It's a day that we are setting aside for special recognition of an event that had happened 50 years ago, 50 years ago in one day, that a person got on an airplane in Tokyo and that is in San Francisco. And I think we're just now reflecting on the importance of that remarkable movement of one person flying in an airplane from Tokyo to San Francisco at that time who knew that Suzuki Rossi was on the plane. I doubt that the pilot knew. and that the fact that he did that, that he flew from Tokyo to San Francisco at that time in his state, had a very significant impact.

[01:10]

None of us would be able to learn today without that, that decision on his part. So today we've invited three people whose lives were particularly touched and changed by the Suzuki version. We have three Dharma teachers here. And I'm very happy to be able to introduce these three wonderful Dharma teachers who have all taken up the conference and lineage of Paisipi Vaisli and are continuing to offer it today. So we have Sojin Mel Weissman, Yvonne Graham, Thank you, Steve.

[02:13]

I'm supposed to go first because I'm the oldest one. Whenever we have this kind of talk, I always feel like the Civil War veterans. I started practicing with Suzuki Roshi in 1964 and I just want to talk about Suzuki Roshi. I practiced with him for probably seven years until he died, 71. And people think, well, Suzuki Roshi started the San Francisco Zen Center. But actually, Suzuki Roshi was just himself. He was just being himself. He just sat Zazen and interacted with whoever was practicing with him. But his students created the Zen Center.

[03:18]

And Suzuki Roshi was just like the plant that rooted itself. And all of this activity sprung out from that root and is still continuing to manifest. So I have a short talk of Suzuki Roshi's that I'm going to read to you and comment a little on, which epitomizes Suzuki, I think, of course all of his talks epitomizes Suzuki, fundamental practice but this one particularly I like and it not only epitomizes his practice but gives you some insight into his character and the way he thought about his students so he says I think most of us study Buddhism

[04:20]

like something which was already given to us. We think what we should do is to preserve the Buddha's teaching, like putting food into the refrigerator. That to study Buddhism is to take the food out of the refrigerator whenever you want it. It is already there. Instead, Zen students should be interested in how to produce the food from the field, from the garden, should put the emphasis on the ground, If you look at the empty garden, you won't see anything. But if you take care of the seed, it will come up. The joy of Buddhism is the joy of taking care of the ground. And our effort is to see something come out of the ground. That is why we put our emphasis on emptiness. Emptiness is the ground where you cannot see anything, but which is actually the mother of everything, from which everything will come. All of us have Buddha nature, and the teachings which grew from Buddha nature are the same.

[05:26]

So actually, the teachings of different schools of Buddhism do not differ so much, but the attitude towards the teaching is different. When you think that the teaching is already given to you, then naturally your effort will be to apply the teaching in this common world. For instance, the Theravadan students apply the teaching of the Twelve Links of Causation. to our actual life, to how we were born and how we die. But the Mahayana understanding is that the original practice of this teaching, purpose of this teaching, when Buddha told it, was to explain the interdependency of different things, different beings. Buddha tried to save us by destroying our common sense. Usually, as human beings, We are not interested in the nothingness of the ground. Our tendency is to be interested in something which is growing in the garden, not in the bare soil itself.

[06:29]

That if you want to have a good harvest, you must... The most important thing is to make rich soil and to cultivate it well. The Buddha's teaching is not about the food itself, but about how it is grown and how to take care of it. Buddha was not interested in a specific given deity in something which is already there. He was interested in the ground from which the various gardens will appear. For him, everything was a holy thing. Buddha said, If people are good, then a good Buddha will appear. This is very interesting. Remark. Buddha did not think of himself as some special person. He tried to be like the most common person. wearing a robe, going begging with a bowl. He thought, I have many students because the students are very good, not because of me. Buddha was great because he understood, because his understanding of emptiness and his understanding of people was good.

[07:38]

Because he understood people, he loved people, and he enjoyed helping them. Because he had that kind of spirit, he could be a Buddha. So Suzuki Roshi really loved Americans. because we didn't know anything. He felt that we were this fertile soil from which our Buddha nature could come forth without baggage. We had no baggage, or very little baggage. We have our own baggage, of course. But we didn't have 600 or 700 years of Buddha baggage. So when he says... we think that we can just take the teaching out of the refrigerator whenever we want to use it. We don't have anything to put into the refrigerator. So we just have to find the Dharma within ourself. So that was his entire teaching, cultivating the ground.

