Good morning. Good morning. And this morning, our three speakers, Peter Snyder, Les Kaye, and Ed Ryan, will talk about their experience. If you look kind of remarkable, if you think about it, we have Dan Campbell-Priest, come to the United States, and then 50 years later, whatever it was that he brought, whatever it was that this person manifest, it's rippling out of the United States, and seeing it regaining energy and relevance in our ever-changing work. But to listen to the work, I'm Peter.

[01:42]

I was the class historian of the first years of Tassajara. And so I took the title of today's lecture, which was, Why Did Bodhidharma Come to the West? Although with some chagrin, I took it quite literally. I thought I'd tell you about some of the history about that. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, there we go. I'm not used to these things. This is me here, huh? Sir? Am I close up to myself? There was a, no question whatsoever, there's a story about a Sufi saint that's very famous around the world, caught in English, and he was asked at some occasion to please show his identification.

[02:53]

And he pulled out a mirror, he looked at it and said, that's me. I still have that in some way, but I can't remember where. So the topic is, why does the Groshi come to the West? I asked him that question once. I guess maybe that's why I'm here today. I asked him that question again and again, and I kind of did the, I don't quite know how to say it, but rather rude interviewing him to make him think about his history in Japan. And he didn't want to do that, but he did. He said he was not interested in his history. He said his teacher hadn't told him how to answer that question. He just was not interested in it. So I asked him after the long interview I did, about three hours over in Sakoji, I asked him, pardon me, get my watch out here.

[03:58]

I'm gonna go too long, so be careful. Here we go. And I asked him, he said, I said, well, how's the window letter to do it? I said, well, that's why I did it. And I said, well, how much of this, well, three hours should I make a story out of this and put it in the window? I said, four or five pages? He said, four or five pages? He was mortified to put four or five pages about his personal history. Because he said that my, My life in Japan was just instance after instance of him being impatient. He often said that his largest fault was being impatient. But we could not understand it because he was endlessly patient with us. But apparently he was quite impatient. He was impatient. He said, so I was always getting...

[05:01]

being impatient with something, and then I'd get myself in trouble, and then I'd have to do a lot of things to get myself out of trouble. Of course, this impatience he was talking about was impatience with the way things were done in Japan, particularly with respect to temples. And people would do something that he thought was going to hurt the Sangha or hurt the Dharma, and he would get involved in trying to prevent it. Then he had a wrong fight, and he said, I never lost, he said. But he spent 25 years fighting, and he said, if I had known how things were in America, I would have come much sooner. But he said, it's better, he said, not to be impatient, but to surrender. That is... Anyway, but there are certain reasons. That's one reason why I came to America.

[06:02]

But there are many other reasons that he gave over time. Oh, I meant to say something earlier, which is, finally he said, at the end of the interview, he said, if my life is understood in this way, all will be lost. So pardon me for doing this as a Christian. And much of what I'm going to say now has already been printed extensively in David Chadwick's book. So some of you will have read this before. Anyway, the first reason Tsukiroshi came was because of the way Buddhism was treated in Japan. We think of Japan as being a Buddhist country, but actually 140 years ago, after Japan had the rude shock of being told...

[07:04]

by having a fleet of black ships in their harbor that they had to do what was asked or else, and they knew what was happening in China and the rest of the East, and the whole government got together to try to figure out some way that they would not be colonized. And the way they figured out was to be like them. And of course, the result of being like them was World War II. But that took a long time to happen. And the first thing they did was they said, you should... we should get a religion like Christianity. They believe in God, so we have to show them something like that. So they shifted their faith, and also they had to raise their leader up. We think of the Japanese emperor as being very high, but at that point, history was quite low. He was in name only, the emperor. But they tried to raise him up in order to make him look like a king. It was, you know, king of England, and Germany had a kind of king at that time. And so, therefore, having a king and having a god was very important, and so they created one.

