Good morning. Thank you for coming out to Greengalt on this wet, wet morning. You know, California is in a drought, a serious drought, and the rain feels like a blessing, but it's

[01:06]

In the words of Suzuki Roshi, not always so. The farmers here at Green Gulch had just put in the potatoes into the ground, and the potatoes don't really like wet soil, so it's not very good for our potato crops. And I heard that the farmers spent hours covering each potato plant. So as with everything, the causes and conditions, we have to look to the causes and conditions. We can't assume this is good for everybody. This is right for everybody. This is a blessing. We have to look to the causes and conditions. When Myogen, Steve Stuckey, was dying, a former abbot who died in December, December 31st, this past year, his teaching was very strong, very clear, very...

[02:41]

for me anyway, it went very deeply in. I could really hear it. And there was a board meeting that he Skyped into, and we had the Skype machine, the computer, but his image was on a big screen, so he was bigger than life in the room. And the first thing he did, he couldn't travel at that time, the first thing he did was apologize for not showing up, for not coming to the board meeting. And then he continued to say, I prided myself in always showing up. His identity was, I showed up no matter what. And he said, and I had some pride in that. maybe some hubris even, that I always showed up.

[03:43]

You can count on me. But now I'm the one who doesn't show up. And then he said, and now I understand that it was just causes and conditions. It was just causes and conditions that allowed me to be the one who always showed up. There wasn't some... kind of inner steveness that always showed up, that some kernel of reality that showed up. It was causes and conditions. And part of those causes and conditions was his sincerity and vows. But that's not all that was. That isn't enough. How about all the causes and conditions? So that particular teaching, somehow, even though I've heard for years, and I would say, you know, been exposed to the teaching of interconnectedness and no separate self and causes and conditions, impermanence, somehow him saying, I always showed up.

[05:10]

I was the one who always showed up. And now I see that it's just causes and conditions. That to me was something that opened and helped me to look at my life and others' life and each moment in our life together in a different way, in a deeper way, permeated with the teachings. Not just theoretical, but this is the way. This is how reality works. So that particular experience of hearing that, especially on this big screen with him speaking, affected me very strongly. And I find that teaching coming up to meet, situations over and over again, to look to the causes and conditions, rather than some imagined self or substratum of permanence that's going along, meeting situations.

[06:32]

Yesterday at City Center, we celebrated, it was a wonderful occasion, the 100th birthday of Mitsu Suzuki, Suzuki-sensei, Oksan, meaning Anopo, wife, the wife of Suzuki Roshi. She turned, on April 23rd, she turned 100 years old. And Abbas Fu gave a wonderful, wonderful lecture at City Center. I hope it's put online soon for all of you to hear. that spoke about Suzuki Sensei and her practice and Zen and the practice of tea. Anyway, a wonderful lecture. And following the lecture, we sang happy birthday, and we had birthday cupcakes with her favorite cake, which was, or at least her favorite American cake, poppy seed cake with...

[07:33]

frosting on them. And then we had kind of a modified panel discussion with the publisher, editor, writers from this book that came out. We were also having a commemoration for this book called A White Tea Bowl, 100 Haiku from 100 Years of Life. And this is a volume, her second volume of haiku, and this spans, I think, from, I'm not sure the years that it spans, but many years since she returned to Japan, which was in 1994, I think, 93 or 94. So just to say a few words about Suzuki Sensei, And then I wanted to read a couple of these haikus, and then this morning, in thinking about this talk this morning, something came together for me about a traditional koan in the Gateless Gate collection, koan number 35, that somehow connected me with Oksan and her practice in it.

[08:52]

It shone light in a different way on her life. So... Suzuki Sensei, I don't even know where to begin. Where do you begin talking about a life of a hundred years? She lived through the war in Japan. Her first husband died in the war. She had one daughter who was born and right after her husband died. And she was a kindergarten teacher and a Christian. She was a Christian. And after the war and after Suzuki Roshi's wife died, somehow the lay followers felt that they would get along and that she would be a good kindergarten teacher for the new kindergarten at Pennsylvania.

