and um my name is charlie and i was born in 1968 and uh unfortunately i never met but um you know i uh in the early 90s i came to um practice here at san francisco zen center and um You know, being around here, you hear stories of Suzuki Roshi a lot in talks and during a meal, sometimes during silent periods. And I think I once heard a story during a ceremony. You know, hearing the stories, I really appreciate it. I always like hearing these stories. They... there's something kind of alive and warm about hearing these stories.

[01:00]

So I think this will be really good. Zen is a tradition of stories. For the Zen tradition, its stories are really its sutras and its scriptures. And Zen is constantly reenacting its stories of itself. And although this is probably, something like this is probably kind of new for the tradition, this kind of event. And stories, and they can be funny, or they can have a kind of a specific teaching, or, you know, They can kind of express something about a particular person. But mainly the stories in Zen are to help us wake up and be with our life completely.

[02:06]

So, yeah, I encourage, my hope for this event is that that will be so for all of us. Yeah, and so part of this is there's the teacher, and the teacher in Zen kind of, they enact Buddha. They express awakening. And then the students are, but then there's the students in the, they have a part in it too. And what they bring to to the encounter. And in most of the Zen stories, the student is anonymous. So just another kind of thing about this particular event I think is really nice is we will see in person the non-anonymous students.

[03:22]

So I think we're aiming to end at about four. And so there's some featured speakers. And then I'm just wondering if anyone has stories that they would like to tell, if you could just raise your hand just so I can get an idea of the number. One. Okay. Okay. What about Pauline? Did Pauline raise your hand? Are you Pauline? Yeah, Pauline raised her hand. Okay, so for all the storytellers, I think you'll have about maybe ten minutes.

[04:34]

Ten minutes each should be good. If you can work with that. Three to five. He gets ten. Anyway, you can play with the range there, you know. I'll give this a mic. Yeah, so why don't we start with David Chadwick and our abbot Steve. Did you want to make an introduction for David to think about the archives? Okay. Sit here. The person sits in this chair. Well, actually, they can sit right there. So where are you going to sit? I'll probably just stay here. Just stay there.

[05:36]

So there once upon a time... Do something with it? So this is... Oh, there, that works. So once upon a time there was... a very poor Zen student who never understood what Suzuki Roshi was teaching and I believe asked Suzuki Roshi to explain Buddhism just in one phrase if possible and Suzuki Roshi said everything changes and And I think David Chadwick was the person who asked that non-anonymous question. And since then, David still had the question, what is it that Suzuki Roshi is up to?

[06:38]

And he's made it his life mission, really, to gather all the information that he could gather about Suzuki Roshi. And he took up a collection. so that he could go to Japan and research, and did that for years, collected stories, collected interview material with many people who knew Suzuki Roshi in Japan, came back to this country, and he's still doing it, he's still interviewing. So anything here that he hears today that he hasn't already heard is gonna go into the archive collection. And I just wanted to mention that this In the last couple of years, we've formalized a little bit more of what we're calling the archive project, Shinri Suzuki Legacy Project. And any of you who are particularly interested in supporting it in some way, either because you have a particular skill or because you want to contribute some money to support David's ongoing research and Zen Center's ability to take care of the archives, please let...

[07:50]

let us know. You could let Kate Frankford in the development office know. You could let David himself know. You could let me know. And so with that, I want to turn the mic over to David and he can share maybe something that none of us have heard before. We'll see. David. Hi there. Steve Martin used to do this little comedy where he'd come on and say, there's a plumbing convention in town. And then he'd tell a joke that used all sort of technical plumbing words that you couldn't understand. And... You know, the word archiving, it's just right away.

[08:53]

It's like saying that you do bookkeeping or something. I mean, you go to sleep. So there's been a lot of people do a lot of things to help preserve and better present what Suzuki Roshi had to say. And, you know, I've focused on that a lot. And on two things. One is on, you know, getting the lectures together and getting them on disc years ago and help raise money. And it got going. And Bill Radican did all that great work. Michael Wenger was looking over that for years. And Kokai, who is Shinshu, now is involved in it. And there's been a lot of people, you know, who did transcribing and who have sent things in, they found. And in the last year, I really focused on the lectures.

[10:03]

And really, the details of it are just too boring. to say, but one thing, just as quickly as possible, I'll say, I focused on getting the archive digitalized. And so, of course, the transcripts were already digitalized, because they just went into computers, but getting the audio, there had been about 40 lectures put on CDs, but Then I got like, oh, there were 345, I got about 345 CDs made out of the tapes we had. And then... and it got it all on a hard disk and then i started looking at it and realized they were all stereos 144 gigabytes then made it all mono because it all came from mono so that got down to 74. i started listening to them and they'd have like two minutes of clunking sounds and half you know of a chant starting so then i edited every one of them so they start where suzuki roshi starts talking and they end where he stops talking there's a lot more work that needs to be done

[11:22]

If anybody remembers Joe Golowski, he's a professor now at the University of New Mexico. He's looking at the speed because a lot of the speed got shown. Some of them go so fast you can't even hear it. Some of them are too slow. And we also have some people that are, there's additional transcribing that needs to be done. But anyway, all you have to do right now is look at two things. Charlie's working on the Suzuki Roshi blog, and it's suzukiroshi.sfcc.org. And he's just started on this, and he's starting from the first where there's not any audio. It's actually based on lecture notes that were in the early wind belts, presenting it very nicely with photographs and all that. And I'm working more from... point of view of uh i've just thrown it all up and so that people who are working on it can get to it and if you go to surenewsuzuki.com uh and write in uh the username buddha b-u-d-d-h-a and the password one o-n-e there all the lectures are there and all the audio is there and uh i've got some of the um

[12:47]

I've even put all the stuff I cut out, if it was whole, like, because, well, it's sort of hard to know where to stop, you know, but when I cut a chant out before or after, it's saved, and I put all that stuff on there because, you know, with the internet, you know, the internet's bigger than the universe. It's really, you can just put a lot there, and if it's organized right, it won't be too confusing. There's also a guy named Gordon Geist in Norway who studied with Suzuki Roshi back in the early 60s and translated in My Beginner's Mind and Not Always So. He's a Norwegian who's done many, many light edits. So he takes these verbatim transcripts that Bill Radekin made, which are so great, which have every sound that Suzuki Roshi made pretty much. Every time he said, you know, or if he was... going in circles around. So anyway, Gordon has done what's called light edits for readability. And I'd like to encourage anybody that once you can download, you can go on, you can find a lecture, download, do your own light edit, you know, and send it.

[13:58]

Because once we've established what the raw material, the basic material is, there's no reason why anybody can't do what you want. I mean, Thomas Jefferson rewrote the Gospels and nobody gave him permission. So, anyway, if you want to know more about it, go to shunyasuzuki.com. And eventually the Suzuki Roshi site, the Zen Center site, I think will have it all on there. And this is more like a working site to provide material for it. And it's, you know, it costs a lot of money. And right now... I owe my mother and my son and my sister and a friend from Fort Worth a number of thousands of dollars. So anybody has any ideas about where you can get some money to pay for this? Because I don't stop working when there's no money.

[15:01]

And you know, I would like to see a... And I'm not going to do it, but I think there should be a foundation or an organization that is responsible for these archives that is, like, includes Sin Center and all the branching streams and Dick Baker's group, Bill Kwong's group, and all that, you know, that's bigger. And its sole purpose is to preserve this archive. And one thing that you really notice about this, like I did a 25-page report about a year ago on the archive with Steve and Lou Richman and Ed Sass and really pushing it. And I said, you know, you're going to lose it. It's deteriorating. You've got to have an archivist. And so, you know, they did a presentation to the board, and the board all agreed there should be an archivist, there should be an archive room.

[16:08]

But, I mean, to get Zen Center here, to get Patriot to give up a space like this big. I've got these original Suzuki Roshi reel-to-reel tapes and storage in Sonoma. Very, very high quality storage. Very cheap. Because I couldn't find like a four foot square cube space here to put them. And because Zen Center's got a lot of agendas. And one of the main agendas is to be a place for people to practice. And, you know, it's a little embarrassing to work. all these archives because Suzuki Roshi's teaching to me was you know not to believe anything and not to be attached to things just be yourself and there's really no teaching to be attached to any of that but the lineages that have gotten too attached emptiness, that have emphasized emptiness too much, that have said that Zen is the way beyond words and letters, and that held onto that literally in a fundamental way. Those lineages do not exist anymore. And only the lineages that continued reading and writing.

[17:12]

And you know what Jerome said, I haven't seen Jerome here. Jerome said to me, I asked him about it, and He said, what are you doing now? What are you doing about the people that gave the talk now? So you're not creating a mess for the future is the stuff that's being done now being archived. Because one thing about the stuff that's being created now is people always say, oh, that's not important. And that's sort of the way it was thought when Suzuki was giving talks. We thought, well, the important thing is just to hear it. And it didn't even start getting recorded. for until, you know, the earliest recordings are 65. And it was Marion Derby in Los Altos that talked him into doing it. And he sort of broke it to boo. There was a boo against recording him. And she, you know, she said, well, let's do a book. And he sort of wanted to do that. And that sort of changed things. So they started recording here.

[18:14]

And, you know, actually, all of us are into... other things, and this is not a real guru worship-oriented type place. So each person, I only have so much interest actually in this. And these are not particularly easy lectures to listen to. They're very poor recording quality. And myself, I tend to read Vedanta Advaita. And like I read, you know, Ananda, Claude at Dallenberg for three and a half years before he died. I never once read him Suzuki Roshi. He didn't want to hear any Zen, you know. We read a lot of Sri Ramana Maharishi and stuff. But it just seems that, for whatever it's worth, that Suzuki Roshi's, what he had to say, should be... preserved and and it needs to be worked with you know he really you know it is embarrassing for him he wouldn't want it to be presented as he said it but it really has to be you get the raw material down and then people can work with it and develop it and and um things will happen with it in the future that we can't imagine now that's enough about all that just remember shinnyosuzuki.com get hold of me give till it hurts uh and uh

[19:43]

You know, you can ask me how, I can tell you how. I wanted to say something about, I was thinking about, you know, something to say that I hadn't written in Thank You and Okay or Crooked Cucumber. Actually, it's not on my website. I think it's a cool thing to say. I was thinking about it this morning when we had the ceremony for Suzuki Roshi's 50th year of coming to America. You know, we had this service, and the service was good in its brevity. I thought that was great. I really, I mean, I come to some ceremonies at the Zen Center, I just come two hours late, so that I only have to be there for two hours, you know. And really, I mean, that's something to deal with. Because long ceremonies was before people had TV and were busy and computers and stuff, and they didn't have anywhere to go, you know. They needed to get together. But people aren't like that anymore. But anyway, I thought the chant we chatted afterwards, I'm not really familiar with it.

[20:50]

It seemed to me sort of like a very sort of priestcraft type of chant, you know? It was like, it wasn't, I mean, it's interesting, and I've studied a lot of this stuff, but it wasn't like a fun thing. It wasn't like a, it wasn't, It wasn't the sort of thing we chatted with Suzuki Roshi. I tell you, the morning service at the old Sokoji was great. And when I first came, I got a... He was in Japan when I first came in 66. In October, he was in Japan. And Kaigiri gave me a Zazen instruction. And I sat out in the Gaitan over... Down Laguna. It's all Laguna, you know. You go down Laguna, that's where Bush Street is, and that's where Greens is. It's funny. And so, but then after I sat out in the Gaitan, I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know where everybody went.