[08:08]

And they raised the emperor up, and they moved him to Tokyo, and they said Shinto was important. And for a long time, all the Shinto temples were inside Buddhist temples. All the major shrines belonged to Buddhism, and they separated them, and they gave a greater part of the land that was used to support the temples with the shrines to the shrines themselves. And then the people also would be able to disrespect Buddhism because the government actively disrespected them. And Sikiroshi was born into that. And his father, Buddhists went from being able to support themselves to not being able to. And his father was forced to raise pigs. I don't know if Sikiroshi was born with his father raising pigs. That was previous to that, but he was born that way. But his family was still very poor. Sigurusha didn't have the proper clothes for school. And so finally his father and the other kids were teasing him about being poor and about being a Buddhist.

[09:15]

He had his shaved head and he was teased. And one time he's a story that David tells his father finally got in the wind together to get him the proper, I think, Hakama, which is kind of a... dress-like thing that people wear for martial arts and for flower arranging. But he tied her in his father's old style of pre-Meiji era, and Suzuki Roshi left and tied her around the way the kids were all wearing him at that time. His father caught him and made him re-tie it. But anyway, they were very, very poor. And Suzuki Roshi, when he was 13, as you know, I'm going to have to jump ahead of you. I'm going to talk, obviously, longer than what I've I had time for it. Anyway, at that point, he realized that he wanted to make people understand what Buddhism really was. As a child, they didn't understand. He went and lived, as you know, perhaps, with... He left his family.

[10:19]

He went to live with another teacher. He left school. He didn't go to seventh grade. He dropped out of school. He stayed out of school for seven years. Actually, five years. And then... And because he wasn't going to school, his father finally came to the temple, took him back, and he went to high school for just two years. He's actually jumped, I don't know how many grades, maybe three, I think maybe five or six years. He went to university when he was 21, and he took English. And the English teacher was a woman, Mrs. Ransom, who had been the tutor for the wife of the last emperor of China, the empress. He used to go visit her because she had a nice cool house and she had watermelon. But one day he made her shopping and he helped her and he came home and she said, would you like to live here? Back in those days, temples had a student who lived in the front room of the temple and they often didn't even look at their houses.

[11:21]

The entrance had a student who lived there for free and she had two other people and she said he'd do it. But she had a Buddha. And the Buddha she had must have been quite beautiful because it was a present from the emperor to her of a Chinese Buddha. And she put her in a tokonomo. Tokonomo is a place in a Japanese home, and you may have seen it, where they have one extra tatami area that you don't sit in, kind of like a small, it rains a little bit, there's a scroll in it often. And she put her Buddha in the tokonomo, but she also put her shoes there. And she had a house guest who would come and... Oh, they look like that. And she would, he would put his matches there, too, for his cigarettes. And actually smoke, the mudra. So a cigarette, she began giving water every day to this statue, not statue, to the Buddha, and incense. And he didn't know much English, but he'd hear them talking about how they thought it was really funny what this kid was doing.

[12:31]

So he went home and he spent one month making this much English to explain to Mrs. Ransom what Buddhism was. Then he came and he gave her this talk about Buddhism. She was very surprised. She thought it was idolatry. And after two or three years and he graduated from college and he went to AAG, She graduated at age 25, I guess. She also went to Ehenji for a month or two, practiced there. She became his student. He gave her Jukai. She got her Akshu from him. And she became Buddhist. This was reason number two we can give for a wise lucro when she came to the U.S. He had the experience with Mrs. Ransom that it was easy to teach people who were Japanese. Japanese are very hard to teach because they had a habit of what it meant to be Buddhist, just part of their culture, and it was not spiritual in a sense.

[13:35]

It was family religious. So he asked his teacher, another famous story, he asked his teacher, could I please go to Hokkaido or Hawaii to be a missionary? Hokkaido was the northern most... island in Japan, but it wasn't settled until the Meiji era, and it was the frontier, it was the west coast of the Japanese. It also had a few Americans because they went there to teach how to do agriculture in western style. The teacher said, no in many ways, and he kept questioning, and finally the teacher said, here. So Siguroshi gave up his idea, and he didn't hold it again for the other 25 years. There's more to the story, but my time doesn't... allow that. But finally, he had a friend who had a temple, a nearby temple, who was the head of the international section of Soto Zen, or at least a place in Tokyo called Heiheji Betsubing.

