Good morning. A little bit. Thank you, Blanche. So there's a practice period going on here in the city. I imagine many of you are participating in it. And the focus of the practice period are the compassionate teachings of Suzuki Roshi.

[01:03]

Blanche and Jordan invited me to come and speak about some recollections that I have of Suzuki Roshi, interactions with him, and reflections on... Zen teaching from that perspective, which I'm very happy to do. The first thing that came to mind when Blanche and Jordan invited me was the end of Suzuki Roshi's life. December 4th, 1971, which in a couple of weeks will be 38 years ago.

[02:20]

December 4th, 1971 was the first day of Rohatsu Sashin that year. Seven-day meditation retreat, the big meditation retreat of the year in a certain way. And... Suzuki Roshi wasn't there in the zendo. He was very ill. For a number of months, when he was ill, he was in the room that's now the founder's hall. We set up a hospital bed there. so that he could sit up and people could visit.

[03:32]

But then toward the very end of his life, when he got really, really sick, he moved back to his own bedroom, which is where the apartment that Lou and Blanche now have is where he lived. And that was where he was. And recollecting back to that time, it seemed like it was a long time that Suzuki Roshi was ill. But then I checked in David Chadwick's book, Crooked Cucumber. And it turns out that from the time that he told us he had cancer to the time that he died was just about two months.

[04:39]

It seems like it was a much longer time than that. On October 10th of that year, he gathered his close disciples and told them that the jaundice that, you know, he was very yellow. The jaundice that he had was not hepatitis, but was cancer. I wasn't in that group, but shortly after that, Yvonne Rand, who was in that group and very close with him at the end of his life, told me, Suzuki Roshi has cancer. I burst out crying which was really surprising to me because I'm not the kind of fellow that cries so easily especially then I wasn't now I cry now I cry more easily

[06:07]

Or at least I get choked up. But it had been a decade probably or more since I had expressed such emotion. So I was really surprised because I knew that I appreciated his teaching. But I didn't realize how closely connected. I felt to him. December 4th, so that was the first day of Rohatsu Sashin. It was also my first day as director of the building. I was taking over that job from Reb Anderson, who had been director. for the previous year or so, during which time I had been a work leader.

[07:14]

So I don't know where the director sits now, and I don't remember exactly where I was sitting. It was in that quadrant of the zendo near the doshi door, near that other door, not the main door. Do you know what I mean? And it's funny what we remember. Oh, so Baker Roshi was leading the sesshin, and he came in and did the morning jundo and sat down. It seems to me shortly after he sat down, there was suddenly like a commotion. which was somebody walking fast in the zendo with robes on, which we know is, when you're in the zendo and it's not a meal or there isn't some reason for that to be happening, it's very,

[08:43]

Striking. I always thought it was Peter Schneider who came into the Zendo quickly, but actually it turns out, according to David, it was Lou Richmond who came in and went over. If I was sitting here, it would have been over there. Went over to where Baker Roshi was, and he got up and left. Big whoosh. of robes. And then we all sat there. After a while, Baker Rishi came back and said that Suzuki Rishi

[09:44]

So I don't feel like I was particularly close with him, with Suzuki Roshi. But nevertheless, He had a profound effect on my life. Generating. Generating my practice life. I was thinking like the Big Bang. Like the Big Bang. The Big Bang happened 4.3 billion years ago. It might be 4.4 billion years ago.

[10:51]

I'm not sure. The Big Bang. But actually, we're still in the Big Bang. We're still manifesting the same. Do you get what I mean? It's just we're still there. This is still the Big Bang. And similarly, I feel like his example had that kind of effect, even though now it's almost 40 years later and a lot of water has gone under the bridge. So over the years, the teaching has been like a soothing rain for me, soothing rain of dharma for a parched field.

[12:16]

the vastness and the depth and the richness and the deliciousness of the teaching, how delicious it is in its various flavors, in its various manifestations in the sutras and in the Zen stories and in Dogen and in Suzuki Roshi's Dharma talks and so on. this beautiful, rich, delicious thing that we get to, that nourishes us, helps us. But there's a way in which, and this is part of the teaching, there's a way in which the truth can only manifest itself in a particular way. In a sense, there isn't any such thing as a general truth.

[13:37]

It's not something that's generalizable. It's not an idea or a concept. It's not something we can read about in a book. It always and only arises in the specificity and particularity of our own life. So Suzuki Roshi's manifestation was his embodiment of the teaching was very important in that way, the particular way that he embodied it. One way that we speak about this relationship between the absolute and the relative, and the specific is as the difference between wisdom and skill and means.

