So concentrating on what it was like to practice with Suzuki Roshi. The first thing that comes to mind is, not doesn't come to mind, it kind of comes to my nose. It's kind of a smell. And it's not exactly the smell of Suzuki Roshi or the smell of my Dhamma brothers and sisters or the Zendo. I think what it is, is it's smelling. Just a couple of days ago, I was walking down Van Ness Avenue And I smelled the smell of practice.

[01:04]

I smelled the smell that I used to smell when I practiced at Sokoji Temple with Suzuki Roshi and all of my old friends. And I looked up to see where I was, and I was on Bush Street. I was on the street that Zen Center used to be on, and I smelled that exact same smell that I used to smell. I thought, is that smell the smell of the practice, or is it that when I started practicing there, I first started to smell? I don't know which it is. When I think of practicing in those early days, it's a sensual kind of thing.

[02:06]

I don't think so much of Suzuki Roshi or my friends or myself. I think of the experience of the way things smell. That smell is gone, or it only exists on Bush Street. But that smell has taught us to smell everywhere we are, to smell those roses out in the garden, and to sense each other. Les describes his career as a fisherman with very attract, a magnetic fisherman.

[03:07]

And I thought, well, for me, I was the fisherman and he was the fish. I don't feel like he attracted me to Zen Center. I came looking for him. I was trying to practice Zen, you know, in Minnesota. I was trying to practice sitting meditation without a community and without a teacher. And I had friends at Zen Center and they told me that there was a Zen teacher there. So I thought, well, that's there. And as I practiced more, tried to practice more, I ran into more and more difficulties in my sitting because I was doing it all by myself.

[04:19]

And sometimes I say that I didn't know whether what was happening was something I should see a psychiatrist about or go on TV. But something was happening, and I couldn't talk to anybody about it, and it was really strong, and I didn't know if I was okay. And it was really hard to face it. It was very painful, what I was experiencing. So it was very hard to sit and face this experience. And I thought, well, maybe if I sat with other people who were doing this unusual thing, and if I had a teacher, maybe that would help. And so I went to Zen Center in San Francisco at the old Japanese temple, and I sat in meditation in the zendo.

[05:25]

I guess I knew that Suzuki Roshi was in the meditation hall, and he was walking around, and the first thing I saw of Suzuki Roshi was his feet. Just his small feet walked in front of my line of vision as I was sitting. And I thought, I think I thought, pretty much at that moment I thought, those feet can teach me Zen. Yesterday we heard the talk of him saying that his feet are his friends, that when he stands he tries to stand on his feet. And I was trying to sit and I felt those feet were telling me, you know, you can sit. And then at the end of that period was the first time I really met him where I also had that occasion of bowing to him as we left the Zendo.

[06:41]

And so I bowed to him like everybody else and I looked straight at him and he looked back at me and he looked away. And I didn't know, I felt, well, wasn't I supposed to look at him or is he shy or did I make a mistake or didn't he like me or those thoughts crossed my mind and I really realized I had no idea what what was going on and I thought that seemed really appropriate but I realized I didn't know what had just happened so I That experience of sitting with people and meeting with him, I really felt like it would be much easier to practice with this community. Back in Minnesota, practicing with something I was doing was very unusual, exotic, and hard.

[07:46]

And so I felt it'd be good to come to San Francisco. Actually, I wanted to go to Tassajara. but from i first visited tasa right after the first sashim in 1967 and then the second this visit i just referred to happened a few months later but in the intervening time then center had made a rule that you had to practice in the city for six months before you could go to tasahara because the experience that uh we had was that a lot of people came to tasahara for practice period but They weren't expecting a lot of sitting. A lot of them were coming just for vegetarian, macrobiotic food. And when they ran into the sitting, a lot of them left. The first practice period, I think, had 70 people in it, the summer practice period. And by the end, there was not too many. So they wanted people to have more experience in sitting before they went to Tassajara. So I couldn't go directly to Tassajara. But I decided to go back to Minnesota and try to say goodbye to my friends and my

[08:54]

incipient academic career and come to practice in San Francisco for six months and then go to Tassajara. So I did that and pretty early on I had the feel, this is my approach, you know, I had the feeling that the way for me to study with Suzuki Roshi was just for me to become part of his life. Like to become, you know, like his clothes or his toothbrush or his chair. I didn't want to force myself and impose upon his time, but I put myself into his life so he would have to deal with me. The zendo was on the second floor of the temple, and there was a long, lovely balustrade going down.