[14:39]

It means the separate place for Heiheji, the main temple, where Zukochi had trained. And there was a struggle in San Francisco. There was some problem that was going on among the congregation and the teacher. I forgot what it was. And Niwa Roshi, who had a nearby temple, was discussing that with his friend. And he said, you know, all the people that Soto Zen wanted to go there, they were qualified, they didn't want to go. And people who were qualified, who wanted to go, they weren't qualified. And so he said jokingly, they're probably drinking sake, and he said jokingly to his friend, why don't you go? But he wasn't serious at all. But a month later, Suzuki Roshi came back and he said, yeah, I'm going to go. And Niuroshi was really surprised because he didn't want him to go. Because Niuroshi was in Tokyo. Suzuki Roshi was, you know, hours from Tokyo in Yaizu.

[15:42]

And Suzuki Roshi would give the lectures at Niuroshi's temple for the students. So... With a great chagrin, Nero Xi had him go. So he said when he came here, he had no idea where San Francisco was. I think he knew it was California, obviously. He never looked at the map. He couldn't put Los Angeles and San Francisco on the map. He just got off the airplane, and he was here. And no one knew why he had come. He had come as an assistant priest to help the abbot of psychology. It could be that changed. They never told them the real reason was to come to teach us. And that's why he'd come. Because he really wanted to spread Buddha Dharma. And I've said all these things, and I've covered a lot of my things here. And time is up, actually. But I'm going to keep going on anyway. But I will skip part. Suki Roshi again.

[16:44]

The last lecture was, and I forgot, they may have been August 17th or 23rd, I'm a little confused about that, of 1971. He had been sick, he'd been at Tassajara for a long time, middle of summer, but suddenly at that point, I was not here, but he became jaundiced. And they didn't know what the problem was, but they thought it might be hepatitis, and so they quarantined him. And he stopped speaking. Without knowing, it was his last lecture probably. But in his last lecture, the day before, Nakagawa Soen Roshi had come through. Nakagawa Roshi was actually Dan Moshe. Dan Moshe is my gama brother. Dan is here today. And he and I were dating together. Dan's over here. Dan's right here. And Dan got to swim in the early 60s. But he'd come through and he was going to... I think Roshi couldn't remember how to say the name, but Students helping is going to Bethlehem, of all places.

[17:46]

Because he had a group there. But Zuko Roshi used him as the final point of this lecture that ended up being his final lecture. He was talking about what was the real Zen. And then he gave someone Roshi as an example of the real Zen without saying, this is my example. And what he said was, I'm going to now read some Luba to you here. I can find my place here. Okay, here we go. He said, why is he going there? He's going there more to enjoy his own enlightenment. More than to enjoy his own enlightenment. He looks interested in helping people. he wouldn't feel good if he didn't do that. But he wasn't going there just to satisfy his personal feeling.

[18:52]

I'm paraphrasing one section here. I don't know what he was doing, and he didn't know what he was doing either. He looked very happy, but that happiness is very different than the happiness that we usual people had. What he was doing was helping people, but he had no idea of helping people. So if we ask, why did Suzuki Roshi come to America, we also have to ask, why did Bodhidharma come to the West? That's the same question as today. we can't answer that question. If I said to you, you've heard my talk, do you know why Suzuki Roshi came to the West?

[20:04]

You know, Soto Zen is called I Don't Know Buddhism. I Don't Know Buddhism. That's kind of a tricky I Don't Know Buddhism. But if you say, Well, I heard you talk. I know why Suki Roshi came to the West. If you say cleverly, I don't know why Suki Roshi came to the West. Suki Roshi would say, be careful what your answer is. And then he'd laugh. First of all, I got this question, why did Suzuki Russia come to or from the West, whichever direction it is?