[09:59]

connected with Rinso In, Suzuki Roshi's temple. Anyway, when Suzuki Roshi came to Japan, they were married, and she came as well to live with him at Sokoji Temple in Japantown. And when I knew her in 1971, when I first met her, I thought she was an old lady, really. She must have been 50-something. LAUGHTER But, you know, Aunt Susan Kira, she was an old man. They were the oldest people around Zen Center, really, except for just a couple. And there's certainly images I have of Oksan. She had very long hair that she would shampoo and then dry in the sun in the courtyard, 300-page deed, and brush it. So this long hair, and she'd, you know, very... Just that kind of grooming and caring for herself, she was a real example of taking good care of herself.

[11:06]

She also walked every day, either in the building. I think the neighborhood was not as easy to walk in at the time. So she would walk, those of you who know Page Street building, she'd walk up and down those long halls, striding every day. And that was one of her secrets of longevity, to walk every day. And she was a wonderful companion and support for the students. And she was not a Zen teacher, but she did become a tea teacher. And she had tea students who practiced with her for a long time, maybe 16 or more years, because after Suzuki Roshi died, she made the decision to stay at Zen Center for about... 23 years she stayed living in the same apartment and being a presence and a friend, a good friend, and a kind of positive mother, I would say, to many, many students in a very not flashy way.

[12:23]

She would notice something, someone who was unhappy or needed a little attention. She would invite them to tea, and having tea in her kitchen was not a fancy affair. The kitchen had lots of stuff, knickknacks and stacks of things, and she would clear a space on the kitchen table and make tea, get the kettle on, bring a cup, warm the teapot, put in the tea, and I remember being one of those students who was invited to tea during a difficult time in my life, and the comfort of someone just taking care of, making a cup of tea, not tea ceremony tea, but just a cup of green tea, putting out crackers, bustling about, the deep comfort of that and healing quality of something that simple and being invited to sit there in the kitchen, kitchen table wisdom, kitchen table love.

[13:41]

And I was not the only recipient of that. And during those times she would say things, you know... that would be very helpful when you needed it. She also had a, and I don't know if this was Japanese American, not being able to read certain cultural cues, which I think is the case whenever we go to another country What we see, we don't have a reference for particularly. And I remember there were people who were at Zen Center who you might say were having mental challenges or were not as stable as others. And I felt like she, I never knew, could she not see that this was a kind of unstable person or did she not read the cues?

[14:50]

Whatever it was, everybody was included in her love and her care and her humor. I found that kind of amazing that I never really knew. Do you know that so-and-so is not all there these days? And at the time, Zen Center was very permeable, and we had quite a variety of people who would... come through, but I think she saw deeper than those cultural cues or she didn't see them at all and just saw the heart and the suffering of beings. I took tea from her very briefly and then in my ignorance and really, I would say, ignorance and maybe also gaining idea.

[15:52]

I wanted to study with somebody else who was out at Green Gulch, Nakamura Sensei. And so with, really, it's so embarrassing, but I will confess to you, with nary a by your leave, with not even going to her to say, I've made a decision to change teachers and thank you, offering, you know, a gift, a parting gift. I just... going to tea, or I don't even know what I did. I didn't say anything. That was, in the tea world, you know, to take a teacher, start studying with a teacher, and the amount of effort they give you to teach you and to correct you and to awaken you to everything that tea means, which is really our whole world, of aliveness, and then to not acknowledge that and just start with somebody else.

[17:00]

It was really kind of a high mark of my misunderstanding of human relationships and teacher-student relationships. I don't think she ever held it against me. I think it was just Americans were not subtle enough or attuned enough. I think she was used to that. The hints and the subtleties of interactions were sometimes lost on the group that she was living with. Peter Coyote yesterday told a story of her being at his house for dinner. And she said to him something like, Peterson, are you cold? And he said, no, no, I'm just fine. And he continued eating, and he, I'm just fine. And then about 10 minutes later, she got up and went and found a shawl for herself.

