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. Good afternoon, everybody. Class 2. I'd like to start a couple of... As often as the case, I didn't allow any time or much time for question and answer, although I encourage you, as I'm speaking, if you have a question, interrupt me, please. Feel free to just shout out a question if you have one. If something isn't clear, if I jumped from one topic to another in a way that isn't understandable. After class, lo and behold, a couple of people came up to me with questions, and a few people admitted, I guess I would have to say, I use that term, admitted that they had indeed been reading B.T.

[01:09]

Suzuki, and some quite avidly, but they didn't ask how many people have been reading B.T. Suzuki, very few people raised their hands, but there are a few of you out there who've been working through his material. And as I said yesterday, it it's a little bit of a heavy lift in the sense that he is a figure from, you know, he's a man born in 1870, he's a Meiji, late Edo period, Meiji period Japanese guy in his upbringing, who managed to stay au courant up until 1966 when he died, pioneering the sorts of dialogue that we're familiar with, Buddhist-Christian dialogue, Buddhism and science, Buddhism and psychoanalysis, he was a pioneer of those kinds of conversations. For much of his life, it's really quite remarkable that someone was able to be that flexible. So one question that came up after the talk yesterday was, what prompted Suzuki to go DT?

[02:21]

When I say Suzuki, if I don't say Shunryu, you'll know I'm talking about my Suzuki. This guy. But why did Suzuki go to the United States in the first place? Back in 1897, I believe it was. He had been, as I mentioned, increasingly enamored with practice. He'd gone to Ngaku-ji, he was practicing with Shaka Soen, and dropped out of college. Like I said yesterday, I'm sure it's a story that's familiar to a number of us in our biographies, how we came to Zen Center, how we came to Zen practice. He didn't know what he, he came from a poor family, he was not a man of means. There's a seat up here if you not a person of means. And he was trying to figure out, how do I make a living?

[03:24]

What am I going to do to make a living? And his first thought was to follow in his teacher's footsteps, in Shaku Soen's footsteps, and go to Sri Lanka, where Soen had gone in, let me see now, I think it was around 1897, I'm sorry, 1887, 1888. He was one of the first Japanese to go to Sri Lanka, where he was ordained as a novice. He wanted to get full ordination, but he couldn't get full monk ordination in Sri Lanka, and he practiced there for three years. Then he went to Siam at the time, Thailand, for full ordination, which he was refused for some reason. I'm not exactly sure why, and he returned to Japan. So DT thought, well, I'll follow in my teacher's footsteps. I'll go to Sri Lanka. But that required money, and as I said, he did not have much money. His English was very good, even though he'd never been in the United States.

[04:26]

As I mentioned yesterday, Kanazawa, where he grew up, had a great educational system, and there were non-Japanese teachers of English there. They emphasized English language study. And so Suzuki, he was linguistically quite gifted. He picked up enough English that even when he dropped out of high school, he was able to teach English of a sort at lower school for a living after dropping out of high school for lack of funds. So he was quite good linguistically. He decided he would go to Sri Lanka, but he'd been helping Soen with his English translation. Soen spoke at the World Parliament of Religions. This big event in Chicago in 1893 that was part of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago. And I don't know if any of you have been to Chicago of late, but Millennium Park is where the World's Fair and the Columbian Exposition took place. And someone went there and Suzuki translated his lecture for the World Parliament of Religions, which was on the law of cause and effect.

[05:37]

It was on, the Japanese call it, what Linda was talking about last night, about causes and conditions giving rise to everything. That was Soen's subject for his talk at the World Parliament. Suzuki had translated that. And at the Parliament, Soen met this man, Paul Karras, who was a German immigrant to the United States who married a very wealthy... American woman, last name Hagler, was part of this family that had a mining concern in LaSalle, Illinois, about an hour and a half, two hours west, due west of Chicago. And Karras had this magazine called The Monist that he was working on. He was very interested in Buddhism. And when he heard someone speak, he thought, there's something very scientific about Buddhism, this law of cause and effect. And he was very interested in this connection between science and religion. So Keras kept writing to Soen and became quite interested in Buddhism and even put together a little anthology called The Gospel of the Buddha, which Soen then had Suzuki translate into Japanese and it was published in Japan as a way of

[07:00]

demonstrating to the Japanese that this tradition that they thought was this old-fashioned, dying tradition, Christianity was the rage, the new thing. Japan was in the throes of westernization, that Buddhism was a happening thing, even in the United States and Europe. So Suzuki started having some correspondence with Paul Karras. Karras was getting more and more interested in Asian religions, translating Chinese texts, and he invited, he said to Soen, I could use some help. And Soen, and he also said his father-in-law, Hegler, Edward Hegler maybe, said he would pay full freight for D.T. Suzuki to come to the United States and work with Paul Karras. So all of a sudden, for the next few years at least, Suzuki had a way of making a living, staying engaged with his interest in scholarship.