[21:53]

I opened this door, and I saw all these people bowing on the floor. It was weird, you know. It was total, like, cult feeling, you know. Whoa, I'm getting out of here. But I decided it was good to meditate. You know, because I thought I should, I'd like to attain some of these states of mind I'd had on LSD without taking more LSD. And so I came back. But pretty soon I got into the service. You know what the service was like then? It was chanting the Hartsuf during Japanese three times. And it was a trip, man. I mean, we really got into it. And it was like a roller coaster. I mean, and it was like, it's not like music, you know, it's chanting. But it had a definite rhythm and flow to it and a whole togetherness thing. And I've never experienced... I mean, once Tatsugami came at Tatsura, we'd start adding, you know, start adding things, right?

[22:53]

You add more things. They'd start adding the Japanese things like the sandokai, which has that Japanese sort of broken sort of... You know, when you chant the Japanese because they have... The Chinese, they don't have any of the grammar in, so you can just... But... And then you know what happens when, you know, you get more priests, and you have officers, and they have meetings, and you have something. You've got to keep adding things. You've got to have something to do to keep adding more things to chat. And I'm not against it. I mean, to me, it's very interesting to come and there'll be some long, you know, thing like, you know, reading Dogen or something, you know. In a service, but it's not like the experience that we had. And there was a little sign on the altar that said, chant with your ears? Yeah? That is great. I still think about that. And also another thing that really irritated me was he made us all hold chant cards.

[23:54]

You remember that? And once you memorized the chant, you had to keep on in the chant card to show you weren't better than other people. And... All right, so you want me to think about that? Anyway, and then after service, there'd be Zazen, and there'd be this service that was like a real, you know, and you'd have the nine bows because his teacher, and we only had three bows this morning. I thought that was interesting because he had this trip about nine bows, right? His teacher had made him bow nine times. Because, I don't know, his idea was because he didn't like bowing, so he had to bow more. Or maybe his teacher bowed nine times anyway. But it's bowing nine times in the morning. Isn't that unusual, Peter? Isn't it? I know we do it here, but I mean, isn't it unusual for Japan? He bowed nine times because his teacher had to bow nine times because Hebert became a priest at the age of 30 and was so stubborn. But his teacher made him bow. Ah.

[24:57]

The second generation of... So it's part of the lineage to bow nine times, but it's not a common thing. I've never seen anywhere else they bow nine times. They're both Harada and Obama. Which Harada? No, no. There's two temples and there's Tang and... Hoshinji. [...] All right. So there you got another nine-bow temple. All right. Just one other thing I wanted to say is that after the service, you know, in interviewing people, there's some things that you keep hearing over and over that impress people. But after the service, when we walked out, we would all walk by. uh it was suzuki sensei it was just going from suzuki sensei to suzuki roshi when i got there and he'd be standing there and he'd bow to each person it'd be a little check-in and it'd be you know it was a very personal little moment there that could have some meaning or not but he'd bow to each person uh after uh service on their way out that was a really neat thing anyway my time's up

[26:26]

Thank you very much. Thank you, David. Yvonne, could you go next, please? Thank you. I have too many stories I could tell, so I'll just have to pick a couple. Give me some of my time, too. I wanted you to see the yucca leaf that Suzuki Roshi tore off of the plant behind his cabinet, Tassahara, and then pound it into a sumi brush so that he could do the calligraphy that is on Zen mind, beginner's mind. And, well, we can put it somewhere... Well, it could be in this chair, the empty chair.

[27:30]

From my standpoint, the epitome of beginner's mind. I had an untransformed yucca leaf, but of course couldn't find it when I left home this morning. One of the stories I want to tell about Suzuki Roshi... As long as it's not me, it's fine. One of the stories I want to tell is about driving Suzuki Roshi from San Francisco to Tassajara. I was for a number of years as secretary for the Zen Center, and part of the job included going to Chinatown to get a case of oranges from orange land for Suzuki Roshi and taking him to wherever it was he wanted to go, etc.

[28:47]

And also meant that lots of times I was the one who drove him to and from Tassajara. And... He would usually sleep. He'd get in the car and immediately go to sleep. And one time, we were at Tassajara for Thanksgiving, and then he wanted to come back to San Francisco after dinner, probably because he had some obligation with the Japanese congregation. And he slept the minute he got in the car. And we pulled up in front of Sokoji, where Zen Center was at the time, and he immediately woke up and began giving me instructions in the importance of trust and that he wanted me to understand how important it was to not trust anything or anyone except oneself, one's own direct experience.

[29:56]

And he took a couple of hours to deliver this teaching, just to be sure I got it, I suppose. I don't know. But I thought, well, it was a very powerful experience. And even though, you know, we'd had a long drive and I was tired, the energy that he had for making sure that I understood what he was pointing out was quite enlivening. One time when we were driving to Tassajara, must have been in the early spring. At a certain point in the wooded area before you get to that wonderful descent, there were some ferns, quite a big meadow of ferns. that were still at the fiddlehead stage.

[31:01]

They hadn't completely opened. And Suzuki Roshi said, stop. And he then directed me to climb through the barbed wire fence and under the no trespassing sign and to collect as much fiddlehead fern as I possibly could. Which, you know, I... I did pick quite a lot, but I was struck by the conflict I felt about going through the no trespassing sign and the barbed wire for the Zen teacher who was strict about the precepts with a couple of exceptions, this being one of them. And he said, hurry, I want to get to the kitchen as soon as possible. And, of course, we got to the kitchen and... he promptly made fiddlehead fern soup, which he dearly loved, and he said he didn't get to eat enough fiddlehead ferns.

[32:06]

So that was one, whenever I've driven over the road and I pass that spot, that situation, that short clandestine crawl through the fence returns. the translation of the precept about not stealing, a disciple of Buddha does not steal, that I particularly like is a disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given. And I think he had a real sense that that fern, those fiddlehead ferns were given if somebody knew what to do with them. There was absolutely no problem about the no trespassing sign. The other memory that's been coming up for me a lot lately, I suppose it just comes with aging and the decline of the body, but also comes up for me because I've spent...

[33:26]

over the years, a lot of time keeping people company while they're dying. And of course the first person I was fortunate to be able to be with as he was dying was Suzuki Roshi. Mr. Suzuki and I were the two people, the two main people who took care of him in those last months of his life. And I remember one day when it was my turn to sit with him, he pointed to a bottle of pills that were on the table next to his bed that his young and I think quite inexperienced doctor had prescribed for him to take. And they were for pain. And he said, Yvonne, can you get rid of these permanently?

[34:27]

I've subsequently learned that what I did is not good, not appropriate, but I said, would it be okay if I flushed them down the toilet? He said, perfect. Just get rid of them. He had, and afterwards, when I went back to sit next to him, he... He said, I only took one of those pills and I didn't like what it did to my state of mind. And my observation was that even though the kind of cancer he was dying of is characteristically brings with it a great deal of pain, I never had any sense that he was in pain. Or if he experienced pain, he did not have a relationship of aversion to the pain.

[35:34]

What was much more the case was that he was so remarkably present in those last months of his life. And some of you, I'm sure, remember just before he, in a fairly short time before he died, he gathered together various of the people he'd ordained and people that he had planned to ordain but hadn't gotten to and expressed his regrets for all the training and and transmission that he had hoped he'd be able to do and thought he would have time. And his regret comes up for me as I contemplate in my own life and practice what I regret and how much it was a teaching about don't put anything off that you really want to do.

[36:46]

He was so willing to let us see all of him, not just what we thought of as perfect and very generous. Anyway, that's maybe enough storytelling. There are more, of course, but I want to hear what other people have to say as well. And I did want you to see the sumi brush that he made. And I'm still hanging on to it, but I think eventually it should come and hang on the wall here. I also have a piece of paper that you will remember, Dan. It's about this big. And he says on it, do not say too late.

[37:49]

Recently, my daughter said that she always thought that it said, do not stay too late. Maybe it's a little bit of both. Anyway, thank you very much. Thank you. Is this an unoccupied seat? Yes. Thank you. Blanche, please. Well, you know, I came rather late to the game compared to the people who've been talking. I only met Suzuki Roshi in July of 1969. But... I was very taken with him immediately and began sitting daily, as soon as he began to sit.

[38:59]

But I didn't have Dokusan with him for a long time. I was kind of, you know, I had a very strong feeling, well, I'm a new student and he doesn't have time for me and he's too important. And I was a little in awe of him a lot in awe of him. So I, I didn't, um, didn't go to Dokusan for a long time. My friend Meg, who had been my roommate the first time I went down there as a guest student and sort of, of, uh, was guiding me a little bit. She gave me Orioki instruction too, so that I could do Tongario at Tassajara. Um, I went to see him, but I was still quite awed. And I bowed apparently with, I conveyed my reverence for him somehow in the bow because once I got settled, he said to me, you know, if you touch your head three times,

[40:21]

When you bow, you can bow to me three times instead of once. For years, I thought he was telling me at that moment that the form was to touch your head three times. I didn't get it that he was telling me the form was to bow three times. But he could see that I was nervous, and he was trying to encourage me. Um... And he said, you know, it's really nice to see you here, and your husband's here too, and your daughter's here too, you know. That's really nice to see you all here. They can come because you're so sincere in your practice. He was very, very encouraging to me at first. And anyhow, at the end of that Dokusan, I got up to bow and I stepped back and I remembered that the form was, you know, fluff your cushion, put it down in the middle of the sabotage and stand back and bow behind the sabotage.

[41:30]

But I didn't want to go way back there. I really wanted to bow to him. I was feeling so grateful to him and it was getting too far away to go back there. And so I went around the Zabaton and bowed so that my head was practically touching his left knee. And when I put my head down to bow, he was sitting there. But when I lifted my head, he had jumped up and he was head to head with me on the floor. He was just responding to me like that. You know, it was really... I was kind of stunned when I walked out of the room. Sometime later, when I'd been sitting for longer, I'd been sitting a one-day sitting and counting my breath, and gosh, you know, it seemed to me... I'd had a hard time being able to count my breath.

[42:33]

It seemed to me that by the middle of the afternoon when I went to see him that I had been counting every breath, you know. So I said to him, Roshi, I... I can count my breath now. I don't miss any of them. What do I do now? And he got very stern. The first time he got stern, he said, don't ever think that you can sit sazen. That's a big mistake. Sazen sits sazen. So my experience of him was when I was feeling... insecure and uncertain he was very supportive and buoyed me up and when I was feeling I mean I expected him to say oh good for you well now the next thing but when I was feeling like I could do this you know you're a young girl maybe that's enough for now

[43:43]

Thank you. Peter? I'm not seeing it because it looks good. But that hurts otherwise. If I was on that. Automatic thing there. Wow. That's impressive. I come here very hesitantly because, okay. Very hesitantly because my friends are much better at stories than I am. Sicily stories anyway. Particularly Master Brown there. I'm always very impressed. Now I'm always very impressed with the stories. And I've also told my whole small pocketful of stories before at these things.

