And so, to make a long story short, we got Green Gulch, and Green Gulch was a big project for Richard and everybody else. So, there were the Green Gulch, Tatsahara, City Center, the corner grocery, the bakery, the print shop, what else? Alaya. Alaya. Not Greens yet. Not Greens yet, but eventually Greens. Huh? You're not taking a picture? No. Well, anyway. So, Richard's empire was getting bigger and bigger. And the students were working. The idea of the students working in the businesses was not a bad idea, basically.

[01:05]

But the problem is, they were supposed to be working, and their work would be their support, and so they could practice, and everything would be working harmoniously for everyone, but it didn't work out that way. And people were beginning to feel exploited, and they weren't really being able to sit or practice, and they were working long hours in the bakery, or the bakery, and so forth. And Richard was traveling around to Russia and all kinds of places, and he knew all the people in the world that were the first in their line of work, the best in the world. And a lot of them were. Anyway, so Richard was getting more and more, had more and more plans in the pipeline, but

[02:05]

everything was getting kind of top-heavy in Zen Center. And there were lots of students, and people had faith in him, but there was some doubt a little bit. And, well, where is this going? And people were feeling exploited, and so there were some tensions. And then Richard had an affair with one of his colleagues' wife, and that was the straw that broke the temple's back. And then the whole thing came tumbling down. This is the short version. The whole thing came tumbling down. And everyone was disillusioned, and Richard was forced to leave, and Zen Center went into mourning for about five years. Everybody, you cannot believe the kind of misery that everybody was in, because they

[03:12]

had all staked their lives on this thing, and they felt betrayed, most people. Some people followed Richard. The people who were only dedicated to Richard were the people that were the most vulnerable and destroyed by that. But some people were more devoted to Zen Center, and they could manage it easier. But anyway, Green Gulch was in kind of a chaotic period. Tassajara survived because of the schedule. The schedule just kept going. Everybody felt what they felt, but they only did it on Zen. Well, mostly they did, but there was a lot of anarchy in Zen Center, because those people who felt that they were following the rules, the schedule, because that was what you were supposed to do, but still had some doubts, they became anarchists.

[04:13]

Why do I have to do this? I don't have to go to Zazen, blah, blah, blah. So people were just kind of living here, living at Paid Street, living at Green Gulch. But the practice was very iffy, and Paid Street was like a Zen hotel. The Zendo was, people were not sitting in the Zendo, they were sitting in the hallway. So Katagiri became avid for one year as a kind of interim measure to hold things together. And then Reb became avid after that. And then the board felt that Reb needed some support in the form of a co-avid, because they felt the Zen Center was too much for this one person to deal with. So they asked me to be co-avid.

[05:17]

But before I go on with that, I want to talk about Dharma Transmission. You know, all of Suzuki Roshi's priests, of course, wanted Dharma Transmission from Suzuki Roshi, but he was too sick to be able to do that for the people he ordained. So the only person he gave Dharma Transmission to was Richard. And then when he died, well, he had started giving Dharma Transmission to Bill Kwong, who was in Sonoma. But he died before he got very far into that. And so Bill, of course, expected, Junksho expected, that Richard would complete that for him. And then other people felt that he would complete Suzuki Roshi's transmission for Suzuki Roshi's disciples. But he didn't do that.

[06:18]

So he held that Dharma Transmission as a kind of little power trip for a long time. So Suzuki Roshi gave Dharma Transmission to Dick, and then he died. And Dick became the avid. And finally, Dick gave Dharma Transmission to Reb. And then he had asked me to work with him on Dharma Transmission. So I was working with Richard on Dharma Transmission. I thought, this is wonderful, because we don't like each other particularly. And so for him to do that felt good to me. Because it wasn't, well, everything that Richard did was manipulative, but it still felt good to me. It felt like there was something real happening.

