And when we talked, actually he had a kind of yoga practice. He would twine his legs around. I can't do it anymore, but he would twine his legs around two or three times. At each other like that. You know what I mean? I actually got to do it. I could do it after a while. But anyway, after I did kind of my orals for my master's thesis or my master's degree, he sort of called me and he said, you know, you did okay, but basically I didn't know what you were talking about. You know, I mean, I kind of did, but you kind of like, I couldn't really follow some of the stuff you were saying, and I think you have to kind of like come more over into my area more. In other words, he didn't say this, but in other words, you have to become my disciple. That's part of the natural thing, you know, to get your PhD. You kind of like have to like become the disciple of the guy or the girl and, you know, do their work for them in some ways, in some area that they know about.

[01:06]

You go a little further for them, but it's like extending their own work. So I said, thank you to make that clear. And then around that time, I was walking by McDonald's one day and I saw him in McDonald's. And he was sitting, this big tall guy with this huge head, he was sitting with his legs crossed. And his head was bent over, you know, down to the hamburger. His body was kind of like in his question mark. I looked at him and I said, I don't want to be his disciple. So I decided at that point, you know, that I was going to get somebody else to be my disciple. And the person I was going to have being my teacher, you might have said, but I was going to be the person I thought was Suzuki Roshi, because when I went to San Francisco, I met him at that time, you know. And when I first saw him, I saw his feet.

[02:09]

You know, I was sitting in meditation and his feet walked by under his body. And I... And I looked at his feet, and I just thought, those look, I like those feet, they look like very awake feet. And I said, I can learn from those feet. And then after meditation, I, as you may have known, when I finished meditation, We would go out to his office and he would bow to each person as they left. And we'd just come and bow to him and then walk by and the next person would bow and walk by. And I looked at him when I bowed and he looked at me and then he looked away. And at that time I didn't know, did I make a mistake? Was I not supposed to be looking at him? Did he look away because he was shy? Did he look away because he didn't like me? Did he look away because I wasn't supposed to be looking?

[03:12]

I went down various possibilities, but I came away not knowing what happened, and I really felt good about that. I didn't know if I had really just done the perfect thing, the wrong thing, nothing at all. I didn't know if he looked away, having nothing to do with what I did, totally to do what I did, whether it was approving, disapproving, what, you know. All those things were like all equally possible, but basically I felt like I didn't know, and I thought, that seems good. So basically I felt good about that. Another thing that happened to me around that time was I just imagined my future. And my future was, I had this nice future. I liked the university. It was a snap. The more I studied, the easier it got. Like I can't spell very well, or read very well, or anything very well, but somehow I could talk with the professors. you know, person to person very well.

[04:14]

And I was kind of, in some sense, I was friends with them, you know, so it was easy for me to be a psychologist because basically I was like friends with the psychologist. The only problem was becoming a disciple. So I thought I was going to be able to do this thing, and I just saw at a certain point, I saw, okay, now I'm working on my PhD, then I'll get my PhD, then I'll be an assistant professor. I was already a TA. Then I'll be an associate professor. Then I'll be a full professor. Then I'll be head of the department. Then I'll be a professor emeritus. Then I'll be dead. I saw it. And it was nice. It was an ivy-covered wall all along that path, you know, with lots of young people, beautiful young people coming every autumn, you know, with their noose clothes on. It's lovely, you know. It's winter, but you can also go to California or something. But anyway, there's this... I thought college life is very nice in a way. I didn't want to make a lot of money, but... So it's perfect for me.

[05:16]

I like to study, and I liked all that stuff. It was great. But I just basically go, blah, blah, blah, blah, dead. That's not quite it. So I kind of like turned some other direction. I didn't know what it was. And there it was. Zen life, you know, being a bodhisattva and practicing, you know, the intensity of being with yourself. I just went that way and walked out of that into this other world. It took me quite a while to get untangled, but finally in May I got out here. and started studying at Zen Center. And by that time, there was a little bit of a communal scene across the street from the Go Club. There were some apartments we could live in, so I moved right in. I drove out in a hearse. It was akin to that right there. It was akin. And the Grateful Dead was very popular. I planned on selling the hearse.

[06:18]

I knew that hearses were very popular for rock groups and things like that at the time. So I knew I could sell it when I got out here. It was a 1954 Cadillac hearse. I bought it for $425. It had been the hearse for a small town in North Dakota. And it drove very nicely, and I had many adventures. which I could spend several weeks telling you about on the way out, but maybe that's for another time. Anyway, I drove up, parked it in front of the Zen Center, and then I was there. What year was this? May 1968. So then I've been there ever since. So then there's Suzuki Roshi. And now, what do we do now? Maybe I'll answer Kay's question about breathing.

[07:20]

All right? Okay, now, as I, you know, in one sense, Suzuki Roshi taught two kinds of zazen. Or, you know, one kind of thing called zazen and another kind of thing called taking care of your body, breath and thoughts. One kind of zazen or one kind of meditation you can do, or you can think of it that way, and the other kind is to think about your life in terms of what, not what you can do, but in terms of how everything just seems to be happening. And the second kind is more like actual Zazen practice of the ancestors. The first is kind of like maybe okay as a kind of warm-up preparation for Zazen.