[08:05]

He was very academically oriented, reading a lot while he was at Ngakuji practicing, helping someone with English translations and translations of English works into Japanese. So Suzuki went off to La Salle, Illinois for that reason. It was an opportunity. It was also a way of supporting himself and improving his English. which was quite clear was the key to both bringing new information into the Buddhist world in Japan and of equal importance, if not greater for Suzuki, of disseminating Buddhism outside of Japan. And increasingly Suzuki felt we have this great jewel here. As he saw, the crown of Japanese culture was Zen. Chinese, but He appropriated his quintessential Japanese culture, and he wanted to export this. Improving his English, going to the United States, was a way of going about doing that.

[09:07]

So he shipped off for the United States in 1897, and he was out in LaSalle, Illinois. I want to do a few other things today, but it's a very interesting story because he was there at a time when... Most of the Asian immigrants to the United States, the East Asian immigrants to the United States, were either coolly labor, working on railroads, housekeepers in San Francisco and California, or farmers. And there he was, not on the West Coast or the East Coast, where there was some semblance of an Asian American or Asian immigrant community, but plopped down in the middle of the cell, Illinois, living with this family, where he was viewed by many as nothing more than the Asian houseboy that the Hagelers had hired. And he took his lumps, you know, over those years. And one of the things that fascinated him, there were a lot of young women in the family, young American girls.

[10:09]

He would write letters he couldn't figure out. Just culturally, they were so different than Japanese women and so open and forward with him. His head was literally spinning from... that encounter. He would write letters back to Japan about, I can't figure out this species here with which I'm living. They're so different from anything I've ever encountered. He ended up marrying an American woman. And this is an important part of his biography I did not mention yesterday. A woman he met at Greenacre, which was this sort of the esalen of the early 20th century, up in I think it was in Maine. Anyway, in the Northeast. And he met a woman there, Beatrice Erskine Lane, who came from a very well-heeled, but not particularly wealthy family. She was a Radcliffe graduate. Very smart woman. About half again as tall as DT.

[11:12]

And they fell in love. She was an avid theosophist. And very interested in this sort of liberal spiritual movement, allah esalen. But at the turn of the 19th to 20th century, theosophy, Krishnamurti, Blavatsky, spiritualism. And she remained quite interested in those things. They married in 1911 after Suzuki had returned to Japan. She came to Japan and spent the rest of her life in Japan and even brought her mother over. to live with DT and was quite an influence on him. She exposed him to, I think, things like Swedenborg, Theosophy. He was never as interested in Theosophy as Beatrice was. But they had a very interesting, very dynamic and intellectually rich relationship that one can see in their correspondence. And she was his live-in editor as well. I think a lot of the polishing of his writing.

[12:16]

was through Beatrice. She died in 1939. And you could see there's an attenuation in his writing for a little while. The war had a lot to do with that as well, the Second World War. And the other thing about Beatrice that is interesting, she was a committed anti-vivisectionist and animal rights, early animal rights person. And she began, Suzuki had a little place that he was given by his teacher at Ngakuji, a little sub-temple called Shodenon, where he spent a lot of time. And Beatrice was forever picking up stray cats and dogs and bringing them back to Shodenon. And they created a little animal shelter for these strays called Jihiyan, the Garden of Compassion. Much of the work fell to their beloved housekeeper, Okuno-san. And there's lovely photographs of her holding some of these animals. And there are letters... from D.T.

[13:18]

to Beatrice, saying, please, stop bringing stray animals home. We're bursting at the seams. Please stop. But this became an influence on him. And indeed, after the war at the Cambridge Buddhist Center, Suzuki gave a talk on the chain of compassion, which is about animal welfare and anti-dissection and so on. So he wrote this... also influenced him quite deeply, Beatrice, in this way. They were really intellectual collaborators and partners, and it exposed him to American culture in a very, very deep way. He kept his diaries from the 1920s on until the end of his life in English. His daily diary entries, they're all in English. Brief, it's a Japanese-style diary, you know, the weather today is such and such. I went to the dentist, had three teeth pulled, went home, finished three articles. Literally, that kind of thing. But it's all in English.

[14:20]

And again, I think you can see how deeply bilingual he became over the course of his life. So that was one long answer to a question that someone asked yesterday about why Suzuki went to America. And then I I thought I should mention Beatrice as well because she was so influential. The other question was about Alan Watts at Suzuki. And Alan Watts indeed had quite an ongoing correspondence with Suzuki. I believe he met him in England first. Suzuki was very much involved with the development of the Buddhist Society in London. And Alan Watts began writing about Zen. In the first book or so, Suzuki actually said in one of his letters he thought quite highly of. And then Watts got kind of further and further out there with his interpretation of Zen and so on.