[18:05]

So those kinds of attunements to one another, often we were not so aware of, and still today probably not so aware of. So these haiku that she wrote in this white teabot, we had this at the bookstore, there are a few that particularly struck me that have to do with age and the fact that she's 100 years old now. And what happens when we age, all the people we know and grew up with, and even people much younger than us, begin to die. And so there's a few of these haiku that just struck me so strong. And these haiku, by the way, this is a hundred, and these were gleaned from, I think, over a thousand.

[19:13]

I think it was 1,400 haiku that she had written since her last volume of haiku, Temple Dusk. So Tanahashi-san, who is the editor, sat through and chose about 150, and then they weaned that down, whittled that down to 100. So haiku, writing haiku is her practice, one of her practices. So this one, no one left to give me a call. drizzling autumn sky. I read over old letters. Autumn evening. Guests departed alone in the tea room. First winter rain.

[20:16]

Winter night. Longing for company, anyone at all. And this poem won a prize in a magazine. No limit to kindness, winter violence. Anyway, it's chock full of... The ones I chose are a little bit sad, you might say. But I think with haiku, there's such a depth of feelings and reverberations of emotion in all different ways. But some are very glad-hearted, as those moments are. These are moments of life captured for an instant in these haiku.

[21:20]

So this morning I said I had this kind of thought about Oksan and her life, and it connected with a koan, case 35, from the Muman Khan, a gateless gate. And this is a particular koan that I've turned for many years and continued to turn. And somehow this morning... It hit me that the name of the koan is Sei or Seijo and her soul are separated. And some of you may know this koan. It's famous. It's a Chinese folk tale or ghost story that was maybe well known at the time that was seen as a way of as a koan.

[22:24]

The question that the Zen master asks is at the end of the koan, which I'll tell you, is which one is the real Seijo? Seijo and her soul are separated. Which one is the real Seijo? And the reason it came to me this morning was I was picturing Oksan who left her daughter her beloved only daughter in Japan, went with her Zen master husband Suzuki Roshi to America, to California, San Francisco, leaving behind at an older age, I mean in her 50s or so, maybe a little older, And it's hard to move. It's hard to change. People don't want to change. They don't want to go and start a whole new life at that age. It's unusual to really want to.

[23:26]

And then, but she made a life, you know, and a vital life, and began teaching tea at, I believe, Suzuki Roshi's encouragement to take up tea and begin, she began to teach tea as well as other, the art of flower arranging and sewing. Anyway, I had this thought of her in the building, after Susugira, she had died, in her little apartment on the second floor, being separated from, you know, Oksan and her soul are separated, which is the real Oksan. Some feeling of, or that some part of her was separated. And it just occurred to me this morning, not a ghost-like quality, but some sadness or longing for family, for her language, for the ways, her cultural ways.

[24:39]

And I think as she got older, she really wanted to die surrounded by those who knew her well and her own culture. I think that was important to her, to go back for her old, old age, I think. And I can understand that. But this morning, just watching her walking down the halls of the building and taking care of others, but some sadness, not just that she was a widow missing Suzuki Roshi, more, much deeper than that. And so that's what prompted me to bring up this koan, which I will. Seijo and her soul are separated. And so it's a story, it's a narrative, folk story, folklore, ghost story.

