was earlier, but I think there was more of the same earlier, a woman upstairs just woke up, I hope not because of my talking, she spit, I suppose old people, she's a wonderful woman, wake up in the night and spit sometime, a little night for her, and the fish, some Japanese person gave us some fish, so I feel sorry for them, I don't know what to do, I couldn't give them back to him, it was so complicated, the gift

[15:45]

thing here, anyway, they're over there, there, you can hear them nudging in the stones at the bottom of the little tank, at least for me in those early days too, his lectures were always very cheery and encouraging, there's a lot of joking and fun feeling, and too, he may have been, he himself may have been relieved, released from all kinds of Japanese things, pressures and social things, which he'd often say he doesn't like, and the whole worry about his hierarchy in Japan, and because you have to do a lot of politicking, I guess, in the Soto sect to keep your position, and he maybe knew he had some responsibility within the hierarchy because of who his teacher was and all, but didn't really like that, and I don't know what, I'm just making this up, but there was a sense in him too of a kind of vacation in America, kind of release, and it was the vacation developed into some serious students, which he felt the postponement

[16:45]

and then the commitment to go, commitment to stay in America. Of course, as you know, there weren't so many of us in those days, other people tell you that, I suppose in that year, you're talking about 61, there were, if there were 28 lectures, that was good, and if there were 15 in a session, that was good, and as I've said, I think that sometimes I was the only person chanting the Sutra once or twice, and often it would be just Graham and me. Graham in the afternoon, later, this was later, because after about two years, I began coming just in the morning, Graham came in the afternoon, but still at that date, there were times when Graham would be the only person in the afternoon, and I'd be the only person in the morning. That would be unusual, you know, like generally there'd be some people, even on an odd morning like Christmas morning, there'd be some people. Sometimes it just would work out that instead of the usual four or five, minimum, to eight to ten, there just wouldn't be anybody, you know. That was quite seldom, there was only one, actually. I have all those early lectures. Sometimes, I don't know what I'll do with them,

[17:52]

but sometimes I might go through them, look at a feeling tone, I could tell something about how they're different from now. But to Christmas, much of the material that was covered then, I've heard covered again in other ways, always new and deeper to me, but a lot of the same stories and material. Again, so there wasn't that much difference, because most of what he says now, in the beginning, students' lectures and general lectures, I've heard it all in those first two or three years. You can hear Ginny in the next room, sleeping. And at first, I didn't really hear her breathing, because something's coming from behind me, it's a little mysterious. I began to feel, I was outside my body, hearing myself breathe. I mean, well, I've never experienced that clarified while I'm sitting in a room yet. Govinda's here, and of course, as I felt, the arrangements for him were made poorly. And he spent, I guess, the first week, I'm told, here. Nobody came to see

[18:55]

him, nothing to do, he just sat in this building. And now, Irmgard Schlegel, who's quite a nice woman, has arranged for me to see him Monday morning for the first time. Other than that, I will not see him at all. And so I'll see him Monday early, and I don't know whether I'll get involved, either willingly or out of obligation, seeing him around or helping him or something. I don't know much Japanese, so I can't help too much. But there's no one else, I feel, some obligation, since he's helped me so much with his books. We'll see, I'll let you know. A quickie on my, how I got into Zen, you may know. Let's see, we'll go back. Okay, go way back. And I was beginning, of course, myself to feel something, that I wanted to do something. In fact,

[19:55]

Don Allen's thinking of starting a magazine, which ultimately turned out to be The Four Seasons, just to give me something to do. One of the reasons we talked about it. And I saw on Don's table this Charlotte Silver, Alan Watts thing, and it wasn't Alan that interested me so much, but the thing about the way, what it was written about Charlotte Silver really zapped me. And it was, I was coming along in a sort of spring, California spring, maybe the first one I was in California. It seemed pleasant and some awakening in me, and it's, the word seemed right, so I went to it. At that time, I found out about Zen Center, sort of, because somebody from Zen Center was, I guess I ran into Zen Center during that seminar, whenever that seminar was. Yeah, that's right, I did. And then found out somebody else in the seminar knew about it. But anyway, something like that. How I found out about it, I'll quickly tell you the story. I think you must know it, but in case not, I'll go over it. It's kind of become an anecdote. I was in George Fields with David Walker, who was a painter, and was telling him about a samurai movie, and I raised

[20:58]

my imaginary sword saying, and then he raised his sword and let out, you know, a samurai sort of yell in the bookstore as much as you could with George Fields. George Fields, an old man, looked up, oldish looking anyway, looked up from his table and said, hey, you ought to go see Suzuki Roshi, the Zen master who's here and lectures and stuff. And I put away my imaginary sword and lifted and said, oh, yeah, he said he's Soto, and bullshit a little bit about a Soto book. He showed me there was one that Soto approached to Zen. People should know more about Soto. And I asked if there was a Rinzai Zen master in town. He said he didn't know one, but there may have been. It turned out his wife was very interested in, and had sat at Zen Center, and they used to help out. And then she died mysteriously. I have some funny feeling about, something mysterious about it all, I don't know. Anyway, slightly, it all happened before me, but she was somebody who came regularly. So, I, he said there's a lecture that very night, so I went that very night. And it was the first

[22:02]

time when I went to the lecture, Roshi just talked, and he stood up there, and he walked around. First time I'd ever, and I'd been to Tillich's lecture, and a lot of people, first time I'd ever been to a lecture, in which I couldn't find anything to disagree with. And that's, that's literal, that's more than an anecdote. I mean, the way he stood, the vibes, his hand gestures, what he communicated in a sense, was just unbelievable. And he talked just like a, like the Zen books. I don't know if I had that perception at that first night, but I know very soon I said, my God, I didn't believe anybody could actually talk about emptiness and things with a kind of a, not just as a scholarly way, but actually sort of as if it was an experience in a real thing, and something we do, and talk in the kind of way a Zen master does, just like the books. I just thought it was unbelievable. But anyway, I couldn't find anything to disagree with, and I literally did go back, because I couldn't find anything to disagree with, and I was so impressed with his vibe, tone, and accuracy. And then I had a terrible time. I don't know if I ever told you this story. I never told anybody,

[23:02]

really. With David one evening, a pleasant evening, started out at some point, he said to me, I want to, none of this detail, personal names are on the window, I want to, he said to me, we were at a restaurant, he said to me suddenly, you know, Dick, if we both had any sense, or something like that, he said, we would know that the only way was Zen. That we should give up our, we should really devote ourselves to Zen, it's the only thing that makes sense. And when he said it, you know, I mean, it really, that, I mean, I hadn't even thought about it. I don't know, it didn't seem to me, I wasn't anywhere where I'd, any place where I would make a statement like that. But when he, when he made it, it just hit me. Yes, that's true. And that may have been the beginning of the Sangha thing in a strange way, because like, my feeling, my relationship with you and Trudy and Earl and things, I've always been personally seeking a way

[24:07]

to, to find a community with others, in which we could function and communicate and share some common thing other than a kind of scatterbrained definition from the society at large, which puts one at odds with each other and not related to that, something like that. So the fact that David said that, it may not only struck home because I wanted to, that I believe, yes, that's probably true, but also it struck home because maybe here was a person saying it, and here was a chance that I liked, and here was a chance to form some bond. If he felt that, maybe we could practice Zen together or something like that, you know, something like that. Maybe human beings could practice Zen together. Maybe here is more than just an idea in my head, if there's another human being in the world who was interested. But of course, it didn't mean that to David at all. I remember afterwards, every month, two, six months later, he'd say, well, maybe I'll go to lectures in the center once.

