Wild person, it's marvelous. He picked up a book in New York, a paperback book like a counter, and it was on Zen. And he'd gone to Harvard and things like that, but basically just living in the city, not doing anything special, you know. And he found this book on Buddhism, which he read, standing in a drugstore. And he thought, this really sounds like right. So he thought that the place where Buddhism most likely would be would be San Francisco. So he came to San Francisco. And then for some six, seven, eight months, he beat the streets of San Francisco regularly, wondering, because there's nothing listed under Zen in the phone book. And he walked by one place one day, and he got past it, and he said, didn't I? He saw Zen Soto Mission. He turned around, looked back, and said, Zen Soto Mission. He went in, and Suzuki was there, and various people found him in this kind of way. They just walked in, you know. I love you.

[03:37]

So, so, [...] ... [...] Thank you.

[05:06]

oh my god You have to buy a very expensive ticket. Yes, I know. Which you cannot afford. Of course, you can't afford to go to no play. Or kabuki. While I'm in Japan, is there anything special you want me to do? First of all, you have to study Arabic. Japanese language.

[06:07]

And then you study military. No one wanted to have a group, you know, but... The Zen Center started about a little after Roshi came, but Suzuki Roshi came in about 1958. So in the Japanese congregations building on Bush Street, we meditated every morning and evening with Roshi. He just said to the first people who came, well, I meditate every morning, early. If you want to join me, please do. And so people started sitting with him, and he kept postponing going back to Japan. until finally he gave up and decided to stay here permanently. We had to start trying to support the Roshi and the building and things like that so we needed a like legal sort of like umbrella under which to make contributions and things so we formed a group. Then they got a little more organized later but basically it remained pretty simple until the time of Tassahara.

[07:11]

Maybe 70% of religion looks like culture, a part of culture. And underlying spirit is true religion, I say. To me, religion is the definition of mankind or human possibilities, which is the most broad. But it can't be something which is difficult to accept. It must be both intelligible and... simultaneously, it seems to me, to be dynamic. If you go to Japan, you understand our way from some other angle. That is the point we are making effort for thousands of years. Just to go to learn some special technique or something, I wouldn't be interested. But to go to try to understand what human beings to understand human beings more deeply and how people live together, then I feel very good.

[08:20]

I think that the Orient has great things to offer us. Just as you come here to learn things from America, now I go to Japan to learn things from Japan. We'll be leaving about 10 or 15 minutes. And driving to Tassahara. You have your bags ready and all that? Yes. Yeah, I have mine. Well, my car is here with bags. I try to be, I'm trying to be Tassahara more, but right now I think half and half. Two weeks, yeah, two weeks there. About the same for me, but usually it's two or three days there for me. Two or three days here. Two or three days there. What do you think? It's pretty difficult. Once you get here, so many problems arise. I have to be here. And then, since I get there, so many problems arise. I have to stay there.

[09:20]

It takes about four hours to drive, though. The last part of the road is what takes a long time because it's a dirt road. And it takes an hour just for the dirt road that goes 20 miles. Kadigiri sensei mostly takes care of San Francisco. Suzuki Roshi's here part of the time. Students practiced here, and this was, of course, a satisfactory and sufficient place to practice for a long time. But more and more the students felt the need to have a more intensive opportunity to study and more opportunity to spend with the teacher. Zen Mountain Center developed naturally out of that interest. And now that we have Tassahara, Zen Mountain Center, now what we do is the students begin here in San Francisco and then study at Tassahara, like step two.

[10:28]

And then the third step is to back in the city and just leading an ordinary life, practicing here and working or whatever. Tassahara isn't meant to be, you know, isolated or people aren't meant to go there forever. Just one year or six months or two months or three years. And what would you like, Sally? A glass of milk or Coca-Cola? Coke. Do you have something in your eye? Yeah, it's all red. Yeah, so don't poke at it too much. When people ask me, what is Zen or something like that? Traditionally you're not supposed to be able to answer that question because it's impossible to answer. Since I'm not very traditional, I try to give an answer.

[11:32]

And the answer I usually give is that, maybe a very traditional answer is that Zen doesn't exist. And I say, If I was going to give a shorthand definition of Zen, I'd say it's a mental and physical practice aimed at freeing you from all mental and physical conceptualizations or patterned ways of experiencing, feeling, thinking about things. And that Buddhism itself should free you, the mental part of Buddhism, the intellectual part, should free you from intellectualization and free you from Buddhism itself. and the physical practice should open up your mind and body so that they're one in a full experience. Would Dogen agree with that kind of expression or would he say, I talk too much? I'd be scared to ask Dogen.

[12:34]

I'm a little scared to ask you. I think so. Yeah, very good. Reality or Buddha nature or essence of mind, whatever you call it, it is reality and it is our mind itself and our body itself. So, body or reality, or mind. It's actually the same thing in the... because when mind and body become one with our surroundings, that is reality. So one covers the other two. And to make our best step,

[13:40]

on each moment. Forever it's our practice. And that is his interpretation of Zen. So I think your explanation is perfect. And what happened was the students had really come far enough, a lot of them, through the sashin practice, the all-day sittings, to need more contact with Roshi, more opportunity to practice. And so the alternate was sort of an en masse departure for Japan. And then we found Tassahara. My wife and I camped there. in the area and just wonder where this dirt road wandered off into the mountains.