[10:02]

At the bottom was a post with a little knob on top of it. And I decided to make myself like that post, so that, like, every time Siddhartha went up the stairs, he probably put his hand on that little post when he turned the corner. So I just installed myself in his life. I just was... I just was there. All the time. Every day, I was there. And he didn't say, you know, oh, you're there. Oh, how nice. But I knew he knew I was there because I was there. So for me, in a sense, practicing with him was that he was there. and I was there. And I wanted to meet him, but I felt like, first of all, I had to be part of his life before I could meet him.

[11:09]

I didn't feel like just going up and saying, Hi, I'm practicing Zen, blah, blah. Of course, I would see him in Sesshin during Doksan and so on, but otherwise I was just right there next to him all the time. Every time he turned around, I was... there. One time after we moved over to Page Street Zen Center during morning service, I mean, during morning orioke breakfast, at the time of making the offering, he just turned to me and said, you do it. So I did it. And the reason why I could do it is because I was always there. And I guess he didn't know if I could do it, I guess, but I could because I was always there.

[12:13]

People refer to his strict side and his gentle or loving side. And I don't remember when I saw the picture. I think I saw it in about 1970. I saw a picture of him in a farm setting in Vermont. And the picture was taken from his back, showing his back. And he's talking to two middle-aged women. Maybe one of them was June McKnight, one of these ladies, East Coast ladies, and another woman. And they were like, had these bright, shining smiles on their face and they were laughing. But I looked at his back and his back looked really strict. It was like you know, I don't know what, but it was really strong and straight and awake and there.

[13:27]

But I thought probably in his face, he's probably going to something jovial face. And also at Zen Center, sometimes on Sunday morning, the Japanese congregation would come And I saw him talking to the old Japanese ladies after morning services on the steps. And he was just, you know, yucking it up. Very voluble and joyful and friendly with them. But he wasn't that way with me. He was that way with some people. And I remember one time I was talking to Jane Schneider and she said, Suzuki Roshi is both my friend and my teacher. And I thought, well, okay, fine. But he wasn't my friend. He wasn't my friend. And again, you know, I was just a little kid. He was forty years older than me, so, you know, he was not friendly with me. Not friendly.

[14:30]

That's the way he was with me. But some people he was definitely really friendly. With me he was like, you know, in a movable mountain. He was there. And I tried to meet him there. And, you know, I'm a little sorry I didn't have more time to try to meet him. But I forgive myself that I wasn't able to. I said to him one time, how come we have no problems, you and I? And he said, we will eventually. But then he left. He left before we could really argue. When he ordained Paul Disko and myself in 1970,

[15:43]

We were up in his room before the ceremony, and I don't remember if he told Paul what Paul's name meant. It was maybe pretty straightforward. He named him Zen Ox. Where's Paul? Oh, he's not here? I think there might have been a slight pun on the name because his name is Zen-ox, Zen-gyu, which sounds like thank you. Maybe he was saying thank you to Paul for all he'd done for Zen Center. But my name is a little bit unusual, a little bit hard to understand what it means. He said, your name is, will be Tenshin Zenki. And... He said, ten shin, the first character ten means heaven, and the second character means energy or opportunity or function.

[16:56]

So maybe it looks like, excuse me, that's the second part. The second part of the name shin, ten is heaven and shin means truth or essence. So it looks like maybe it means heavenly truth, but that's not what it means. He said, tension means reb is reb. And when he said that, I thought, he understands me. He said, tension means reb is reb, and people will have a problem with that. But there's no other way. I was looking at this.

[18:12]

Mokugyo and I I remember one time, also shortly after we moved to the Page Street building, maybe January, just before I went to Tassajara for the winter practice period, we just moved into Zen Center in November and we did our services in what's now the dining room in those days. And he was up in front leading the service and I was hitting the mokugyo and the bells. And we were chanting and I was hitting the mokugyo and the mokugyo was set so I was faced towards him looking at him and I was hitting the mokugyo and looking at him and then you know how sometimes when you're looking at somebody they sense they're looking at you and then they look over at you so I was looking at him and he looked out of the corner of his eyes at me kind of like at me then I looked down and he looked and then after a while I looked back and he was looking straight ahead again And then, again, I looked at him.