[25:09]

He did it with some qualification and nervousness almost. I remember he went once. Whatever. Anyway, when he said it, he just said it, you know, like something to say. Or something. He said it because I had to have it said. It really hit me. And I decided, and I said, yeah, I just really kind of like door opened or a thing in a safe, a plunger, what do they call the things the crook listens for, the plungers or something. Anyway, but one of them fell. Something was locked into place. The sort of belief that that was true. Okay. And I think it was that very night that I went up and stayed at Howard Hughes's, Howard Hughes's, Michael Hughes's. In some ways, I was intensely jealous of David for living in

[26:14]

that house because I'd always sort of felt sort of like, oh, I wish somebody would take care of me. But I would never, you know, I'd meet somebody who, but I was never, I was never able to, to create such an opportunity or, or do such an opportunity because it required me to relate to people in a way I didn't want to. But it was always some sort of fantasy that somebody would come and take me out of my family or I didn't, you know, like be more of a man than my father and make some life possible. And I was intensely jealous in a way, not exactly of David, but of, of, so the opposite of, of, you know, like community of thing. I just felt jealousy because he was able to do it, because he wasn't hamstrung by the, not because he'd done it,

[27:15]

or because whatever his relationship with Michael Hughes was, I'm too innocent in my, in my realm of coinage, spending the money of the realm. I don't know whether that's even true, but it wasn't that I wanted it that made me jealous or that he had something like that, maybe that I wanted that made me jealous. What made me jealous was the fact that he or other human beings could do it, that they weren't hamstrung by these things about blah, blah, blah. I can remember many times I didn't have girlfriends because I, this one wasn't, and that one wasn't, or I wouldn't do it this, I wouldn't take an easy fuck, or I wouldn't fuck with a girl who was also that had fucked with a friend of mine, or, or my, I don't know, you know, just, I just had, that's related to the question of difficulty in getting a letter done now, because I try to do it so thoroughly, etc. I just couldn't,

[28:21]

I had all these, you know, like I couldn't just be a sort of lawyer, I'd have to, if I was a lawyer, I'd have to try to find out what was the intrinsic nature of the law, or some such bullshit, and how to, how to redefine the role, my role as a lawyer in the law, and see if the law really made sense for human beings, and blah, some such bullshit, and I felt so, um, and sort of infuriated that I couldn't be free of that thing, just to do something, if you want to live in that groovy house on top of the hill, fine, or you want to go around, or you want to fuck a lot of virgins, or you want to fuck with your, a girl with your friend, or something, and just whatever you want to do, and David could do those things, it wasn't like, and I, and I was so, I woke up in the middle of night later, infuriated that I couldn't do those things, and my fury was really intense, that I

[29:27]

couldn't, directed at David, and, and it was really rough, and I had to sort of like sit out that kind of fury, this is all very personal and private, so, anyway, I had to sort of sit out that fury, and I did it, I just looked up at the sky, and the sky clouds, I don't know, I may have, I may have told you this story, and the clouds kept going by, and the sun, and moon, I mean, not the sun, and stars, and the branches kept blowing in the wind, and I must have told you this story, but anyway, it was, I've never told it, very, I don't think I've ever told it quite so completely, except perhaps to you, and my, to survive the intense anger that was in me, my mind had to become the, the stars, and the tree moving in the wind, and the sky, because no matter, because as I sat there, I found that no matter what I, what anger I felt, I could take a kind of refuge in that

[30:34]

emptiness, that star, and cloud, and sky, no matter what I felt, they were there the same, it's an incredible sort of insight, and emotional experience for me, because I was suddenly freed from the danger of what I felt, and the repercussions of actions, or anger, or anything, because essentially, I could just be the clouds, and stars, and blah, blah, blah, I don't know quite how to explain it, but some, in some deep way, a reality more secure than my own back and forth emotions was presented to me, and a reality which I was essentially related to, because it was me looking at the clouds, and sky, and etc., and the clouds, and sky, etc., weren't, you know, involved in my anger, so somehow I, my, my base of basic, where my gyroscope was, became the relationships to

[31:43]

everything, rather than whether I felt this way, or that, that night, finally, I was just staying up some time, maybe an hour and a half, or so, an hour, or 40 minutes, or 20 minutes, looking out the window, 30 minutes, I fell asleep, and woke up in the morning, and, and then the next day, I, I think it was the next day, though, I don't know whether, in some anecdotal fashion, it's all been condensed in my mind, I was, I worked a paper edition, walking along back from lunch, at that little clam joint, I don't know if you know it, down in Bessie's, or Florence's, or Florey's, or something, it was clam chowder and things, Florence's, down on the waterfront, and walking back to paper editions, and I was thinking to myself, I should start Zazen sometime, and I felt, by the way, you, you could let Trudy listen to this tape if she wanted, but I think that's the only other person I'd want to hear it,

[32:44]

I would want to be able to hear it, I wouldn't want anyone else to hear it, Trudy and Mike here, Earl, okay, but that's it, I don't think anyone else, I, was walking back, and opened a book, I was thinking to myself, that's before I opened the book, I was thinking to myself, damn, Zen, look, I'm just wondering, right now, I'm just wondering, I'm not saying what I think, let me focus in, walking along, sort of musing, thinking about the night before, rather scared by it, you know, a little threatened by it, but also knowing I'd come through it, you know, because the intensity of my anger the night before, really fierce, I have quite a temper anyway, and, and I thought, geez, I get you that angry, you'll be mad, crazy, you know, but I'd come