[07:22]

But then, that's when he, we were into it, and then he fell. And so everybody was so really pissed off at him, you know. They were just railing against him. And I was actually defending him. Because I had reconciled myself to him. I reconciled myself to who he was and what he was about. And at the same time, I accepted my role as working with him. So, but at some point, he felt that I wasn't defending him enough. And he said, I'm not sure we should go through with this. And so that was my out. I said, fine. But later he says, I didn't really mean that. But then, so Bill Kwong, well, during all this time when Richard was Abbott,

[08:28]

Bill Kwong and I used to visit Maizumi Roshi in Los Angeles. Maizumi Roshi was very kind to Bill and I because he saw the problem. And, you know, he was always very sympathetic to us. So one time we were there in Los Angeles and Maizumi said, you know, Hoitsu should complete Suzuki Roshi's dharma transmission with Bill. So right then and there he called up Hoitsu in Japan. And he explained the situation. He said, why don't you complete Suzuki Roshi's dharma transmission with Bill? And she said, OK. So Bill went to Japan and got dharma transmission from Hoitsu, Suzuki Roshi's son, which is Suzuki Roshi's lineage. What year was that? Before or after 83? Oh, much before. Oh, yeah, this is during that time. During Richard's reign.

[09:34]

It was in the 70s, sometime in the 70s. And then when I quit my relationship with Richard and he left and fell, then Hoitsu agreed to complete the transmission with me. That was in 84. So I went to Japan in 84 and did dharma transmission with Hoitsu. So then I came back in 1984. That same year? Yeah, I guess so. I became abbot at Berkeley. So although I had been in Berkeley developing the Zendo since 67, it wasn't until 84 that I became abbot.

[10:47]

And then I felt OK about saying that I was a teacher. And then we opened it up more, the Zendo. So then in 88, that's when I became abbot at Zen Center. Go abbot, went rib at Zen Center. So from 88 to 97, I was abbot. Abbot's terms are four years with a three-year extension. But after the 97 years, because we were making transitions, rib stopped being abbot two years before that. So Blanche became abbot when rib stepped down.

[11:51]

And then... Well, Blanche was abbot before Norman. They were co-abbots. Huh? Well, we did overlap. We did overlap because there were three of us. There were three of us that were abbot at the same time, Blanche, Norman, and myself. Right. So they wanted me to extend it for another two years, extend my stay for another two years in order to overlap Blanche and Norman. But that was not a good idea. It's like when you elect a president of the United States, you don't have the old president hanging around for two years, right? And it would have been a good idea.

[12:53]

But it didn't work in this case very well. So I took a sabbatical in the last year. So I was abbot for nine years at Sin Center. And so I would do a practice period at Page Street. I would do a practice period at Tosahara. I'd do a practice period at Green Gulch and in Berkeley. And I'd go home once in a while to sleep. When I think about those nine years, I was like a circuit rider or something, just making the rounds. One time I had three practice periods going at the same time. Three shusos. And they were getting pissed off at me because I wasn't around so much. But I'll never do that again. Reb and I got along well as abbots.

[14:00]

Co-abbots. He says, he didn't, we didn't, but we did. We really did. We had to agree on everything. We made a pact that we would not do something that we didn't both agree on. And we'd always tell each other what we were going to do or ask each other or work it out, whatever. And when one of us didn't do it, the other one would come down on him. So that worked well. It really worked well. I really appreciated that. Because Reb and I have this kind of Zen-centered destiny together, which we realized that way back there in the 60s somewhere. I remember us talking about it, you know, how we were so different from each other, and yet we had this destiny with each other. And we said that we really needed to, you know, pay attention to that,

[15:00]

even though we both had different ideas. Not so much ideas, but just our different ways of doing things. Actually, we both had similar ideas about practice. But it's our way of, our temperaments and our way of doing things were very different. So... I was going to say something. Maybe... well, let's see. Maybe you could ask some questions. Your art. I know, Drew said, oh, they're, you know...

[16:02]

I don't complain, but that's not true. It's just not true. You know, I want to take it back, because... Because it was Robin Liu who kind of turned Dick in. No. I don't know what happened between those two. People say that Red Winona got Dharma Transmission from Hoi Chu. But he got it from Dick. They were down here. Somebody, Roshi, helped him. Huh? Well, Hoi Chu, when he was very young, Suzuki Roshi, actually, Suzuki Roshi, when he... After he was here in the 60s, he went back to Rensselaer

[17:07]

and told him that he was resigning, because he was going to stay here. And Hoi Chu became the abbot, and he gave him Dharma Transmission. And Hoi Chu did not like that at all. Getting all this responsibility as a young man, it felt like his father was kind of dumping all this on him. And so he was very resentful of Zen Center and his father and the whole thing. When I went to Japan, I had to work things out with him about Zen Center and his father. It was wonderful, but it was very... It was a lot of tension. So our relationship has grown over a long period of time. And it's been quite a wonderful development, relationship. Could you talk about what happened with your art?

