and of producing, in a certain way, a certain type of personality, the Zen monk personality of the Sōdōs, with a kind of roughness and directness, and sometimes rudeness about them, all of those things which are identified by modern Japanese people as being the Zen style, the Zen monk style, the Sōdō style, and the things which, in a vaguer way, Westerners think of when they think of Zen monasteries, those who have read a little bit, they think of the stick, they think of the threatening roshi, they think of the early morning rising and the sutra chanting and so forth. What about that image of Zen training? What do you think there is a benefit, say, in early rising and in that kind of diet and so forth? How does that connect with Kōran study and Zazen, and with what's essential to your mind? Well, I think there are many things that do not connect. I think we have to think of the

[01:09]

Sōdō life as having present-day Sōdō life, or the remnants of Sōdō life that exist today, to have originated in Tokugawa Japan, in mid-Tokugawa Japan, when Hakuin reformed everything, the whole of Rinzai Zen. And I think there are many things which are purely Japanese cultural, things that belong to Japanese manners, which are not of necessity, have nothing to do with Zen itself. I think there are many, many things in the Sōdō life which are correct to produce the kind of man they want for a temple, or has been correct to produce the kind of man they wanted to be the priests of temples, and so forth. And

[02:14]

I think much of it has other kinds, there are many values in it also. I think, but let's take up a few of the things that belong to Japanese culture alone, and Japanese life alone. The fact that you go barefoot all the time, must go barefoot, that has nothing to do with the Sōdō at all, it has nothing to do with Zen, I mean. Japanese people of lower class go barefoot all the year round in the house, and do all kinds of things barefoot. It means nothing to them to go barefoot. It means an ascetic practice for us, but it isn't an ascetic practice for Japanese people. The maids that I have here do their washing in bare feet in the middle of the winter with cold water, 30 days a month, and there's nothing you can do, you can buy them

[03:17]

rubber shoes to put on and say you're going to get cramps in the stomach, but they will not do it because they've always gone around in their bare feet and they prefer to do it. So for Japanese monks, bare feet don't mean asceticism, it don't mean giving up something warm, because they've never had it that way, most of them coming from country temples, or from the houses of farmers, and so forth. The question of communal sleeping, such as you have in a big Zendo, one sleeping with side by side and with only a certain number of kimonos and a certain number of futon permitted. Well, I don't know about that. That has a certain health value. I mean, if you have a stimulated circulation and that sort of thing, I suppose you can work and live, I'm not talking

[04:27]

about Zazen practice, but that's a little different, but in a few kimonos without underwear and sleep that way with a thin futon on top of yourself, even in the wintertime. But I think we have to consider the number of cases of monks who come down with tuberculosis while they're in the monastery, and what part does this over-extreme insistence upon too few clothes, to just not being sensible about them, have to do in bringing it on. The same thing comes with the food. The food that they have to eat is basic Japanese food, except that it's in poor quantity and poor quality, both. It's lacking in quantity, perhaps. The way they eat it is

[05:28]

ridiculous, and if they're swallowing this hot rice as they do and eating in a hurry, I don't know why you have to eat in a hurry, I don't know what Zen principle is involved in eating in a hurry, throwing this hot rice into your face as they do, and the result of that is the large number of stomach cancers which Zen monks have. I mean, that to my mind is a perfectly ridiculous way they're eating, the way most of them eat. Practically all of them do. And then they go out for their tensions and they eat like, what I say, like snakes. They fill themselves up to their guts and everything upright up to their ears, and it takes them three or four days to digest what they eat. And there's no sense, to my view, in the eating part of Soto life. I'm not talking about,

[06:31]

again, the obsession part, because I think that the food is quite adequate for obsession. I don't think there's any need to change that, but the general everyday food. And getting up in the morning? Well, if you're young and husky, I don't think that it makes any difference for you whether you get up in the morning or whether you don't get up at four o'clock. I don't mean by that, I don't think anything is gained particularly one way or another. And maybe it's all right, but of course we have to take it that that whole custom of getting up at four o'clock in the morning came from the habits of the Chinese emperors. They always gave their morning, their audiences three or four o'clock in the morning. And that is, you would have to decide what value that had. You would have to trace it back to what started it. But is there a value