[21:11]

And I right away thought of my dear friend and student, George Lane, who some of you will remember from 1983 when he became the facilitator here at Zen Center. George was a street therapist, among other things. He used to have an open group down in Fisherman's Wharf and people could walk in off the street on Tuesday nights and do therapy. But anyway, George used to say, I don't answer why questions. But I'm going to go ahead and answer a why question here in my own inimitable fashion. I would say Suzuki Roshi came so that we could all be here today. Sharing, sitting in this space at the Zen Center, which so many people have sat in, you know, settling their bodies and minds and hearts. and looking into their own hearts and knowing their own heart and how to express their heart and Suzuki Roshi came so we could be here and Suzuki Roshi came so that you could meet the teacher in you so you could meet Suzuki Roshi in your own heart in your own life and know for yourself your way so this is like Suzuki Roshi saying when you are you Zen is Zen or

[22:33]

Some of you are trying to be good Zen students. Why don't you be yourself? I'll get to know you better that way. So I wanted to tell you some stories, which for me, you know, which touched me. And I thought because they touched me and it's touching me literally. And because and I also feel then, you know, because Suzuki Roshi can touch me, you know, he can touch you. My first doksan was Suzuki Rishi. I've been at a sesshin at Tassahara. And I went to doksan. So I bowed three times. Suzuki Rishi said, don't lift your hands like that. Just raise your palms. Don't do this. It's kind of grabby, like you want something. Give it to me. So raise the heel of your hand, not your fingers.

[23:37]

And then I sat down and I didn't know what to say. I've never been in Doksan. And of course, we were only a few inches apart. And I thought, what an amazing person this is. What an amazing teacher. And what an amazing presence. And I thought of myself, terrible person. Why does he have you in time for me? And I didn't know what to say, so we sat there. You know, Sultan Malian sat with Trungpa Rinpoche for 40 minutes at her first interview, and later she said, he was giving me mind-to-mind transmission. I don't know how you know these things, you know. I was just sitting there, and I don't know if he was giving me anything or not. So then after a bit, he said, how is your meditation?

[24:40]

I said, not so good. And he said, oh, really? What's not so good? I said, well, I'm thinking a lot. He said, is there some problem about thinking? I thought about it. I couldn't find it. I couldn't find the problem, I didn't know what to say, so I said, well, you know, you're not supposed to think. I mean, that's what you tell us all the time, don't think. I thought you told us that. So it's a problem, I'm thinking, okay? And he said, I think it's pretty normal to think. Don't you? So I said, yeah. It's pretty normal to think. So then he said something like, you know, well, you know, your thinking can get repetitive. And, you know, if you stop thinking from time to time and if you sit longer, you will stop thinking.

[25:45]

You won't be thinking all the time. And then that will make your thinking when you have it more fresh. Anyway. This is such a wonderful spirit, you know, it's so refreshing. And we each have, you know, this kind of capacity. And Suzuki Rishi, one time at Tassahara, quoted Dogen. I mean, it's so basic. To study Buddhism is to study the self. So he said, you're here not to really to study Buddhism, but to study yourself. What's going on with you? How do you do you? Is there some other way to do you? And to be more you. And he said, if this isn't the way for you to study yourself, go find something that is. I really appreciate that, too, rather than people saying this is the thing to do.

[26:48]

And so I went to see him. I said, I don't know that I'm finding out much about myself or that I'm studying very well. He said, keep sitting anyway. So at one point I was back here at Page Street and I remember this being before we had the floor downstairs and there was the black and white linoleum tiles for the old rec room here at the Jewish Center. And he would watch me sitting. I always sat way in the back because, you know, important people sat up by the teachers. I wasn't So important. And one time in Doksan Suzuki she said, you're sitting pretty well for about 25 minutes and then you fall asleep. You start to nod. I want you to sit up right in front of me. So when you nod, I can get up and hit you.