[18:09]

Well, you know, my art... When I was... As a painter, when you get inspiration, you paint. And then when you don't have inspiration, you don't do anything. And so there's long periods that are kind of fallow, when you're kind of wandering around and miserable. So when I got to Zen Center, I hadn't been painting for a while. And I had all these paintings stored in my house. And when I left the house, these new people came, and I left them all my paintings. I said, OK, that's great. They're just so happy to have all these paintings. And that was it. I just left them all behind. And I never painted again. Some people think that's not so nice, but I think it's OK. About the drama transmission with Boitsu,

[19:16]

I was wondering if it was... How did you feel getting the drama transmission from somebody who wasn't your teacher? Well, it's not uncommon. You know, Suzuki Roshi said, I will not have time to give dharma transmission. Our teacher doesn't always have time to give dharma transmission to all of his students, but then his students, or his students will give dharma transmission to their dharma brothers. So they're not their teacher either, but they have a relationship. And so, you know, there are three steps. One is ordination, shuso, and dharma transmission. And all three can be the same person, the same teacher. Or they can all be three different teachers, or two different teachers. And it's very common for it to be all three,

[20:18]

I mean all three different teachers. So you may have a, you know, root relationship with the teacher, and then have dharma, like I had three different teachers. Suzuki Roshi gave me ordination, and then Tatsugami was my shuso teacher, and Hoitsu was my dharma transmission teacher. So it's true that we didn't have much of a relationship, but we were related through Suzuki Roshi. And in the time that we spent doing the dharma transmission, which was about a month, I realized, you know, we had to get to the bottom of who we were with each other. And that's what we did. And then everything went very well. So it's not so much a matter of time necessarily, but it's a matter of intimacy. Will?

[21:20]

What was the most difficult part of your Zen practice for you? What was the most difficult part of my Zen practice? The pain in my legs. You know, when I was sitting with Suzuki Roshi, the idea was, you don't move. So when I say that I went through a lot of stuff, a lot of difficulty, it's because we didn't move. It's not like today, excuse me. A lot of people feel that it's just okay, you know, they don't get this idea that you're not supposed to move, even though it's okay to move. It's okay to move, but you don't want to move. So that puts you in a position

[22:25]

where you have to find out how to let go. You're forced to let go. You're forced to die on the cushion. Otherwise, it's just, you know, spending time on the cushion, changing your position. So that was the hardest part for me. Also, getting up in the morning. I've always been a night person. And then I changed to a morning person. And I've never liked it. Do you ever miss painting? No. I really don't miss painting. Sometimes, yeah, I do, you know. I see something and I think, oh, that would be a great image for a painting,

[23:27]

you know. But I don't, then I just go on to something else. But, you know, that occurs to me. But I don't miss it. I like my life. I like my life as a Zen student. What is Zuisei? You went to Japan for Zuisei? Oh, Zuisei. Zuisei, in Japan, when someone gets Dharma transmission, they go to the head temples, Soji-ji and Yehe-ji. Those are the two head temples. And they do a ceremony called Zuisei, which basically is leading the morning service and visiting the founders. So they treat you very nicely and they give you this nice kaiseki meal, you know, or meals. Like at Soji-ji,

[24:29]

you wear these red slippers and have a red okesa and they take your picture. But it's nice. I wanted to do that because I wanted to go to the founders' temple and do this ceremony. But I can't tell you how difficult that was to get there. Because Japanese tradition started in, well, it's always been I don't know if you've ever read that story about Menzan. Menzan was in the 16th century, 17th century. And he wanted to change the Dharma transmission, the way Dharma transmission was done in the temples. There was a temple system and a teacher system and they were getting all mixed up. So he wanted to set it straight. In order to do that,

[25:30]

the government had to okay this. And if you change something, if you make this effort to change something in Japanese law, you get executed if it doesn't turn out right. Really. So that doesn't happen anymore. But that feeling is still there. The tradition is still there that you don't change things. So in order for us to do something in Japan, they'd have to change the rules. This is what we've been working on doing that for years. They can never change any of the rules. And so we can never fit in with them or do anything with them. It's significant. But what we had to do was fake. You see, you have to have a picture of your head shaving. So we had to fake