[33:48]

through, okay, so I was walking along, thinking, well, I'd come through it, what I really should probably do is start Zazen, I'd been to a few lectures of Roshi, but I hadn't started Zazen, like he did, so I thought, I would try, I stopped to see this tape, so I thought, well, it'd be nice to do Zazen, but I'm not good enough yet, I thought, I can't start, I can go to his lectures, but I'm not ready to start Zazen, I thought, someday I will be, maybe, but not now, and so then I decided, well, I'll read My Usual Refuge, and I opened the book, and like in true Christian fashion, as I may have told you, a story, I've told you a story before, my eye fell immediately on a passage in the book, it was D.T. Suzuki's first, second, or third series, probably third series, I'm not sure, which said, I can't believe it's even still there in the book, but boy, this is what popped out of the book at me, and it said right in the book, um, the first thing I looked at said, to think you're too good to do Zazen is a form of vanity,

[34:51]

well, I popped the book closed, and thought, oh my god, that's true, it is a form of vanity, I'll start doing Zazen tomorrow, next morning, I sort of opened the darkened door, and zoomed across the room, sit on the girl's side, it's funny being a little afraid of being crazy, uh, 10 or 15 minutes after I started sitting, Bob Hanson, who didn't have his history, came by and straightened my back or something, and then I ended up sitting beside Bob Hanson regularly, but anyway, that's sort of how I started, I won't send you the windbell thing, now it'll be just to be, take me forever, do these kind of things, take care, this is taking all from early, from late afternoon, uh, getting, deciding I was going to do this, dropping the Carlson letter in preference, and, uh, she didn't cut my hair, I had to take a bath, but basically this is taking, just to do this much, and complete the end of, just to do this

[35:54]

much and complete the end of the last tape, is taking, has taken me now until, now quarter to three, now I'll go to the big sheet of paper, I think, and I'll talk about, first let me talk about the history in general. Again, I'm still worried, not worried, I mean, I'm excited about what you're going to do, there's no doubt about that, but I'm worried in the sense that, here, not just that, about Zen Center, but if we do a history, it implies that American Zen, if not Zen Center, has arrived somewhere, means that we think that there's something to be said for it, there's a history to be said for it. I think that, I think that if you do a history of Zen Center up to, to some point, and particularly if you involve the other groups in the history, it's all a good idea, but I think you cannot avoid the implication that Zen has a history,

[37:02]

or Zen Center has a history. I think that the best way to deal with that is to bring it into the open, sort of, and I would suggest that you write a kind of editor's preference to the history thing, you may already have done this, I don't know, which says something like, uh, doing this history doesn't imply that Zen Center is blah blah blah, or we're all still beginning attentive, blah blah blah, but some major change has occurred. In the last couple years, not that any group is more established, or blah blah blah, or Zen Center is actually any different than it was, maybe it's a little different, but there's some real difference in feeling in the students that the students now seem, a large number of students anyway, seem really willing to practice and make long commitment, and the groups seem mature enough now to try to, [...] to offer the students that practice, and the groups seem strong enough

[38:02]

to encourage the students that there is such a possibility of practice, and I think it's no coincidence that Kaplow got his group, Kaplow's book came out, that New York's Endo, New York group built their new Zendo, and Tassajar, I don't think one's necessary, though I actually, I do think that Tassajar spurred a realization of that opportunity, but I think it's better to say, and just maybe deeper true, I think, and I said, but I think more deeply true, actually, that something was ready in America, and in the students and things, ready for Tassajar and the New York Zendo, that one didn't lead to the Endo, that the changes in America, and in the students, and in the, changed the scene somehow, and that, and that this change, this, this new sense of the possibility of a practice in America that's come about in the last couple years, is a real change. Before the groups remained at studying and going, sending back to Japan or something,

[39:09]

it's not, I mean, of course there were people who wanted to study before that, and thought you could establish Buddhism in America, but something different, and doing a history acknowledges that change, even if it's slight, looking into the history gives us a sense to which maybe that feeling's a fallacy, that that's been that present all along, that let's not make it, maybe the point of the history is to show that we, we're not a big deal, we haven't gotten anywhere. Some, anyway, period. Some sort of discussion like that, I think, would help. Anyway, I get looking at all this. Have you got any reaction to my Carlson piece? Didn't anybody dig it? I mean, did anybody like it? By the way, I still am a little bothered by the fact that it says,

[40:12]

convey the ephemeral quality of his life in the way he listens. I still wish they'd said, convey the ephemeral quality of life in the way he listens. I don't know if that's my change, or your change, or what, but I wish it said ephemeral quality of life in the way he listens. To whatever changes you made, I can't remember exactly, but all in all, when I read it, I have no complaints. I wonder if you got anybody liked it or disliked it, or something like that, what we've heard from Mrs. Carlson. And what about Sterling sings? Did people like it? There like to know any specifics of the reaction to your windbill, which you want to care to send us. By the way, I hope these tapes are such that you can sort of listen to them at odd moments, too, when you're sitting on the Don, or John, or something like that. I love your push away the darkness. As I just said about the history for your mythical

[41:23]

introduction, I agree with that, that there's some need to find a definition. And let me say something about definition right now. I think what you're doing with showing, giving the lineage of the students and things like that, and the students that various teachers so in shock you, etc, whatever his name is, is one step further in the direction I'm going. Because you're not just, that's interesting, I didn't really consciously realize so much until tonight that you were doing that. What you've done, what you're doing is you're giving a definition of, first of all, you're giving, which is what I originally thought, just a history of Zen in America. But more than that, you're showing something about its roots in Japan and the lineage. Okay, when I come to the conclusion that I'm doing here in Japan, primarily perhaps, which I couldn't really quite, I knew intuitively that I sensed that it was right that I should come to Japan in relationship to, I mean, for Zen Center. Zen Center should send someone to Japan at this time. I mean, I felt intrinsically,

[42:29]

I'm not yet ready to accept the idea that Zen Center is sending me to become trained or something. I just, I don't think Zen Center, if that was true, I don't, I mean, let's put it this way, it may be that Zen Center is doing that in some way, but I just don't feel Zen Center is ready for such an idea. They really don't, wouldn't, don't want to do it. And as a member of Zen Center, I don't think they want to do it or something like that. I mean, and as for myself being the one doing it, I'm not, I myself, I'm not clear in my mind enough about my own practice in that sense, and clear enough for where Zen Center's at. I'm not that clear about it to know where my being sent here to train fits in. So I don't feel that way. I feel I'm here in this sense. One, I feel that Zen Center has successfully defined a relationship to Roshi and to its, among its students. It's defining and has the basis of the definition of growth, a pattern