[15:23]

Suzuki became more critical over time. But they did have a connection, and Alan Watts hosted him in San Francisco at his East-West Center back in the 50s, and that's where Gary Snyder first encountered him. D.T. Suzuki in person, although he knew about his writing. So that's in response to another question that came up yesterday. So before I move on, let me ask, are there any other... Yes, Linda? There was something in what you said yesterday about how D.T. Suzuki's emphasis on Satori or Awakening, or whatever you want to call it, and I wondered if that... what kind of an influence that focus had on what became American Zen Buddhist practice and how that might differ from the viewpoint in Asia, in different parts of Asia. That's a very good question, and it's a nice way for me to segue into what I wanted to talk about a little bit today before we read these, one or two of these talks, these Dharma talks that Suzuki gave.

[16:35]

But you're absolutely right. You know, he was a Rinzai layman, Rinzai lay practitioner. And he very strongly emphasized in many of his writings, and in particular the writings that tended to be anthologized in various collections that became popular. For example, there's a collection called, what is it? The Essentials of Zen, or William Barrett, the philosopher, did one that, you know, is one of these paperbacks that just went everywhere. It was very, very popular. And what he picked were the essays that emphasized this, had this emphasis on Kensho or Satoshi. So in a way, it gets magnified because of the way in which his writings have been presented. It's there, to be sure. And as I was saying, he's a Rinzai guy, and at least... It seems to me, looking at his letters, looking at his biography, among the lay practitioners at Ngaku-ji, there was a big lay Zen group.

[17:45]

And this was something fairly new. Soen's teacher, Suzuki's first teacher, Imakita, and Shaka Soen both encouraged lay Zen practice. And they did koan practice with the laity. And there was a certain amount of emphasis on kencho, on solving the koan. And you can see in some of the letters that I'm discussing this topic. Although, as I said yesterday, it was considered extremely rude to, number one, talk about what took place in practice instruction, or sanzen, with your teacher. That was taboo. And to claim one had had satori. seems to have been terrible. You didn't say, oh yeah, I had Satori yesterday. But they clearly, the reason I think it was talked about is there was a professor of psychology from Tokyo University who came down, spent a few months practicing at Ngakaji, and then wrote an article detailing what went on in the Sanzen room between him and so on, and he talked about having had Kensho and so forth and so on.

[18:54]

And Suzuki was extremely critical of this. You know, that he'd broken all of these taboos. And in one of the letters he said, and besides, this big Kensho he claims he had was not so big. Whatever that means. Anyway, it's a different sort of way of talking about practice than what we're used to. But the other thing about this is if you read across Suzuki's writings more broadly, you'll see that, yes, absolutely, the experience of awakening, which for Suzuki means understanding non-dual mind, understanding big mind, experientially. What is big mind? He calls this non-duality, I think. Understanding that is essential for Buddhist practice. That is fundamentally what Buddhist practice is about for Suzuki. But that's not enough.

[19:55]

It entails years of ongoing study and deepening of that in order for it to be complete. Otherwise, it remains quite shallow. And he always emphasized in one of the readings that we're not going to get to, but the reason I put this in the packet, this little essay called Self, the Unattainable. At the very end, he says, he gives you a list of books you should read, of Zen texts one needs to study as a way of deepening one's practice, that these things have to go hand in hand. The other thing about Suzuki Kensho awakening in practice that I stated is, Keith mentioned to me, he said, there's not much yesterday, or the day before when I came to Jamesburg. I mentioned that he said he had read Suzuki very early on. He said, there's not much in there about Zazen. There's all this stuff about Kensho and about Awakening. He says, but how do you do it? There's nothing in there in Suzuki about Zazen, or very little. And certainly that's the case.

[20:59]

He does not talk much about Zazen. Although he does say, again, if you read broadly, as I've done to prepare these volumes, I've read a lot of his stuff now. You'll see he says quite explicitly... Zazen is essential for understanding what Zen is about. But, and this is, I think, worth chewing on, but it is not sufficient. It's essential but not sufficient that there's something else required to truly penetrate, to truly deepen one's Zen practice. Zazen by itself is, you have to do it, but it's not by itself enough. And what is essential is what he calls a fundamental turning of the will, a deep, deep, deep doubt, great doubt, and deep question.