[26:32]

our head shaving photograph with Hoitsu. And then we had to fake the fact that we had done a practice period in Japan at Toronto Inn. But they know this. They know that you're faking all this. Oh yeah, go ahead. That's the only way you can get anything done in Japan because they will not change the rules. They won't bend the rules for anybody. So it's very, very difficult. Could you talk a little bit about lay practice? I think in the past you talked about your interest in developing lay practice. Lay practice. Well, in Berkeley, the model for our practice in Berkeley is Suzuki Roshi's model at Sokoji. So our practice kind of bypassed Page Street and used the Sokoji model

[27:34]

of everybody living at home except for, you know, we do have residents. Ten residents or so. Eight or ten residents, depending on the time. But mostly it's lay people who come to Sazen every morning, you know, 20, 25, 30 people in the afternoon. Two different sagas. Morning saga and afternoon saga. And so the practice is geared for a lay practice. And that's I feel, you know, a very vital kind of practice, but it's also a priest practice. We also have priests who do the same practice. So it's, we call it lay practice, but it's just people practicing. And a lot of vitality in the practice people devoted for years and years to practice. And

[28:41]

you know, and I like both priest practice and lay practice. I like them both. So, you know, and I like monastic practice and temple practice. I like those both. So when I go back and forth, both of them are fine. I don't have this kind of discrepancy between lay practice and priest practice and temple practice and monastic practice. It's all good. And so when I was Abbot at Page Street, the way it worked out, when Reb and I became co-abbots, we said, well, we wouldn't have any particular place. Each one of us would be practicing equally at both places. But as it turned out, Reb grabbed Green Gulch and I grabbed the city. Or I was left with the city. Which was fine with me. I tried to cultivate

[29:48]

lay practice there, but it was so hard because the way Richard's way of practice was really hard to modify. Richard's way of practice was not Suzuki Roshi's way of practicing. And so that's why I had this kind of difficulty because I really wanted to maintain Suzuki Roshi's practice rather than Richard's practice. So that's what I've been doing. I feel I've been doing. Looking back now, any regrets about or unfulfilled feelings about your relationship with Suzuki Roshi? Yes, I wish that I could have... He said to Yvonne, tell Mel that he should be seeing me more. And so she said,

[30:49]

Suzuki Roshi said he should be seeing me more. But I feel the way a lot of people feel, I felt, he's so busy, I don't want to bother him. But the fact is that the teacher's there to be bothered. You have to bother the teacher. You should never feel, oh he's so busy, he sees so many people, you know, I don't want to bother him. You shouldn't think that way. You should just use the teacher up. Do you think Richard was ignoring his karma? Yes, I think one of his students, who was also one of my students, said to me one time, you know, he just doesn't believe in karma. He's beyond karma. He's above karma. And I believe it, because how can anybody be like that without having some, you know, like, what about karma?

[31:51]

Yeah. It's kind of a mystery, actually. Benji. Yeah, I'm just curious, your root teacher died 34 years ago, so how do you, how does one maintain upright, stay on the path, not to fall either side without you know, it's kind of just, you know. When I went to Berkeley, when I set up the center of Berkeley, I already knew what my path was. And nothing was going to move me. I already made up my mind that. And so there was nothing, no kind of ambivalence or doubt or anything like that. And Suzuki Roshi was my teacher, so I was always in contact with him. Even when he was in San Francisco and I was in Berkeley, I felt like

[32:51]

we were totally connected. So, and I always felt that someday he's going to die, and I'm going to be by myself. So I was just preparing for that. I was always preparing for that. In terms of like testing your, to make sure you have the right understanding that you're not going to go to a teacher and have that for 34 years. I always tested my understanding against his understanding. So people sometimes say, well, isn't there another teacher? No, there's no other teacher that I felt would give me something else, give me something beyond what Suzuki Roshi was giving me. So I just always felt that I was, even when he died, I was always in contact with his teaching and always faithful to his teaching. So that's what I've always maintained

[33:53]

or tried to maintain, just being faithful to his teaching and let it mature. It's like you know, you receive something and some, but it may be years later that it actually unfolds in you or matures in you. I was just wondering how Judaism still figures in your life? Well, I'll tell you. How does Judaism figure in my life? When I became a, you know, I felt that when I tried out Judaism, you know, when I was in my early 20s and just, but I realized that I could not return to that because I'd been out too long. I'd been out in the world and for me to kind of become, to go back and be Jewish