[19:18]

Of course, I was looking, and then he turned again and looked at me. And again, I stopped looking at him. And one more time, I did it. And one more time, he looked at me. And then I stopped looking at him. I feel like as a young monk, as a young student, I was struggling to find out how to meet him, and I think I was a little bit reaching over towards him a little too much. And I feel like he was trying to teach me to come back and stay in my seat. And I put myself in a position where he could adjust that. If I was leaning too far forward, and occasionally I leaned back and he tried to get away and he pulled me back.

[20:19]

Usually I was a little bit too much there. So sometimes he would give me the opportunity that I was looking for. So I came all the way across the country. I gave up my past life, so to speak, to come to study with him. I put my whole focused my whole life really on being with him, and he finally noticed that, so he started to give me opportunities to be with him. And not just opportunities to be with him just in the group, but just the two of us. And he would tell me beforehand, now you come, I want you to come and I want to teach you something, just something for you. This is something that I don't teach in the group. I want to teach you something. And whenever he did that, I always really couldn't face it. I always tried to get out of the room. When I got what I was trying to get, I couldn't stand to receive it.

[21:26]

When I was reaching out to get something and I got it, it didn't work. I couldn't stand. That wasn't right for me. But when I wasn't trying to get anything from him, when I didn't fall for his kindness, in a sense, here, here's some kindness, when I didn't reach for it and try to take it but just stayed in the presence of that gift, then I could stay. And I didn't have to run away from my imbalance. One time he said, I want you to go to Japan to study with... He had two teachers he wanted me to study with.

[22:51]

One was named Kamatani Roshi, another one was Noider Roshi. I said, I want you to go to Japan pretty soon. He had already hired a tutor for me to learn Japanese. Sorry I didn't learn it very well, but anyway, I had a tutor for a while. Actually, Carl Bielefeld's wife was my tutor, my teacher. Zen Center paid for her because he wanted me to go to Japan. And then he said to me, he said, I want you to go to Japan pretty soon, maybe in a month. So I said, OK. And I went over to the Japan Council and got the papers for the visas and so on, brought them back and showed them to him. He said, what's this? I said, these are the visa things. And he said, OK, thank you. I'll take them, and walked off with them. And I never heard anything more about Japan. In early March of 1971, Suzuki Roshi was going to Portland, Oregon to do a session, a weekend session, and he asked me to go there as his jisha with him.

[24:22]

and I wanted to go but I'd already promised to actually attend and assist another Japanese priest who was at Zen Center named Yoshimura Sensei but I wanted to go with Suzuki Roshi so I went to Yoshimura Sensei and said could I please, you know, be excused from that and he didn't really like it but I I still went with Suzuki Roshi and I I feel ashamed that I betrayed him in a way by going with Suzuki Roshi instead of with him that weekend. But Suzuki Roshi knew about it and let me do it too. So I'm a little bit ashamed of Suzuki Roshi for betraying Hiroshima sensei also. Maybe that maybe there's a little bit of a problem there about us wanting to be together So he went to Portland, Oregon got on the airplane and Then this again this kind of now oft repeated story occurred Where he said I want to teach you how to count people in Japanese and

[25:45]

So he taught me how to count people in Japanese. He said, Is that right? Huh? He said toe. Is toe also okay? No? Okay. So he said, now you do it. So I did it. And he said, keep doing it. So I was sitting on the airplane, counting people out loud in Japanese. And he was sitting next to me. And so then after he went, he then went to sleep. And after he went to sleep, I stopped counting people in Japanese. And I think just about as soon as I stopped counting, he woke up and said, Sthori.

[26:54]

So then I said, okay, Sthori, Sthari, Sanning, and so on. And then he went back to sleep again. And then when he went back to sleep, I stopped counting again. And he woke up again. And he said, Sthori. Sthori. So then I understood that I was supposed to count all the way to Portland, even though he was sleeping. And so I can still count people in Japanese. Because not only did I count all the way to Portland, but I tell this story over and over and keep getting more lessons in counting people in Japanese. Part of what I was thinking while I was counting, and I thought this on many occasions, not many, on some occasions, why is this Zen master spending his time teaching a Zen monk to count people in Japanese?