[07:35]

in that time business? I don't know. I couldn't answer that. Although I must say that one of the things I've enjoyed for years more than anything else was getting up at four o'clock in the morning or a little after four and going up to Ryoan-ji in the dawn. I loved it. And I don't consider that that's any hardship provided you can get six hours sleep a night. And if you can go to bed by 10 or 11 and big strong husky boys don't mean quite so much perhaps. I don't think there's anything wrong in it and I think it has a certain value. Did they get up at three o'clock in the summertime? Yeah. They get about five hours sleep in the summer. Six in the winter. Well, I lived for years on six hours sleep and did a lot more than just zazen. Of course,

[08:37]

they do a lot of samu. Now, the samu part of it, I think there's a certain amount is, it certainly is fine. The physical exercise is fine as an antidote to the sitting. Couldn't be better. But we have to take into consideration that samu here has to be done because of the size of the temples, the type of the buildings, the gardens, and that sort of thing. And that you consider only that kind of work, samu, it seems to me a very narrow way of looking at it. I think as much that to learn how to do samu, in what spirit and with what total absorption in that simple work of sweeping or cleaning or lifting rocks and all that sort of thing, that I think

[09:43]

it's fine. But I think there are other kinds of samu as well. And, but they are, this is stressed here as samu because of the particular style of the buildings and the style of the gardens and so forth. Of course, it's quite true in China that in the early days that people earned, the Zen monks were famous for their samu, for their garden work, and they're supporting themselves with their own, the food that they raised. Of course, people don't do that in these city temples anyway. They don't have the grounds for it. When it comes to the manners, I think there's no question that the manners, they are based upon Tokugawa feudal manners. And they, for today, they are certainly in appearance, they are exaggerated. But I think

[10:52]

on the whole that, and I don't think they specially belong to Zen, but I think they're admirable discipline, admirable training myself. I have no objection to the formalities. I think they're very handsome, they're traditional, and I think the disciplinary side of learning them and conforming to them is excellent. Because I have seen, for instance, at Nansenji, the first year I went and seen country boys come in for their first year in the Sodo. And I've seen them three or four years later, when they came in as just louts. And at the end of three or four years, they were gentlemen. They could entertain anybody. I mean, their manners were such, their neat,

[11:55]

clean, exact appearance, their just this and this to their kimonos and all. They could go any place in any society because their manners were so beautiful and so in company. Now that they are rough with one another, and brusque with one another, I think, I don't know whether that is Japanese or, I don't, personally I don't think it has to be Zen, but it may be, I don't know, Japanese idea of it. What else is there? Sutra chanting, of course, I'm a great believer in a certain amount of that. I think it should be a kind of studied and practiced as a meditation practice, and which I think it's intended to be, and means a technique of meditation.

[12:58]

I think it's a great, it's a very important thing. What about the study, the fact that Zen monks, and so do I, inhibits any kind of reading or book study of Buddhism? Do you think that's overstressed? I think it's spoken about in the wrong way. I'm absolutely in agreement that certainly for the first few years, and even if you are, well, we have to take that monks living in the Sōdo are living there, as Shibuyama Roshi said, for a different purpose. Then they have to learn many sutras, they have to learn how to conduct many ceremonies, they have to learn how to manage a temple. You have many things to learn which are not connected with Zen study itself. But I am absolutely of the opinion that for as long a time as possible, five years, six years, seven years,

[14:06]

that a man should not read books. He shouldn't even read newspapers if he can keep from doing it. The longest time possible for a person studying koans to not to study external things, I think is very important. But after a certain point, where they get where they are, a person is able to use any work that he does, reading or writing or washing the dishes in the kitchen or whatever it is, still continue his inner Zazen practice, then I think he may begin. But give him as long a time as possible without anything. I don't mean the whole 10 years or 12 years, but certainly three or four or five without study. But then I think,

[15:13]

of course, that they should have had a great deal of study before they went in, a great deal of study. And I think they should have a great deal of study when they come out. In a more general way, do you find much of positive value in this? It's not just Zen, of course, it's within the whole of Buddhism, in this practice of monks removing themselves from society and from the world for a period of time, cutting off family ties and ordinary ties and becoming a member of a special and somewhat isolated community. Well, you call it a solo and isolated community? Yeah, in a sense it definitely is. It's a very special community. It's not in the stream of life as a whole in the same way. Well, I don't think anybody who is going to try to develop an interior life can do it from the beginning in the midst of the crowd. I think we've all got to,

[16:17]

anybody's got to, and I think in the past people always have a certain period of time. I don't think it's that for the layman, I certainly wouldn't recommend the monk's way, but you have to think even in the sodos, today at least, they have only six months in the year when they're really isolated. A lot of those guys are there longer than that, actually. They don't really get to go home. They stay many weeks before and after, and some of them aren't allowed to go home at all during the interim period. Well, I guess the first year they're not allowed to. No, I think it's, I would have no objection even to three or four years of being isolated. Do you think there's a positive? Oh, I do, definitely so. You just don't have a lot of concentration on your work.