[34:53]

or go forward or whatever was I felt that was too exclusive. I felt that my religious outlook was more universal rather than tribal. And I felt that I was I never felt that I wasn't Jewish. I felt that what I was doing was my own way of being Jewish or practicing Judaism which wouldn't fit in with anybody else's idea, but it was my, I felt completely justified in that. And that I was following what I felt was real Judaism and not just Jewishness. I think that a lot of people take Jewishness for Judaism. Jewishness means, you know, like all of the

[35:54]

feeling holidays and all this, you know. Which I never had any of that, right? And so why do I have to put that, stick that on me? Not that I don't appreciate it, but I felt that if I was being honest and clear with myself and that Buddhism was not in conflict with Judaism at its root. So if I was doing my Buddhism as my practice, it was also my Judaism. So I've always allowed, you know, like the kind of Hasidic background to inform my Buddhism. That is there. It is there. Oh, yeah.

[37:00]

Well, you know, I always liked kids. Some kids. When my first wife, she never wanted to have, she was not interested in children at all. And had absolutely no interest in children. And that was kind of disappointing to me. Because I thought, well, you know, it would be great to have a kid. And so but I never, we never tried having a kid with Liz. We just had sex for fun. And then a kid happened. You know, when I was 53. Well, I think I'm pregnant. That was fine, you know. Great. And so I, like I said, you know, I would carry him around

[38:01]

during the day and I really enjoyed, actually, the first five years. But then after we moved, when he was five, it was totally different because we were away from the community. With the community, you know, he was just taken care of by everybody. But when we moved away from the community, it was just us, you know. And then he had to go to kindergarten and go to school and all this. And he hated school and he hated doing all that stuff. And homework was just like, you know, pulling teeth. And then my wife and I would have these, you know, arguments because she wanted him to do his homework, you know, and he had this total line. And I just wanted him to have fun. You know, I really, truly, he's kind of a kid who, like, always had a project, you know, always interested in something

[39:02]

and single-minded. Like, he would get a project and he would just go wham! And nothing else in the world mattered. You know, he couldn't even see anything on either side except what he was doing. And he'd do this for a long time and then switch to something else, right, as kids do. And I thought, he's teaching himself. He's educating himself. Just leave him alone. You know? But that's not the way education is taught, you know. You have to open the head and pour the stuff in. And, of course, some of that is good. so I didn't, and I even talked to the teacher, you know. I said, why do you give these kids so much homework? You know, they go to school all day and then they come home and then they have to do their homework and there's no time to play. When I was a kid, I was always out in this vacant lot throwing dirt clods, you know. It was great, you know. You had this contact with the ground and interaction with other kids. I never

[40:14]

did have much interest in higher education or even lower education. So, anyway, but the interesting thing is that he quit school in the 10th grade and he rode his bike across the country with Prouty. They rode their bikes across the country. He was, what, 16? Something like that, 17? And that was a great experience. And then when he finally went to junior college, he had to make up all that those two years that he missed. But he did it. And now he's in Davis studying Russian. He's smart. And he gets good grades in Russian. The teacher likes him.

[41:15]

So, he's actually doing quite well. He's actually doing quite well. He went to live by himself when he was going to junior college. And when he came home, he totally changed. He couldn't wait to get out and get away from us. And then he came back and he just could not get enough of us. So, that was a great reward for all the years of misery. Laughter You spoke of a couple of different errors in the Zen Center. Errors or errors? Errors. Okay. Okay. What do you think we have now? Well, that's a good question. Laughter It's really a good question. Good question. I'm not sure I know how to answer that,

[42:18]

but there's a change and we can feel this change, you know. When Suzuki Roshi was around, we had our formal practice, but we never felt that it was formal. Suzuki Roshi was not real formal with us at all. We bow and we do all the things that we do in the Zendo, but it wasn't that strict and it wasn't so detailed. And we didn't see him always in Dokusan. If you wanted to talk to him, we'd just sit down and talk. And Dokusan happened in Sashin, usually, but not always. And sometimes it happened at other times, but when... I remember Dick didn't like Japanese formality.