[27:53]

I felt so honored. He's noticed my practice. He cares about me. He's interested in me. So I sat up in the front of the room and for about 25 minutes. And then I'd start to nod. And sure enough, he'd come over and he had a little stick for that, you know, bam, bam, bam, bam. And he did twice on each shoulder very quick. And then I'd wake up. It's nice to have your teacher care. And I hadn't wanted to disturb his meditation. I thought, oh, I'm disturbing his meditation by falling asleep. I need to wake up. Anyway, many of you know that he took this kind of personal interest in many of us. And I can't help but

[29:00]

Understand that Suzuki Roshi is still taking an interest in each of us. It's not so different than your own capacity to take an interest in yourself. You learn how to do that when somebody does that with you. And later, you know, for many years I couldn't sit still in meditation. Mostly, you know, people go and meditate and they just sit there still. I don't know how people do it. I mean, I do now, but for years I couldn't sit still and I was shaking. If I got my head to stop, my hips would move. And, you know, for a while I wasn't allowed to sit in the meditation hall because it was too... You know, I could make a whole ton shake. You know, and so people didn't want to sit there. with the floor moving. So I had to sit outside the zendo.

[30:01]

And I just kept going anyway. I was kind of stupid that way. I mean, if it doesn't work, do something else, right? But I thought, because of Suzuki Roshi, I will keep doing this. Later, he said, if I had any idea you would do this for so long as you have, I would have stopped you right at the start. I don't know. I don't know what he would have done. But anyway, sometimes the Tessahara used to come up while I was sitting and put his hands on my shoulders. I first had this kind of experience with a woman named Jane Ross. Jane had been, you know, one of Suzuki's first students. She studied at A&M. When I got to Zen Center, she was the president of Zen Center. And one of the first times I was sitting, I first discovered that, you know, it hurts.

[31:05]

What do you do when something hurts? Zen gives you, as Suzuki said, a problem. If you don't do Zen, your problems will not be very accurate and just, you know, precise. Oh, I don't feel so good today. You will have some general malaise. When you practice Zen, you will have a very specific problem. My knees hurt. What do I do? So by having a specific problem, you learn how to work on problems. by having one problem after another. Anyway, another time for Jane. But Suzuki Rishi used to come up, put his hands on my shoulders, and it felt so calm and so peaceful. And I didn't have this energy anymore that, you know, it's having energy in your body that wants to get out.

[32:16]

It feels like. And the energy is so strong, your body just shakes. I've since found out, you know, it's called trauma. Childhood trauma. But again, that's another story. But Suzuki Rishi would touch me and put his hands on each of my shoulders and... Then, after a few times of this, I went to him and I said, Suzuki Rishi, what are you doing when you put your hands on my shoulders? And he said, I'm not doing anything. It's just a way for us to meditate together. Again, you know, with each person, Suzuki Rishi studied, you know, How do I connect? How do I meet this person?

[33:16]

How do I introduce you to the teacher in you? How do I help you to know your own heart, your own capacity to touch yourself, to see for yourself, your own capacity to not do anything? You know, and just be with your experience. It's very quiet. He also said to me one time, there's a lot of things that you might do, cooking and writing cookbooks, but the most important thing, samadhi, your deep stillness. I want to finish with a little story, one of my favorite stories that over the years comes back to me. One day at Tassahara we had a tea with Suzuki Rishi and we have, it was for all of Tassahara, I mean all the students, sometimes there's teas just with the officers or smaller groups of people.

[34:32]

This was a tea for everyone and Suzuki Rishi talked for a few minutes and then he said, do you have any questions? And one of the students there raised her hand and she said, Suzuki Rishi, why haven't you enlightened me yet? Damn. That's sure putting the responsibility where it ought to be, huh? I mean, I had been assuming all along it was my fault that I wasn't getting enlightened. That is. But some of us are very good at putting the fault on others. And some of us, they take way less responsibility than is theirs. And others of us take way more responsibility than is ours. Anyway. I thought to myself, I hope he puts her in her place. But he said, I'm making my best effort.

[35:39]

And then I was waiting for him to say, how about you? But he didn't say that. Sometimes I listen to my own body, mind, heart, spirit, I sit and then I go inside and I know I'm making my best effort and I know Suzuki Rishi. I meet Suzuki Rishi. I meet my good heart. It's your good heart. There's not any difference. And it's there whenever you go inside and meet yourself. Thank you. It's a wonderful story.

[36:52]

Very touching. Suzuki Roshi wanted to be authentic. He wanted to live the authentic life. in accordance with the truth of things. He didn't want his life to be superficial or trivial. He didn't want it to be sentimental. He didn't want it to be selfish. And those of us who were lucky enough to have met him were very much touched by his authenticity. When we met him, we felt to ourselves... This person is authentic. He's authentic.