[17:17]

Because if the, just take it that when I spoke about the little girl that said hello, or good morning, now that of course was in an obsession period, but that not having outside worries, outside diversions, outside thoughts coming in for a period, long period of time, is certainly conducive to the development of this, what, intuitive awakening, or whatever you want to call it. And it can certainly be done much better that way, I think. Much better. Here's another question, which is kind of a prickly question, and it's very basic, and you may not even want to answer it, and that is, from your standpoint, do you see any intrinsic value in the traditional Buddhist monk's insistence on celibacy and on vegetarianism

[18:25]

for a person who wants to do Zen study? Well, I have some views on that. Well, I think it depends partly upon people. I think it's, on races, shall we say, I think it's not very difficult for, hasn't been very difficult for Japanese people to be vegetarians. I think there are these other items, like tofu and that, and beans and bean paste and things like that, which will take the place of meat, and that if they were to eat correctly within their diet, that they could, within the possibilities of their diet, that they could be adequately fed. I don't think that foreign people, Europeans and Americans, can accept that kind of diet,

[19:29]

not that they can't accept with their mind, they can't, that's simple, but to have their, this physical organism accept that kind of diet, I think is very difficult. And personally, I don't think that meat-eating interferes to any great extent with one's spiritual attainment or the attaining spirituality. But I do think, for instance, during the ocession weeks, I'm only speaking from my own experience, that the kind of food that you have at ocession, which is light, which is starchy, is apt to have more sugar than you other times have, the kind of diet, of food, that takes very little effort to digest and is quickly turned into energy. And you don't need much food when you're doing it, you're better,

[20:30]

you must not have much food. So I would, myself, and I always have, if I were doing any continued Zazen practice, even when I was not at Zanzen-ji, I used to do it here, take a week off at a time, and eat absolutely nothing but vegetarian food. And I think that is absolutely necessary for that period of time when you're giving 8, 10, 12, 14 hours a day to Zazen. And I think, certainly, that light vegetarian food is the proper food for that period. But between those periods, I don't think that foreigners should try to live on a vegetarian diet unless they happen to have their system, their bodies, to adjust to a Japanese diet. And it certainly should not be the meager Japanese diet that is given day by day in the Sodo.

[21:32]

Now, when it comes to the question of celibacy, I don't know about young men. I think, probably, that one of the main reasons for celibacy in Buddhism has been that if you were bothered with girls, that was really a bother, and it interfered with your Zazen practice and so forth. And if girls were, women were cut off, and you knew that there was no chance to think about them or to go out with them, that was just as if with money is with money. You don't have anything to do with money. You're not earning money, and you're not spending money. So money is not a concern. Of course, girls are not quite like money because they are a physical concern. And at Danzenji in those

[22:39]

old days, I don't know what the boys do in this monastery. I haven't any idea. But they used to regularly feed them every so many days. They would give them, I don't know, saltpeter. That's what they do in the prisons in America. I don't know what they gave them here, but they gave them something which brought about emissions of semen and relieved them from this, I suppose, physical pressure or whatever you want to call it. And that was just as regular as as their baths or something else. Not quite as often, of course, but as regular. But when it comes to not living in the monastery, I am, for instance, as Roshi, I'm all for Roshis being married. Well, you can see the traditional, one of the traditional lines of argument in Hinduism and in the yoga tradition is that celibacy is a positive aid to meditation and spiritual achievement, you know. And some of

[23:44]

this thought lies behind, no doubt, Buddhist history. Well, I don't know whether it's positive or not. I mean, Indians definitely feel that way. Well, of course, right up to Gandhi. I know. The priest, the Jesuit priest who went up to Hoshinji, told me himself that he used to go for all sessions and that what he did was that he had permission from the from Harada Roshi to perform his mass in his own room before he went into the meditation hall. Yes, Hoshinji. Yes. So, he said he told me he had permission to do that. So, then he goes in, he performs his mass, private mass, in his own room. Then he goes