[08:41]

Nothing special, nothing fancy. Don't add something. Let go and allow your light to shine forth your original light that was Suzuki Roshi's whole teaching and that's his example and his life is what drew people to him he could look at you and see what he saw when he looked at you was your true nature your Buddha nature that's what he saw when he looked at you and interacted with you. So that's why people really liked interacting with him. It was nothing special. His ground word was nothing special, just ordinary. But what is ordinary? Ordinary is something very unusual. So people would respond to him because he saw who they were.

[09:49]

He knew each one of us better than we all knew ourselves. And because he responded to us with his understanding, it helped us to grow. So, such a humble person, when I think about what is humility, my definition of humility is not thinking you're more than you are and not thinking you're less than you are but knowing exactly who you are no problem so this was Suzuki Roshi's character and it's the character that he coaxed out of us he's a very gentle person but very strict And so we, all of his students, we carry Suzuki Roshi's spirit with us.

[10:57]

And we're always referring to his teaching. And as far as we're all concerned, he's still teaching us. Oh yeah, the mic. I forgot. I told you my memory. It's like a sieve. Where's the corner? OK. Is that good? Can you all hear? I want to tell some stories as a way that it's great that these stories fit in pretty well with what my predecessor has said.

[12:14]

But some of these stories are going to be about him. Or about the Berkeley Zen Center, which is where I first practiced and met Suzuki Roshi. Mel is right. Suzuki Roshi did not come here to start a big complicated institution, he came here to practice Sazen with people. And I was at the time in the Unitarian Seminary and very interested in things like Zen, so I saw an ad in the paper for Zen meditation, which you had placed. And so I went there. It pays to advertise. And And it was Mel's house on Dwight Way in Berkeley, and we sat in his living room. And often there were three, four, five, six, seven people there. So a living room Zendo.

[13:16]

And I thought, oh, well, Mel is the teacher here, and this is Zen, and I think you were the one who taught me to sit. And I sat there. And one day I was sitting facing the wall, about two seats down from the altar, so maybe as close to the altar as I am to Ivan. And I heard someone come in a little after we'd started sitting. I heard some robes, and a person sat down at the altar. I couldn't see who it was. And I didn't know who it was. I wasn't expecting anything. No announcement had been made. And so we sat zazen, and I heard and felt the breathing of the person sitting at the altar. And I can't describe exactly what the feeling was, but it was a very definite feeling. It was very steady. I could hear each out-breath just the same, very, very steady, like a heartbeat.

[14:17]

And it was something unusual. First of all, I'd never really paid attention to someone else's breathing or been able to hear it. And then when the zazen was over, we all turned around and it was Suzuki Roshi. So we listened to his talk and that was my first meeting with him. Well, just a couple of points. Suzuki Roshi was someone who got up very early from San Francisco and drove over in time to sit at 5.30 in the morning with six people. That was who he was at that time. And it didn't make any difference whether it was six or 600. If people were sitting, he would sit with them. And so he did. And so that's my first story. I think the story speaks for itself, so I'm not going to elaborate on it too much. The second story is kind of funny, but to me it's important because it represents something about my relationship to Suzuki Roshi.

[15:28]

We were having dinner. one evening at the Berkeley Zendo, or breakfast, or some meal. And again, it was like four or five people there. Mel was there, I was there, the person cooking the food, Suzuki Roshi and his wife, when we called Okusan, was there, and maybe one or two other people. And so we ate the food, and I was serving some food, and so I turned to Suzuki Roshi's wife, and I said, Do you want seconds? And she said, skosh, which in Japanese means a little bit. And what we were serving that evening was a zucchini with squash. And so I thought, I didn't understand Japanese. I thought she was saying squash. Squash, skosh, squash. So we got all confused. And I said, oh, you want squash, skosh.

[16:31]

Squash, squash. So there was this awkwardness, and of course, I was really nervous. I didn't, because I wanted to impress, you know, I wanted to be good, and I wanted to impress Suzuki Roshi. And so this went on for a little while, probably much shorter than I really thought. And then there was a moment of silence, and then his voice, very quietly, said, zucchini. Zucchini. It was quiet, but it was very penetrating. Whether he was trying to teach me or not, I remembered it for 35 years, so obviously it's something about be clear. When you do something, be clear. If it's not working, be clearer.

[17:31]

Don't think about it. Don't try to figure it out. Zucchini. You know? So that's how I took it. And that's the teaching of it for me. Now, whether he meant that, I don't know. But, you know, he could have said many other things that would have been more kind of practical. But he said, zucchini. Squash. Zucchini. You know? this is a clue to how we solve lots of life's problems. Be very clear. See things clearly and act clearly. And then things will go better. The third story is a pretty powerful story. Many of you in this room may have actually been there. This was a lecture given in the summer at Tassajara.

