This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I don't know why I'm here, but one of the reasons here, one of the things I wanted to do was to come down to Tassajara and perform a ceremony of transferring the ashes of one of the great people in the history of Zen Center from a little

[01:01]

ceramic container into the ground. This person we call we called her Oksan which means wife. A respectful way to say wife in Japanese. This person was the wife of the founder of Zen Center. Her name also was Suzuki Mitsu. And now she has a posthumous name, which is Zen Priest. Moon of love and kindness, wondrous fullness, or wondrously full. Jigetsu. So tomorrow we'll have a ceremony.

[02:12]

We'll carry her ashes which have been brought from Japan. We'll take them up to the ashes site and we'll place them in the chamber under the memorial stone for the founder. Her ashes will be mixed with the ashes of her husband. I came with the intention of doing that ceremony with you all. And some of her family are here. Her son and daughter-in-law and granddaughter and her husband came down And all of you are here. And some of you may be able to come to the ceremony. I came to honor her.

[03:20]

I came to pay my respects. I came to pay homage to her. And of course, I also came to pay homage to Suzuki Roshi. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have met her. And if it weren't for her, I wouldn't have been able to meet him as deeply as I did. She helped me. She helped me meet him. She helped him meet me. She helped many of us meet him. And she helped him meet many of us. So I'm here to honor her, to honor him. And I'm here to honor the practice which they are, the practice which they were, the practice which they will be.

[04:33]

I've come to honor the practice of the Buddhas, which they are. I came to remember her, and remember him, and to remember the Dharma. There's a Benedictine monk here, now visiting. We call him Brother David. I don't think he's in the room right now. In about this time of year, in 1968, we were both here, students of Suzuki Roshi, and we washed dishes together. He was, you might say, really into dishwashing.

[05:38]

And I joined him. We met at that time. And he's still coming to Tassajara. And I've heard a rumor that he's 90. I didn't know he would be here, but I'm here to honor him too. And express my gratitude for his many years, for his 48 years of friendship. Recently, someone came to meet me at another temple, Green Dragon Temple.

[06:44]

And this person, I've been practicing with this person also for more than 40 years. This person comes to meet me again and again for 40, about 46 years. We've been friends. And we still meet on a regular basis. And she said to me, Just the other day she said, what should we talk about? And I said, let's talk about the practice in the Zendo. Recently I was in the presence of a small girl four-year-old girl who calls me granddaddy. And I said to her, excuse me, I'm going to the Zendo.

[07:46]

And she said, the Zendo is the worst place at Green Gulch. So I said to this friend I said let's talk about the practice in the zendo I didn't say the worst place that could go and she said well I I still go and she does but I have trouble sitting up And I said, that reminds me of something that Suzuki Roshi said when he was towards the end of his life. He said, now I'm getting old.

[08:49]

And I can't sit up straight anymore. But I can try. person I was talking to said, yeah, I could try, but I don't see anybody getting the result. And I said, trying is the result. Because of the result, we can try. Because of enlightenment, we can try. And our trying is enlightenment. There's no difference. So Suzuki Roshi, when he was old, he tried that teacher, that founder of Zen Center, was sitting and trying to the end.

[10:06]

teacher was sitting and realizing the result of the Buddha way to the end. How about you? Are you trying? When we sit, when I sit, I sit to honor Suzuki Roshi. My sitting is in honor of him. When I sit, I sit in honor of Oksan. my teacher and mother, when I sit, my sitting is an act of honoring the Buddhas, all the Buddhas and all the Bodhisattvas.

[11:25]

My sitting is homage and honor and respect for all of them. I try to honor them. And my trying of honoring them is honoring them. How about you? Would you like your sitting to be honoring the Buddhas? Does their sitting honor you? They say so. The Buddhas say, I sit to honor all living beings. I sit for all living beings. And all living beings have the opportunity to sit for all living beings and all Buddhas. sit and remember the Buddha and the Buddha's teaching and the Buddha's practice. Remembering Buddha's teaching is Buddha's practice.