[21:59]

These are essential for a living Zen practice, according to Sissons. And at the end of his life, he makes this quite clear. He had a discussion with a scholar and practitioner named Ueda Shizutaru. And they were talking about Rinzai. And they were talking about the relationship between Zazen and awakening. And Zazen, as I say, Suzuki makes quite clear, you have to do it. And Rinzai did it. But what led to Rinzai's understanding of Buddhism was this deep question he had. That that gives life to one's practice. that questioning, that doubt. So you need both of those. Now he used kind of an old-fashioned language to talk about this. He talks about it, he uses the language of will. And he uses this term in several different ways. He borrows this, you know, this was a term of great popularity or currency in the late 19th century in Europe, in European philosophy, sort of post-

[23:09]

Kantian philosophy. If you look at Schopenhauer, Arthur Schopenhauer wrote this book, The World is Will and Representation. And Schopenhauer was one of the first European philosophers, he was a German philosopher, to get very interested in East Asian thought. He was a pessimist, and his understanding of Buddhism was somewhat superficial. He saw Buddhism as a kind of profound pessimism, which is quite common at the time. So this term will was there, and Suzuki picks up on it, and he sees things in terms of will. By will, he means two things. There's the individual will, which is crucial for awakening. Intention. You can think of it as intention. This is the bedrock of practice, is this intention. But will, with a capital W, is his way of talking about a lie of Vijnana, or big mind as well.

[24:11]

All there is, is will. In fact, I marked a, if I can find it, a place here. Oh, here it is. Okay. Will, as Suzuki defines it, that's me, this is Suzuki, is more basic than the intellect because it is the principle that lies at the root of all existences and unites them all in the oneness of being. This is will with a capital W. The rocks are where they are. This is their will. The rivers flow. This is their will. The birds fly. This is their will. Human beings talk. This is their will. The seasons change. Heavens send down rain or snow.

[25:13]

The earth occasionally shakes. The waves roll. The stars shine. Each of them follows its own will. To be is to will and so is to become. There is absolutely nothing in this world that has not its will. The one great will from which all these wills infinitely varied flow is what I call the cosmic or ontological unconscious, which is the zero reservoir of infinite possibilities. It's actually deeper than even a lie of Vijnana, which is tainted. It's that perfect mirror wisdom, what he calls, he uses the Japanese term sometimes, Kokoro, which can mean heart. But he uses Kokoro and he says that Kokoro is the abyss of absolute nothingness from which all things are produced. So that's one of the ways in which he uses will. But there's the individual will as well. And it is that cognitive or intention, intentive aspect of practice that is essential.

[26:16]

And he says in this regard, talking about the awakening of the Buddha, He sort of critiques current scholarship, and he says there's a very intellectual way of understanding what happened to the Buddha when he became awakened. As far as he was concerned, that was wrong, that understanding. He says, when you read about the Buddha's awakening, it says, when he achieved his awakening at Bogdaya, the earth shook in six directions. He said, a mere intellectual understanding would never make the earth shake in this way. This was a deep, fundamental understanding of the arising of suffering and the ceasing of suffering that Shakyamuni had. And this was a product of a turning of his will.

[27:20]

Or as he writes, and there's a beautiful essay called Enlightenment and Ignorance. It's one of his foundational essays. But he writes... the ignorance that is the source of human suffering. He's talking about the ignorance that's the source of human suffering. With this arises the tragedy of life, which the Buddha makes the basis of the fourfold noble truth, that pain, dukkha, is life itself, as it is lived by most of us, is the plain, undisguised statement of facts. This all comes from ignorance, from our consciousness not being fully enlightened as to its nature, mission, and function, in relation to the will. Consciousness must first be reduced to the will when it begins to work out its original vows, purva pranidhana, in obedience to its true master. Vow is that which transforms our individual practice into bodhisattva practice.

[28:25]

That's not Suzuki, that's me. The awakening of a thought This is what Linda was talking about last night. Her referring to imputed... What did she say? Imputed... What was it? Meaning or view? Does anyone remember? Imputational. Imputational thinking. The awakening of a thought marks the beginning of ignorance and its condition. Every morning we chant here... all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion. That's the arising of that first thought that splits the will into subject and object. When this is vanquished, a thought is reduced to the will, which is enlightenment. Enlightenment is therefore a returning. So that's Suzuki's understanding of

[29:29]

will, awakening, and one has to place his writing about Kensho or Satori in that larger context. Any other questions? If not, what I would like to do, I don't have enough copies for everyone to have one, but I would like to do something more participatory. And that is to read there are I don't think we have time to do them both, but we'll see. We'll start with one and then move on. Two very nice dharma talks, I would call them, although they're lectures. But they really are dharma talks, Suzuki gave. And it's very different from the kind of more academic writing he did. And maybe if you just share one among three or four people, and what I'd like to do is to have us take turns and read through the lecture aloud, because I know... Most of you probably did not have time in your busy days to read these before coming here.