[24:46]

into the meditation hall. Now, what is he doing when he gets in the meditation hall? What is he meditating about? Is he just sitting there and enjoying the quiet atmosphere which the meditation hall gives him in the midst of this other group of people who are doing Zazen? And he sits, maybe cross-legged, probably he does. But what's he doing with his mind? Is he practicing Zazen? Because ultimately, Zazen is not just sitting with your feet crossed in a proper way. Zazen is handling your mind in a certain way and it certainly is not meditating upon any Christian religious subjects. It's primarily getting rid of every kind of concept and he's just filled his mind with concepts before he comes in. So, if he comes with that kind of mind, he's getting nothing, is he? He's getting no Zen. He doesn't know what real Zazen is,

[25:51]

he's not practicing it. And if he were to practice it, he would lose his Christianity. Yeah, well, that's a good point. I mean, it's going to be one or the other. It's only going to be phony sitting. Have you said this to Dumla? No, I haven't said this to Dumla. It's all going to be phony sitting or it is going to be, or they're going to lose their Christianity. That's why I won't, I'd never have taken a missionary for anything. I've had any number of them ask me, these Protestant missionaries around here. I think I must have told you the time the Norwegian one came and he hounded me for months. He used to come every so often, please show me how to practice Zazen, please let me come and do your, and sit in the Zendo. And I said, no. So, one day he came and he came with Harry Hansen, who took over for him

[26:58]

later and who is now the head of the Norwegian mission. And they have a farm near in Shizuoka someplace. And that day he said, I've come again to ask you please to take me as a student. And I said again, no. And he said, but I'm willing to give up everything about Christianity, everything he said, everything except Christ himself. So, I said, well, what are you going to do when you go into Zazen and the Roshi says to you, slay the Buddha, slay the patriarch, slay your father, slay your mother, slay your kinfolk. Do you think that Jesus Christ is going to be left out of that? Well, Harry Hansen burst into laughing and the man never came back to see me again. That ended it.

[28:10]

Now, but this is the payoff. He went back to Norway, but somebody went to, it was Dick, went to some temple in Shizuoka where Takashina Roshi, so it's a Soto sect temple. Takashina Roshan. Yes. Is now the priest. He's quite, must be very old by now because I met him years and years ago and he was old then. And Dick went to some kind of fancy Matsuri in which they had Shinto and Soto Zen and I don't know, he could tell you what this is. But he didn't tell you a little bit. And among other things, he told me that at that Matsuri, he was told that Takashina was giving Sanzen to Harry Hansen.

[29:12]

Well, there he is. Well, of course it wasn't Harry Hansen who asked for it here. Harry Hansen laughed when I said, do you think Jesus Christ will escape? That's Harry Thompson. Oh, Thompson. That's right. Thompson. He was a classmate of mine at the Nani-Numa school. Oh, really? Yeah. Yes. Harry Thompson. And he's written a very nice book on the modern Japanese sects. I know who he is now. But now he is head of the mission and they've moved to Shizuoka and they have a farm there. They're raising cattle and they're going to try to develop a dairy farm there. But Dick was told, not by Harry Thompson himself, but he was told that Harry Thompson was taking Sanzen with Takashina Rosen. That would be Soto Sanzen. Oh, yes. Soto, yes. Whatever it is. Which is a different thing else. Yes. But nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless. And this business over here bothers me very much.

[30:19]

It's none of my business. But if you will talk, perhaps you have talked to Ken or to Irmgard or to Dick and hear what that young man is having to say. I mean, how disappointed he is, how unhappy he is, what he's not finding out, what he expected to find out. I haven't talked to him. Yeah, well, that's what they've told me. That all came up at the time that Ken left the Soto and they spoke about him and how difficult he was with the monks. I mean, he was dissatisfied with this and he questioned them all the time about... I haven't talked to him. Yeah, well, that's what they've told me. That all came up at the time that Ken left the Soto and they spoke about him

[31:22]

and how difficult he was with the monks. I mean, he was dissatisfied with this and he questioned them all the time about that. Well, you ask them about it, what that situation was or is. Because he's still there and will be there until May, I think, when his wife and children come from Israel. But he's a dyed-in-the-wool Jewish adherent, and that's fine, nobody has any objection to it. But why they have to come to live, I wouldn't know what they're looking for. Of course, you can say that in their, what is it, Hasidim? Hasidim, Hasidim. Hasidim, a sect of Judaism. It is a mystical sect and they have, I believe, some technique which resembles Koans.