[44:53]

So I'm reticent to put my friends through it again. But I do have two things in my favor. One is most of the people have never heard any of these before. And the second is all my friends have forgotten that I've told these stories. Because we are at that age. And... And they will say to me, they'll say, oh, at best, oh, I remember that. And actually, I enjoy hearing these stories again. A lot of them I haven't heard. My first story was with Suzuki Roshi when I was a new student back when Pauline, who's here, was already a student back in the early 60s, and her husband, Anne Graham. And they were already hardcore students. I was doing my beginner practice back then. I can't look at you because they had my head. Do this thing. Here we go. Here we go. Okay. That's okay.

[45:54]

Yeah, I'm trying to get through. Keep my head up here. Thank you. And it was during, I mentioned powerless to pulling the radio. It was during my first session, my first seven-day session. I'll tell you another story, not about Sugi Roshi, but the venality of people like myself. The Saturday Sashin ended at 6 o'clock, and I lived 40 miles away, so I was the only person living in the Zen Dome. For all I know, I may be the first. I don't really know, but anyway, that is the story. The story was that after dinner, I'd treat myself by walking up the block and down to Blum's, where I proceeded to have a hot food Sunday every night. LAUGHTER And as you can imagine, it is the only memorable hot fudge sandwich of my life. But during that time, I was sitting between Graham Petchy, who was a very strong sitter, which would say he never moved, and Richard Baker, who we called Dick, who actually had his knees very far in the air.

[47:02]

And he worked at it. That's very painful, as you know, but he didn't move either. And I was, they were, you know, one-year veterans, and I was a beginner. And about four days through, I walked outside, and I began to cry. I couldn't help myself. I didn't cry very often in my lifetime, but I began to cry. And I was just sitting on the steps. We were up on the second floor, and I was sitting on the steps. I don't know if I'm making noise. I wasn't even aware of it. I was just crying, bawling, actually. And he came out and said, is anything okay? And I said, no, I'm okay. And then I walked back in. But that's my first story. My feeling about Suzuki Roshi was that he was the nicest person that I knew. Or, put another way, he was the person in my lifetime that was the easiest to be with. He wasn't expressing anything. That was just who he was, you know.

[48:03]

And so... Zen didn't draw me to him. That's what drew me to him. I was sitting. I like meditation, of course, but that was the reason. One time I got lucky and was able to join a seminar in which students could go. I was a teacher, but I became a student in order to be able to take a seminar that gave you a free round-the-world trip in the summertime. with a lot of people. And it wasn't based on anything other than you were lucky. Honestly, that's the truth. It was a Fulbright, went to Washington, none of us scholars. But I went there just because I wanted to go to Japan. But I had to go to India to get to Japan. So, okay, I'll go to India. So I went to Japan two weeks in Japan. And when I was there, I had someone call in Japanese

[49:04]

to Rinzuin. And they arranged for me to take the train, go to the train station, get down to Rinzuin, and I did that. And I got there, and I walked in, and there was a Zikirashi. It was his first time going back in five years. Yes, I think five years. 1993, or, yeah, 1993. No, 63. And... The first night I was there, once again, not a sushi story, but another one about things we can do. I was the guest and they had a bath and it was on a stand and it was a big round tub. And I didn't think a thing about it. I hopped right in and soaked up. They had, you know, of course, later I knew and knew rather quickly. that, you know, you wash outside, and then after you're all clean, you know, really wash well before they get into the public bath.

[50:05]

Then you get in the bath, and then you get out. But I had, being the first, no one else got to take a bath that night, apparently. But next morning, my story is next morning, Jean Ross was there. Someone mentioned her yesterday. And that was one of his students, actually his first student to go to a AG. And a very serious student in the 60s. And so she told the story, and I heard about it again later. But his, not his wife, but someone who was there, perhaps his son's wife. No, someone made ham and eggs for breakfast. And I guess because I was American. But you can imagine Japanese ham and eggs. It was really cooked really well. I mean... Hard. It was a miniature Frisbee. Okay. And so I ate mine. I ate mine.

[51:06]

And then apparently there was another serving. And Tsukiroshi said, do you want to have the eggs? And I said, no, thank you. And he said, here you are. So I had to eat the eggs. Thank you. Another time, another, my experience of Suzuki Roshi, I read recently that he, in the past month, in one of his transcripts, that he said that as you got to know him more, people, his students said he was stricter. And I read that and I felt a little funny because Suzuki Roshi was never, ever strict with me. I think he had a third person scold me sometimes. Kategori would do that. If I needed to scold me, Kategori sent me back then and would scold me.

[52:06]

But she never, ever, ever did. He had a different way of teaching every person for some reason. So I feel kind of funny. I guess I never got beyond being a beginner, I guess. I never got scolded by him. But occasionally he's a little, not sharper than me, but he would crack me, but he never scolded me. But one time I had one of those, there is a machine to sometimes have unique experiences. They're not really much, but when you're beginning, you think, wow, this is something else. I can't remember what the experience was, but that was as Jisha. And some of us, half a dozen of us, didn't realize how lucky we were, but for all of us, probably it was the best time of our lives, being as Jisha. Yvonne was here, Jane was, Dan's first wife was. And I was actually made Jisha. Karege Roshi told me about it. He said, there have been many complaints about you being too rough or something like that. So we decided to have him make you Jisha.

[53:09]

But that did not bother me. I was ashamed of being rough, but I was not worried about my status being low to be Jisha because it was wonderful. I read with Jisha too, I think. So I was, you know, it was wonderful going in there every morning and getting up with him and, you know, going to the bath with him. And I had an experience that Jane and Louise didn't have because I was male. So I get to wash his back. He washes back every day. He went to the bath in the middle of the afternoon. One morning I came in to be Jisha and he, I was sick, had a cold. And I showed having a cold some way. And he sat me down, and he pulled out a bottle of sake. He didn't drink. He never drank, but he had a bottle of sake somehow. He pulled it out, and he had a wooden stove that we lit up for him. And he took a miso cup size, the middle bowl size cup in the oryoki, and he filled it full of sake.

[54:15]

Really, right close to the top. And then he took an egg. I didn't know he had eggs in there. He had a raw egg. And he broke the raw egg and he put it in, he whipped it up. And then he said, drink it up. Really, drink it up, you know. I don't know if I did one gulp or not, but I drank it rather quickly because it was before Zazen. I mean, I didn't get to Zazen. So I drank it up, you know, it's a lot of, you know, it's this much sake, a lot for me. And then he said, go back to bed. Ha, ha, [...] ha. which I did, and it was the most wondrous going back to death in my lifetime. It's very strange that... I'm about to be the first to tear over here. It's very strange that we all... We're so close to Him, and that closeness...

[55:20]

somehow we've made for our entire lives. Ed? Ed, could you please? I guess it's okay. Is it okay? Okay. Good afternoon. Thank you for the last part, Peter. It reminds me of, you know, one of the things that happened to me with Suzuki Roshi, and I forget what I was doing.

[56:29]

Maybe I'd had Dokusan in his cabin, and I had Tassahara, when it was where the Kaisando was before it was moved. And, um, I must have been pretty unhappy at the time. I spent a lot of years being very unhappy. And, um, also reminds me of Blanche's story. His face right there. And, um, I got up and he came over to me and he put his arms around me and he hugged me. And the energy in my body just was like an electric current coming up my spine and out my head. And I got a very warm and empty

[57:33]

feeling. And then he said, exactly that. I will always be with you. Sometimes I can't find him, but I think it's true. I was going to tell you all about my wedding. Many of you know this story. But in 1970, Blanche mentioned Meg. Meg and I, towards the end of the practice period, we went for some walks. And then after the practice period ended in April, we started a relationship. And we decided we wanted to live together at Tassajara. So Suzuka, she was up in San Francisco. we needed to ask him for permission to live together. We decided we wanted to live together at Tassajara.

[58:35]

Dan and Louise were living together, and I think Niels and Maggie were living together, and Paul Disco and Ruthie, was it still Ruthie then, were living together, and we were developing our own little Tassajara suburbia. Anyway, seemed like a good thing to do. rather than being single indefinitely. So Meg went up to San Francisco and I was working in the kitchen and she came back in two or three days and we were in cabin 1B where I lived for many years, three years. And I said, so what did he say? And she said, well, he said, of course we could live together, but why don't we get married? Why don't you get married? He said, so I thought, oh yeah, why don't we get married? So that was how we decided to get married. Because she said, why don't you get married? So that was in April and we had a wedding in June, summer solstice, June 21st, 1970.

[59:47]

We spoiled it for you, sir. 11 cases for about 100 people, and there were two bottles that Meg and I took on our honeymoon, and the rest was gone. So after that... And long, beautiful, long, dark colored hair dancing. So we had quite a good time. Anyway, but at the wedding, we did the wedding ceremony, and then at the end of the ceremony, Meg and I are in the front, and we have on this white, I had a white shirt with a little sunburst in the middle, you know, some big gold embroidery, and the sun bursting.

[60:59]

And Meg had on a white shirt, and dress, and her parents were there, my parents were there, my brother was there. My brother and his wife had their first baby, and he was like a year old. And the ceremony ended, and then Syzygurus used to say a few words extemporaneously. And he said, Ed and Meg are going to have a very, very difficult time. You are going to have to help them. This is going to be really hard for them. They are not going to know how to manage with each other. You need to help them. I don't know what he thought they would do. And I, you know, felt like if I could have just gone right through the floor, you know, I would have.

[62:03]

It was extremely painful to sit there. And he went on and on about how difficult it was going to be. The only thing I remember about that was when he said, and Ed is going to become a Zen priest, and Meg is not going to want to be a temple wife. So he was right. We had a very, very difficult time. And but, you know, then we had a daughter. And we lived here. My daughter is famous for, you know, in the silent dinners here, she would yell out, butter. It was how she could say butter. And she wanted butter while everybody was sitting here quiet. But anyway, sure enough, our marriage didn't last. We got divorced. And so then, you know, 15 years or 25 years later, Blanche and I went for a walk at Green Gulch.

[63:10]

And I said, oh, you know, Suzuki, do you remember that? Do you remember how... how serious he was about what a difficult time you're going to have. And she said, yeah, I remember. And she said, and he was saying that, you know, to encourage people to help you. You know, that's why he was saying that. And then she said, you know, Lou was on the jisha at my ceremony. And afterwards, Blanche said that they went back to his cabin and Suzuka, she was taking off his okesa and saying to Lou, too serious. too serious. So at some point, though, you know, after all of this, and I don't remember when it was exactly, but, you know, 10 years go by, 20 years go by, 30 years go by. At some point I was remembering, like, the time I was, Suzuki Rishi used to stand on the bridge at Tassajara and kind of stare off at the hillside and the trees across the way, and down the little side creek there, when it was running especially.

[64:17]

So one time, a lot of times I'd just walk past him, but sometimes I'd stop and just stand there and start looking, and then we might visit. And one time I said, you know, Sir Kurishi, my parents... are thinking about going to Japan. And they have asked me, they said, Ed, if you want, we're thinking about going to Japan. Now, if we go, would you like to go with us? And I said, I don't know what to do. And Suzuki Rishi said, well, why don't you go? And I thought, yeah, why don't I go? And so I felt really happy. And then... A few days go by and think, you know what, I don't want to go anyplace. I want to just stay here at Tassahara and practice. I don't want to go to Japan. I want to just be here and practice then and follow the schedule and be with everybody and be with Suzuki Roshi. So then I saw him on the bridge again and said, Suzuki Roshi, you know, I don't want to go to Japan.