[43:20]

He didn't like Japanese things at all. But when he became avid, he became totally Japanese. And the practice became much more formal and much more strict in certain ways and so forth. Whether that was good or not, I don't know. But then when Reb and I were avids, it wasn't... We kind of loosened that up a little bit. Reb has always been more detailed and formal than me. I think I'm more like... following more like Suzuki Yoshi's way, and Reb is maybe following Dick's way or something. so every time there's a change in abbacy, the feeling changes. Whoever is abbot creates a certain field, and

[44:22]

then it's different, always different. So it's different than it was when I was abbot, but it's subtle. It's a subtle difference. It's not some big difference. So there are subtle differences. And maybe there's some idea that it's more horizontal. The leadership is more horizontal and not so vertical. Like maybe the abbots don't have as much authority as they used to have. Dick had absolute authority. Absolute authority. It was easy, because when he said something, everybody just did it. And then Reb and I had our own authority, which was not absolute authority, because after Dick,

[45:25]

everything was done by committee. We spent years and years developing committee practice. And it would take forever to make a decision. But I think it's probably still the same way. It's easier, because it's more mature. The process is more mature. But the abbots in the process seem to have given up some of their authority. So I think that they should take it back. It's good to have strong leadership. Not authoritative, not we are very authoritative people, but people that you give authority to and they take it. And so it's a give and take. So I think maybe that can be a little stronger.

[46:25]

I don't know how I can describe how it is today, but there are a lot of students. I think there are more and more students. And, you know, give you some first-hand experience or my first-hand experience with Suzuki Roshi's teaching. And it shouldn't be lost in Zen Center. So there's two things. One is the teaching of the people that are present, and the teaching of the founder. So they're both important. And the teaching of the people that are present has its variations. So it may not look like the teaching of the founder, but basically it is. But I think to keep that alive is important so that people don't go astray

[47:34]

and that the things that are most important should be preserved. Not preserved, but practiced. The basic things should be practiced. What's your personal future? My personal teacher? Future. Where are you going to be in five years, ten years? Well, this is very interesting. Because I'm 75. In July I'll be 76. That's only four years away from being 80. And I just thought about that. Four years away from being 80. But I'm not an old man. So, you know, it's very strange. I think. I had a similar question with a slightly different way of asking it. Do you feel like you have some unfinished business, some projects, things like that that you'd really like to accomplish?

[48:38]

Well, you know, Jack Shoemaker who was, you know, he had the North Point Press and he asked me a long time ago to write a book. So I've been getting around to writing a book, you know, but it's slow. And that's when people want to publish some of my talks. And so those are things that are kind of in the going on, you know. But it's really hard to get into it. Exactly. I do from time to time get into it. And I always feel that I always have to edit my own things. Whenever I see some editing, mostly, that somebody else has done, it doesn't feel right to me. So, unfortunately, I have to edit. But it doesn't take me long to edit. I can edit pretty fast. You said you're interested in teachings on birth and death. Well, yeah, that's right.

[49:39]

I've been planning on doing that. And that's important. I think that that's not really brought out much in Zen Center. And Suzuki Roshi didn't talk much about it either, actually. The only thing I heard, well, he talked about the waterfall, nirvana and the waterfall. And here and there, talking about dying and what that means. So I can bring those things out. But there's a lot of ideas that are common to Mahayana and Mahayana Buddhism. And it's good to bring those out. So I think it's good for everybody to think about this problem, because it's the basic problem that we all have. And we're all going in that direction. So good to face it.

[50:43]

And I've dealt, you know, for a long time, very few people died at Zen Center, because the community is fairly young and people are fairly healthy doing Zazen and eating good food, mostly, and taking care of themselves. We don't have the rate of dying off that most congregations have. But now, people are dying more. They're getting older. And in the last couple of years, I've been tending to people that are dying a lot. And it's becoming more and more. And the older you get, the more people start dying. And as Zen Center becomes older, the population becomes older. And so sometimes I'll see

[51:45]

somebody that I hadn't seen for a long time. And I say, gee, who's that old lady? It turns out to be somebody that I know very well, but I hadn't seen her for a while. It's kind of a shock. So we have to know how to take care of all this. And we have to have some good idea of what it means before we can take care of it. When you're doing a ceremony for somebody, what is the meaning of that? Do you believe in that? Do you believe in what, you know? What do we actually think about it? And how do we actually think about it? Is there reincarnation? Is there rebirth? What is it, you know? So you hear about all these things, but they're not discussed much. I think this should be brought out and looked at. Okay.