[43:35]

which can be flexibly changed and grown upon, grown through for its own continuation. It also has a definition for its relationship to the society at large, to America and where it fits in. Not a definition, but enough of a definition to, enough of a pattern begun so that, so that the relationship can be explored. I don't think we have a definition to the Japan and China and India and the Asia, the Far East, which produced our teacher and has nourished the various traditions, spiritual traditions, which the West doesn't have. And I don't think we have a definition to Japan and the rest of it either. And I think that, I sort of feel my job, in a way, is to, is to make some of the steps toward that definition, to find out if we can practice here, if students should come to Japan, if when they get here, how long they should stay, how they should

[44:39]

stay, how we can bring up Japan, Japanese to America, what our relationship should be to the various Japanese groups in Japan, whether we should establish relations with particular groovy people here. And there, I guess, I think there are some. And what our, my relationship to Japan is a kind of test case, something like that. In other words, I think, and where Roshi came from and what the patterns are of the monastic situations that are, in other words, I think we have to be free of the Orient and Buddhism, we have to find out what the history and pattern and definition of our relationship should be, could be, was, and is. And anyway, that's what I feel at present. A little more tape. I hate, I hate talking, having the tape over. It's very irritating to me to find I've talked

[45:44]

for 10 minutes and there's no tape. Anyway, by your giving a lineage, you sort of like, I mean, part of it is, part of the last, certainly what the last Ben Owen Bill did, in your history did, you are persisting intuitively along the same lines I am going in giving a definition to Zen Center in the American context and looking into its history. I didn't really realize you were probing that definition the same way I'm going, which is back into Japan. I think that lineage thing is good. I feel that we converge there very nicely without even knowing it. But knowing it, of course, sweetie. So if this history of yours makes some of the newer Zen students, older Zen students, by giving them a sense of the history of the Zen Center and putting them in touch, giving them a sense of where their own history now is at by showing them the previous,

[46:48]

I think that's really groovy. I think what you're doing is great. Okay. I'm crossing out some of my notes here that I've spoken to you about already. By the way, Hip Paul Klysko, who I hope is doing well. Okay, I really dig him and his wife, I hope, I feel. Anyway, anything we can do to help Paul, I would like to do or I can do. Anyway, there's a guy named Al Klyse, K-L-Y-C-E, I think. I'm talking about this partly because it doesn't involve me and the tape will run out in the middle of it and that's groovy. His name is Al Klyse, I think, K-L-Y-C-E. He lived in Mill Valley. He studied carpentry here in Japan. He knows Gary, I don't know how well, but he could probably be found through Gary, but probably unless he's

[47:52]

moved. Are you there? Are you there? I don't doubt if he's moved, but maybe he has. Anyway, tell Paul to get in touch with Al Klyse because Klyse can probably give Paul an idea of who to study with here, what the scene is, and something about it. Maybe Paul can start learning some things in America from Al. I don't know what, but boy, even with my skeptical look on Japan, I had too idealistic an idea, too rosy an idea of how it would be possible for Paul to come here and study carpentry. Oh, Jesus. He could get a job and do it, but most of the building is crap.

[48:57]

Finding a good situation, if he could, would be good, but boy, it's like a miracle because mostly the carpenters wouldn't take well to having a gaijin around one. There's this funny gaijin thing, you know, foreigner gaijin, but also they mostly probably build crap or do some of this or some split wood somewhere or something. Very few of them probably work on a rich man's house still built in the old style or a temple. There must be such people who do nothing but work on temples and things. You could use an assistant, but it beats me. But anyway, Paul might talk to Al Kleist. Anyway, back to my notes. I guess you said the tape of Sterling and I was erased, the television tape. If so, that's good. Somehow it didn't work out. I sort of know why, but it could have been used. It was better that it's lost, I think. It was a good practice session. I've written down here, leg push. And I guess what I mean there, my theory on these leg

[50:05]

businesses is don't let your leg push you around and don't push your leg around. And I know that stuff like that's easier said than done, but I think in all these cases, considering our occupational hazards and also the pressure put on us to make our legs work and the pain, there's a hell of a lot of just plain psychological stuff which goes into any injury, no matter how real the injury is. And that one's got to be careful that you don't let the leg push you around. But at the same time, you've got to be careful not to overcompensate and push the leg around. I'm sort of not talking exactly to you, but because the whole leg, and I may have mentioned this already, but it's mentioning again, because the whole leg problem of yours and Tim's and mine and every person I know, people here too, water in the knee and Graham can't ever sit in session again, is something I'm trying to figure out and think about to the extent that it will make sense

[51:07]

to me. But the best I can come around now is that these kind of leg problems and things that we shouldn't push our legs around, but we shouldn't let them push us around either. Keep sitting somehow in some form or some manner or some chair and just take care, you know, something like that. Please let me know when you need one of my notes. Please let me know when you need the lecture on the Grace Cathedral lecture for the next Windbell. God, I hope that by the time, say, March is over, I'm out from underneath the Carlson, Johnson, Sally Wheeler, Camea, Windbell, sort of heap Beginner's Mind, to some extent, Beginner's Mind, I know Beginner's Mind takes some time, Tyson, Elsie Mitchell. I love writing letters to you and Trudy, and if I had time, more to Claude and Tim and other people,

[52:11]

just to keep in touch with the people that I can say love, really. That's good, but all these other letters to people like Margo Wilkie and Nancy Wilson-Ross and things, these are letters that are what I call second to demand, second string letters, in that I don't have to write them at any particular time, but I should, and those aren't even on my list. But anyway, that pile, I'm actually under a heap. Why can't I get off underneath a fucking heap? No way to live. Sure, by the way, nice to hear your voice. I hear one of these notes, just nice to hear your voice. I like getting info from you about Sokoji, Yvonne, and I thought that your whole business about telling me about the group therapy thing was very interesting, and I liked hearing about Castaneda. I'm trying to read

[53:15]

the book, I have time. I've talked to a lot of people about it, to Metzner and Paul and things, but I do want to read it myself. I read a few, like five pages, and it looks fantastic. Ginny really was moved by it, and Ginny isn't a reader, and that's unusual for you to read something alone, just gobble it down. And it's been very popular, everybody's after me to borrow it. And by the way, let me say that all of my equipment, sleeping bag and down jacket and plastic raincoat and stuff like that, has been absolutely essential in Japan. It's kept me warm, kept me dry in my robes, kept me warm hidden under my robes, allowed me to sleep in this house before Gary got here, and allows us to have guests, etc., the sleeping bags. I don't feel I made a mistake in any of it. And the books, I must have the best, and I knew this was going to be true. I knew that there wouldn't be another library. I've checked out Ruth Furusaki's