[27:59]

Why isn't he teaching me about the merging of difference and unity? Why isn't he teaching me, you know, more profound matters that he is especially gifted to teach? Any Japanese person could teach me to count. Now, of course, one obvious answer is that's all you could possibly learn. There's other possible things, too, other possible answers. But anyway, that's what he did teach me on that airplane ride to Portland. And then... So that was what it was like to ride on the airplane in that time with Suzuki Rish. Now somebody else riding with him, one of his friends, he probably would have been chatting it up the whole way, talking about various interesting things. But with me, there's nothing to do with this guy but teach him to count Japanese. So that's what he taught me. He wasn't always into that kind of stuff with everybody, but that's what he taught me.

[29:01]

Then when we got to Portland, he gave a wonderful talk. which was transcribed March 4, 1971. A beautiful talk. You can read it. The next morning, we started the sesshin, and halfway through the morning, I was carrying the stick, and my dear teacher, sitting Zazen, keeled over. He stayed sitting, but his head went down to the ground. I never saw that before, and he stayed down. I went over. I said, Roshi, what's the matter? And he said, I don't know. I feel terrible. So we got him up, and he went back to the house where we were staying. He said, you stay here. Finish the sashin. So he went back to the house. And I came home that night. He said, I had this very bitter taste, very painful stomach, and trying to eat cream, watery white rice. in a lot of pain but he wanted to stay and finish the sesshin so then the next day we finished and then we rode took the plane back and on the way to the airport the woman we were staying with she had a little boy and the little boy's name was Tiger and in his pain he was still able to play with this little boy and take care of this miserable little boy was really angry that his mother was spending time taking these Zen monks to the airport

[30:32]

Anyway, he was really nice to us. I really thought, wow. We got on the airplane and rode back to San Francisco. This time he didn't ask me to count people in Japanese. He was in a lot of pain, so it was just him in pain and this young man sitting next to him. And, you know, I really had a hard time being with him. just sitting in the seat next to him, I really had a hard time. And I noticed, I said, why can't you stay in the seat? You know, my mind was going everywhere but being just sitting in that seat next to my suffering teacher. I kept struggling to come back and sit next to him and accompany him. So hard. We got to the San Francisco airport, and Mrs. Suzuki and Yvonne were waiting for us, and I think Yvonne had a wheelchair.

[31:38]

And she said, Roshi, you want the wheelchair? And he said, no, I'm a Zen master. And I felt a little embarrassed for him at that time, actually. Come on. You don't have to be strong now. But he did walk. We did walk to the car. And then we got home, and he went into his room. He did something which I never saw him do before. He walked into his room, and he took his Karoma off and just dropped it on the floor. I said, wow, he must really be suffering. And then we decided to call the doctor. And the doctor said, bring him to the hospital. So we brought him to the hospital. And when the stretcher came, he didn't say he would walk. He rode the stretcher. He went to the hospital.

[32:41]

He had his gallbladder removed. And it was malignant. But he didn't tell us. He and Oksan knew, but they didn't tell us. So he was recovering nicely from the gallbladder attack. And we were looking forward to him getting stronger and healthier than he was before because he had been sick for years. We thought maybe it's because of the gallbladder slowing him down. So maybe he'll be healthier now, getting rid of that greasy old gallbladder. And he did get better and better. and returned pretty much. Actually, I think he seemed healthier than he was before in the later part of the spring, like in June. And then summer came, and he was going to go to Tuscarora for the summer. And again, I thought, well, I didn't know.

[33:45]

And then he also said in the springtime, which I remember very clearly, He was giving a talk on a Saturday morning in Page Street, Buddha Hall, and all of a sudden he, from my perspective, he turned and looked straight at me, and he said really strongly, things teach best when they're dying. Maybe everybody felt like he turned and looked at them and said that, I don't know, but I really felt like he just turned straight at me and said that, and I thought, well, what are you saying that for like so strongly? I didn't think maybe saying, you know, I got cancer. But he said that, and it really impressed me. And then when he was going to go to Tassajara, I thought, well, maybe I should, although I was a director in the Eno in the city center, I thought, well, maybe I should take a little sabbatical and go to Tassajara with him. So I went and told him that. And he said, yeah, that's a good idea. And I said, but then I immediately thought, but everybody will get angry because

[34:48]

probably a lot of people want to go to Tassajara with you. And in parentheses, for the last time you go to Tassajara. I didn't know that, but... And so I said, maybe it would disturb people, you know, so maybe I shouldn't go. Too selfish. He said, okay, well, maybe, let's see what happens. So in fact, he did go to Tassajara, And I didn't go with him, and it was his last time at Tassajara, and I missed it. And so part of me regrets that I wasn't there for his last teachings. They were so wonderful. I remember Jed told me how great they were, how he poured his heart out in those last talks he gave. And those were his last talks, really. But I think it's better, I think it's good that I didn't go. I think that would be leaning forward too much into my relationship with him.