[12:27]

Buddhas sit and remember Buddha. Buddhas sit and pay respects to Buddha. Buddhas sit and remember Buddha. Buddhas sit and receive Buddha. When I sit, I remember Buddha. When I sit, I receive Buddha. When I sit, I practice Buddha. When I sit, the sitting practice transmits the Buddha. And by remembering and receiving and practicing Buddha, I repay the kindness of Suzuki Roshi, and I repay the kindness of our Oksa. who we now call Zen priest, moon of loving kindness, wondrous fullness.

[13:28]

When I got ordained 46 years ago in San Francisco, before the ceremony, I asked Ok San, Is there some present I should give Suzuki Roshi or some present I could give him? And guess what she said? This is your present. Exactly. She said, your practice is the present. That's what he wants from you. And not just today. She didn't say that, but of course he wanted me to repay his kindness. He practiced for all of us, and he wants all of us to practice for him, to make him a success. And if I asked her, what present can I give you?

[14:32]

She would say, maybe in that case, a little bit more strictly, she would say, your practice. The last summer I was here at Tatsahara with Suzuki Roshi was the summer of 1970. I don't know how it happened exactly, but during that summer, around this time of year, but a little bit before this time of year, but maybe in late June, I said to him, may I become ordained as a Zen priest? And he said, Something right. Yes. And then Okusan measured me. And I guess she sent off measurements to Japan.

[15:36]

And then on August 9th, that summer, I became ordained with Paul Disco, who built this zendo and built the gatehouse. Not the gatehouse, the gate in the kitchen, and some other things. And the Kaisando. That summer, 1970, while I was still here at Tassajara, Paul and his friends lifted up Suzuki Roshi's cabin, which is cabin 20. It's now called cabin 20. It was his cabin. And his cabin was where the Founders Hall is now. They lifted it up and moved it. between Cabin 4 and Cabin 5 and downtown Sahara Avenue and put it where it is now. And tonight his granddaughter will be staying in his old cabin.

[16:40]

And then the idea was, and then Paul built the foundation for what was going to be a house for Suzuki Roshi and Oksan. But Suzuki Roshi died too quickly. So we didn't build a house for him there. And then after 13 years, still not building a house for him, we did build a house for him. And we called the house the Founders Hall. That summer of 1970, a film crew came down and filmed us and filmed Suzuki Roshi. And during that time, he was giving his lectures on the Sandokai, on the harmony of difference in unity, which some of you have seen. Those videos still exist. And he sat down in that old Zendo and gave those talks in the summer heat of Tosahara.

[17:47]

And after those talks, he was drenched with sweat. But he sat there happily roasting and joyfully singing Nadana to us. Also that summer, he said down in that Zendo, he said something like, blah, blah, blah, my disciples. He was talking about his disciples. And when he said that, I wondered, well, who are his disciples? So after the talk, I said to him, Roshi, who are your disciples? And he said, I don't like that my mind works like this, but my mind actually does think that there's two kinds of students that tells horror.

[18:49]

One kind are here for themselves. And one kind are here for others. The ones who are here for others are my disciples. So if you're here for yourself, you're allowed to be here. If you're here for your own enlightenment, you can stay. Ezekiel's disciples are the ones who are here to realize enlightenment for others. So when he said that, I started wondering, and I'm still wondering, which type am I? Also that summer, as usual, he was working on rocks.

[19:53]

Over in that garden, Abbott's garden, he worked on rocks, and I got to help him work on the rocks. And earlier today I was up at the Ashes site with his son, and his son said he loved to work with rocks. He was like a kid when he came to rocks. He loved to play with rocks. And he also loved to have large students to help him move them. LAUGHTER So, you know, if he wanted to rock, if he wanted to try to rock out someplace, he said, move it over there. So we'd move it over there. And then he said, no, move it over here. Move it over there. Move it over there. Oftentimes it would wind up right back where we started. But he enjoyed watching us move it. And he would also move some of the smaller ones. So he built the retaining wall along the stream there, That summer we built that retaining wall, those big rocks.