[32:26]

They have, yeah, they have dark scenes, but their practice is on the ecstatic side, the dance. Do they? Yeah, the dancing, they're very ecstatic. Well, I think, the Irmgard or somebody told me he belonged to that sect. That's true. But the problem is this, here, anybody that wants to come in is welcome. Well, that has its good side. I mean, Buddhism, Buddhist monasteries or Buddhist temples and that are open, and I think in the past, historically, they've been open to everybody. But the people that they were open to, for instance, if we say that historically Chinese temples were open to anybody that came in, who came into them? Chinese, didn't they? Not Western people.

[33:29]

And they would be either Buddhists or Taoists or, of course, Confucianists, but they would be people of Chinese culture. And this coming from Europe and America is another matter, with coming from a totally different cultural and religious background. And there's no objection to people coming, but in my view, that if they're really going to practice Zen, really practice Zen, then they ought to have left their own fold, and be willing to and be ready to become Buddhists, if they're not already in that line of thought. Because I think they will only be bitterly disappointed if they follow any length of the

[34:35]

way and give it up anyway. I never knew any of Sokyon's students, and he must have had a number, who were good Christians who stayed Christian, who became Buddhists. Even George Fowler, who was president of the society for over 20 years, has become a Christian again. Yes, as you told me, he was Episcopalian. Episcopalian. And Mrs. Townsend, who was with Sokyon for so many years and helped him with his translations and all that, died a Catholic. And he has spoken many times of the various Christians who came and to whom he gave sons in. And after a certain length of time, invariably they would say, thank you very much. I mean, this would be the gist of it. You've made my Christianity much more understandable, much more living, and much more vital for

[35:36]

me. But this is enough. So, of course, then people, if I speak like that to some people, then they think that I'm very strict and very orthodox and very narrow and wishing to push other people out. But there's a difference between quiet sitting and the real practice of Zazen. And the real practice of Zazen certainly would seem, from what little I know of it, to bring people to inner experiences which equate or which are the same as, resemble closely, are Buddhist experiences.

[36:40]

And Buddhist experiences are not Christian experiences. And if you were to have, if a Christian were to have, a Buddhist experience, a real Buddhist experience, I think it would be a very serious matter, a very wrecking matter. If his Christianity was serious. Yes, I mean, a real Christian were to have a Buddhist experience. You may say, well, then are the great mystics like Brahman and so forth, Eckhart, they were Christians. But I expect both of those men, and whatever others there were like them, were more or less geniuses, don't you think so? And they had gone through their religion. But these, but other people, normal people who are good Christians, practice it, and have what we could call a Buddhist experience,

[37:45]

then I would think it would be very shocking. I don't know, but I don't approve of it at all. I think if they want, if people want to learn to do quiet sitting as a physical exercise, that's quite all right. I suppose the line would be drawn practically, speaking of the difference between people who are just allowed to sit, and those who become sansen disciples. In a sodo, for example, like lay people that come in aren't questioned about anything they believe or think at all. When they start sansen, then things begin to turn up. Well, I think theoretically, that's probably where the line has to be drawn. And, well, Sokyon always insisted that people had to listen to his lectures for three months

[38:47]

before he would consider them for sansen. Well, I think that makes sense, too. Well, I think that's the minimum, myself. I don't think that that was... Something like that would be in lieu of what you were talking about the other day, of having a sort of a basic collection of texts to be read as a preparation for sansen studies, to ground yourself, at least to get some acquaintance with what that worldview is, what the background of it is. Well, that's what I will have to talk with Mr. Humphreys about, because he's concerned about that now. And what can he do with his people who want to study sansen? Well, I said to get up a class in Mahayana Buddhism, instruct them in basic Mahayana Buddhism in its developed form, and in simple physical sitting. And if they hang on after that and want to go further,

[39:50]

then that's another matter, and you consider it. But of course, Yasutani Roshi will take anybody for any purpose whatsoever. I mean, who has any purpose? If it's to get their health, if it's to enjoy quietude, if it's just to see what Zen is like, or if it's with some problem to solve, which they think by quiet sitting or Zen sitting or something will solve it. But yeah, like one time I was in the fusu-ryo at Daitobu-ji, just before an O-session, and some totally unknown layman turned up in the fusu-ryo. A Japanese layman? A Japanese layman. He asked permission to sit for the session. Kosan was the fusu, and so Kosan talked to him briefly, and he said, well, do you have some atama no shikoto, some work you want to do with your mind?