[37:53]

How does he do that? And it was his authenticity that was one of the major reasons we were so attracted to him and to the practice. This guy's authentic. How does he do that? And what is authenticity? What is it based on? What is it that inspires us to want to be authentic? He was authentic because he recognized something. Or he felt it. He envisioned it. It was part of him. He knew something. He understood... Can you hear?

[39:09]

Suzuki Roshi felt something very strongly. He had no doubts about it. He knew that there was something larger, something greater, something more universal than himself or than anything. something larger to something that included everything. He knew it. He felt it, and it inspired him. Something that said there's no separation, that everything is no difference, fundamentally no difference. And he felt this. He knew it. And he was inspired to live his life according to that vision.

[40:10]

And this is what made him authentic and what inspired us. And I know all of you have read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And it was this vision of something larger that is the main theme of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And let me just give you a couple of examples. of why I say this. At one point, he says it is absolutely necessary. He says, I firmly believe that it is absolutely necessary to believe in nothing. And then he goes on to say, something which has no form or color. In other words, something very, very big. No form or color. At another point, he talks about one whole world, this limitless world. He talks about the fundamental activity of the universal being.

[41:15]

And at another point, he says, we are actually one and the same thing. This theme repeats throughout his teaching. There is something larger. And he felt it. He knew it. And he also knew that this understanding, to have this understanding, is very, very important for people. It will relieve anxiety. It will relieve suffering, to have this understanding. And when you read the chapter called Nirvana, the Waterfall, towards the end he says, when the water recurrent to its original oneness, it finds composure. Understanding and returning to this something larger is a fundamental teaching, his fundamental teaching. Not his uniquely, but it's what he brought forward. Living according to this understanding brings us to selflessness.

[42:24]

We do. And it encourages in us respect and courtesy and kindness. And that's the way he was, of course. That was the mark of his authenticity. And he also had, in his authenticity, what I like to call a taking care attitude. Like when he put his hands on Ed's shoulders. That was one expression of his taking care. And he did these small things for everyone's benefit. So his feeling was that to understand the larger self was the way to have the authentic life. So he came. He came to the U.S. He stayed in the U.S. when he had lots of opportunities to go back. He stayed in the U.S.

[43:28]

because he wanted us to understand the truth of this... something greater, something larger, so that we could all find the authentic life. The life of oneness, the life of no duality, the life of no separation, a selfless life. He wanted us to be authentic and have a selfless life, but first we had to understand that there is something larger than the self. That's all very logical. Very intellectual. That's a little cerebral. But that was only part of the reason that he came. Only part of the reason. I think the fundamental reason that he came was simpler than that. The reason he came was more touching than all that.

[44:33]

More human than all that. He came here... And he stayed here because he had empathy. He had empathy. Fundamental equality. His caring and his feeling for people. Very simple. He had empathy. And when you were with him, you could feel it. You could feel his empathy through his attention and through his warmth, through his patience. Peter, his patience. His patience. Which he brought to us. Even though he said, as Peter explained, he might have said, well, I didn't have that when I was younger. We all felt that he brought patience. We could feel his empathy. And if somebody were to ask you, why do you come?

[45:35]

Why do you come to practice? I think you could say, for the same reason that Zipi Roshi came to the U.S. Same reason, no different. And I feel that when we sit in the morning, when we start our day with God, when we practice what he taught us each day, we are actually making a vow. Not about it we recite or chant or anything like that, but with our effort, with our posture, of our physical being, we are making a vow to continue his practice and develop in ourselves his spirit. And we are making a vow when we sit to see the world through his eyes. To see the world through his eyes. And for those of us that were lucky enough to meet him and fish him,

[46:39]

He is authentic. He is wise. How can I see the world through his eyes? When we sit, we are making a vow to see the world through his eyes so that future generations can be inspired to be selfless and to be authentic and to be in the world with the same kind of taking care attitude that he had. Thank you. Thank you.

[47:36]

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