[18:35]

Ostensibly, the lecture was about some Buddhist text, and it was a text about honoring ancestors or a chant that we do. And somebody, a man actually named Alan Marlow, who's no longer with us, but Alan was one of the great early students, and he was, at that time, Suzuki Roshi's assistant. And Suzuki Roshi was five feet tall in his high heels, and Alan was about six foot four, so it was really interesting to see them walking around. Anyway... Alan said, well, after you die, Suzuki Roshi, what will we call you? What honorific title will we call you? Because that's what we were talking about. And he was a gentle man, but not always. And at this moment, he said, no. It's not me. It's you. The question is, what will they call you? You are the ones. He was very strong about this.

[19:36]

You were the ones. Give me 10 more years and you will be strong. I'm greedy now. I want 10 more years. I pray to Buddha. Give me 10 more years and then you will be strong. He never said stuff like, I pray to Buddha, usually. He would, but you know. And of course, this was the year before he died. He may have already knew that he was ill. You were the ones. Us. All of you. Well, he didn't have his 10 years, but he did get all of us. And I think the actual deepest teaching which I saw with the equanimity with which he died was, yes, give me 10 more years, but even if I don't have 10 more years, even if I only have one more minute, it's still about us.

[20:50]

He had tremendous confidence in the power of the original undivided teaching that he brought on the airplane to America to transform human beings. Otherwise, how could he have spent his time giving what seemed at that time incomprehensibly difficult talks about Buddhism to kids in sandals with long hair who were about 23 years old in America? Why was he doing that? The Japanese congregation around him really didn't understand why he was doing that. But he understood. And now that we're all considerably older than he was when he came here, it's starting to make sense to me.

[21:54]

So those are my stories. And I think that's my time, is it not? A few more minutes? Well, I'm not going to yield my time if I have a few more minutes. He never saw this place. He never saw this Zendo. He never saw many of the Zendos. He did see the Berkeley Zen Center, and that's still there. He didn't see many of the plants that sprouted up out of his original tree. But he knew they would be there because he understood the ground, as your talk said. He understood the fertility of the ground, the fact that the ground will always produce fruit when the circumstances are right. So it's true.

[22:58]

He didn't come here to found a great complicated institution. He did come here to found a monastery, and he did, Tassajara. And that's really where his heart is. And he defined the practice there. And it's still going on very much like when he was there. He didn't come to transmit the sectarian practices of some particular Japanese way. He was very clear about that. He came to bring the original undivided teaching of human beings, the potential, full potential of human beings. And he manifested that just by being here. So I like to say sometimes when people ask me about Suzuki Roshi, well you had to have been there. But that's not really true because that puts too much emphasis on him as a particular unusual person.

[23:59]

He was just being what it is to be a human being and we can all be that. We all are that. So I think that's what he meant when he said, no, it's not about me. It's about you. So now I think my time really is up. She was just about to signal me, I know. But I was looking at my watch, so I knew. Let's go behind you. Watch the core. It's on the glass. Well, I have my... I have my... Up there. What's that? I can put it right here, right under my mouth. Oh, that's not a good idea.

[25:02]

Technology is not my strong point. Listening to what you were saying, Lou, what popped into my mind was something that Della Gertz, who was one of Suzuki Roshi's early students, I remember her saying, whenever I was in the room with Suzuki Roshi, with other people, I felt like I was the most beautiful person in the room. And I also understood that everyone else in the room thought the same thing about themselves. The story that I would like to tell you about something I experienced with Suzuki Roshi, I've spoken of before, but it's a memory that has come up for me.

[26:06]

It's so interesting how, as As I age, my memory gets to be more like Swiss cheese about recent things. But things that happened a long time ago are quite clear. I find that quite curious, and I'm grateful for that. In the summer of 1971, Suzuki Roshi began to turn quite yellow. and there was some thought that maybe he had hepatitis. I think maybe that possibility didn't come up until after I drove him back from Tassajara to San Francisco. He had a very young doctor and he thought that Suzuki Roshi had hepatitis.

[27:07]

We'd laughingly call him the yellow Roshi because he was, of course, quite yellow, quite jaundiced. And for some while, he was served his food on a plate that no one else had touched and vice versa. And so he had a kind of food quarantine and ate separately from his wife and myself. And at some point, he went to Mount Zion, the hospital at the time, still there on Divisadero Street, for various tests to check and see what was actually happening for him. And one afternoon at lunchtime, I went to see him. And he was sitting on the edge of the bed, dangling his feet. and had his lunch on the hospital table next to where he was sitting.