[25:39]

And the story is there was a family The mother is not mentioned, but the father is mentioned. His name is, in Japanese anyway, Choukan. And Seijo, or Senjo, was born into the family, and there had already been a kind of tragedy in the family. Her elder sister had died as a little girl, or a little baby doesn't say. And so her father wanted to take very, very good care of her, extra special, watching over her as fathers do to their daughters and children. And she had a cousin who was an orphan and had been taken under the wing of her father and lived in their house. His name was Ochu. And she and Ochu played together and really liked each other a lot. And their father, when they were little, the father of Senjo,

[26:42]

and Ochu's uncle said, oh, the two of you are betrothed. You get along so well, you're going to get married someday. And the two of them somehow, as happens, believed that and almost made an unconscious contract that they were going to get married. This was how it was going to be. Well, as Senjo got to be closer to the age where she would be married, probably in her teens, maybe 16 or 17, her father made an arranged marriage contract for her. And she was very upset, and Ochu was completely upset, and there was nothing to be done about it. The father's word was law, and he was just the orphan, you know, relative who was being cared for. But he couldn't bear it.

[27:42]

He couldn't stand that Senjo would be married off to someone else. And so he left in the middle of the night, packed his things, and had a little boat. Got in the boat and headed down the river, paddling along. And as he was paddling, it was the middle of the night, like midnight, he heard somebody running along the banks of the river and calling his name. And he pulled over to the side And it was Senjo. She had run away from home and went after him. She couldn't bear that he had left. She couldn't bear to lose him. She couldn't bear to marry this other young man or old man, this other person. So she climbed into the boat and they sailed away to another village. And there they married and lived and happily and they had two children in about five years or so they had two kids and they were very happy except except Senjo kept thinking about her father who she loved dearly who had cared for her watched over her and she had left without you know that kind of ingrateful way and it was weighing on her heart

[29:06]

She really couldn't really be completely happy there because there was unfinished business with her family. And she spoke with Oshu about it, and Oshu felt similarly because he also was very grateful to Chokhan for having taken care of him. So they both decided, let's go back. Let's bring the grandchildren. Let's ask, plead, and beg for forgiveness. and ask our father to take us back. So that was their decision. They got packed up and left this village, got into the boat, and headed back to their home village. Well, the closer they got, the more kind of nervous they got about returning. This is going to be difficult, but they really needed to do it. And we know how that can be difficult conversations, but we must do it. because we're suffering, unless we do it.

[30:08]

So when they got to the village, they pulled up the boat onto the slip by the side of the river, and Ocho said, let me go first. Why don't you stay here with the children? I'll go first. Bow down to your father, beg forgiveness, and then call for you. So he went, he found the house, and he went to Chokan, and you know, bowed down to him and told him how sorry they were, but they loved each other so much they had to run away. And he expressed gratitude and, please accept us back. We want to come back as a whole family once more. And Chokkan was kind of looking at him the whole time he was telling this story, and at the end of it he said, who are you talking about, who... Who is your wife? What do you mean? What are you talking about? He said, Ochoose was kind of, didn't know what he meant.

[31:14]

He said, well, your daughter, Senjo, your daughter, who I've loved all these years, came with me. We have grandchildren for you. And he said, I don't know what you're talking about, Chokhan said, but the day you left, that night when you disappeared, Senjo took to her bed in a kind of sickness, a stupor, where she has not been able to get out of bed since you left. She has been sickly and unable to move. She has been in her room sick five years. And O2 was, wait a minute, I can't believe this. My wife is right, you know, he was getting very sick. upset here. My wife is right down, come and see. She's right down by the river here. So we went to call for her and Senjo came up with the grandchildren, came up from the river. Meanwhile, Chokan had gone into the bedroom and told Senjo, who was lying there pale and wan, sickly, told her the whole story.

[32:21]

And as he told her, she rose up from her sickbed, which she hadn't done in years, and got up and walked towards, out of the house and towards the river. Meanwhile, Senjo, coming up from the river, was walking, walking, and the two of them saw each other and smiled and kept walking closer, closer and closer and closer, closer until they merged into one senjo. And that senjo, that one senjo said, I've just been lying on my bed, and it was a dream. It seemed like a dream that I had married Ocho and gone away. It all seems like a dream.