[30:35]

But they're brief, and we can talk about them as we go along. So we can take turns reading them. Sir, would you like to move in more? You're happy out there? Okay. So who would like to read, to start with maybe the first couple of paragraphs? Yes, Greg. No, your voice is quite booming, and you can sit there. S.A. San, Spirit of Shinra Shonen. Oh, you know what? Yeah, but that's the introduction. Let me give you the back. That's the introduction. I'll just blast through that, and then we'll read the actual talk by Suzuki. So the introduction is by James Davids, who edited the volume in which this is placed. I discovered this talk at the New York Buddhist Community Church. The New York Buddhist Church, it's called, on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. Has anyone ever been there? Outside that, it's a brownstone on Riverside Drive, a very nice building.

[31:40]

It's been a Buddhist church probably since the 30s, perhaps, maybe a little later. It's a Jodo Shinshu Center. And the American Buddhist Studies Center is there. After the Second World War, there was a big statue human-sized, life-sized statue of Shinran, the founder of True Pure Land Buddhism. It had been in Hiroshima. It was cast by a very wealthy guy named Hirose, who donated money, and they had this big statue of Shinran, and this statue survived the atomic bomb blast. And after the Second World War, as a way of, as a piece, offering a piece and comedy with the Americans who were Just ending the occupation of Japan, in 1955, Hirose paid to have this huge statue, and this was expensive, crated up and shipped across the ocean and taken by train to New York, where it was enshrined outside the New York Buddhist church, where it still stands.

[32:46]

On September 11th, 1955, and that date should ring a bell, To everyone in this room, September 11th, 1955, Suzuki gave this dedication lecture about War and Peace and this statue of Shima. It's another 9-11. I've often thought we should do an op-ed piece in the New York Times with this lecture, the other 9-11, or something of that sort. But anyway, so let's read through, starting with ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen. Many years ago, there was a great Buddhist government officer. He once visited a Buddhist monastery, and the monks took him to a room where many portraits were hung on the wall. The governor, then a high government officer, pointed at one of the portraits and asked the monks, Who is he? The monks answered, This is the abbot's portrait, who recently passed away. The governor asked, The portrait is here, but where is the man?

[33:52]

The monks did not know how to answer that question. So they confessed, we do not know where the man is. But the governor insisted, he wants to know where the man was, or rather, where the man is, instead of the portrait. Okay, so volunteer number two. Anybody? Leslie? The monks did not know how to answer the question, so they consulted among themselves and came to this conclusion. It was a strange monk who came around and was staying with them for a while. He was very likely to answer this question as proposed by the governor. So they hunted him up and brought him into the presence of the governor. Then the governor said to this monk, a quite insignificant looking monk, Reverend Sir, I wish to ask you a question. Would you be kind enough to answer it? Then he said, Yes, whatever question you may ask, I will answer. Now the governor said, As you see, here is a portrait of the abbot, but I want to know where the man is. Then the monk, the gardener, loudly called out, Oh, governor! And the governor said, Yes, Reverend Sir, I am here. And the mutt said, here is the man.

[34:55]

This concludes the question. Volunteer number three. Now this is the most significant. Now this is most significant on this occasion where the Shinran Shonen statue has been unveiled. Here we see a great big statue of Shinran Shonen unveiled, which is cast in bronze, so many feet high and so many pounds in weight. coming over the great ocean of the Pacific and across a long distance to this side of the Atlantic. His serene expression is full of tender feelings, evidently desirous to transmit the message of brotherhood and equality, though according to my view Americans are in no special need for such a message because equality is the principle of democracy and brotherhood is one of the favorite themes taught by Christianity. Americans are really overfed with this kind of diet. The presentation of this statue is in fact bringing coals to Newcastle, or recently one of your high American government officers would interpret it as bringing sake to nada.

[35:59]

Okay, so a little bit of sarcasm there. Volunteer number four. Go ahead. I have not, however, concerned with the American feeling, nor with the political meaning of this shinrok statue as revealed here. What concerns me most is the person of Shinran Shonin and not his stature. However I may call out his name now, he remains dumb, he shows no signs of life. Ladies and gentlemen, what we blunt most seriously, most urgently at this very moment, is not Shinran Shonin's stature, but his person, most vivaciously alive, and not the person coming out of the pages of history, but the person who properly understands the spirit of the modern world and knows perfectly well how to adjust his teachings to the needs of modern men. Okay, another volunteer. Would you like to read?