[35:55]

Not in the spirit of the name he gave me. I don't think Suzuki Roshi wanted me to get him. I think he was telling me, you've got to be reb and live with what that's like for people. That's your job." And maybe he a little bit appreciated that I wanted to go everywhere with him and would give up everything to be with him, but I think more important, he told me, you know, your practice is more important than our relationship. And he didn't distract me from my practice with his love. He could have, you know. He could have loved me so, he could have shown his love in such a way that I would have been distracted from my own work, but he didn't. When he came back from Tassajara, he was yellow, and we thought he had hepatitis, but we found out after a while that it wasn't hepatitis.

[37:08]

and he was receiving treatments. We had a Japanese priest staying in the building. His name was Byuho Yamada, and he was a shiatsu masseur, and he also did maksa bastion. So Suzuki Roshi wasn't giving doksan anymore. He wasn't giving Dharma talks, and gradually, he stopped going to Zendo. For a while he was going to Zendo. Peter and I used to make this little cross our arms, make these arm-crossing things. We used to carry him up and down the stairs to the Zendo and put places in our arms, make a little seat for him. But after a while he stopped going to the Zendo. So he was pretty much just up in his room. Occasionally he would come over to, what's the Kaisando now for sun, and sometimes he would come down in the garden, but basically he wasn't doing any formal teaching anymore. So I said to him, well, could I just, like, be in the room when you get your massage and when you get your Moksa Bhasthi?

[38:20]

Could I just sit there and do Zazen while you're getting your treatment? And he said, OK. So whenever he had his treatment, I would just go sit Zazen there in the room, in the Doksan room, and watch him get his treatment. I didn't say anything. But I watched how the guy did it. I watched where he pressed, and I watched how he did the moxibustion. It didn't seem to be that complicated because the places where the moxibustion would go was already marked on his back, the little brown spots. And basically what seemed to happen was you just burn it until Suzuki Roshi winced, and then you take it off. So then the masseur, an oxibustionist, became sick and said, you do it. He told me to do it. So then I started doing it. And I don't know what I was thinking at the time.

[39:27]

I can't remember exactly, to be honest. But... you know, just pressing on his back and just burning his skin and watching him respond, and him not really saying anything, except kind of like afterwards, that was pretty good. Those silent times together was the way I practiced with them at the end. What was the Dharma, you know? He wasn't, he wasn't being, he wasn't, you know, what was he doing? He was just a sick man who was letting this young man help him.

[40:30]

But those times, those minutes, those seconds with him, they're, you know, they're my body. Wherever I go, this is the body I have now. And it wasn't... It's not that Suzuki Roshi... I don't feel like it's he came into me or... It was more like the... What was happening has become... That's the practice that I feel responsible. I feel responsible for that practice, that way, the way of two people being together like that. That's what I feel he gave me and I gave him and the world gave both of us and we can all give each other.

[41:35]

So I don't know. That was my way of practicing with him. Other people had their ways. But that was my way. That was the way he let me practice with him. And he wasn't my friend. So I'd like to end with a song. The song is called The Red, Red Robin. Do you know it? OK. We don't have a band, so this isn't karaoke. Ojasan does karaoke sometimes. He has a beautiful voice. He can sing, I love my heart in San Francisco, just like Tony Bennett. You can ask him to do that later, maybe.

[42:48]

yeah so when the red red robin comes bop bop bop and along along there'll be no more sobbing when he starts throbbing his old sweet song wake up wake up you sleepy head get up get up get out of bed cheer up cheer up the sun is red live love laugh and be happy Though I've been blue, now I'm walking through fields of flowers. Rain may glisten, but still I listen for hours and hours. I'm just a kid again, doing what I did again, singing a song. When the red, red robin comes bop, bop, bopping along, bop, bop, bopping along.

[43:44]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_89.71