[28:16]

And he motioned me into the room and he mouthed the words, I have cancer, with a huge grin on his face. And he patted the bed next to him for me to come and sit next to him. And he then put some of his lunch on the fork and he turned around and fed it to me. And he said, now we can eat together like we used to. I, to this day, remember his joy that he no longer had to be quarantined. It was an incredible teaching for me.

[29:24]

I didn't find Suzuki Roshi until 1966. But I had studied Buddhism when I was in college, especially 19th and 20th century Buddhism, mostly in China. But I remember going to hear him talk one Wednesday night and realizing, oh, here is the living manifestation. of what I only know through my courses at the university. I don't remember at all what he talked about, but I do remember his presence. And that I had never experienced anybody with that kind of presence.

[30:32]

So After driving the yellow Roshi back from Pasahara to San Francisco and is going to be diagnosed, et cetera, and then those months of his getting more and more sick because, of course, the cancer, which had started in the gallbladder, had metastasized. So Mrs. Suzuki and I took turns taking care of him. Sometimes I would take the night shift and she'd take the day shift, but we'd go back and forth depending on how each of us was doing. And so from, let's see, he came back up in August and he passed in early December. And over those months in that fall, he gradually spent more and more time in bed and

[31:34]

and became more and more quiet. And first he lost his interest in eating, except for orange juice. So once a week I'd go to Orange Land in Chinatown and get a crate of oranges and we'd squeeze him with orange juice, which he would, I can still see him and hear him. pick up the glass and drink it and kind of smack his lips with delight as he put the glass back. He did love orange juice. And then gradually he stopped talking. But as he was in bed, basically all of the time, he was very grateful if Mrs. Suzuki or I would rub his arms or legs or back, just as an antidote to his being in bed so much.

[32:44]

But he wouldn't say anything. Out from under the covers would come an arm. And then I'd rub the arm, and then the arm would go back under the covers. And then there'd be a leg that would come out from under the covers. And then after a while, there'd be another arm. And then there'd be a leg. And then I would lift him in an upright position so I could rub his back. And I realize now how generous... he was to let me take care of him in the way that he did. He didn't resist at all. He just got increasingly more and more quiet.

[33:47]

Except for the time his young inexperienced doctor gave him some pain pills. I think I mentioned this yesterday. Because, of course, metastasized gallbladder cancer is supposed to bring with it great pain. And Suzuki Roshi took one of the pills. And about four hours later, he said, Yvonne, get rid of them. And I said something about, well, I could flush them down the toilet. He agreed. So we got rid of them. And in those last few months of his life, what was so remarkable to me was the degree to which he was moment by moment completely present with absolutely no resistance to what was so.

[35:00]

It was not in any way something he was talking about, but something he was actualizing. Here, this is what showing up looks like, feels like. But he didn't say it. He didn't need to. And then I think it was the Day before he died, still just blows my mind. It's exquisitely Japanese. He got up out of bed and took a bath. So he would have a clean body when he passed. What he must have done to rouse himself to get out of bed and take a bath. And he also, not very long before he died, met with his senior disciples and expressed his regret that he didn't have more time to train us.

[36:28]

One of the things that struck me yesterday afternoon listening to people tell stories about their experiences with Suzuki Roshi is no matter what the differences are that arise among us, what we have in common is this vast field called Suzuki Roshi. He was such a manifestation of spaciousness. He could be quite strict, but I remember one time he said, I'm afraid to be too strict because you'll run away. Partially because I was his secretary, I had a chance to watch him in a lot of different circumstances.

[37:46]

And what I observed was over those six years that I knew him before he died, what I observed was that he became increasingly more strict with himself. He was very gentle and kind most of the time with most of us. But he was very strict with himself. And what I later realized, it was as though he was working with a sieve that became a finer and finer mesh. And he put everything he thought, everything he did, everything he said through that sieve. And at the same time, he could have that effect that Della Gertz described of being in a room with a crowd of people and having every single person in the room be certain that she or he was seen by Suzuki Roshi as the most beautiful person in the world.

[39:01]

He never saw this place, Green Gulch, but he certainly envisioned that Zen Center would benefit, Zen Center students would benefit from a place in the country where we would be farmers. He thought that would be a very, very good way to integrate what he was teaching into the activity of our daily lives. And I remember that with the current economic downturn where more of us are growing something to eat in flower pots or the meridian of the street or in our front or back yard. I think Suzuki Roshi would be very pleased with the consequences of the economic downturn and the simplification of necessity of our lives.

[40:16]

I can see him smiling under these circumstances.

[40:24]

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