[37:02]

I launched Nasa Shinran's statue that has gone to the pure land so many years ago. But the Shinran Shonin who is back from his long trip to the land of bliss, to this Shabha world, this world filled with all forms of inequity and equality, in spite of our loud and boisterous proclamations, a world also filled with things tending towards a direction altogether opposite of universal furtherness, so-called. Okay, another beater. Do you know where we are? Go ahead. Yes. Such a Shinran, not one Shinran, but Shinrans, who thoroughly understand the spirit of naught of the modern world, must be discovered among our fellow Buddhists gathered here today. Let them announce, not necessarily loudly, but quietly and persistently, and in most practical ways,

[38:10]

what not the dead Shinran, but the living Shinran would say and do. Not as he said and did in those Kamakura days, but in this modern world where the atomic bombs may at any moment explode again. Shinran lived during the Kamakura period, which is around the 11th, 12th, 13th century. Okay, continuing on. The present state of things that we are facing everywhere, politically, economically, morally, intellectually, and spiritually, is no doubt the result of our past thoughts and deeds we have committed as human beings through the whole length of history. How many years we cannot count, through eons of existence, not only individually, but collectively. As such, We are, every one of us, responsible for the present world situation filled with awesome foreclosings.

[39:16]

The bombing of Hiroshima was not, after all, the doing of the American armies, but the doing of mankind as a whole. And as such, we, not only the Japanese and Americans, but the whole world, are to be held responsible for the wholesale slaughter witnessed 10 years ago in Japan. Would someone like to take over? Yes. What then is the meaning of this celebration we see going on now about us? As far as I can see, it must be in finding the living Shinran Shavnian, who is clearly among us, answering to the call of his name. Only we have not been able to hear his response. Our ears have not yet been fully opened innerly as well as externally to the still small voice. Perhaps we can hear it, at least a little portion of Shinran's voice, when the Buddhist academy begins to operate properly equipped, not only in externalities, but in spirit and personnel.

[40:20]

No doubt, Shinran Shonin will find many more things to do besides establishing a school. As it happens, let him start with it. and steadily go on with things, not only in its narrower sense, but more comprehensively social and spiritual. Go ahead, I'd like to finish up. We must realize that modern civilization is thoroughly oriented towards dehumanizing humanity in every possible way. That is to say, we are fast turning into robots and statues with no human souls. Our task is to get humanized once more. In conclusion, I wish to call out again, O Shinran Shonin, here we have the statue, but where is the person? Where are you? Thank you. Any thoughts? Comments? Yes. I see, like, the last statement, he says, where are you?

[41:23]

So it seems like that's the real tradition of the Rinzai. I think even though it happened a long time ago, I feel like it's very applicable to these times now. I feel like it's really relevant. He says how people are becoming more dehumanized. I think we like statues and we like solid things because it's more easy to understand as we think it is. Yeah. You know, the context, again, there'd been this devastating war, the Pacific War, the World War II. Japan was recovering from total devastation.

[42:25]

And at the same time, the Cold War was beginning to heat up. and the Russians had gotten an atomic bomb, and they were testing hydrogen bombs, and we were moving into this era of a very, very tense standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States. It was in this context that Suzuki presented this and called, as you said, he calls forth... His approach to Jodo Shin Buddhism was very much that of a Rinzai-ra-zen practitioner. He says, where is this? We have the statue. Where is the living Shina? How do we call forth the living Shina? Where is the man? Any other thoughts or comments? I think as I read these, there's one other talk I'd like, I think we might be able to read some of. But they're, to my mind, model Dharma talks in many ways.

[43:27]

It's just quite elegant, the way in which he takes the task at hand, which is to dedicate this statue, and opens it up into a much wider discussion. It gives it much more meaning, a global meaning. And you'll see that when we look at this next one, I hope we'll get through the whole thing, but there's another talk that he gave earlier, but you can see him do something very similar And the reason I wanted to share these with you is, well, first of all, many of you are teachers in training. And this is a bit of a homiletics class, I guess, how to go about giving a Dharma talk. And Suzuki, although we think of him as this intellectual, kind of dry, he gave a lot of Dharma talks. And this is, I don't know what else you would call this Dharma. this little dedication speech here. But I've got another one here that I'd like to share with you that he gave in 1936.

[44:33]

And when we passed these around a little bit earlier, we have about 10 minutes, is that right? Well, this one, and let me give you the context for this one. And maybe if different people could read this time, if you don't mind, if you're not shy. In 1936, Suzuki was invited to the World Congress of Faiths in London, sort of like the World Parliament of Religions. And this, again, was at a time when, quite clearly, there had been this absolutely horrible war from 1914 to 1918, World War I. And it was evident by 1936 that Europe was hurtling towards another conflagration. And a man, Francis Young Husband, who had actually been responsible for a massacre in an invasion of Tibet in the early 1900s, became quite religious and interested in world religions.