[14:42]

We just followed it, followed it, followed it. My wife kept saying it's getting darker and darker and we've got to go back. I kept saying I've got to find out what's at the end of that road. And we drove in and it was just getting nightfall and they said, well, you can look around. It looked like a sort of very mysterious retreat for not, I didn't know what. But anyway, we drove back out. It always stayed in my mind. And for the next year and a half or so, I kept trying to find out why there was private land in there. Finally, somebody gave me an address, which then I lost. And a year or so later, I got it again and called. And then we went down and visited it. People had shown us land for years. It was the first land that I'd seen Suzuki Roshi ever really excited about. We bought the 160 acres there, which is surrounded by national forest, which is one of the great things about it. So 350,000 acre national forest, and there's a few islands of private homestead land left and we bought one of them and it also was an old carriage trade resort in the eighteen eighties nineties and early

[15:55]

Are you going to hit the hard? Yeah. Afterwards, you're going to hit the hard? I don't know. Whatever is usually done, I guess. First person usually runs up, but we thought you were going to do it. Yeah, whatever you want to do. You can hit the hard at me. Anything, please? Govinda in his autobiography says that

[20:43]

He had to choose between the inner world and the outer world. And that if you chose the inner world, not just dreams, but the whole inner experience, then the outer world would become like the inner world, would become much more real. Actually, there's no inside or outside. Yeah, that's how I feel. Yeah. So if you think outside... From about May through September. We have guests coming down. And a number of them, the kind of people who are really interested in the fullest life and what we're doing, one of them is Maud Oakes, who is an anthropologist and has lived with the Indians in Peru or Guatemala. But now when you meditate, you go inside, don't you? Not inside, though. Outside. Just open. Yes. I see. This book that I'm reading that I told you. says that on his path in life, he's searching for love.

[21:47]

And if he finds love, why, he's found everything. I don't know if that's his Zen point of view. Is it? My motivation is not so much, really, at the deepest level, is not religion or something like that, but his love for certain friends, or my wife, our Suzuki Roshi. Well, I think he means that. If he asked me to do something, I should do it because of affection, not because of religion. I have no choice. Well, I think, yeah. I don't know about Buddhism. I know about affection more than Buddhism. Well, so whatever you do, for instance, if you're fixing a bridge or something like that, and the Roshi's asked you to do it, you do it for the Roshi. Not for the bridge. Yeah, I don't know if there's any difference. He's a bridge sometimes.

[22:49]

I'm sure you're a bridge between the two worlds. Will you have some more tea? Well, the first time I came as an invited guest last year, I was amazed at what you had accomplished already, because I'd been here before, before you moved in. But now... When I see the kitchen being built, and that I'm a guest again, I want to tell you what pleasure it gives me. Thank you very much. They're working very hard. Oh, yes. I walked this morning there, fitting the rock. Yes. And then taking it down, and then putting the cement, and then putting it back again. It was very interesting. Yes. Then I noticed that girl chipping the rock. Oh, yes. That's a lot of work for a girl. What is she making? Is she just shaping the rocks for the... for the... for the... Oh, the cornerstone. Oh, for the cornerstone. I didn't know what she was doing myself. I didn't know either.

[23:52]

She's doing a good job. I've loved rocks ever since I was little. And wherever I'd go, I'd pick up rocks and bring them home. And finally, the closet in my bedroom was just filled. And my mother told me that this had to stop. Yes, when I left college and went to, in the Merchant Marine to Africa and places, I came back and all of my stuff had been thrown away except one big box of rocks that all my roommates had kept for me. That was the most precious. I said this morning, you're the only person that can be said of positively that you have rocks in your head. So you still need many more stones for guarding things. Oh, you can see straight. That's all. Yeah. What about this? Too big for the wall.

[24:52]

Yeah. Dennis, do you have any hand in setting this? You can... They want you to play out your shit.

[26:05]

They want you to play out your shit. [...] ... ... ... Oh Oh

[27:21]

What I wanted to ask you was whether or not you plan to go to heaven. For heaven's sake, yes. What does that mean here? What does that mean? Yes. In Christian terms, it means ultimate union with God. And in British terms, it means union with ultimate reality. There's a little tiny fact called death that gets in between those two perfects. Oh. Because some Buddhists believe that that nirvana is some sort of state epigome.

[30:54]

But Roshi doesn't. He believes that nirvana is right here and now. Well, in a very real sense, the Christian who lives in union with God is also in heaven here and now. And his death is relatively insignificant. I think you can say that. Really? This summer, A Benedictine monk named Brother David, who has been studying with his Zen group in New York, has permission from his abbot to do that. And with Thomas Merton are the two Catholic monks, I think, most interested in Buddhism in this country. And they are surprised. They think you didn't decide, but they are surprised. No, it's so extraordinary. It's just so much that they're just... It's just too much to even think about finding it in a way.