[33:23]

And the question is, Senjo and her soul were separated. Which one is the real Senjo? So that's the koan. That's the ghost story koan. And, you know, when I say I've been telling this story and turning it for years, and thinking of Oksan, you know, which one was the real Oksan? You know, when she returned to Japan to be with her daughter, to live out that life, is that, was that the real Oksan that we never really could see? Or was the Oksan in San Francisco with us doing her best connecting with each person in her special way, special and ordinary way.

[34:32]

Is that the real, folks? Which one of us is the real one? Is it the one who always shows up? Who can be counted on to show up? Or is it the one sick in bed, who can't move, can't travel, can barely, you know? What is the real? Who is the real Myogen? Who is the real Sejo? And if we look to causes and conditions, you know, there's a poem or a commentary by Mumon, the person who gathered these koans, and he says... If you understand that we are like leaving, going from one husk to another husk, like leaving one husk like an insect or even a snake leaving a skin.

[35:40]

We live in our skin and then we crawl. We leave it like an old husk and enter another husk. Or like a traveler taking lodging in one hotel. and leaving and going on to the next hotel. This was one of his commentary about this. If you see the truth of this koan, he said, you will know that coming out of one husk and getting it to another is like a traveler putting up at one hotel and then leaving and going to another. Can we understand? life like that one husk the next one hotel and the next and there isn't some real hotel the real Airbnb you know the real bed and breakfast that's the real one but each moment each causes and condition is that B&B that Airbnb that that lodging for this moment is

[36:51]

and then are we ready for the next and the next and each each hotel each moment those causes and conditions or are we struggling to get back to that other hotel that we really like so much way back when when we were young when we when our husband was alive, when our child was alive, then, that time, was that the real meat? What is the real? So these teachings of, you know, impermanence, not the teaching of impermanence as sadness and clinging to that which was and never will be again, but the impermanence of a tea ceremony.

[38:15]

This particular gathering, this day, this rain, this group, this body, which will never happen again. And are we awake to that evanescence, that ungraspability? Or are we caught with The real me was that other time when I was doing so well. That was the real me. So, the poem in this koan is the moon above the clouds is

[39:23]

ever the same. Valleys and mountains are separate from each other. All are blessed. All are blessed. Are they one or are they two? The moon above the clouds is ever the same. The moon above the clouds... do we mean by it's ever the same? Ever the same. In what way? Isn't the moon always changing? What is its ever the sameness? And the mountains and valleys are different. Separate from each other.

[40:24]

Mountains And valleys, you can tell. Although growing up in Minnesota, I remember asking the question, how would you know if you were in a valley? I had read about valleys. But I remember thinking, how would you know? And I think it was, this is causes and conditions. You know, this flat kind of prairie-like. I heard about valleys, but how would you know if you were in one or not? valleys and mountains are separate from one another, each unique, each with its own characteristics, and yet equal in their inability to be grasped. blessed, all are blessed, each moment, each appearance.

[41:34]

And, you know, when Steve wasn't, he was in so much pain, and when he said, you know, now I understand it was just cause and condition, that, that insight, that, the kind of searing beauty of that insight was like, bless it. to actually know. And what that knowing meant no more grasping after the one who always shows up. We don't have to hold on to that one anymore. Or meet that expectation. Now we see. see all the concepts and all the imagination around it and we can let go what peace what blessedness are they one or are they two asks the poem are we one or are we two so the

[42:58]

most excellent method for meeting this question, I would say, is Sazen. Our practice of Sazen. If we just turn it around and around and around in our mind, we may get really tired. Really, really tired. This koan, by the way, is called a nanto koan, which is given after my understanding of nanto koan in the koan curriculum, is after a student has had some realization that this is to refine their understanding and spiritual understanding. I'm ready to stop talking.

[44:04]

I really appreciate your attention and appreciate having Tension Roshi and Fusan Abbas Fusan, right? Bookending me. Thank you for coming to talk. Thank you all for coming. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:51]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.92