[65:17]

I just want to stay here and practice. And he said, why don't you stay? So this conversation was actually, you know, a few years before I got married, a couple years before. And I didn't catch, you know, like... So when he said, why don't you get married, then I didn't have it. Why don't I get married? But we never got to the second part of the conversation. I don't feel like getting married. Why don't you not get married? And at some point I realized, like, here it had gotten all the way to the ceremony. I'd never gone to talk to him and say, you know, I'm thinking about getting married. You know, I never... I never gave him an opportunity to say, you know, you might want to rethink that.

[66:19]

You're going to have a very difficult time. So it wasn't until the ceremony was all, you know, finished. I'm like, okay... Oh, boy. Anyway, I don't know what else to tell you. You know, last night we had a great time talking about Phil Wilson and Suzuki Rush, and Phil was... And it was fun because Peter knew things and Jane knew things, and I think I'll tell you a little bit about Phil. Phil had been, and Peter said, you know, all-conference offensive tackle at Stanford... football player and he's not that big you know maybe six foot and maybe 200 pounds but you know linemen were smaller in those days than the 300 pounders there are now and he told me one time he said you know one year the coaches didn't wake them up for the game in UCLA and they were also in a number of them were suspended from the team and they said it's your fault

[67:30]

even though the coaches were supposed to wake them up and hadn't. And he said, after that, he decided nothing would get in my way. And so that's how he became. And Peter says, every play, he said, I gave my life. So Phil at one point, and then he also was a model for art classes. So Phil actually in his way had been studying how to sit. And he was interested in how do you sit for a long time and maintain yourself. So anyway, Phil came with a friend of his who had a drinking problem to hear Suzuki Roshi. They'd heard about him at Sokoji. And Suzuki Roshi gave a talk. It was completely in Japanese. And Phil just was like, just with his energy and presence, Phil was just stunned. And afterwards, they went up to talk to him. And the friend says, I have a problem drinking.

[68:33]

And Suzuki Roshi said something to him. And they finished. And Suzuki Roshi, Phil said, Suzuki Roshi turned to him and said, what about you? And Phil said he couldn't, his mouth fell open and he didn't know what to say. He was just so in awe of Suzuki Roshi. And Suzuki Roshi said, Zazen, you want to meditate? And Phil started just nodding his head. 5.45 tomorrow morning. So Phil said he liked to party and that he was the life of the party. And he found that after the parties, if he went home, he wouldn't get to Zazen the next day. So then he started driving his car. After the party, drive his car to Bush Street, park in the car so that the next morning he'd get up, go to Zazen. So then Phil was like, we decided the third Shouseau, you know, because there was Baker Roshi and then Gene Ross, and then Phil was the Shouseau, huh, no?

[69:41]

Second, that's what I was thinking, and then Peter thought he might have been third. Okay, great, and that's what, okay, so Phil was the second Shouseau. Were you at that practice period? Yeah. Yeah, and then when Suzuki Roshi was there, Phil was like right there. And then when Suzuki Roshi went up to San Francisco, Phil wouldn't be getting up in the morning. And then during the day, sometimes he'd had this 45 battery powered RPM record player and he'd play it in his cabin. I think it was cabin 15, 14 or 15. And we'd hear like, you know, chubby checker, let's do the twist. Well, but I remember hearing it sometimes. Yeah. Anyway, and then we wondered, like, well, what's going to happen when Suzuki Rishi comes back? And then we heard that, you know, we heard him go to Suzuki Rishi's cabin at one point, and then we heard Suzuki Rishi hitting him.

[70:43]

And Jane was there. And Jane said, while Suzuki Rishi was hitting him, Phil had his arms around Suzuki Rishi, saying, I love this little man. I love this little man. Suzuki Rishi was hitting him. And Phil said, oh, it was after he broke the stick. So he broke one stick and Phil said, I don't know what was supposed to happen, but my energy was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then he broke the stick broke and Phil started hugging him. I love this little man. And then Suzuki went to get another stick and Phil took it away from him. And he said, Suzuki, you don't want to break another stick on this miserable person, you know, on this bad student. Don't break another stick. And I said, well, we thought that was about, you know, punishing you or disciplining you after this rock, you know, playing your record player. And he said, no, no, Suzuki, don't fight with Dick Baker. And Phil said, I told him, I don't fight with Dick Baker.

[71:47]

And Suzuki said, do you understand? I told you not to fight with Dick Baker. Anyway, this is what I heard. Anyway, I just want to tell you, just as short, if I may, about when Zuckers, he broke a tooth one time on the black bean chili. And he needed to go to the San Francisco to I just remembered, you know, about the raw potatoes that we served. At the end of one sashimi, we'd been eating a lot of brown rice. And I thought I'd make baked potatoes, because I thought, well, Suzuki likes potatoes. We haven't had a chance to have potatoes. I don't know if I'd ever baked potatoes before.

[72:49]

It'd been years. We had to have brown rice because of the macrobiotics. Potatoes are and deadly nightshade. Zuckers didn't like food trips, but somehow this was such a powerful. Food people always get, you know, vegan, whatever, you know, it's some new thing. But anyway, we tried baking these potatoes, and you know, in Zen, when the bell rings, the food is served. I went later to Karmacholin, and when the food is ready, the bell is rung. That's a different tradition. The food might be an hour late, two hours late. Don't worry, when it's ready, they'll ring the bell. You've got a problem. But for us, when the bell rings, you serve the food. So we serve these potatoes that were pretty raw. Some of them were just barely warm. Some of them were a little better baked. And then in those days, the kitchen people, we would also just

[73:53]

you know, put on clean aprons and go and serve the food too. We did the kitchen, the serving, the cleanup, everything. And so I, normally I just leave after serving, but that time I watched Suzuki Ushi to see what he would do. And of course we're eating with a spoon and chopsticks. So he seemed rather delighted and picked up his spoon and went to cut off a little piece of potato. His spoon kind of bounced. And he tried it again. And the spoon wouldn't go into the potato. So he put down his spoon, he picked up his chopstick and went. And then pulled it out, moved it over. And, you know, this is called, you know, like having done rock work. You make a line of holes with the chopsticks and then he chiseled off a piece of potato and ate it. So the time he broke his tooth and then he had to come up to the city for the dentist.

[75:00]

And then several people touched her, Ed, this is all your fault. You need to check every bean. There should just be no way that there's a stone in people's, in the food. Suzuki Rishi's having to leave for two days. He won't be here. We're not going to get the Dharma for two days. Suzuki Rishi's Dharma, we will be without it for two days, for three days, and it's your fault. You were not responsible enough. I felt terrible. And I started thinking about it. And then, you know, and I'm the kind of person like, oh my God, I'm the worst person in the history of the world, you know. And I started thinking, well, I didn't kill anybody. And, you know, there's people probably who have done worse things than me. And then I started thinking, well, you know, there's no single cause. So I can't be the only cause for this.

[76:04]

And then I started thinking about Suzuki Roshi's teeth. And, you know, that his teeth had been around since before I was born. And part of his teeth breaking has to do with his teeth and not just the stone. And I think, oh, and then he's born really early in the century. Oh, and he lived through the Second World War. And all those wonderful stories, you know, like in Cooked Cucumber, when they run out of rice, and then the woman goes to cook rice. Oh, I'll cook lunch for you, Roshi. And there's no rice. And so she tells everybody in the congregation, there's no rice. And people bring rice, and the rice bin fills up. And then people hear, there's rice there, and they come, and he gives it all away. But... You know, amazing where he decided he would prove Dogen's teaching, like if you're a priest, you'll be taken care of. And we were supported from within by our practice. So Suzuki Rishi came back and then we, okay, and then everybody said, you have to make the food soft for him.

[77:06]

So then we'd make up a special plate of soft food and we'd go to serve it to Suzuki Rishi Nikko. Go away. Take that away. I will eat what other people are eating. So then we started having places within the serving bowl with softer food. And serving him the softer food. And... And after two or three weeks, I went to see him. I said, how is this going? And are there things that you actually have trouble chewing? And is this all right? And he said, occasionally, mostly I can eat anything. Once in a while, something is stringy like celery or a little rubbery like eggplant if it's a little undercooked. And that's a little hard for me. But otherwise, I can eat anything. And do you have any idea how humiliating it is to be served in mashed bananas? LAUGHTER But I thought of that story partly because of when Shosan ceremony, Mary Collada was there, and she'd been working in the kitchen.

[78:21]

And she asked the Zikrishik, what do you feel when I serve you food in this endo? And he said, I feel like you're offering me your most perfect love. And that's what he brought to the surface in us. We wanted to share our most birthplace love with him and with one another and find out how to do that in our lives. So that was his great gift to us to inspire in that way. Thank you. Blessings. Thank you. Is Les K here? No. No. Son's birth death. Oh, okay. Um, Dan, would you come? Would you come? Let's say it was. Sorry he picked it up, but it's his birthday party, and he was here this morning, and I thought he'd have said enough.

[79:27]

Thanks. The birthday party was planned before he moved up. Good afternoon. Excuse me. Contrary to my colleagues and peers and dear friends, I don't have any stories. I did want to say a little bit more about my first encounter with him, though, which I touched upon briefly this morning. I was 17 years old, and I had just read a book about Zen, and that one book changed my life, and I thought, I'm going to Japan.

[80:37]

I don't know how to get there, I don't know what it's about, so I got books from the library and travel posters all in Japan, and I sort of dreamed my way there. And it was in the spring of 1960, so at one point my family was going into San Francisco just for the weekend or something, and so I had learned that there was about Sokoji and that there was this Japanese priest there by an American fellow who lived in my neighborhood who had studied with Tobase Sensei, the Japanese priest who was Suzuki Roshi's predecessor. And this fellow, Jack McDonough, had said when he learned I was going into San Francisco, he said, please pay my respects to the new priest. So I was 17 years old and really shy, and I really didn't want to do this. So my parents dropped me off in front of Sukoji.

[81:40]

And as some of you know, there's this long, long stairway. It goes up to a very high second story, and you have to turn around and go back and turn the corner. And there was a little office, so I knocked on the door of the office, and there were two Japanese priests in there. And they were very kind, and they welcomed me in and sat me down and offered me a cup of tea. And I didn't know what to say. I didn't know why I was there. Anyway, I conveyed greetings to this from this American fellow in my little town of Stockton. Anyway, they were very formal, which was sort of, you know, kind of not scary exactly, but it... There's a certain quality of Japanese formality, particularly for a young boy of 17 that I didn't quite know what to do with, nor did I know what I was doing there. Anyway, so after some long silence, and they were very calm and not concerned about the silence, and so I thought, well, I should go now.

[82:48]

Anyway, so Suzuki Roshi invited me and my family, who he heard that was... here in sitting with me, to come to the Sokoji annual spring picnic in Golinge Park the next day on a Sunday. So we did, and we showed up. And again, it was an illusion shatter because here I was just informing myself of all this wonderful, austere aesthetic of Japanese Zen that really did inspire me. And so to show up at the... at the Sokoji spring picnic, and there was fried chicken, and there was soda pop, and all kinds of things like this, and all of them were having a fantastic time, and we were sort of reticent hanging out, my family and I were reticent hanging out at the edge, but we were very warmly welcomed to come in and, you know, have a plate of food, and then we, each of us, took our food and sat, you know, away from the throngs on the edge of the

[83:51]

of the party gathering. And at some point, Suzuki Roshi walked over, and I don't remember this at all, but my sister does, my sister Nan, older sister remembered it, that he came over and he put his hand on my shoulder, and he introduced himself to my parents and to my sister. And somehow, I do remember this, that he was extremely warm, that I did not expect, and that he had sought us out. Anyway, I was so determined to go to Japan at that time that I didn't even notice, really, who he was. I mean, it made me hard to tell. I think the Zen Center had barely started at that time. But it took me years, several years in Japan, coming and going, falling out of Japan, as it were, going to art school, and finally... through the auspices of my younger sister, Jeannie, who had discovered the Zen Center and had met Suzuki Roshi and Richard and Yvonne, she tried to encourage me to come back to practice here.