[45:42]

And he thought perhaps by bringing together people from all different faiths in a Congress, they would be able to come up with some way of stemming what seemed to be the looming disaster in Europe. this world disaster, that became the Second World War. So in 1936, Suzuki was invited to London, and he deferred at first, didn't want to go, he said he was busy with his work, but eventually was convinced to go, in part because a very wealthy American paid his way to go to Europe to speak at this Congress. And at the Congress, some people gave one lecture, and Suzuki gave a talk called Ignorance and World Fellowship. which was about Buddhism and ignorance and awakening. And then several of the most prominent speakers at the Congress were asked to give a little keynote addressing the topic as what is your tradition's spiritual ideal? So what is the spiritual ideal in Buddhism? And this is how D.T.

[46:42]

dealt with that question, the Congress. So someone want to kick this off? Yes, sir. When I was first asked to talk about the supreme spiritual ideal, I did not exactly know what to answer. Firstly, I'm just a simple-minded country man in a faraway corner of the world, suddenly thrust into the midst of this hustling city of London, and I am bewildered and my mind refuses to work in the same way that it does when I am in my own lane. Secondly, how can a humble person like myself talk about such a grand thing as the supreme spiritual ideal? Yes. Let me tell you how I lived before I came to London. In my country we have straw-thatched houses. Japanese houses are mostly little.

[47:45]

Well, still in the country, you see many such straw houses, and mine is one of them. I get up in the morning with the chirping of the birds. I open windows which look right into the garden. Japanese windows are quite different from your English windows. English windows are somewhat like holes made in the walls, but Japanese windows are a combination of English windows and walls. So when Japanese windows are open, one side of the house is entirely taken away. The house itself opens right into the garden. There is no division between the house and the garden. The garden is a house, a house is a garden. But here, a house is quite separate. A house stands by itself, and so does its occupant. Its occupant is separated from his or her surroundings altogether. There is nature, here I am. You are you, I am I. So there does not seem to be any connection between those two. Nature, naturals and nothings, and the occupants of the house.

[48:46]

So by opening Japanese windows, the house continues into the garden. And I can look at the trees quite easily, not as I look from the English window. That is a kind of peeping out into the garden. But there in Japan, I just see the trees growing from the ground. And when I look at those trees growing right from the ground, I seem to feel something mysterious which comes from the trees and from Mother Earth itself. And I seem to be living in them and they in me and with me. I do not know whether this communion could be called spiritual or not. I have no time to call it anything. I am just satisfied. Then there is the little pond a little lower down the garden. I hear the fish occasionally leaping out of the pond as though they were altogether too happy. and could not stay contented swimming in the pond. Are they? I do not know, but I somehow feel they are very, very happy indeed. Just as we dance when we are filled with joy, so the fish are sure of dancing.

[49:51]

Do they also get something from the element in which they live and have their being? What is this something, after all, which seems to be so strict in my own self as I listen to the dancing of the fish in the pond? Just yesterday we read that It's a passage from the Genjo Koan, where the fish water is life. And I have to say, as I reread this, at Tassahara, this is the privileged life you all get to live. This connection about which he's writing. Another volunteer? Matt, do you want to read it? Yes, yeah. Then this is the time for the lotuses to burn. An is filled with candy. and my imagination travels far out to the other end of the globe. When I talk like this, do you think I am dreaming in the middle of this big city? Perhaps I am. But my dream, I feel somehow, is the altogether animal. Could not there be in these things of which I am dreaming something of eternal and universal value?

[50:56]

These huge buildings I see above me are really grand work. Grand human achievements, no doubt. I had a similar feeling when I visited China. I was confronted with the Great Wall. of which you have perhaps heard. Are they, however, of eternal duration, as I like to say in my dreams are? Let the earth shake a little. Here in this part of the earth, fortunately, it does not seem to shake so frequently as it does in Japan. But let it shake for once. Well, I wonder what would be the result. I can see that result. I even refuse to think of it. Some time ago, in an American magazine, a certain writer wrote about the ruins the city of New York when possible future explorers will try to locate first certain of the highest buildings in the world. They call them skyscrapers, don't they? Which are now standing in New York, would have been. But I will not go on anymore with this kind of talk. I must stop dreaming. Oh, it is very pleasant. Any other volunteer?