[54:15]

library, and it's all old stuff, mostly in Japanese, and the stuff that's in English is all the books of ten years ago, and not any of the new translations. I mean, for a working library in Buddhism, modern texts available, I probably have maybe the best English Buddhist library in Japan. I don't know any scholar in the field who would plan to be here so long and would have as many, or any scholar who's that involved in Buddhism, and there's English, so I mean, I don't know, at least maybe someone, but it's not accessible, so that everybody wants to borrow books, because one of the reasons I brought them is to make them available to the community here. And if I can begin to get, at first, when I first came on the ship, sort of idealistically, I did read a bit. On the ship, I tried to read, I felt, well, now I'll make a schedule where I read a couple hours each day, and when I first got to Japan, I squeezed in a bit here and there, but now I've just given up on it. But I, I mean, I just need to read for blood,

[55:19]

you know, my own blood nourishment. So if I can, and I am doing actually more reading than I did in the States, I get a bit here and a bit there, and I've read a chapter of Jung, and things like that. But if I can get to this library and work through it over the next year, next year and a half, I will have covered a good deal of what I feel I've got to cover thoroughly and well, if I'm going to make my visit pay off in the sense of being able to understand the taisho, the difficult lectures, and to respond intelligently and understand intelligently what's going on here in the monastic situation, what the practices actually mean, so I can be of some use to Zen Center. I mean, I think it's going to, it's the thing that's going to ripen me for, for understanding what happens, and understanding quickly what's going on in the Shingon mudra scene, and what

[56:23]

the mudras are, without having to, etc. So I can learn quickly. I think it's the only way I can make my time, I feel very conscious of the fact that Zen Center money is going to help me, I can make my time pay off for Zen Center. My library's become quite famous, by the way. People talk about, people come over all the time, and that's why I'm putting my no visitors on the door, except some people who could actually make use of, not just curiosity, make use of the library. I've told them, verbally, that they can come to visit. To think, poor Peter, you have to sit through an hour and a half, 19 minutes, I think it is, of my talking to you. Oh my God, without me having to talk back to you, poor guy, I hope you're doing okay. Two tapes, my God, two hours, an hour and a half, that's three hours. Well, it may be better than letters, I don't know,

[57:24]

because you can sort of, like, it's more enjoyable to sit back, it doesn't demand that way. I don't know. Anyway, it's interesting, I'm interested in seeing how this tape thing works out, and I'd sure like to have more tapes from you. Anytime you have a minute, play one, talk for a few minutes before you go to bed, or play it, turn it on, inadvertently, what people in your office talking, I love hearing people come in and say, hello, how are you, what's going on, blah, blah, blah. By the way, why don't you, I don't know where you live now, but I just thought of today, I don't know why you think of these things, but the cabin I used to have, why don't you move into the room with the desk in it, and somebody else, Tim, of course, his wife couldn't, but somebody liked him, move into the other room, who's an officer, you know, sort of a tessera, and use the front room for a meeting room, and then you'd have a desk, and blah, blah, blah, working wind-bound, blah, blah, blah, you know. I don't know, just one of my ideas, which you've thought of already, I'm sure, discussed and discarded. By the way, I have another little note here. On that first tape,

[58:25]

open a tape on this, on that first tape, on the second side, where you hear the Japanese girl talking, who's the announcer for the thing, the rock and roll records, really, the second section should be off, the first section's enough for you who don't understand the words. She has the most sexy voice I've ever heard by a Japanese girl on the radio or off the radio, and she's coming on in the most marvelous way, and you get that in the first one, there's no need to sit through a second one, except the first one, she talks about how beautiful white snow is, or something like that, I don't quite understand it, and the second one, she talks about she's just seen her boyfriend, or just been, slept with her, I don't know what, but something about, she's just done seen her boyfriend, and she feels wonderful, or groovy, or something, you know, but knowing Japanese, knowing a little Japanese, or if you know Japanese, the second one is really more interesting than the first, so I left them both in, normally I would have cut it out. Okay, what you're really doing is more a chronicle than a history, in a sense, or sort of history, history, I mean, having been in history graduate school, undergraduate,

[59:28]

I don't know if you know exactly what a chronicle is, but a chronicle is, of course, the early histories, which are mostly detailed events, and don't try to interpret, or are not analytical, there's a better distinction than that, but I don't know quite what it is, I can't remember, it's more a purpose, a chronicle's purpose is to, for the benefit of the people involved, to describe the events, a history is more to present the events for later people to evaluate, to analyze, and criticize them. I don't think you're putting Zen Center and Philadelphia Zen Center up for evaluation, exactly, it's more like a chronicle in the best sense of it. You have Cambridge before Kepler Group, it is, you know, I think the second oldest group in the

[60:34]

United States, and so maybe you should come after the first Zen Institute in New York, might be the proper place for it, but it's up to you, I know that the others fall in because they're a related Philadelphia group and all, but no, I think it's the first Zen Institute, and then the Cambridge group, and then the Berkeley things, maybe, and then the New York Taishan group, or us, and then the Taishan group, I don't know, something like that, you know it better than I do now, but anyway, the Cambridge group is also quite important and famous for its scholarly connection, like with Holmes Welch and all, who has promoted the Cambridge Buddhist Society, and tried to sustain it along with Elsie for many years, going to meetings and things, and Holmes, who's, the result has been a way of Holmes

[61:36]

nourishing his own interest in Buddhism, to do his two-volume sort of definitive work on Chinese monasteries, and his really highly praised book on Taoism, on top of the fact that he was able to find nourishment in the Cambridge group, but I think more important is, from the Japanese point of view, is, I didn't know much about this, but there's some famous scholar who started, or who was one of the first people who was at Harvard, and he was involved, Elsie was his assistant or something, he was involved with the founding of the Cambridge Society, I don't quite know, but you must know it from, know it from Elsie, but I knew him, I can't remember, but she probably wrote about him, I can't remember who he is exactly, but I do know that here, when his name has come up, I mean, he's very important and famous in Japan, I think, whereas in America, I knew he was some guy, and some scholar, but in the Buddhist world here in Japan, I've heard references to him, I don't know how I, why he came up, or somebody

[62:38]

referred to him, he's a person with the Cambridge study, but like a big deal, like he's like one of DT Suzuki's in Japan, or something like, I mean, or big time Zen scholars, or scholars, and I don't know, but you know, some like big reputation here, that not very many people have, so that would be important to the Cambridge Society, of course, their scholarly effort, of course, is continued, and they're bringing out the bibliographies, and lists of reading, reading lists, and keeping in it, what no other group does, and very, very much, I think, in balance, I would suggest, by the way, that you, if you haven't, you get a telegram, or a letter off, if you still have time, to Walter Nowick in Surrey, Maine, his address is simply Surrey, Maine, S-U-R-R-E-Y,