[14:43]

Wisdom is the truth, is the absolute part, and skill and means means how do you translate that? How do you translate that into something that people can understand? So if you're in France and you're speaking about the Dharma, you should speak French. That's more skillful than speaking English. Like that. Skill and means means you tune in to who it is you're teaching. You tune in to the particular situation, the particular environment. It may be different in Baltimore. according to the wire, than it is here in San Francisco, here at Zen Center. And the teaching may need to be turned. The absolute may need to be spoken about or illustrated in a different way.

[15:48]

So a story that I have concerning skillful means, concerning Suzuki Roshi, has to do with my parents. I came to Zen Center in 1968 when I was 21 years old. And my parents, I've spoken some about them at other times, were My father's no longer alive, but my mother is going to be 94 in a month and a half or so. But my parents were pretty much classic Eastern European Jewish immigrants, working class people. My mother was born in Warsaw and my father in Russia.

[17:01]

And they came over through Ellis Island in 1921. And for many years, you know, after they married, while we were growing up, my dad was, both of them actually were in the luncheonette business. Luncheonettes is a New York phenomena. You don't know what a luncheonette is. A luncheonette is A luncheonette is like a soda fountain, and they also sold things. My mom used to work at the cash register and sell cigarettes, mostly cigarettes, but also comic books, which was really nice for me, magazines, candy, and then my dad was a short order cook, and there'd be a counter and booths and get lunch there, roast beef sandwich, that kind of thing. So their son went out to California when I was 21.

[18:20]

And as you might imagine, they didn't understand what I was doing out here. Neither did I, for the most part. But... They certainly didn't understand. I wasn't becoming a doctor. That was for sure. Then my mother at one point said, if you're so interested in religion, why don't you become a rabbi? Is there something the matter with being a rabbi? I wasn't becoming a doctor. I wasn't becoming a rabbi. I wasn't becoming a lawyer. And I wasn't making a lot of money either. If you're not going to be a doctor, at least you could make a lot of money. At that time, living on scholarship at Zen Center, we made $25 a month plus room and board.

[19:27]

Then at a certain point, it went up to $50. Then we could really paint the town red. So anyway, so it must have been after, I must have been here for a while because we had moved from Sokoji over to here, to this building. And my parents came to visit. And I have a mental picture of them standing right by the doors to the courtyard. talking with Suzuki Roshi. East meets West. It's a very East meets West kind of a scene there. Later, years later, my mother said, we were really worried about you, but once we talked to Suzuki Roshi, we didn't worry anymore. My dad said, yeah, it was like he was in the luncheonette business.

[20:44]

This is skillful means. This is a manifestation of skillful means. Suzuki Rishi was able to be with people in that way and not have some idea interfere with his being with people. I was talking with someone yesterday and told them, and they said, oh, Suzuki Rishi wasn't caught on the idea that he was not in the luncheonette business. That's what he was not caught on. to not be caught anywhere, is actually the manifestation of emptiness, is the manifestation of the teaching in a very, very simple, straightforward way, just being with people. There it is.

[21:57]

There's a shunyata. So now I think of one way that I think of Zen teaching as conveyed by Suzuki Roshi is that it was very healing. It was healing for me. Healing is etymologically related to whole, W-H-O-L-E.

[23:07]

To heal means making something whole. And that's the sense that now I can say that's part of what was happening by being around him was getting more whole, which means also getting coherent. having the parts cohere, come together, be one thing. There are two specific qualities that I would speak about in terms of healing. Encouragement and humility. In a sense, I feel that he was deeply encouraging us in our lives, encouraging me in my life.

[24:20]

It's sort of like, never mind Zen. You know, never mind all of that stuff. Just to encourage people in their life, which usually means encourage us in our difficulty. That's where we need encouragement. We don't need encouragement if things are flying along at a great pace. I was thinking, while I was driving in today, I was thinking, could I be so outrageous as to say, actually, that's what Zen practice is about. It's not about all these highfalutin ideas. They're useful. They're helpful. but it's actually about encouraging us in our life, wherever that life happens to be at the time. So in those days, there was a fellow, a friend of mine, Craig.

[25:30]

Oh, so this is another story. Not so much about, this is actually about Craig, my friend Craig, And then I got it kind of secondhand. I got like secondhand smoke. I got secondhand dharma, you know. So Craig and I were there. I just saw him at the, there was that reunion a year or two ago. And I saw Craig for the first time in 35 years. He looked just like Craig, except he was 35 years older. That's the only thing. But so Craig and I were both very gung-ho practitioners at the time. We shared that.

[26:31]

And we also shared a very dismal view of ourselves. As in, I don't know how to practice. I can't do this. My practice is fill-in expletive. I don't know anything about this. I stink, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, millions of variations on that particular theme. No good. I'm no good. How are you? Lousy. How are you? Lousy. That was our conversation. So then one day, so Craig, this was before he left. He left before Suzuki Roshi died to be with a Sufi teacher, I think a Sufi teacher, Mayor Baba.