[52:47]

You said a few minutes ago that you're going to be 80 soon, and in the past you said that one of your main concerns is getting this teaching to the next generation. Yeah, that's right. What do you have to say to us kids? Well, you know, you can only do what you can do. You can only do what you can do. You can only do what you can do. So you just keep going and everything works out in the end. I've always believed that, you know, that everything will work out in the end. And the one thing that I'm so convinced of is that if you just do your practice without wanting, you know, you know that something will happen and you want something to happen, but all you have to do is do your practice and everything happens. Everything comes to you that's supposed

[53:50]

to come to you. You don't have to go out and try and get it. If you just do daily practice sincerely, without thinking about getting anything, everything that's supposed to come to you will arrive and you'll be very surprised. And I think the first time we came in here and you talked, you mentioned that Suzuki Roshi, there are a few people that would have gotten transmission from him. Now I think Bill Pong was his student for the longest time and that was only like in eight or nine years and it was six or seven years. Is that about... I think Bill was there for about sixty or sixty... almost nine or ten years. Well, now, a lot of people don't say it, but pretty consistently, fifteen to twenty years people get it. And with Suzuki Roshi, is it really good

[54:50]

or are you guys, is it turbo charging it for you? You know, there's something about being with the founder that's different than being with other teachers. I don't know what it is, but it's like I was only three years, I'd been with him three years before, only three years before I was in Berkeley opening up the Zendo, right? But I wasn't a teacher. I didn't consider myself a teacher and so what I practiced with Suzuki Roshi was humility. That was my practice with him and I would just love to see that practice more and more people practice humility as their major practice because I didn't let myself

[55:51]

although I wanted to do, you know, charge ahead, I restrained myself because I always felt that this was my, the practice was humility and if I stayed on the bottom line, I could just see everything works. You don't have to try to get something and the fastest way to advance in Zen Center is to not try to advance. The fastest way to get anywhere is just do what you're asked to do and do it thoroughly and do it with humility and do it with sincerity and don't talk too much and you will be at the top before long. People say you know, so-and-so doesn't ask for anything, just does his work, you know, doesn't like to be problems, is smart, is, you know, tries

[56:53]

let's put this person up here but if somebody says, I want this, I want this, you never get there. Stop bothering us. It's the way it works. Not always. But then it doesn't matter because you don't want anything. Did Suzuki have any misgivings about Dekar? Of course. When he said to me, I'm going to go to Japan with Dek and give him Dharma transmission, what do you think of that? And I said, do you think he's ready? And he said, well, sometimes we give it when a person is ready and sometimes we give it to a person and hope. And I knew exactly what he was talking about.

[57:56]

And then I asked Katagiri Roshi one time, I said, why did Dek give Dharma transmission to Dek? And why did Suzuki Roshi give Dharma transmission to Dek? He said, Dek went in and stole his heart. And he did. So how? The way he stole everybody's heart. He didn't order Suzuki Roshi to give him his heart. To do what? He didn't order Suzuki Roshi to give him his heart like he ordered everyone else. No, but he was in there. He was, you know, he was, he just, somebody's right in front of your face and he's, you know, and you see that energy and that willingness, and he found Kesaha. I mean, he was doing everything, you know.

[58:59]

He was the key person doing everything. And you can't ignore that. You can't say, you're the key person doing everything. Stand aside while I give it to make, you know, somebody else. That just can't work that way. It's not easy. Having disciples and putting them in place is not easy. It's excruciatingly difficult. Would you say something about your disciples? Do you have... It's excruciatingly difficult. Most of the people that I've given dharma transmission to, which is a lot, 18 or something like that, 18, I think. So, I just kind of,

[59:59]

I'm the old woman who lived in a shoe. But most of the people I've given dharma transmission to have their own places. They have their own practices, like pad. So, I feel really good about that. They don't bother me. I'm not worried about it. But, I trust all of them. And they're all working well. They're all, you know. But what's difficult is when it's close, like in Berkeley. There are so many people who have been practicing for so long, a long time, years and years. And they're all kind of peers. And then they have, you know, stuff with each other