[63:40]

Maine, Nowick, N-O-W-I-C-K, it's about 50 miles from Bangor, and his phone number is 207-667-5188, 207-667-5188, and ask him for a blip on the early days in Japan, and how he practiced in the New York group, and things, and also, I would recommend that you talk to Gary. Gary, you may have never met before, but have met now, if you hadn't met him before, is, you may know, he's sort of, in important ways, I think, strayed, or not continued his Zen practice, Zen way, but he has an enormous amount of information as a scholar, and he's a really marvelous person. His drawback with his information is, and he does it,

[64:42]

I think, unconsciously, is he uses information to dominate situations, and the information isn't always integrated. His need to use it, sort of, situations, though his understanding is often really fantastic, I think. His need to, his psychic use of the information sometimes means that he uses it when it's not so deeply integrated and understood. So, one has to be aware of that when you're talking to him about information, otherwise you start getting irritated and feeling flooded. However, he would be a great source of information, if you haven't used him already, because he also was the attendant, I believe, I know he was, lived with Miro Roshi on the early Zen group in New York, and blah, blah, blah, and his own feeling, because I think the Dharma Bums, and Gary, and Kerouac's feeling about the Dharma Bums, I think they met

[65:49]

D.T. Suzuki after he'd written the Dharma Bums, Gary did, and Kerouac did, though I'm not sure, that feeling in Gary's first session, that book represented another level, though they may have read D.T. Suzuki, another level of America ready to zap in, as well as an influence, like, why did they do that? And also, it also, for a lot of young people, was the okay, the needed okay to make the D.T. Suzuki work. But be careful of Roshi's history, and down here, scheduled something, scholarship, careful of Roshi's history and scholarship. His education has been to sectarian, I don't think he's still sectarian himself,

[66:56]

his education has been sectarian in an important way, went to Soto, but more important than, he went to Soto University, of course, but much more, and his teacher, of course, his Dharma teacher was a scholar, or something like that, but Soto Zen Master. But much more important than that is that the whole Japanese educational system, even if you didn't go to Soto University, is slanted toward proving Japan is great. As far as I can tell, even Gaijin kids who watch television come away from the little cartoons feeling anti-Gaijin. As far as I can tell, Japanese scholarship has been and is aimed at making Japan seem great, and Japanese Buddhism, Japanese scholars are full of the thing that all leads up to Shin, or all of Japan is the one place to sort of justify imitation, the one place which is really preserved, it's the one place where you can find pure, maybe too pure, too clean-cut, but

[68:00]

pure Buddhism in all its aspects and forms, and this is where it's at, and the rest of the countries really didn't make it, fell apart and got sort of inundated in China, and it doesn't exist in India anymore. And I think in particular, also, there's a, there's a, and Gary has some ideas on this, there's a way the Japanese understand India, and Indian scholarship is primitive, and even today it's primitive, people don't know much about it, the interest in Sanskrit in Japan is, I'm just guessing, but it's not so old, 30, 40 years, or something like that, maybe a little older, but I don't think much longer than that. When Roshi was studying, when he learned about India years ago, I don't think that interest in India, well, it barely started, he probably read books written, most of his basic orientation was written before the books on India, any new insights in India came out, maybe he was a young man acquainted with the newer books, but his writings on India are especially kind of one-sided,

[69:03]

the Indians are too philosophical, and you know, they went out in the mountains and they did this and that, and they were householders before, blah, blah, blah, it's pure lore, almost, you know, it's not too strong, but it's, and the Indians were, I know in a beginner's mind it occurs a little bit, the kind of way of, he's describing, I'm sure, what's taught as history in Japan, but by modern scholarship it's a complete sort of funny slight as the Indians are being, sort of not skillful and not really able to make things work, something like that. So you've got to be careful of that kind of thing, and particularly in the history of Mahayana Buddhism, unless it's, it works when it's his feeling of how we understand Mahayana Buddhism, it doesn't work when he's giving, well, I don't know, I mean, sometimes when he talks about the

[70:11]

interrelationship between Hinayana and Mahayana, it's better than anybody. When he starts giving evaluations of Hinayana in relation to Mahayana or something, the interrelations he's good on, the evaluations, evaluations being based on information and scholarship, I'm wary of, so I would be a wary of this new lecture. The lecture, you haven't sent me the lecture you said you were going to, or would probably, or something, of Roshi's History of Mahayana for this windmill. If you don't, I'd appreciate having you send me one, if there's any possibility that I could read it and immediately send back my comments, if you want, if there's still that much time. Airmail can get here in two days, but if you don't have time or busy or whatever reason, I don't care, you might show it to Gary, because Gary knows more basic scholarship than I do and is helpful and critical and good. He could be helpful there. He should be back sometime soon,

[71:18]

huh? He told me he went away to Mexico for a month, and that was the end of Jan, so this is the end of Feb almost, huh? You started a story about Mickey Stunkard or something he told you, but you never told me. By the way, he, and you said you couldn't repeat it because it didn't record or something, but I sort of just wished you dead. He told me, by the way, that one time it was the guy who wrote, Durkheim, who wrote Hara, who got, who was involved with the Hirohitos, the second in charge, or the second in charge under Tojo, I guess it was, who was a, who seemed to be much cooler than the other prisoners and sat and did zaz and etc., and they became, Durkheim became friendly with him and turned, I guess, Stunkard on to him, and then Stunkard turned Kaplow on to it, and then Kaplow went back to America, and then through that first turn on got to D.C. Suzuki's lectures or something like that, but now Stunkard told me once that

[72:23]

Kaplow denies this, this connection that it came out of him himself, or something, I don't know, but Stunkard has some antagonism in the way he described it to me once about the way Kaplow tries to take more credit for, I don't know, something, something, something. I have a little note here which says, I'm glad to know we don't have to wait on the tape while you shit. I guess that must be in reference to, it sounded like you were going to, you said something, I'm going to go shit now, like you're just going to go sit and leave the tape on, and we're going to, because we got so involved with hearing you, we just expected to go on, we're going to sit and wait, and you wiped yourself and blah blah, but luckily you turned the tape off and come right back, so it's like it didn't happen. I have here microphones, please, near your non-muffled face, yeah. Don't quote me on sangha feeling problems. Yeah, I'm a little, yeah, I don't want to get too blah blah blah. I've got written, I've got written here, I've got much,

[73:26]