[31:55]

But also the fact that they do hate forms makes Americans exceptionally open to different possibilities. I mean, they can try out anything. Because they've always lived in a sort of formless time. And as someone mentioned yesterday, Americans are always looking for a sort of instant tradition. So every time they see a new one come up, they'll try it. But we may see whether it'll work after a year or two. I just can't tell. Yesterday, we talked about how rigid people are about being non-rigid, young people are. But this is new. Americans have always had a really fear of any kind of ritual. They really hate ritual. So the minute you bring up ritual, they really want to back away. But I think that because of this reason, they find a great need. I know I spent a long time studying anthropology and I studied mostly ceremonies and celebrations. But I liked them, I didn't, I was studying mostly pre-fiction because when it got symbolic, I wasn't doing great for it.

[32:57]

I was interested more in natural rituals. And I sort of had a stretch for a kind of ritual. And so it's very, very easy for me to accept. Ritual has, ritual, if it becomes conformity, dies. But if it stands to point out what the act is and how it operates so that you can become totally involved in the act, then that act becomes sacred. How do you think this place is going to develop? I see really two elements here. On the one hand, there is the strictly monastic element. On the one hand, there's a real monastery. with celibate monks and so forth. And on the other hand, you do have married couples living here and even partly children and so forth. Do you think that one of these two claims will eventually take over? Well, actually, well, no, I just don't know.

[33:59]

I don't well know. I think that people who are religious, in a strange sense of word, would prefer neither living a total secular life out in the world, nor living one that is totally monastic. I think that a community of families with a school and their own ways of raising food, but one that is not like isolated. In other words, the Buddhist keyboards. Ah, yes, but we don't have to use machine guns. But it's very interesting because in the Christian sense, too, monasticism has been really defined as a nostalgia for the early Christian community, for exactly that, families sharing everything and living a more religious life than society at large. I think that the big two extremes of politics, the commune way and the anarchistic way, really meet

[35:05]

you have a large spiritual family living together. But one that has no feeling of superiority or really of difference, but just that there are many different ways and these people have picked this way. Do you think then that this is sort of a pattern for a new development in this country of Buddhism? Do you think that there are some possibilities of cooperating with other monastic professions like the very lifting physicians right near here to emerge I've been here a year and that would be like asking a freshman in college if he thinks the universities have a chance in this world when you look at the very slight difference between our two different communities and our different ways and people who are killing for My country, right or wrong, around the world, I mean, they're almost exactly alike. In this sense, then monasticism would really have a very important mission in the world, right?

[36:10]

Because there are monks both in the East and the West, and just by the way that they speak the same language, there is a bridge already existing, and all we need to do is use it. Use it for peace and for communication. Yes, I think that we're all getting together, and I think that as you come east, I may also return west. I hope so. Well, it means a lot to me, because our life as being victims is completely impregnated with ritual, too. But you get used to it, and here for me, this is something new, so I experience it as something new. And the meal, for instance, this highly ritualized meal or the bath with the ritual bowels and all that carries over to other parts of the daily life and it makes me more aware of what's going on. It increases your awareness. I mean, people, after they eat away for some time, they begin to realize how their teeth eat and how they swallow.

[37:14]

And if you stop eating and close your eyes and listen to the rest of the people eat, it's an enormous field of locusts of all different kinds of bugs going... Well, if you could take something like the washing your face in the morning, that ritual, and heighten it in some way so that it really became a... opened you up to the whole sense of a morning and the day beginning and the cleaning, washing yourself for the new day. If that sense could be there, then you'd be like more in the area of religion is how do you take the ordinary rituals of our life anyway and intensify them in such a way that deepens our perception of reality.

[38:23]

deepens our participation in reality. We get up in the morning about after what would be a necessary sleep. A little, too little sleep, a little less sleep than you need. Your mind's a little clearer and burn off so much excess sleep or something during the day. And so we get up fairly early, about usually around 4.40 I think. Meditation at 5 o'clock in the morning and then followed by depending on whether it's a practice period or guest season followed by another period of zazen or a study period and then breakfast and then again depending on whether it's practice period or guest season we have a lecture or work period and then meditation before lunch then lunch and then work during the afternoon and then bath at the end of the afternoon before evening meal, an evening meal, and then a sort of break of about an hour, and then lecture or meditation, and meditation before we go to bed.

[39:26]

We go to bed about 10 o'clock. Buddha said, you should not sleep.

[40:31]

You should not sleep. And he said, but if you become really sleepy, you should sleep. But before you, when you are not sleepy physically, you know, If you sleep, you should be ashamed of yourself. It is very difficult thing to overcome sleepiness. You know, hunger is not so bad. Even though you don't eat two, three days, it's all right. But if you do not sleep, Even for one night, you know, you feel terrible. And I think this is more deeper and original and essential instinct for us.

[41:45]

So to confront with it means to confront with your true nature, how you feel when you are sleeping, you know, and how you feel when you are hungry, how you feel when you are thirsty. This kind of experience is very important. Near the end of a session, Suzuki Roshi had a lecture, announced it was late evening and rather dark, and said that a student had just become enlightened and didn't know it. But he would eventually find out.

[42:29]

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