[51:58]

None. Thank you. Let me awake and face actualities. But what are those actualities I'm facing now? Not you, not this building, not the microphone, but this supreme spiritual ideal. Those high-sounding worlds. They come from me. I can't be any longer dreamed nothing. They must have made my mind come back to this somewhere, the supreme spiritual ideal. But really, I do not know what spiritual is, what ideal is. supreme spiritual ideal is. I do not seem to be able to comprehend exactly the true significance of these three words placed so conspicuously before me. Can I get the light? Here in London, I come out of the hotel where I am asleep. I see in the streets so many men in literally walking, or rather, running hurriedly. But to my mind, they don't seem to be walking, they seem to be really running. It may not be quite correct to say so, but it seems to me so.

[53:03]

And then their expressions are more or less strange. Their facial muscles are contracted intensely. They could be more easily relaxed. The roads are riddled with all kinds of vehicles, buses, cars, and other things. They seem to be running in a constant stream, in a constant ceaseless stream. And I don't know when I could step into that constantly growing stream of vehicles. The shops are decorated with all kinds of things, most of which I don't seem to need in my little straw-fetched house. When I see all these things, I cannot help wondering where the so-called modern civilized people are ultimately going. What is their destiny? Are they in the pursuit of the supreme spiritual ideal? Are their intense expressions somehow symbolic of their willingness to look into the spirituality of things? Are they going to spread this spirituality into the farthest end of the globe? I do not know. I cannot answer. Another reader? Yes. Now let me see. Spirituality is generally contrasted to the material.

[54:07]

Ideal to actual or practical and supreme to commonplace. If when we talk about the supreme spiritual ideal, does it really mean to do away with what seems to be material? Not idealistic but practical and prosaic. Not supreme but quite commonplace. This is our everyday life in this big city. When we talk about spirituality, do we have to do away with all these things? Does spirituality signify something quite apart from what we see around here? I do not think this way of talking, dividing spirit from matter and matter from spirit, a very profitable way of looking at things about us. As to this dualistic interpretation of reality as matter and spirit, I made some reference to it in my little speech the other day. In the interest of time, he goes on and talks about non-dualism for the next few paragraphs. But I'd like to conclude, just in the interest of time, I'll read the last, on page 436, beginning with again, on the middle of the page there, I'll read the last couple of paragraphs.

[55:21]

Again, I do not know about the supreme spiritual ideal, but as I am forced to face the so-called materiality of modern civilization, I have to make some comments on it. As long as man is the work of nature and even the work of God, what he does, what he makes cannot altogether be despised as material and contrasted to the so-called spiritual. Somehow it must be material, spiritual, or spiritual material. With the hyphen between these two terms, spiritual not divided from material, material not severed from spiritual, but both combined, as we read, with a hyphen. I do not like to make references to such concepts as objectivity and subjectivity. But for lack of a suitable term, just at this moment, let me say this. If the spiritual material linked with a hyphen cannot be found objectively, let us find it in our subjective minds and work it out so as to transform the entire world in accordance with it. Let me tell you how this was worked out by the ancient master.

[56:22]

By an ancient master. His name was Joshu. Jiaojou. Jiaojou's muu. Joshu. And the monastery in which he lived used to live was noted for its natural stone bridge. Some of you may know this. Monasteries are generally built in the mountains, and this place where Joshua used to reside was noted for its stone bridge over the rapids. One day a monk came to the master and asked, This is a place very well known for its natural stone bridge, but as I come here, I do not see any stone bridge. I just see a rotten piece of board, a plank. Where is your bridge? Pray tell me, O Master. That was a question given to the Master, and the Master now answered in this way. You only see that miserable rickety plank and don't see the stone bridge. The disciple said, Where is the stone bridge then? And this was the Master's answer. Horses pass over it.

[57:22]

Donkeys pass over it. Cats and dogs pass over it. Excuse me if I add a little more than the Master actually said. Cats and dogs, tigers and elephants pass over it, men and women, the poor and the rich, the young and the old, the humble and the noble, any amount of those opposites might be enumerated, Englishmen, perhaps Japanese, Muslims, Christians, spirituality and materiality, the ideal and the practical, the supreme and the most commonplace things. They all pass over it, even you, O monk, who refuse to see it, are really walking over it quite nonchalantly. And above all, you are not thankful for it at all. You don't say, I thank you for crossing over the bridge. What good is this stone bridge then? Do we see it? Are we walking on it? The bridge does not cry out and say, I am your supreme spiritual ideal. The stone bridge lies flat and goes on silently from the beginningless past, perhaps to the endless future.

[58:28]

I must stop here. Thank you for your kind attention to my Japanese English and my Chicago accent, I will add. I expect you've done your best to understand me. Then the kindness must be mutual. And in this mutuality of kindness do we not seize a little glimpse of what we call spiritual world fellowship. So we end here with the stone bridge of Tassahara. you all very much I'm sorry we don't have more time but I don't want to cut into your baths too much and we will meet again don't know where don't know when thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[59:33]

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