I've got much asking myself questions, like why do I hate myself? I guess I mean I ask myself the same kind of questions. Mother doesn't follow blah blah blah. Anyway, I guess you, you know, like, I guess you were talking about why you might have some hate for yourself or something, because your mother does or something, and I've had, I have those same kind of insights all the time, and I follow them along, just like you do. I have some other notes here all about, um, you know, like, agreeing with you, you know, saying, yeah, I feel the same way, something like that. I can't hardly read my handwriting, and, but one in here says, you have a very good inside, inside, Peter, but outside shell is fucked up. What exactly I meant, but I wrote that down. Um, I don't know, outside shell is pretty nice too. Um, Ruth Denison I have down here. Well,

[74:33]

her husband's here, and, um, I don't quite know what's going on there yet. He's a little touchy, and, uh, uh, trying to establish some sort of thing here around himself or with himself, but he's, uh, making, making some enemies, and I don't quite understand what's going on. He's coming to visit me a couple times. I've never gotten to visit him. He keeps asking me to, but I have a, my policy is not visiting anybody anyway, but he's a little touchy. He's very no thinking in Zen. I guess he may be kind of acid Zen. I don't know. That's what someone said, but it's, um, completely against any intellectual side to Zen. It's just sitting in your groove into, you know, it's, you don't have to think anything, just give up thinking and sit and sit to your enlightened, that kind of thinking. I don't know what's going on with him, but, um, he's, he's very elegant, um, white, uh, white and gray bearded, very trimmed, uh, quite rich.

[75:35]

I think he seems to live like he's got a million or two in the bank somewhere, car and buys a lot of equipment and lives well and rents a house and supports his wife. And so he looks pretty well off. Uh, yeah. You say Nagarjuna is your thing. My thing too. God, I love Nagarjuna. Right now he's seeming a little too philosophical for me in the versions I see of him, but I think it's probably the mind of the interpreters and translators who can deal with the, the, uh, the logic as it explicits itself once you're onto it, but, uh, not with the feeling tone, but I don't know. Anyway, Nagarjuna has been one of my great thrills. I'm glad to know that you're into him too. More than me, you read a lot more than me, but, um, um, I want to read those things too. So I can talk with you about it,

[76:39]

deal with you about it. You talked in your tape very slowly and pleasantly made us all feel very relaxed and happy. How are Tim and Claude and Silas and John and Yvonne and what's this? Pleased to my anger. You don't know pleasure to, I don't understand it. The next page. Okay. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to stop here and I'm going to go back to your tape and see if I have any more comments to add. And then I'll come back to this and either add those comments or sign off for an hour. Bye. Well, I'm back after having listened to the remainder of your tape again for the second or third time. And, um, while I was doing that, I cooked, um, while I was listening to the tape, I

[77:44]

coddled a three eggs on the little Aladdin heater here. And, um, before the water came to boil, I took the eggs out and I'm eating them now with garlic and salt and pepper and, um, and milk. I don't know why I put a lot of milk in, but I put a lot of milk in. Because the Japanese milk tastes sour. I don't know why it always tastes sour. So I don't, except to sip it, I don't do it, drink it so much, but the little cup I poured myself, I just poured right in. Rod in here. My eggs. I hope you can hear me. I'm not talking too loud. Um, Denison, by the way, said that, um, Henry Denison said that his wife had written him. Said that Tassar was the best place she'd ever sat anywhere in the world. And it was just absolutely groovy place to sit. Whether she said more or less than that, I don't know, but he said, she said that much. Um, so anyway, I'm going to eat this and

[78:47]

try to go to bed soon. So, um, I eat this now. I won't have to get up with Ginny because I will have already eaten. I can sleep a little longer. That certainly was an intense description you gave me of your experience in the encounter group. One of my notes had been, I read my notes. I read my notes for a little flip, but, um, after re-hearing why I'd put those notes down, I'm not quite so flip. I must say that to all those words you used though, nihilism and hating yourself and, um, psychopathic kind of emptiness, emptiness. All seem very familiar to me. I don't know

[79:51]

if I'm saying like you or anything, but they seem familiar. Um, interested in, um, the encounter thing. I've thought about it myself, though I've never been in an encounter. Um, you know, should Zen students like go off to encounters or should we bring to encounter to Zen students or should we use encounter techniques in our meetings? Kind of things I have a tendency toward slightly myself, I think. And, um, it might be interesting to, um, either allow some Zen students to go or to bring somebody to get to them. I'm sure Mike Murphy would go along with it. If I wrote and asked him, I don't know how, what your relationship with him is. If, um, a guy who wrote joy or, or, um, somebody could come in, uh, from Esalen or from anywhere or

[80:53]

Claudio, I'm sure Claudio would do it. Come in and give an encounter group. Next, um, um, next summer at Tassajara allow the students to go and, um, would, um, or anytime and it would, um, let the students, um, get a feeling for encounter. So they know where they wanted to use it themselves or go to encounter groups themselves later without, or whether, um, encounter techniques and approaches could be brought into our Zen center meetings or something or I don't know what, you know, something, I don't know. But anyway, it might be interesting to, I don't think you make any extended arrangement between Zen and psychoanalysis this time or whether we want to, but I'd be interested to make a slight overlap and having them give an encounter group at Tassajara this summer. I think Roshi might agree. I wish you'd keep, let's see, something else I wanted to say. Yeah, by the way, uh, getting

[81:59]

Claudio down there, I think Claudio is a good, Claudio is a good person, it seems to me. Uh, it's nice that you're having contact with him. I really respect him. Yeah, I don't know him too well, but, uh, extent to which I do, I'm very impressed with him, like him very much. Uh, uh, Gary, as you saw from my earlier thing, presents a complex, uh, kind of position, approach for Zen center, because he knows, and has studied Zen for so long and yet he isn't exactly a Zenner. You know, something, I don't tell him I said that. He might be offended or something, I don't know. But anyway, um, Roshi, I know, uh, Claude told me Roshi said that, wrote me, Claude wrote me that Roshi said that he didn't want to invite to Gary down in some, some sort of role to Tassajara, but one thing I think we might do, and I think I'll probably write to Roshi this, that, um, we might, um, Zen center might invite, um,

[83:05]

um, Gary to give a lecture on something like Zen and the primitive, or, uh, the, uh, Paleolithic, uh, culture and, uh, Zen or early indigenous, or shamanism and Zen, or shamanism and Buddhism, some sort of anthropological kind of thing, with historical, um, background and knowing, and he's really very good on it. A little bit, maybe, um, it's the, uh, communist union, uh, slightly sort of communist, early 30s communist ideas about where the world operates, uh, or built into his anthropology a bit, but he's still a superb, uh, lecturer and fund of information on these kind of topics, and has some really brilliant and original ideas, um, and it's, it's, it's that kind of connection, like, uh, um, uh, shamanism