[84:59]

And I had been so deeply discouraged somehow by practicing in Japan that I said, no, no thanks. But I ended up living in Berkeley with my younger sister who had a house on Felton Street or something like that. where the first Berkeley Zendo was located before Mel picked it up. And she had an empty apartment upstairs, which I took on. And I remember sleeping in when I could hear on Monday mornings when somebody would come over from San Francisco, Suzuki Roshi or Katagari Roshi or both, or someone would come over from the city and do Zazen and have a service and have a little simple breakfast. So I remember, you know, turning over in bed and thinking, okay, I don't have to get up for this. So one time in the downstairs kitchen, I was getting ready to go to work, and everyone, or this small gathering, six or seven people were coming out of the Zendo. And, you know, of course, my sister, and she jumped at the occasion to introduce me to Richard Baker and to Suzuki Roshi.

[86:05]

And Suzuki Roshi, I don't, you know, I... At that time, I didn't realize that I had met him before. And he was very quiet. He didn't say much. But Dick, who my sister had told him about me and that I had been to Japan. At that time, I don't know that anybody had been to Japan. Maybe this is 66. Yeah, I guess a number of people had been to Japan. But Philip and Graham and maybe Jean Ross had been. So anyway, Richard said something to me that was very enticing or it was very interesting. He said, when are you going to get off vacation and get back to work? So I was not so interested in it. But it was just around this time that Tassajara was discovered and a group of people were in September of 1966. I think, Ed, you were maybe even working there at that time. Yeah.

[87:08]

So at the end of the summer guest season at Tassajara, 25 or 30 people went down, including Gary Snyder, who I had the opportunity to meet and spend some time with in Japan when I was there. He had come back from Japan and he was invited to go on this journey to really take a first look at Tassajara. And somehow seeing Tassajara in this incredible mountains and waters and... ruggedness and remoteness really got to me. So I really took it on very seriously to think about, well, maybe I could practice again. And anyway, little by little things changed, and I did have the opportunity to be at the opening of Tassajara in July of 1967. Anyway, so... I think Ed is making this up. But I'll go along with this story here.

[88:11]

I did ride into Tassajara on this old Harley-Davidson three-wheeled. You know, it's the type of motorcycle that, not the chopper type thing, but the type that the city parking meter maids would drive around in. A very safe motorcycle. Anyway... It was very old and clunky, and it barely made it up that hill and barely made it down, but that's how I did arrive. And Louise Pryor, who was later to become my wife, and I rode it down with all of our possessions packed in this little motorcycle, and we ended up staying for, what, six or seven years or so. Because Suzuki Roshi knew that I had been to Japan and I had studied in the Rinzai Monastery, He, I don't know, I can't really describe, I don't know how to describe my relationship with him, but when I got finally to see who he was, it took me several months.

[89:16]

So the practice period started in July. By the December 16th, it really became clear to me, and it kind of knocked me out. And I realized that... This was so wonderful. This is what I had always been looking for, but I didn't know it. And so he, for whatever reason, I think he had quite a different approach with me. And someone said that his teaching approach was different with everyone. And many of you, I am delighted by your wonderful stories and your interchanges with him. And I also noticed that particularly that his, you know, being in residence there and watching his relationship with the many students, and particularly with Richard Baker, that his relationship with Richard was quite unique and that he really talked a lot.

[90:16]

And I know Richard was coming and going and involved in so many things and would always come into Tassajara. out of dust and tell Suzuki Rishi about all these things that he was doing. Was this okay? Was this okay? And Suzuki Rishi would go, yeah, and they would talk about things. I would try to talk with him. In Doksan, I'd try to bring him questions, but somehow, and it still is a mystery to me today, that he wouldn't answer questions. Somehow he would just look at me, or he would... either not say anything, or he would nod, or he would say no, and then, you know, it was time to go. So, but what that somehow evoked in me was because I just adored him. I mean, in a way, I had the opportunity to study with someone Nakagawa Roshi, who was a very wonderful teacher, but I didn't feel the intimate connection with him like I felt with Suzuki Roshi, even in this kind of... Well, you know, it wasn't that... I was going to say it's strange, but it wasn't strange in a way because he had this quality that his heart was wide open and that it was palpable.

[91:38]

All of those who... All of those of us who had this contact with him felt it in our own ways. And he was so perceptive of who we are as individuals that he really could see, I felt, I think we all felt, who we were, whether we needed to explain who we were or not, or whether we had problems or issues to work out with. He was so present that whatever it was, whether we could articulate it or not, he would sense it and he would... absolutely directly address it so i just watched him very very carefully and i would notice even a slight gesture from him a turn of the head if i you know it's a little bit out of balance or something like that but anyway so i had this relationship with him that he was 99 non-verbal that I felt he was extremely attuned to me. I tried to be my utmost to see what was called for, what was needed, what he wanted me and us to do.

[92:43]

And absolutely enjoyed that time, those years at Tassahara. And I so much enjoyed looking back at it, working with the Rokuchiji, most of whom are here, or many of whom are here right now. A few exceptions are Silas Hodley and Tim Buckley and Niels. And Niels Holm, bless his heart, rest in peace, who has since died. But this was a time when Richard was in Japan and, you know, was sort of trying to manage Senator Tasahara from remote with many messages and all. But I really do, just to speak to my colleagues, like perhaps I've said this to you before, but how important that was for me. And the bond that we established at that time, working so close together with Suzuki Roshi, sometimes he was there, sometimes he was ill and was not able to be there. But I thought we did, you know, we were all in our 20s, basically, I believe.

[93:44]

Peter, you were still in your 20s. We were barely 30. So... I don't know. I love your stories. And I'm sorry, I don't have a story. But it was just nevertheless an utterly remarkable time. And he was still just seeing this before lunch over in the other building, the slides of him. I don't know what you see when you see those, his face and his smiles and his gestures and those, just his sitting in his eyes and doing, walking the, walking the, what do you call it, when you carry the kiyosaku, there was a word for that in Japanese, anyway. When we were sitting, he'd walk with a kiyosaku and just walk behind us and tap us or hit us or slam us when we were dozing or drifting off. And it was just a picture like that. It says so many words far beyond what I'm capable of producing now.

[94:48]

But anyway, I... like to just share with you that what you have heard many times what a remarkable person and like Ed said earlier that his kindness was so deeply touching that has remained with me in my heart and I feel what can I do in any even the smallest way to return that and that's my life's endeavor in my vow thank you very much Thank you. Pauline? I've been listening to all of you.

[95:58]

What? Okay. I'm not used to having something like that. Anyway, I was just going to tell you a few, just a few stories that I could remember that were not in, say, crooked cucumber. But now that I've heard, you know, more discussions and other things said, I'd just like to say very briefly... One thing that came to my mind before I say one or two stories is really how simple it all was in the beginning. I mean, Dan brought it up, you know. This was in 61. Sometimes in the Zendo in the morning, we would be maybe three people, you know, Dick Baker, Graham, and I. Of course, there were more, but some mornings it was that simple. And it all seemed a little strange to us. Like here we were chanting the Hanashinyu, you know. And there was an element in the very beginning of this is really something, you know, rather strange that we're all doing.

[96:59]

I mean, we were doing it because of Roshi, because of Sensei at the time, you know. And I think it was all very simple in the beginning, and we never expected it to get quite as complicated as it has gotten, you know, looking at all of you, ever. You know, it wasn't a joke, but it wasn't, you know, we were interested in Zen. We just, somehow we all have our reasons of how we ended up at Sokoji. And I think that, you know, the Hiroshi never thought, as he never came to America to found the temple or to start Zen center. None of us did. It just happened. And, but I do think he may have had some vision because if any of you have been to Rinzau Inn, it's in the middle of the country, it's a quiet place. You wouldn't ever imagine doing this from there. And that's my, these are my opinions. They're not, you know, solid troops.

[98:01]

And so I think, but I do think he had a certain vision or he must have had the knowledge that anything was possible. You know, the freedom to do that. And when he connected, I guess he realized, as we all sat with him, that he would be gone one day and there should be a priest, you know. And now there are many, you know. So he started, I think, with Jean Ross, and he sent her to Aheji. But being a woman, she couldn't be in the Sodo, and that was one of the problems. And so then he had Graham go, But he didn't prepare him in any way. I remember going to the airport and saying, don't you think you should say a little more to him? I even whispered to him, maybe you should take some aspirins or something. Take a few things with you. There was no preparation, no explanation of what was waiting at the other end, as you probably, in the book, probably it's mentioned. But there was nothing.

[99:03]

It was good. He took a warm sleeping bag. So, and I remember you mentioned Philip Wilson. He went, and you know how Philip is to try to fit into that AAG. It's like a boot camp, you know. And one time he came to Kyoto, having been in one of these sessions, and within 60 seconds he had literally disrobed the raksu was off, the robe was off. It wasn't that he wasn't a serious student, but the culture shock was, you know, of who he really was and what it meant to be doing it the Japanese way. And I think, I don't want to go into a long speech, but I do think the thing to realize is what a gift it was that a few people went and did it that way and that all of you have been able to stay here and do it for yourselves. You know, it was like the food at Tassahara the first summer, right? And now it's wonderful, right? You know, we could hardly digest it, right?

[100:04]

And so I think this is a very, very important point. Very important point. But anyway, I don't want to say too much, but that's the only thing I wanted to say. And also, I should say for Graham, what a difficult time he really had. Because he came from this simple temple, you know, just, we didn't even do that. Hanyashin, you were free times in the very beginning. Just once. He would sit at the age of two or three hours of chanting. He literally felt that this is what Zen is. Maybe this is not such a good idea, you see. And you had a touch of it with Tatsugami Roshi who tried to bring some of it here and complicated matters quite a bit. So I think even though we are doing all these practices, we must never forget the simple words of Zuzuki Roshi. You know what I mean? That's what we really need to hang on to. So anyway, well, one thing, let me think of a few Zen stories, like when he sent us off, it was really quite a gamble that he took.

[101:12]

And every time Graham would send a letter, I would go and see Suzuki Roshi, and it was painful to read them. And we would kind of look at each other, like, is he going to get through this, you know? And he did. And the strange thing was that the Zazen was the easy part. All that ritual, all that medieval Japan, that was the tough part. But anyway, I once met a student at Tassahara, and it was the first time, and I mentioned to Zuki Roshi, he said he'd never met him. And he looked a little bit like excusing himself. I said, oh no, you've met him. You've met him in your zazen. I felt you've met him as much as any one of us have met him. So I think we tend to have this... Those of the early days, those of later, those of, you know, you've all really built the place, you know. But everybody has met him in their practice. This is my feeling. But anyway, let me just say one story. I had a garage full of Karara marble I was sculpting.