[61:00]

and envies and jealousies and elbowing. They're all trying to be very good with each other. But it's really hard. And for me to say, well, this one, and then, well, maybe it's not easy dealing with all that. So, do you have a prescription for Zen Center? I mean, you were kind of saying that institutionally. I don't know. A prescription? What do you mean? I don't know. I feel like you know, it's gone from this kind of hierarchy top-down total authoritarian model to a kind of radical, maybe not radical democracy, but a more

[62:04]

democratic form. Do you see a certain model that works? Well, I think Zen Center is kind of a school in a way. But it's not an academic school. I hope Zen Center never turns into an academic school. That would be terrible. But it's where people, they pass through. And hopefully we turn out teachers who would go away, go someplace. The hard part about Zen Center is that there are people who are good teachers and they should go someplace. The problem is that we always need them here because of the many students. You get more and more students, you need more teachers. And so the dilemma of should they stay here or should they go away?

[63:05]

I think they should go away because that gives the opportunity for other people who you don't think are teachers to come up and be teachers. The problem is, one problem is that you know, the older you get, the longer you've been in Zen Center, everyone else looks like a child. So if people have been practicing for 10 years, you still think of them as children. Just like you were saying, you know. It's true. Oh, they've only been practicing for 20 years. So that's a problem. I think that way. I think if you see somebody who's been practicing for 10 years, I think they've only been around for a little while. But we have to give people more responsibility. And actually, if you give people responsibility when they're young, that energizes them. It's good.

[64:06]

And they come up to... I've always found that when you give not everybody, but most people responsibility, even though you have doubts, they almost always come up to the responsibility. And it works. It's late. It's 5 o'clock. Okay. Do you have one more question? A wrap-up. I wonder how... You said you worked things through with Hoichu. Was there an interpreter or something? How did you do that? Well, you know, on the surface, Hoichu was very kind to us. I was there with Bill Kwong and Ekai, who was a Japanese priest

[65:08]

who actually started practicing with me and ended up in Japan. we'd have these conversations with Hoichu and all kinds of things we'd talk about. And then sometimes we'd come around to talking about his father. And then he would get kind of antsy. Of course, we were drinking sake and stuff. And so then he'd get listened up. Once he'd get listened up, then he would start talking about how his father kind of abandoned him in the temple and went off to America. And Zen centers just blah, blah, blah. And Richard Baker was blah, blah, blah. And what did you guys know anyway? So we just had to kind of work through.

[66:09]

We had to be who we were and he was who he was. And we just kind of were very open and honest with each other. And little by little he came to see that we were whomever instead of his idea of who we were. He had to get over his idea of who I was and see who I was. And I had to get over my idea of who I thought he was and see who he was. And in that process we really saw each other clearly. And we saw he saw Zen center clearly, he saw his father clearly, we saw each other clearly. And then when that happened, he did his thing because it was there were no doubts about it. We were connected. So there was a time during the transmission ceremony which was all in Japanese and I could not understand a word of it

[67:12]

but he just kind of directed me. When I looked at him and his face was Suzuki Ryoshi's face I was just totally startled. I just felt like he was channeling Suzuki Ryoshi. So to me that was the moment of when I didn't have any doubt about this thing. When Bill was getting Dharma Transmission in Japan Lloyd Ryoshi who lived close to Renzo and is a friend of Suzuki Ryoshi's he was like the expert in monastic training and in Dogon the present day expert on Dogon. He had Lloyd Ryoshi come over and help him do the Dharma Transmission with Bill. Bill thought

[68:14]

this is Suzuki Ryoshi's transmission through a Hoitsu and Lloyd Ryoshi said no, it's Hoitsu's Dharma Transmission because you cannot get Dharma Transmission from a dead person. So technically that's so but actually it's not. So Hoitsu said of course this is my father's transmission which I am doing for him. And of course it is. But technically it's not. Because there was a time when people were doing stuff like that and Dogon talks about that. He says and Minju he complains about this guy

[69:17]

going and getting one month Dharma Transmission 300 years later. He says you can't do that. So but this is different. This is our teacher and the feeling is Hoitsu being a conveyor of Suzuki Ryoshi's transmission to his disciples but it's also Hoitsu's transmission. So I consider Hoitsu my honchi. And he has grown so much in our relationship. He has grown so much his whole life has changed knowing us. So the relationship has enhanced the practice of all of us.

[70:19]

So it's been very good. And that's the end. Thank you. .

[71:30]

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