[40:52]

And the man said, yes, I have some problem I want to think over. Kosan said, well, that's good, because if you didn't, it might be kind of tiresome for you, but if you have something you want to work out, why don't you come to the session and sit? So apparently there's an accepted idea about that. Well, I think with the Japanese ambivalence in regard to religion, I mean, anything goes, there is a fairly recent book called Twelve Doors to Japan. It's something gotten up by Yamagata and Richard Beardsley and Michigan University, I think, published by McGraw and Hill, and they speak about the fact that even in these new religions that people often belong to three or four of them at once, that they're never questioned in them, do you belong to anything else? But if you want to become a member, surely become a member.

[41:55]

And some of them belong, as I say, to several of these modern, these new religions, as well as, of course, having their own household temple background or their shinto shrine background and all the rest of it. They were speaking about the fact that the Japanese don't have any clear differentiation in their thinking about religion. It all kind of flows together. And the problems that the Christians have had, because, and one thing that has delayed the progress of Christian teaching here or Christian conversion here, is the fact that it interferes so with a certain established household and neighborhood practices, because you're not supposed to, if you're a Christian, to, at Obon and at wherever it is that the ancestors come back

[43:02]

to the shrine, you know, Obon, and there's one other time that they come, of course, the Higan times, and you're not supposed to go to the shrine at certain times, and your neighborhood shrine, and that disturbs all of the relationship in the neighborhood and in the household. Yeah. Well, I haven't had any, I haven't had any time to, I was going to do that today, make out that list, because I had to consult something, I mean, of dates for Soko Kyo-yan. Oh, Soko Kyo-yan, yes. Yeah, but perhaps you have some other questions you wanted to ask that we might do this evening instead of that. But before I forget it, this is just something else I wanted to ask you. Are you free Monday night for dinner? Yes.

[44:02]

Well, please come over, if you will, because Soko Kojiroshi and Dana are coming for dinner, and I thought it would be a rather pleasant way for you to pick up that friendship, or whatever you call it again, acquaintanceship. That's very nice, yes, I'd like to very much. Because he's really very sweet, and he's become very devoted to me. I've had him over here once for a luncheon, and I've been, because of Dana, two or three times to the Soto to see him, and I've sent him, what, some jam, and some marmalade, and different things like that. I think that's good, what time now? Well, they're coming quarter of six. And I thought this would be a good time for you to renew that friendship, as it were, because it was an earlier friendship, as I remember it. It was just a brief acquaintance. Yeah, without any, you know, temple business at all, because just coming here. And Dana has left the Soto now,

[45:05]

but he's going to live close by so that he can continue his tanzen and go for the o-sessions. He's got a room or something? He's got a room or something, because he wants to work more on his Japanese language, and he's not, he needs more food than it's possible for him to get. I think he's been there a year. It's been quite a while. And I think that's long enough. He came to see me the other day, and I told him I was very glad he'd made that decision, because I think that's long enough. I think it's as Shibuya Minobroshi said the other day, now temples or sotos are fairly well-geared for producing priests rather than enlightened men. He didn't add that, but I took it that he might add it. We might add it. Well, I wonder if today, if we might just talk about a few other Roshis then. Yes. What I'm trying to get is something of a picture of the range of personalities and personal histories

[46:11]

and types and styles that you've been acquainted with. Well, Tofukuji Roshi is one of my very good friends. And Tofukuji Roshi came out of Miyoshiji. My acquaintance with him began when he was about 36 years old. It's a long time ago. He's now about 70. And then he had gotten his Inca from the old Roshi at Miyoshiji. And at that time, Miyoshiji had 80 monks. And the old man was too old to handle all of them, and they needed a deputy Roshi. And when he had finished his Zen study, and he was only 36, he was appointed deputy Roshi. I don't know how much time elapsed between his getting his teaching Inca and his being given this position in Miyoshiji.