[27:38]

who, you don't hear much about Meir Baba these days, but in those days, there wasn't that much around. There was Zen, there was a little bit of Zen, there wasn't even Tibetan Buddhism that we knew of. Trungpo was the only Tibetan teacher around. And he was a big fan of Suzuki Roshi's. And I don't think, I don't know if Jack Kornfield had even come back from Southeast Asia. So there wasn't much Vipassana and that kind of thing. Anyway, Craig went to talk to Suzuki Roshi and then told me what had happened. So Craig said, Suzuki Roshi told me, because you have so much difficulty, you'll be able to help people. because you have so much trouble, you'll actually be very good with other people.

[28:46]

So this really turned me around. This was a real, this was Zen. This was a real, you know, like they say, this was a real reversal. This was a paradox. Craig and I thought, in order for us to be full practitioners to really move forward in our practice, we had to get rid of the difficulty. We had to overcome the difficulty we were having. But that was the point. Once we overcame that, then we'd be in good shape. But Suzuki Roshi was saying, the thing that you think is an impediment is actually the vehicle. It's actually what allows you to move forward in your practice. The thing that you think is stopping you from moving forward is what is going to move you forward, is the basis of your moving forward in practice.

[29:53]

The thing you think is an obstacle is actually the opening. This is, again, in this very simple way, this very encouraging way that he had of saying it, is just fundamental Zen teaching. This is the Mumongkan, the gateless gate. The gateless gate is the gate where there is no gate. That's the vehicle where there looks like there's an impediment. You get to the gate and there's just a wall. That's the gateless gate. That looks like the obstacle. The obstacle is the way forward because the gateless gate means the wall. It also means you get to the gate and there's no gate there.

[30:59]

It's all open. Simultaneously, it's the wall and it's the way. It's what stops us and it's what allows us to move forward. That's why Dogen says, here is the place. Here the way unfolds. Not later. Not someplace else. Not after I get rid of my problems. Not after I overcome my difficulties. Here is the way. Here the way unfolds. In psychological language, this is alchemy. This is what Jung referred to as alchemy. This is turning lead into gold.

[32:00]

Not literally, but it's turning what we don't like, is not good, is getting in the way. We turn that into the shining, brilliant substance, the core. That's why Suzuki Roshi said that to Craig. And that's why he said, you stand up by where you fall down. That's a quote from Dogen also. Where you fall down is where you stand up. You actually have to fall down in order to stand up. That's the place you stand up. falling down is not a problem for us because we're always falling down. So wherever our life is, we're falling down. Wherever our life is, that's the opportunity to stand up.

[33:07]

This is deeply encouraging. The deep encouragement of his way that he conveyed. One more image that I want to speak about. So there was this compressed time on October 10th. He told people he had cancer and he died on December 4th. And then someplace in November...

[34:09]

was Baker Roshi's mountain seat ceremony, where he became the abbot of Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi's successor. Suzuki Roshi gave over the care of Zen Center to him. That happened here in this room. Some of you know this building was originally a residence for young women, young Jewish women, who were coming from out of town and didn't have a family to stay with, so they would stay here where they could be chaperoned properly. That's why in the... If you look in the grill work, there's still a star of David in some of the grill work.

[35:18]

And this was the parlor where young women could entertain visitors. Had a rug, grand piano. And then when we moved here, we took all of that stuff out and put in these tatami. It's a fireplace. behind the altar. So for the Shin San Shiki, for the mountain seat ceremony, there was an altar created against that wall, kind of a mountain, because traditionally, if you're a Zen abbot, you reside in a mountain. So you ascend the mountain seat. And that's when you... That's becoming the abbot. It was over there.

[36:20]

And then we were all sitting here facing that way where there was an aisle down the center. And... Beka Roshi came in and various things happened. We were really packed in there. Maybe I was in the ceremony. I don't remember. I just remember sitting Seiza, you know, with my legs under me, just packed next to people, you know, shoulder to shoulder. All facing that way. And then it was time for Suzuki Roshi to come in. And we hadn't seen him for a while. And he was really, really sick at that time.

[37:25]

So he was very weak. So when he came, he started at his apartment on the second floor. and he was carrying, he was walking with a staff. You may have seen that kind of thing, a staff with the brass rings at the top. I think it's called a shuzhou, kind of a symbol of authority. And it was very, very quiet. So we could hear him coming. And every time he stepped, boom, he would plant the staff and the rings would jangle.

[38:43]

So he was planting that. Boom. He was planting things. He was planting Zen in America or anyway, he was planting something in me that he used to say, once you're hooked, then my job is done, because then you can't leave, so to speak. Hook you. At that time, I had a ponytail. He said, I've got my eye on your ponytail. He said, Thank you very much.

[40:16]

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