[20:56]

He and his young students built that retaining wall. He had already built the little sort of mountain range of rocks that's behind Cabin 4. So tomorrow we're going to put his wife's stashes with his under a big rock. that he indicated to us one time. He said, this rock would be a good memorial stone for someone. It is a good memorial. So we made a chamber in the ground with flat-sided stones, and then we moved the rock on the tripod Thank you. I think that summer, as I said, people came and filmed him and made a film out of it.

[22:51]

And also tomorrow, Japanese television is coming here to film Tassajara to make a documentary on Suzuki Roshi for Japanese television, NHK. And they will very like to film Tassajara and interview certain people. who they've already invited and who have agreed. So I hope you can accept their efforts to make this documentary of Suzuki Roshi. I hope someday there's a documentary of Oksan. Before Suzuki Rishi and Oksan met, they had each had difficult lives.

[24:18]

They had both gone through times of poverty. They both lost their spouses. And they both went through the Second World War. And after the war was over, they met. Suzuki Roshi was concerned after the war of rebuilding the temple kindergarten. And he found out about Oksan. Her name was Mitsu. Was her name before she was Suzuki? Matsuno? Yeah. So Matsuno Mitsu. She was a principal. and a teacher of kindergartens. And Shizakura, she found out about her, and she was in a big city near Yaizu. Yaizu is a small city, and it's near a bigger city called Shizuoka.

[25:24]

So Shizakura, she heard about her and went to invite her to come and look at the kindergarten of Rinsoen Temple. And she said to him that she was too busy to come. I heard that he was quite persistent and kept asking and said, just come and look, just come and look. And somehow, I don't know, she was impressed by his persistence and she did come and look. And somehow when she saw the kindergarten and his dedication to developing it, somehow she decided to come and be the teacher and the principal for that kindergarten. And they developed this close working relationship. And then, after a while, because Sigurgya had lost his first wife, the mother of his three children, the people of the temple congregation thought that it would be good for him to have a wife, and that she would be the

[26:42]

really good wife so somehow she got invited to be his wife and he got invited to be her husband and there they were and they got together and then another amazing thing happened not too long after they got together not too long after they got married I think they were working together for a number of years in Japan around the school And then they got married. I think they got married in 1958. And then in 1959, he went to this place called San Francisco. He went to a temple for Japanese Americans in San Francisco. I didn't hear him say this directly.

[27:42]

To me, I didn't hear him, I wasn't in his presence when he said this, but I heard that he wanted, he always wanted to give the United States something really good. He felt that Japan had some really good things to give to the United States. The United States and Japan had been giving each other not very good things for a while. And his response was he wanted to give the United States something really good. He wanted to give the United States the practice of the Buddha way. And he had learned English quite well in Japan. So he was well suited to remember and receive and practice and transmit this practice. So he came. And little by little, The non-Japanese Americans found out about him and asked if they could study Zen with him.

[28:47]

So he came right at the end of the beatnik era and at the beginning of the hippie era. So the beatniks were quite open to Asian teachings, quite open to Buddhism. You've heard of the book by Jack Kerouac called Dharma Bums. So the beatniks were open to Dharma. were open to the teachings of perfect wisdom. They've heard about it. They wanted to practice it. And then he came around the time that they were becoming quite influential and also there for the beginning of the hippie era. And so, in the hippie era, a Zen master was a very interesting thing. So many, many people came to Zen Center, old hippies and young, no, old beatniks and young hippies, came to the Zen Center and started to practice Zazen with him. When he first came in 1959, Okusan and his sons and daughters were still in Japan, so he came alone.

[30:01]

But after two years, Okusan and his son Otohiro came to San Francisco. in 1961. And from that time, Oksan helped Suzuki Roshi start the practice at Sokoji Temple in San Francisco. That sentinel, for me, and I think for many people, had wonderful feeling and a big part of that wonderful feeling was the smell of the room and the smell of the room to a great extent was Oksan's cooking and the flowers which she took care of and of course the incense and to some extent the Zen students all those smells together

[31:07]

made a very rich, organic feeling to this meditation hall in the busy city of San Francisco. And as the numbers of the non-Japanese Americans started to outnumber the Japanese Americans, the Japanese Americans asked the non-Japanese Americans to get their own temple. So then we got 300-page street in 1969. And Suzuki Roshi and Oksan moved from Sokoji over to 300-page street. And then from 1969, just two more years, really, just a little bit more than two more years, Oksana Suzuki Roshi lived there.