[84:08]

and Buddhism, and his, uh, his own experience as an initiate into the Yamabushi, the mountain Buddhism, Shingon, which would give Gary a, uh, this is all confidential with you, which would give Gary a, this whole tape, confidential, which would give Gary a feeling for, uh, the exceptions I mentioned before, give, uh, uh, I mean, whatever we do relate to Gary, it participates in the definition of Gary, uh, as a Zen person in America. I think to, uh, to, to ignore him, uh, uh, isn't right, and that just, uh, uh, enhances his, uh, definition, um, which is, it exists, uh, is, is a sort of Zen master. If we invite him as a teacher, that enhances his position as a Zen master. Maybe he should be, or will be, or a Zen master, or something, um, but at the present time, I think we do more to make his, his, uh, his, um, definition, uh, more

[85:10]

realistic if we invite him to, to, to talk, not as a Zen teacher, but as a Zen sort of scholar, anthropologist to Zen center, and, uh, have him come down and spend a, um, uh, weekend or a week with Masa, and, uh, I don't know, just after this practice period is a sort of thing right after the Sesshin, kind of a bonus after the Sesshin, which ends the practice period, and have him give such a, uh, talk on, uh, say, Tantrism or Buddhism and Shamanism, would be a very good topic to suggest to him. I think Buddhism and Shamanism is various, and Shamanism has some very interesting ideas about it, and knows a lot about the Buddhism, which would connect in, and, uh, I think, um, I, you'd have to get Roshi's permission, of course, uh, but I think that it would, um, uh, be good for Gary and Zen Center. I'm very interested in how your future encounters go, uh, if and when you attend more, and tell me how they go, I'm very interested, um, uh,

[86:16]

nice to know, I got little notes here, nice to know, it's nice to know your attention has gotten lower, I wish I could do something to make it lower, or give you back rub or something, you and Sally are both bastards, also nice to know that, or sort of, nearly, just missed, but nice to know the pipe, uh, from across the, across the stream by Roshi's cabin is gone, and, um, boom, boom, boom, uh, please keep extra batteries down there, uh, about to buy, maybe by 20, so you don't run out, and, uh, if no one wants to, if no one is taping the lectures of Roshi's, because it's such a big drag to, um, get them, and then copy them, and send a copy to me, and everything like that, and then what to do with them, why don't you, if you could, or somebody, just tape them, and send the copy that, kind of, you get just directly to me, and just write on it,

[87:23]

only copy, and then I'll keep it as an only copy, and if Zen Center ever wants to get rid of program of transcribing all these tapes, or something, or if one really hits me, I might transcribe it for the wind bell, or something, but at least they exist that way, and they're no problem for anybody, it's not that much work to turn on this little Sony. Some of the tapes have been, the first tape I listened to that was sent to me, Roshi's lecture wasn't made very well, picked up a lot of hum, this thing, as you know, tunes into whatever sounds are around, so if it's near a, I don't know, even a Aladdin lamp, which might hum, or something, if it's near it, and Roshi's voice isn't, it's sort of balanced, it's not sort of halfway between the hum and Roshi's voice, for instance, I'll give you a good example, on the katatsu, the first tape you listened to, you arrived today in a package, when I'm talking, you can't hear the, when the katatsu, by the way, katatsu is a table with a blanket, and underneath

[88:23]

it a heater, and the heater sort of has a bulb, and it sort of hums, the way a refrigerator does, but when I'm talking, and the microphone's sitting on the table, there's no hum, you don't pick it up, because the microphone focuses into my voice, as soon as you are listening to the music box, and Sally in her room, it focuses at a longer distance, and tries to pick up Sally's room, but also picks up the hum, and enlarges it enormously, well, something like that could have occurred on some of Roshi's tapes, I don't know where the hum comes from, something, maybe the stream, it may focus in on the stream, and pick up that noise, I think that's what it does, so it has to be fairly close to Roshi, but then it won't pick up the questions, because then it has to readjust itself to get the questions, but something, anyway, the second, the other two tapes that were good, but if you could just make them, and send them to me, if people don't want to go through that other hassle, I'd be glad to keep them, and we could use them, okay, how's Chino, like to know, I've got some photos of myself,

[89:23]

which are in here, you can see them in Ginny and Sally, which I thought might be amusing for the wind bell, I like this way, skeptical Buddha's peering over our head, my head, my head, and I'm peering at Sally's, you know, looking over Sally's head, but the Buddha looks very skeptical of who that person is, in a beard, there's a boy coming, maybe I'll put a note in, named Chick Pierce, who would like to visit Tassara, I don't know if it's possible, he's somebody who sits at Naitoguchi for about a year, and I told him it might not be possible on the road, maybe they may not want to visitors, but it would be good if, and if it's convenient, and people feel like having a visitor, he'd be a good person, I think, on the basis of things in Japan, to have, to see Tassara, and have some information, and maybe a positive feeling about it, at least an information. Well, that's all my second batch of notes, the only thing I was going to add, I'm going to try to squeeze it in the other tape, the ending to the other tape, I suppose I could have added to

[90:23]

this one, I don't know why the hell I didn't, I should have just added to this one, would have made much more sense, but I had it in my mind to squeeze it in the other one, is that I didn't mean to, what am I trying to say about Roshi's lecture, the way you edited, it's very good, there's no doubt about that, I'm not complaining, it's a feeling that you've caught the essence of it, but not the irrationality of it, I mean, it's so understandable, the idea, I mean, you've made the idea, the idea is so clear, and Roshi may have, this I said before, but the tape ran out, Roshi may have actually said that, just in that way, but it feels like you've got the center part of a lecture, and there aren't the, it's so clear, it pulls you in and gives you

[91:31]

an example, but it doesn't have all those sort of fingers that reach out, that gently hold you and involve you and whisper in your ear, I don't know quite what I mean, but that's how I feel, and as you know, I feel that the lectures in the wind bell are the most, really the thing which makes the whole wind bell work, gives all the rest of it that extra dimension, and I guess I said, I don't remember what I said, and what got cut off, but I feel that without really good lectures, the wind bell as a whole won't work. Anyway, not that the lecture wasn't good, it's fine, it's another thing of sensing a kind of direction, which may be to make the lectures too understandable and clear. I have to check that tendency in myself, anyway, I know.

[92:39]

I'm going to go to bed now, and I'll come back to this tape tomorrow, after I come back from Gary Graham, and I'll add whatever notes at that time need to be added. Goodbye, Peter, sleep tight, whatever you're going to do, do it. Do It didn't go to bed just yet,

[93:46]

I'll turn on the radio for a second.

[93:50]

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