[102:15]

And, you know, I was in my early 20s, and here we were leaving for Japan. So Zuzuki Roshi came to visit. And he came into this mirage and I said, I cannot leave for Japan. I had this thing like this. I haven't finished it. And he looked at it and he said to me, you don't have to finish it, just work. In other words, what he was saying, the work was the important part, not the finishing. And this is one story I do remember. And... Another one, I don't know, I think David mentioned those mushrooms in that book about his cooking. We all went to Richard Heave's house, and I'd like to elaborate a bit on that one. We'd driven a lot, we'd gone looking at this place to see it could be maybe a site for a temple. And then we were all hungry, and Suzuki Roshi decided to cook.

[103:17]

I'd never really seen him cook. Well... He went out with a shovel, and he shoveled up a lot of mushrooms, and there was grass in it. I know you didn't put that in, but I thought I even saw a nail in there. But anyway, you know, history changes. So anyway, I looked at this, and I said to Graham, you know, we've got to be really careful. He doesn't really know the American mushrooms. Are we sure this is edible? Right? But not one of us refused to eat it. We all... took some of it, and then we were not sick, nobody was poisoned. But I remember thinking, it shows really the confidence we had in Roshi, you know. Perhaps it was unwise. But anyway, that's one of the things. And another amusing thing, I took my father, who was an artist, to visit here. I think it was here at Page Street.

[104:18]

Actually, it was later on. And my father could not speak English and Suzuki Roshi could not speak French. And my father could not paint with the right hand. He'd had a total injury. And so he painted with his left. And Suzuki Roshi noticed something about this. So my father said, tell him that if I paint with my left, but if I cannot paint with my left, something happens to my left hand as well. I will paint with my foot. And he started lifting his foot. And Suzuki Roshi then heard this, and then he didn't say anything. He just said, well, I sit. And then he kind of laid down, or merely laid down, meaning if I cannot sit, I will just do that, then lying down. It was a rather touching moment. And another time, I do remember, this was even in Tassahara,

[105:20]

Somebody, he asked me to follow him to the baths because I was taking care of the baths that summer. And I followed him and we went in and he offered incense. And then suddenly he stopped and he handed me the incense stick. So I tried to put it into a little bowl and couldn't. And I was kind of stuck with it. And it was his way of teaching. In other words, somebody had not raked the you know, the sand well, it was lumpy. So he never said anything, just let me do it. So I would find that out, you see. And that was kind of funny. And I remember thinking when I flew back from Europe once, how I couldn't reach Roshi. You had an answering service by then, something we'd never had. I knew things were changing. This was at the beginning of... Tassahara Ivan invited me to come down.

[106:21]

I was on my way back to Japan. And I couldn't reach him, but finally we met in the street, literally in front of Sokochi. He was crossing, I was crossing. So that was kind of funny. Anyway, I don't know if you want me to talk to you about the time that he created that dinner, that he never came to dinner. But it did change our lives. He was, you know, we invited him to dinner and I made quite an elaborate and I set a whole table and everything. And then he never came. So we got in the car, went to Sokoji. There he was, you know, watching a film. And because he said, I want to talk to you. I have something to tell you. So we took him back to the house and I closed the dining room door very easily. carefully so he would not see, you know, or remember. We all sat at the kitchen table and started to talk.

[107:23]

And then he said he wanted to send Graham to Japan for a year. Well, you know, in Japan, wives will sit two, three years while their husbands are off. And I had that three months and it wasn't easy at the time. So I immediately spoke up, said, well, I'm coming too. I'm not staying. She'll go for a year. And my mother said, I'm also going, so the whole family ended up in Tokyo, and we ended up selling the house, putting everything in storage. I wasn't originally going to sell the house, but I had somebody that came to help one day, and they said, if you have somebody in your house or rent your house, all this woodwork, they will paint it all. So I said to Graham, we've got to sell the house. We can't have all this woodwork painted. I think we wanted a way out. We were too settled. You know, we had a house. We then inherited a lot of storage.

[108:25]

We wanted to simplify things. That's the way I look at it. And so in the end, we ended up homeless in Tokyo. Right? But anyway, Suzuki Roshi was, as I say, he was always extremely direct, I think. And if somebody said he never answered questions, he did answer them, but he answered them more by doing things, not so much by saying a lot, you know. And I must say he had a tremendous influence on everyone as we know today, and we all miss him so much, really, a lot. so I think I'll stop there because it's been quite a long day. But the only thing I really wanted to say, and I would like to say that I did write a lot of little paragraphs of the whole history, you know, because I like stories with a punchline.

[109:26]

And I was looking at them not long ago, and I thought they're really rather amusing, but they do cover the whole leaving Europe, coming here, are going to Japan, coming back, and a lot of the development. And they are like small stories, little gems, but they all tie in together. And sometime maybe I'll let you all see them. Because some of them, of course, in Crooked Cucumber, you cover it all, but I go into it a lot. Like, I might tell you a funny story about, very much after we left Japan, Rinso Inn, and we ended up on a boat going to Russia. And you know, yeah, what we didn't do in those days. Anyway, I've lost my voice before. So what happened was that we've been living quietly in Winslow Inn. We end up on this boat and totally vegetarian diet. And suddenly we're looking at this plate.

[110:28]

It's got two huge sausages on it. And these large Russian women, you know, many Russian women, I suppose, are thin too, but these were not. We're very... And they were very dyed hair, very blonde hair, very red hair. And he's looking at this. And, you know, at that moment we knew we'd left Japan. And he sort of, you know, he got through a little bit of the food and then she approved and took it away. It's such a different life. Yeah. So anyway. But the only thing I, in the end, Robert says in stories, I just wanted to say that I think Suzuki Roshi had a tremendous courage to take any one of us and put us at A.H.E. Philip Wilson, Dick Wendt, you know. And I think that it had to be done because otherwise there would have been no training. I mean, A.H.E.

[111:29]

is a semon dojo. But isn't it wonderful that we have a much... you know, a place that is culturally for us, even though you are all following, as somebody mentioned, you were chanting some new chant today, a new mantra. I mean, not a mantra, but a sutra. But the thing is, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with tradition. There's nothing wrong. But I do think that it is a lot easier to do it in our own culture. Even though I love Japan, I love to go back and I just gave them a whole tea ceremony in OI where I set up literally a tea house in the middle of a room that looked like an office or a classroom. Just by putting a couple of tatamis down and a table and the whole thing, you can create a cultural barrier in a way because I sat on my tatami, you know, giving this whole lecture. So that's all I wanted to leave with you that I think Suzuki Roshi

[112:33]

had a tremendous courage to even, you know, send any one of us and to train us and to do what he did. And that you have all actually done a fantastic job of it, you know, creating. Because the early people came, yes, it was kind of interesting, but it's the others that came afterwards, you know, just even a year later, two, three years later. Not the ones that were there in the very beginning, that are the ones that really stayed 20, 40 years, whatever it has been, who are the ones that have sustained it and built it in center. And, of course, Roshi is behind all that. So, I will now stop. Jane? I feel like so many stories have already been told, I hardly remember.

[113:42]

For me, getting some of the stories out is like, I feel like I've told them so many times before that I'm not sure of the details anymore. But every time I hear each one of you telling your stories, It reminds me of the Rocky Mountain Horror Show. That you get to parts and you love them so much that you've seen it a hundred times before, but every time it comes on the screen, you're yelling. I love it. So I... truly love hearing the stories over and over and over again. And it's like, it reminds me of this, I forget where it was, but a cartoon or a comedy show where the comedian said that everyone knew the jokes so well that they would start numbering them. And all that a person had to do was to just stand up and say like, 402, and everybody would crack up because they all knew them so well.

[114:50]

So I feel like we all know these stories so well and it tells me just how much Suzuki Roshi is still alive and still present in everything here and that I also feel that he never left and that his teachings express so much the liveness of his presence that I really feel that he never left. just to come here to San Francisco Zen Center is so refreshing always. But I also feel it's in every group wherever anybody is. And so for that, I think what he did is just unbelievable to me. So the stories I have to tell aren't so unique, except one I don't think I ever mentioned before, but it made an enormous impression on me at the time. When I was in Tassajara, I have a big thing about cats. I love them dearly and I always feel like a lot of people don't understand cats and don't understand how warm and affectionate and loving they are and how much they give to people.

[115:58]

So when I was in Tassajara one time in the summer, I think it was that first summer, someone came to visit Suzuki Roshi and they were holding a kitten. And they had the kitten up over their shoulder like this. And Suzuki Roshi was looking at it from behind. And he kept going like this to the cat. And the cat was like looking at him like, what, what? And I was thinking to myself, I wonder if he understands cats. And so it became like a kind of koan to me about cats and Suzuki Roshi. But we had one of our first meetings in Tassahara where everyone sat around these long tables and talked just informally about whatever came up. And the issue for me of non-gaku and the cat was always a really big koan, you know, a really big problem, like how could somebody kill the cat? because they couldn't decide something, who gave the right to kill a cat and so on. So I could never get out of the literal story of how could somebody kill the cat to make a point.

[117:01]

So in Tassajara, when we were talking that time about problems, people who have problems in Tassajara, the issue came to my mind about oh, I know what I would do. We were talking about that particular story, and it dawned on me that if I had been there, I would get up, and I would stop him from killing the cat, not by saying anything. I would just knock him away and take the cat away from him, and then he couldn't kill the cat. And Suzuki Roshi and everybody started laughing, and Suzuki Roshi said, that would be a big... That would... Wait a minute. He said... that would be a big relief for me. If someone did that, that would be a big relief for me. And so I realized that there are many ways to look at these stories, not so literally as I'd been doing. So that was always a really important thing to me because the most important thing I felt about Suzuki Roshi was he never reacted by formula.

[118:06]

And so he never reacted as I, who was always acting by formula, expected him to. If I did this, I would expect him, if I moved right, he would move left kind of thing. But he never did that. And so every time I met with Suzuki Roshi, it was always that it was a direct meeting because there was none of the left and right stepping. And so I had to really get used to that, which was very hard for me because I always was very safe, and if I did this, he would do that. So getting used to somebody who did not react like that by formula was very hard for me in the beginning, but it's ultimately what made me feel that this was a truly incredible person and why I really did not want to study with anyone but him at that point. And I always felt as much as I loved Tassajara, if he had gone to some other place, I probably would have just done the same thing because it was truly to be near him and to study with him that I came to Tassajara and stayed there and stayed through the rigors of sitting, which was unbearable to me with my jumping mind at that time.

[119:17]

But one other story, again... I took every opportunity. I had to be close to him in some way. So I had a chance to go up to the city in a car with three other people, two other people and Suzuki Roshi. And on the way back, we stopped in Carmel and I had been talking about how wonderful ice cream is and what a tremendous treat it is to have. And so I persuaded everyone to stop in some place and we all got a banana split. And I don't know if any of you have had a banana split before you're going on the road to Tassajara, going back down that winding road. And I got unbearably sick. And they had to stop the car really fast. And I got out and threw up. And I was leaning over, feeling dead. Suzuki Roshi came over and leaned down and said, would you like another banana split? LAUGHTER

[120:20]

So he never reacted by formula. And one other story, and maybe the last one, since it's getting late, I think. Yes. One other story was at the first New Year's Eve party we had, I was Chisha at the time, and so I was sitting across the table at this party in Tassajara, and everybody had to do something, like Peter, I think, was in the rock band, and I forget, everybody was doing something. And I was just sitting across from him, and we were drinking sake at the time, and so he kept picking up the sake, holder and refilling my cup and every time it was refilled I felt this was permission to keep drinking and so I kept drinking the sake as fast as it was filled and I got really really sick and the next day I could not get up and attend him as I was supposed to and later on he met me by the bridge somewhere and

[121:33]

I was feeling really bad and I said, I just feel so terrible. I really feel like I just need to lie down. And he said, well, maybe you shouldn't drink. And so I took that as a deep teaching that it's not what other people encourage you to do or not living through other people, but to make decisions for myself and to always stay right where I was. and not to let other things sway what I decided was the right behavior. So that's the way he always taught, I felt. And that's maybe enough. But thank you all very much. It's truly a pleasure to be here, to hear these stories, and just to meet everybody and to feel the presence of Suzuki Roshi always. So thank you. Thank you. Do you have stories? What's your name?