[47:13]

That I can't say. But my acquaintance with him first began when I was invited to a party at Miyoshiji for him in celebration of his being made the deputy Roshi. And he was so shy. He's a big man and shy and big-cheeked like a country boy. And he is a country boy. He's still a country boy, but he's a big man. And about 12 years ago, I guess, Tofukuji needed a Kansho and Roshi. Things were kind of rickety at Tofukuji. And the present Roshi at Miyoshiji, one now, I believe, was a younger brother of Tofukuji Roshi. And he had stomach ulcers or something. He wasn't awfully strong. And according to what Goto Roshi told me at the time, the present Tofukuji decided to resign.

[48:18]

By that time, he was full Roshi at Miyoshiji in order to give his younger brother the chance to be Roshi before he got sick and died and then went on to... So he resigned and went to Tofukuji, took his position there. Of course, Tofukuji is a very large temple compound and rather sprawling. And it needed a good many repairs and the whole thing needed a lot of pulling together. The Sodo was pretty much shot. I think there weren't very many monks there. And he has taken hold of things extremely well. And he's not in any way an intellectual man. He's rather a talkative man, the most talkative of any of the Roshis I know. But he's a very, very fine person. And he's much more like a...

[49:22]

something like that, who's interested in administration and so forth. How old man is he now? He's just 70, I think. He's just a little younger than I. What's his name, you know? Hayashi. Hayashi. We always call him Hayashi Roshi. I don't know. Hayashi Eikiju. Eikiju. Eikiju. And I don't think that he has any other accomplishments than running a Sodo. I believe he's built a small... a smaller Zendo. So now he has... what did he... he was down here the other day. I think he has something like 14 monks there now, which is much more than he used to have in the beginning. He had only four or five. And they had a huge Zendo. He was very good to Donna. He let her come. I remember Donna was very friendly to him. Yes. Oh, he's a very nice man. He's a warm man. He's the man who goes out to you and accepts you and wants to do for you in the sense of whatever he can.

[50:26]

And he's generous and big. He said, oh, I'm just a country boy. I've had no education at all. And I don't think he has had much in the way of scholarly education. How does he stand amongst the other Roshis? What sort of opinions do they have of him? Well, that I wouldn't... I've never heard any Roshi speak about any other Roshi. But, of course, as Kancho Tofuguchi, he has a top position here in Kyoto. I don't know anything about any of his disciples. I only know one of them, knew one of them, but he's no longer here. And at one time I went to Uwajima in Shikoku to talk with another of his disciples whom he had told me was living in the temple in Uwajima with the idea of his possibly going to America

[51:29]

or being a candidate for going to America. And he was one of this Tofuguchi Roshi's heirs from near Shinji. Uwajima is the far southwest corner of Shikoku. And he was a very nice man, a small man, a very energetic little man, very nescient and very sincere, but anything but suited for American people. Tofuguchi Roshi would not be suited in any way for American people either, I think, largely because he has no intellectual background and no intellectual... I don't think he know what to do against questions and things that the ordinary Westerner would ask. But as a good man, I mean, as a completely monastic man, I've never heard any gossip about him

[52:31]

or any kind of description. Completely, completely good man, devoted to his temple and devoted to his monks. And he's going to have this big... Or they are going to open that big zendo at Tofuguchi in October, I told you, the big gathering for Rinzai's 1100th anniversary. Well, now the man at Keninji, he's also a very sweet friend of mine. He's a small man. He's also, I suppose, in his 70s. He's like a little bird. And he is an excellent painter. And I think things of that sort are of much more interest to him. He only has had for years,

[53:32]

he's only had two or three monks in his zendo. And I understand it's a very poorly run zendo. And he's a very sweet and very talented man. He's a very talented painter. I don't know whether he writes poetry or not, but I think he's very little of an administrator. And, but just a very sweet bird-like little man. Keninji, is he the Kancho? I suppose so. I really haven't heard in the last few years whether he is or not. The Keninji Toto is still in operation, is that right? Well, I guess so. It's been in operation always, but it's never had more than two or three monks. In the old days, when I first came over after the war, the old man who was the owner and editor of the Chugai,

[54:33]

which is Buddhist religious paper, lived in a hanari at Keninji. And I used to go quite often to see him, particularly after he got sick. And I saw Keninji Roshi then many times. And he's been here to see me. And he sends me one of his little paintings every Christmas and New Year's. And he's a very good painter. Really, really a very good painter. Well, now there's Miyo Shinji. Miyo Shinji Roshi, I do not know. Soto Roshi. Soto Roshi. I really don't, I don't know him personally. I've seen him many times. And I understand that he is an excellent, excellent Soto man. What his intellectual background is, I know nothing about that.