[32:17]

And those were the last two and a half years that Suzuki Roshi was here with us. The first few years that I practiced, I sometimes had a hard time with the sitting practice. In the spring and summer of 1970, this strange thing came over me called not having a hard time. I started to become really comfortable with the practice, and I thought maybe something was wrong with me, that I was Missing something.

[33:19]

So, I went to see Siddhi Rashi, and this is after the cabin 20 had been moved over, and he had moved into cabin 6. I went to see him, and I said, if I'm missing something, I'm having an easy time. And he said, maybe sometimes practice will not be difficult for you. piece of paper and folded it. And he said, when we do origami, after we make a fold, we press on it. We press on it for a while. Sometimes the folds are rather difficult to make. But once they're made, you just press on it. And it makes the crease more stable, the time and pressure. But it's not so difficult just to press. So now you may be having an easy time.

[34:26]

And I said, OK. And the next day, the next crease, the next fold came. I was asked to lean to Asahara and go to the city to be the director. of the building in the city. And so I went, but one of the... One of... What's the word? Prerogatives of the director is assigning rooms. So I assigned myself a room right next to Oksan's and his room so I could be available to them if they needed me for anything. So then for the next... two years, or next year and a half, or a year and three-fourths, I got to live right next door to them.

[35:31]

And Oksan was so kind to me and other people to find ways for us to spend time with the Surya Roshi. And she would invite me to help out in various ways, which were ways for me to serve her and our teacher. For example, one time, They were having trouble with their television set, so they called me in to help. And I looked at the television set and saw it wasn't working very well, so they went up to the roof of the building and plugged in the antenna. And I came down, and the television was working, and they thought I was a genius. So they gave me opportunities like this to demonstrate how helpful it could be. but usually those kinds of things. But the point is, she invited us into her life with her husband, with our teacher.

[36:33]

She facilitated our relationship with him. She protected him, and she also found ways for us to be close to him. And then, after not very long, he passed away. And I think she said to him, what should I do after you pass away? And I think he said, please stay and help the Sangha. And she did stay. And she did stay. And she did help the Sangha year after year. And she helped so many people, particularly if anybody was being overlooked by other people. She almost sensed that they needed a friend, and she was there. She was a friend to those who did not have a friend. And after being in America for, Suzuki where she was in America for 12 years, and of course accomplished an inconceivably wonderful community,

[37:52]

She stayed for, I believe, 30. And after 30, she kind of said to us, can I go to Japan, please? I think she loved our community. And I think she said that the most important and the best years of her life was when she was in San Francisco with us. San Francisco and Tassajara and Green Colts. But I think as she got older, She wanted to be in a place where she could speak Japanese and where the doctors could speak Japanese because she was starting to need assistance. I think she wanted to be in a place where the food and the language were easier for her. So she did go back to Japan. And I don't know how long she would have lived if she stayed here. But anyway, in Japan, as you may have heard, she lived to be 102 years. and she was very clear and compassionate all the way to the end.

[39:00]

I'm laughing because I heard this story about her granddaughter, Takako, was visiting her in October, and I heard a rumor that you said, Grandma, please don't die at New Year's. Did you say something like that? I heard somebody, but you did. Please don't die at New Year's. Die some other time. Because it would be really inconvenient if you died at New Year's. So she died. She waited until after New Year's out of kindness and died on January 9th. And so now we had the opportunity to do a small ceremony for her tomorrow as a small token of our respect and appreciation and gratitude and homage to Mitsu Suzuki Sensei.

[40:10]

Jigesu Myoman Zenni. And I hope I never miss a chance to remember her. Visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

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