[122:38]

Thank you. Wow. I came to Zen Center in 1966. I wanted to learn about meditation, and I went to... Buddhist Churches of America, and the priest over there directed me to Bush Street. And I remember knocking on the door, or walking in the door, and Yvonne was sitting at the bottom of the stairs with her desk, and I asked if somebody there could teach me meditation. So you went up, and I don't know if you ran up the stairs, or I went up the stairs, and I met Suzuki Roshi, and he gave me Zazen instruction. And I was living on Arguello in California, And I would walk to Zazen every morning. And I was leading a real lifestyle that I wanted to change. So this is the way I wanted to change. And the story that's helped me the most in my life with Suzuki Roshi is when I was living in the building here, I was able to be his, I was able to kind of like, I would drive him in Okasan

[123:56]

on their errands. And we would go to Japantown and we would go to different places around the city. And I couldn't stop looking at the girls when I was driving. And Suzuki Roshi said, Van, you're going to kill us. He says, you have to gain control of your mind. LAUGHTER And I've been trying to do that ever since. With a little bit of success, just a little bit. And David, you reminded me of the other thing that would impress me in the beginning was the service. I mean, I had a very... I could not make it as a hippie because I couldn't sit cross-legged. So Zazen was very painful for me. And I always sat... That's why I didn't recognize the zendo, because I sat in the balcony at Sakoji.

[125:01]

And when we would go on for service, Suzuki Roshi would be hitting the kugyo, reciting the Heart Sutra, and we would all be holding up the sutra. And that was very, very powerful, very simple. And I remember one phrase there, topsy-turvy view, which was the transliteration of some of the Japanese in relation to this in relation to emptiness, how everything, it's topsy-turvy. It doesn't exist in the way that I see. And that's been a puzzle ever since. So those two things, plus taking the bodhisattva vows when we had the lay ordination, I think it was in 1971. So that's given me a long-term goal in my life, to attain enlightenment. to help others and I can just see that these these things that Suzuki Roshi gave to me early on have with my intention have I can see that I've actually have been moving towards these things my whole life and continue to do so so Suzuki Roshi for me is very very much present in terms of still guiding through different

[126:26]

through others. So, that's my only story, I think. So, thank you. Thank you. Well, that's not bad. Thank you. I was happy to hear Peter's story about messing up the bath in Japan because, as you know, I told the story of how I drove Suzuki Roshi from his bath at Tassahara at the alumni thing, so I won't tell that story again. So this is just a little quick vignette. I had just come as a guest student to Tassahara, and I followed all the schedule pretty good for three days, and there was another guest student from Esalon, and it was our day off.

[127:36]

convinced me that we should go smoke some pot. So we decided that, well, it would be okay if we went off the ground. So we hiked up the stream a long way away, smoked the dope, and we decided if we smoked the dope and we got back in time to take a bath before service, it would be all okay. But as one sometimes does, you lose track of time smoking some pot. And all of a sudden we were way upstream. We started hearing the bell for service. So we were running like crazy because we knew we were supposed to be there for service and just barely got there and we're standing like at the end of the line. And Suzuki Roshi always, when he came to see, he always walked quite swiftly down the line on his way up to the altar. So I was actually feeling pretty good because I'd gotten there on time and everything was going well. Here he comes, just right about there. All of a sudden he became very angry. because he obviously could smell.

[128:37]

I smoked some dope. Then I was in the Zendo. That wasn't a good thing. And then zing, zing, zing, zing. And now, no longer angry. Just dropped it. It was just like... And the thing about Sigurishi is he was very fluid physically and emotionally. I mean, he just was always relating to you, and he could do it just like that. And you had this feeling like he told me something, and then he dropped it. And I never, he didn't carry that forward at all in any of our future relationships. That was just like, that was that. So then I'll just say one other little thing. I was at a lecture at, I think it was 71, summer of 71 at Tassara. And I think Sigurishi had been strict with Rokichiji, the staff there, for some reason. And so he'd been kind of... angry with him, I guess, and so he gave a very short talk, it was like 20 minutes long, and he said, I know you'll have some questions. And one of the staff members raised their hand and was sort of apologizing, said, you know, the staff had had trouble, I guess, because the guest students were making a mess of things, and the guests were making a mess of things, and so they had not, they were frustrated by all that.

[129:50]

So the student raised his hand and said, Suzuki Roshi, I've been studying for five years, and I just, I can't get it together. to be kind to all these people. And Suzuki Roshi said, five years is nothing. You don't know how hard it is to love some people. And the funny thing was, it was silent after that for a while, and I just sort of felt in the entire room that everybody in that room had been loved by Suzuki Roshi in a way that no one else had ever loved them. And so when he said that, it actually meant something, the challenge that he was laying down. So I'll end with that little story. Thank you. And, Michael, do we want to try and clarify that there appears to be no source, actually, of the saying, you are perfect just as you are, but you could use a little improvement?

[130:52]

Oh, okay. for a book I did a collection of koans and one of them I asked David for Suzuki Yoshi stories and he gave me one and David told me this good story about you're perfect the way you are and you can use a little bit of improvement so I said that's great and I did a commentary about it. But then later, somebody asked David where the story came from, and he said it came from me. It came from Ed, yeah. Do you know that story, Ed? So it may be a better story. Well, I must say, I don't remember ever telling a story.

[131:54]

I don't remember anybody asking me that. Well, it's just the nature of stories. You don't remember telling that story? That's one of the stories that, you know, whether it's true or not, that's true. Yeah. That's true. No, I'm sorry. I think I heard that story from now. Well, I heard it from you. But, you know, anyway, of course, what really happened, you know, no, this is like, this is like, you know, things like, you get a fall, and it bounces from here and there, or this is like sound waves bouncing off something. This is just all of the reflections of the past. Not really the past. We're just re-edging it now. That's fantastic. The first lecture I had listened to, it said, of course, it's just what I've ever listened to.

[132:56]

What I do is to have a represent this structure. It's so forceful. The first time I went to the university lecture. We'll forget it. So wherever it came from, it's good. Yeah, and we don't need to assert I am. It's just that's reality. MPS is you're perfect as you are in form. You can use some improvement. It's the two sides of the teaching. Okay. That's all I had to say. It's probably too late. No, it's not. Please, please, come on. Well, one thread about Suzuki Roshi is that the authenticity is that he never asked us to do anything that he wouldn't do himself.

[134:28]

It was the best way to teach. I mean, he was always an example. And I'm just going to tell one story, a short one. When I was at Tassajara during the training period, we were told, whenever you see your teacher, you stop and bow. And so I did that. And when I came back to Sukhoji after the training period, one day Suki Roshi was at the stop light across the street and I was coming across the street. waiting for it to get green because here were, you know, when was I supposed to bow? Was I supposed to bow when we were in the middle of the street, before I got to him? When was it supposed to take place? So I thought about it a lot. I got really anxious. And the light changed.

[135:30]

We started walking toward each other across the street. And I stopped and bowed. And he said, Hi, Sandy, how are you? It was a beautiful moment. Really beautiful. And, of course, I have other stories, but it's late. No, no, no, no. Well, there was the time. This is not such a funny story, but it was a reflection of Silas and Kathy had a baby, and for the first three months, Kathy couldn't take care of it. So I took care of Amber. And when it was time for Amber to go back to her parents, I was a little bereft because I had become very attached to her. And another training period was starting out, but I hadn't applied for it enough ahead of time to go because you have to do that.

[136:40]

And here I was. I didn't know when I was going to be available. And I wanted to go. So I was told, well, you have to have an interview with Suki Roshi because you're just too late. And see what he says. So I went to him and I said, you know, I just did this really wonderful thing with Amber and now it's really hard for me to give her up and leave her. And I'd like to go to Tasahara so I have something really... sink my teeth into and get into and he said well it sounds like the hardest thing for you to do would be to just stay here and sit with how difficult it is for you to be without Amber and I felt like he could just see right through me he knew he knew that that was but he let me go anyway

[137:43]

I'm feeling a little shy here, so I'm going to stop. Well, there was another time. I'll tell you about my first doksan. I was sitting a session at Sakoji on the balcony, and I didn't even know really what doksan was. So we were all lined up, ready to go in. And someone said, okay, so when you go in there, this is the form. You do this, and you do this, and you do this, and you do this. And I was very nervous because I had never really met with Tsukiroshi on a one-to-one. And I was so nervous that when I got in there, in my memory, they had said, okay, you'd never look at him when you're sitting Dokusan. So I looked at the other wall, and I bowed to the other wall, and I sat down, and he was over here, and I was over here.

[138:52]

And I sat that way for quite a while, and he didn't say anything, and then he said, you should turn around and look at me. So I did. And there he was. He looked so tired because, you know, he was sitting in a session and he had all these people to take care of. And I looked at him and I just started crying because he was so tireless about his caring for us. And I just couldn't stop crying. And he asked me why I was crying and I said, I don't really know. And then he told me to get up and bow and leave. And that was it. But it was just... It was... It was a surprise.

[139:56]

Everything that ever happened between us was a surprise. A wonderful surprise. That's all. Thank you. Anyone else? Is that it? Yeah, Rick. Rick. Rick. Carol. Carol. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You've got to pay your dues. Come up. Okay. Okay. Okay. Come up here and drink your sake. Well, this is the original Suzuki Roshi rocks, which I suppose is going to go into a terrarium or something after some day after I die.

[141:06]

So, what's your name? My name is Rick Morton, and I... Oh, Kaizen Takudo is my name. This means polishing in Zen and exploring the way. I feel that... Thanks for asking me that, Ed, because I feel like... I don't know. I'm a rather marginal person regarding practice, but I do feel like I am polishing Zen and exploring the way in my way. And... Suzuki Roshi was always, I felt that he always kept distance between myself and him. You know, I wanted some kind of intimacy, and he seemed to sense that, and he would pull back a little ways. It was rather, always kind of kept, was a little painful for me, and that was rather our situation for most of the time. One time I was sitting here, and I came in, I was doing a a job in a cabinet shop. I came and I was like so tired and all my defenses fell down.

[142:11]

And he started, he looked at me in the eye, looked at me, caught me. I mean, it's just like, it's something that I've always remembered because in my Zen practice here, occasionally when my drop, my, my defenses would drop, I'd be really tired or something, but I could see one of the teachers. I would just, we just like see into each other's eyes. And sometimes they'd see me from like Chino Sensei one time. I was here in the patio and he just saw me from the other side. He was walking through the corridor and they looked at me like that. And it's just an experience that I have sometimes because usually I'm rather, people that know me will agree that I'm kind of a sealed in individual. So anyway, occasionally that happens to me. And I had complications because I was there with my brother and I did have complications. sibling rivalry, I'm afraid, competition between us. And Silas would try and keep us apart at first, and my brother ridiculed this, but actually it was rather true that they did see something that was happening all the time.