[55:35]

He is the younger brother of To Fukuchi, as I told you. And he seems more and more to get stronger and stronger each year, so that he's a little heavier than he used to be. And he looks very well. He's a very... Do you know him, To? I've just seen him. A very severe-looking man. With a very small, very firm mouth. And the... Curves down. That's right. And a rather high-bridged thin nose with rather flaring nostrils. And he never goes out of the Soto. He has no personal donkas, which is very troublesome to the Miyoshinji boys. The boys in the Soto. Because, as one of them whom I know quite well told me once, when the Roshi has donkas, then when we go Takahatsu, we can go to those donkas houses

[56:37]

and we're always sure of getting something. Or getting a meal, getting tea and things of that kind. But he has no donkas. So when we go out Takahatsu here, we get a few pennies from the houses that we stop at along the road. And it's pretty poor pickings. But he never gives lectures. I mean, he never gives lectures outside. He has no rei zazenkais or teishokais. He is completely devoted to his Soto and to his men. His total life is there, so they say. And as I say, I have never even... I've never been introduced to it. I never had any special reason to. And I think that when Bill Laws was there, he had nothing... He insisted upon Bill's taking sanzen,

[57:38]

which Bill did not like and resented very much. But he was forced to do it if he was going to stay. But more than that, I really don't know about him. Q. What about Yamada Mumon, though, from Ryoshinji? A. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I suppose he must have come out of Ryoshinji Soto, but that I don't know about. Yamada Mumon is a little man, and he's just about as busy as they come. He's the very opposite from the Soto man at Ryoshinji. He is busy with kais and newspaper articles and television performances and meeting people and going here and there. He's busy as a beaver all the time. Right now, he's president of Hamazono Daiyaku,

[58:39]

which doesn't mean much, except that his name is there because Professor Kimura does most of the work there. But I will tell you, do you know what? He looks like he's a chinless man. Q. I've never seen him. A. You've never seen him. But he's very small, too, and he has no chin, and he has rather prominent teeth. He's not... He's sweet-looking, and he's certainly very interested in having foreigners come to Shofuku-ji, which is his Soto in Kobe. This is a city Soto, Shofuku-ji, I think is the name of it. And he is there when he has time to be there. He lives in a Myoshinji temple and has various kais of all kinds going on

[59:45]

in this Myoshinji temple, lay and so forth. I mean, zagen kais and lecture kais and all sorts of things going on there. And he does get down to Shofuku-ji, I guess, for Oseshin. Crowley says he's done that quite frequently. Was that so? Well, quite frequently, yes. Roshi ought to live in the Soto. Yeah, but he says he's there more than just sessions. At least during this last winter, he says he was there for sansen almost all the time. He's getting sansen quite regularly. Well, that's something, I think, according to what I have heard, it's rather new. That may be. Or maybe Crowley has an exaggerated notion of what frequent sansen is. I don't know. I don't know, I'm sure. But he doesn't mind a little advertising for himself. He's written a lot of books, hasn't he? Yes, he gets his lectures taken down on tapes

[60:48]

and things like that and then published. And well... Does he see the Kanjo? No, no, he has no connection with Myoshinji. Oh, I see. No, he just, he lives in Myoshinji. Oh, I see. In the Myoshinji temple. He was a big gun in Myoshinji, too. Well, I think he's the president of Hanazono Daigaku, and he lives in, I think, Reyon-in is his temple in Myoshinji. And whether he came out of Myoshinji, whether he was a monk in Myoshinji, before that, I don't know. I think he must have been, to be living in Myoshinji now to have his temple. And I suppose Shofukuji must be connected with Myoshinji, must be a sub-sodo of Myoshinji. And he is, he would like to go to America. He talks about going there to teach. I think he's rather given to drooling from the mouth,

[61:53]

as a matter of fact, that's my opinion of him. Although the first time I ever met him, I don't know.

[62:02]

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