[143:16]

And I did have a problem with competing with my brother, and I'm finally getting trailing over, getting over a lot of this, you know, 40 years later. It's been 40 years since I started practice. More than that. More than that, really. i started in 66 yeah so it's more than that 43 43 43 years yeah and and and it's been spent practicing with people too we went to carol and i went to japan and uh spent three years there and uh we're back you know i mean i didn't take any long vacations from it at all um but But, you know, I can't think of, I mean, I can think of little vignettes and stuff. I can remember Bob Schumann, Suzuki Roshi, broke a stick over Bob Schumann. My brother related this story to me. It was during Session. And Bob Schumann was kind of whining and everything.

[144:17]

He picked up a branch from the path and he broke, he kept hitting it with him. And he said, don't fear the stick. And he broke it over him. And my brother was so moved that he was crying. He said, it was nothing to make me cry. He said, I did cry. And it was just something that he saw through the Zendo, this thing happening, this little story taking place. You know, I went to Suzuki Roshi when I was asking him whether I should get married or not. And he said, yes. And here we are, Carolyn and myself. And Carolyn's stories are different from mine. Thank you, everybody, for having me up here. It's the first time I've ever addressed a group. Thank you very much. And you didn't die. And I didn't die.

[145:19]

One time... We were in, I can't remember his name. This is during the Vietnam War. Who was it? Oh, really? I was there. But you were there, too. Well, there was peace marches going on, and John Steiner asked. It was Ron Browning who asked the question about the peace movement. It was John Steiner. John who explained what Ron was saying. Blue Ridge just went over the whole thing in detail.

[146:20]

Heard it a lot. Why he jumped off the podium and attacked John is John asked him. He said, well, what do you think we should do? And he started to say something, and then he jumped off the podium. They started hitting. First, John started to smile, and Suzuki Roshi started smiling at him. As he was telling me, it was like a reaction. They were both smiling, but he was actually angry, and he came over. He started hitting them and said, do you see? Don't you think that I want to help the people of Vietnam? Do you think I don't care about the people of Vietnam? He said the war is right here on this tatami. This is where it takes place. I mean, that's how I remember it. No, he didn't hit him on the ears and everything, the way you said it, Dave. Yeah, on the shoulder. Yeah. But he was hitting, he got really mad at John. But yes, it was a demonstration to all of us, because we thought there was something besides Zazen that was more important that we could do.

[147:22]

Well, it was the day of a feast march. Feast march. And a lot of people could go to the feast march after the talk. And my understanding, I haven't heard the story about many, many people, and Lou Richmond just haven't gone over it a little bit, is that Ron Browning is the back saying, what are we doing here, something like this, rather than being involved in the Peace Park. And then John felt he should, like maybe he felt that Zingrich couldn't hear it well. And so he was just explaining what Ron would say. John looked very involved in the Peace movement himself. But John said, well, what do you think? can we do or something like that is what triggered him to jump up. He startled everybody. I mean, he leaped off the podium. It's like a cat jumping off. I mean, he really did. He didn't go down the little stairs or anything. He jumped right off the ton, you know, directly off and started nailing John Steiner with a stick and yelling.

[148:28]

I mean, it was like nobody could say anything. We were in shock. I was seeing that happen in front of us. I like the stories from different people because you're the first person that I've heard say that what you just said that, I mean, you, about, I do, do you think I don't care about people in Vietnam or something? Yeah, yeah. Several things you said before. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. It was. And also, he had, in his own experience, trading the war. And he sent this stuff to John afterwards about that, that it brought things up for him from his own perspective.

[149:32]

Suzuki Roshi used to say about giving your cow a large pasture. But what I heard him say one time is he said that in Japan we say a snake perceives its own nature when it's inside a stick of bamboo. And I thought in Zazen, I feel like that when I'm sitting. I've only heard that story about the peace lunch, but I've heard the committee say something like, how do you think you can bring it about the one that you put your shoes straight? You can't grab your own shoes. No, no. Oh, can't put your shoes on. That wasn't part of the story.

[150:39]

Well, you also said something about you can't even eat out of your womb. That's when we first got there and had our first meal, it was just a nightmare. And then by the end of the, what, we were there two or three days, and it was an amazing transformation with that group of kids. I kept in touch with the man who started the school for some while. But then we lost track of him. But he told me that that visit with Suzuki Road, she had a big effect on that group of students. I think one thing that should be clarified here is that Suzuki Road, she was supported by somebody who who were doing piecework.

[151:43]

I mean, if anybody here thinks that, you know, that was his only response to what would happen, that, you know, that's just a couple of examples. But there were people at Sin Center on CO's status. That's, you know, why he was at it. And there were people who did different types of piecework who were talking about. about it, and he was always supportive of that. But he was also a teacher who would point out the immediate. What I felt in those stories is that if somebody said, you should know that it's a city, but I don't like the beast march, you'd say, well, fine. There's a beast march, and I'm going to come and sit, fine. That was like, what should we be doing? Or shouldn't we be doing something about the war and having him, you know, like there was a should about it?

[152:47]

Mm-hmm. Rather than, you have your own conviction and you act on it. Like Ivana was saying about, you know, trust in your own experiences. You have to study for yourself. And then for yourself, what, you know, is it hard to do? And so, yeah, you support people. That's an NRT piece working. But then somebody who says, I don't know, what should we be doing? Tell us what to do. Right. That's true. That's very true. That's very true. And I noticed that the people I saw related to him, you know, like you said, didn't look to him and tell them what to do. It seemed to be to work a lot better. And it's always true. People don't say, should I smoke pot or not? People have to decide for themselves what we're going to do.

[153:57]

Carolyn? Carolyn can tell her. Thank you. Well, it's wonderful hearing all your stories. I really love them all. And, oh, I guess I'll kind of tell how I came to Zen Center. I had gone on a trip to Japan when I was about 19 and just was struck by a wonderful feeling in certain places, you know, gardens and temples and...

[155:06]

So I was interested in Zen, and when I came to San Francisco, I kept meaning to go to Zen Center, which I'd heard about, although I didn't know what it was. But it took me several years to get there. I was busy. You know, it was the 60s, and I was in art school, and... And then I met Rick at the Art Institute, and he was riding his bike at 5 in the morning across town to Sakoji every day. And, you know, we all thought, every day? You know, it isn't once a week enough. But I was asking him about it, and finally he borrowed a bicycle for me. And I usually got up at about more like 11 a.m.

[156:12]

But I got up at 5 a.m. and got on the bicycle and rode through the Broadway Tunnel, I think, and across town. And it was pretty, very hard for me to sit there for, wasn't it 40 minutes? It was really hard. And I didn't go back for a while. And then I went back again. I think on Wednesday evening, he gave a talk. So I walked in that room upstairs at Sakoji in this beautiful golden light. And I just felt like that was home. And so I went to a one-day sitting, and that was torture.

[157:13]

And then I don't know why, I kept going. I went to a seven-day sitting, and I went to Dokusan, and I was going to say to Suzuki Roshi, you know, this is just too hard. You know, I'm in so much pain, and I can't do this. And instead of saying that, I said... I want to go to Tassajara. And I thought, oh, you know, stop. This is the last thing in the world I want to do. But he drew something out of me. So I went. And, you know, I wanted to hike out of that place. But I stayed for a couple of practice periods. And... It changed my life. And just one more little story that's all I kind of remember is I was walking on that path between the bath and the sendo one day and passed Suzuki Roshi and bowed and he suddenly said, turned and stopped me and he said, you should develop a practice of always

[158:33]

watching your mind and I thought you know what's that mean and then I when I went to Japan it's like something took hold of me and I was always watching my mind no matter what I did like I couldn't stop and you know I had my son and then my daughter was born in Japan and they were screaming and climbing the walls and kicking holes through the fusuma, the paper doors and I just couldn't stop. You know, it's like he he somehow got me doing this by osmosis or something And it just, I don't know, he had that way of getting you to do things that you didn't want to do.

[159:41]

So that's all I have to say. Yeah, yeah, that's more like it. Right. So thank you. I'm Chris, and this is from Tassahara sometime in the year before Suzuki Roshi died. And it's something he said during a talk. And if anyone else was there and heard it differently, please correct me or add to whatever I say here. He was sitting on the platform there in front of the altar, as usual, giving a talk.

[160:53]

And he suddenly... You know, it's not that he said something that suddenly it made sense to do this, but just suddenly in the midst of the talk, he stood up on the platform and said very intensely, I want disciples who will follow me through life and death. And then he sat down again. I don't remember anything else, but I remember that. I remember it being in the year before he died, and I think it was maybe in that last period he spent at Tatsahara. It could have been the summer or spring of 71. I know.

[161:56]

That's what I'm saying. He was at Tatsahara. No, no, it was in that time. But there was no, he hadn't been talking about, no one had said he's sick and he's, you know, going to die in a few months. You've heard that, yeah. If it was 71, I heard all those lectures. I don't know anymore what I experienced than what other people did. Well, come on, man, you can make something else. Besides that. Okay. I thought that would be a dramatic one to end with. Now you want more. Well, the ordination, and I guess that was... When was that? That ordination? Lay ordination at Tassahar. I think this was the first one. Seventy. Yeah, okay. So, I was...

[162:59]

mulling over whether I was going to take this lay ordination. And I was, you know, not someone who liked to be labeled or, you know, called, I wasn't sure I wanted to be called a Buddhist or not. So I went and talked to Suzuki Roshi about it. And I, you know, I explained these, that I really wanted to do it on the one hand, but I just wasn't sure because I thought, well, then if I decided I didn't want to become a Buddhist, I might regret it later or something. And, you know, it just was all this anxiety of some sort about doing it. And he said, if you ever regret it, you can blame me.

[164:04]

And so my anxiety completely disappeared at that point. And I can only thank him. So does that do it? One more? Okay. Okay. Well, I was also often late to morning zazen and wound up sitting up on the balcony. And... Some interesting things happened up on that balcony, like once in the middle of Zazen, there was suddenly this loud blast from the organ, which has its pipes up there, and it was just incredible, and you're sitting, and the sound going right through you is a case where just

[165:28]

uh, brought one very intense awareness. Uh, apparently the, uh, the organist had, was doing practicing, but didn't realize that people were sitting up there. But the story about Tsukiroshi is that, uh, he would come out on the, uh, on the balcony and, uh, you know, make the morning rounds where he would walk, uh, you know, around the zendo, but he'd also come out on the balcony, and everyone was supposed to bow. And there was a new student sitting fairly close to me who didn't realize that he was supposed to gashou, you know. So, Suzuki Roshi walked by him, and he didn't, everyone else gashoued, but this person didn't. And... Suzuki Roshi turned around and in this like really intense anger and a loud voice and he said, and he said it a couple times, I won't keep doing it, but the and then the guy kind of

[166:52]

She literally turned around and said, what's that? Or something like that. And Suzuki Roshi completely transformed and went up to him, put his hand on his shoulder and said, sorry. No. So, anyway. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much to all of our storytellers and have a good evening. Thank you.

[167:57]

I really appreciate how everyone in this kind of finished parents of the Center wants to help me there a little bit.

[168:12]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_91.76