[08:22]

So he did teach some breath practice, and one of them was to follow your breath. On the exhale, follow the breath out. down in an arc and sort of imagine the breath going out of your nose, which it seems to do on the exhale. But imagine going down in an arc and ending below your navel, right in the middle of your hand mudra. And then on the inhale, Imagine the breath entering the body at that place below your navel and coming in and filling your abdominal area, which you've already... You're already present there, kind of like you're present there, sort of waiting for the breath. Now you welcome the breath into your body.

[09:24]

It fills... the lower abdomen, and then fills the middle abdomen, upper abdomen, and lower chest, and up in the chest, gradually moves up through your body, up through your neck, up into your head, into your nose. And on the end of the inhale, it's reached here. And then exhaling, coming out of the nose again. So you make kind of an ellipse with the breath. Yes. I hope maybe this is an issue for some other people because it's kind of been an interest of mine in that I sort of take language myself to be a pretty strong shaper of the way I view the world, and I know in one of the exercises where I believe the idea of even repeating the words inhale and exhale are used, and I could come across as sort of nitpicking, but I'm sort of, it seems to me as though

[10:35]

the prefixes in and X sort of reinforce in your mind at that subtle state when you are sort of subject to persuasion, if you will, it would seem to imprint the idea of there is something inside and there's something outside, as opposed to, say, codependent arising, where, like, I am taking this breath in, I am exhaling it, not it is all working together. I agree, yeah. And in and ex sound like, also like, sound like they're two different things, right? Like the inhale's one thing and the exhale's another thing, right? So that language does, that language is a strong shaper of your experience, is that what you said? Well, I believe that the words I use, in some way they both work, on each other. My reality shapes the language I use, and the language I use shapes my reality, is how I would, sort of bouncing off one another, transactional, always building.

[11:45]

Right. But I would say it's strong more emphatically than you did. Not that it's a shaper, but that it defines, your language defines your experience. And that the reality You say your reality influences the language, but your reality is language defined in the first place. Your reality in the sense of reality of experience, of things. Can I stop now? Sure. And just say that, yes, speaking of terms of inhale and exhale, it doesn't necessarily reinforce, but it goes right along with the idea that things are separate, that inhale is one thing, exhale is another thing, rather than inhale and exhale do not independently exist. You cannot have inhale without exhale. There's no meaning to that. They're not separate, really. But also, they are separate. In the conventional world, they are separate. And they have independent existence. And one ends where the other one starts.

[12:46]

But the ending of one, of course, is defined by the starting of the other. And the starting of one depends on the ending of the other. So they are dependently co-arisen, but we have to accept... The conventional world, where inhale and exhale are separate, where inside and outside are separate, by accepting that and tuning in and being mindful of this dualism, we can understand that they're non-dual. By the basic principle of where things are set, the place and the way that the inhale and exhale are separated is the place and the way where they're connected. So, the language creates a separation, and the bondage is due to separation, but the language also is a way to experience the reconnection. But anyway, I didn't particularly, I'm not pushing that you do this meditation, I'm just saying, Kay asked for some of his teaching on breathing, and one of his teachings is to think of your breathing in those terms.

[14:02]

There's other things he said too, but maybe to start with that. It's that thing. And one of the characteristics of this kind of meditation is that if you can be mindful of your exhale as it goes down to here, you bring your awareness to the end of the exhale, which means you bring your awareness down to this part of your body. Hopefully you're already present here and you bring your awareness to your exhale here too. And it's very difficult for many people to be aware of the end of the exhale. The mind becomes very soft for many people at the end of the exhale, and starts to relax. And exhale is related to... Exhalation is related to dying, right? Just like inspiration and expiration. Expiration means to die, or to be ended. So as you expire, you bring your death down to this part of your body, in a sense,

[15:04]

and hopefully you're already aware there, so that you kind of receive your exploration into this area of awareness. And then you also, as you experience your exploration, you experience your inspiration, so you all, in a sense, experience your birth at this same area. And you could reverse it and do it up here, or up here, but Suzuki Raiji recommended to experience your birth and death down here. rather than up at the tip of your nose from the top of your head. There's other ways to do it, but there's something about being down here in the center of your body, you know. Because again, if you sit cross-legged, the center of the three-dimensional solid that you form by sitting cross-legged is right here where your hands are. This is the center of it. You know, knees here, knee here, knee here. Sitting bones here. That's one triangle. Then another triangle up to here. Another triangle back to there. So you have these four-faced things.

[16:06]

One triangle, another triangle, another triangle, another triangle, right? The center of the triangle is right here where your hands are. So you bring your breath right to the center of this triangle. Your breath ends and starts at the center. So you try to bring your awareness to the center, the physical center, which is also where you have your hands. You bring all this physical intelligence to the physical center. then you bring your breath intelligence, transaction between breath dying and breath being born, all that converges on this point. So, this can be seen as doing something, but also it can be seen as just trying to maximize intelligence and presence and information at a point. Physical, geometrical presence, warmed. This is also the warmest part of your body. And you put your hands and feet up in the warmest part, which makes it even warmer. And you put your breath at that point.

[17:11]

You put the end and the beginning of your breath. You converge all this information, all this intelligence, and all this life and death stuff at one point. But you're not really doing anything. It's just you get organized so that this happens this way. And then maybe observe, watch the show. without meddling at all. You can't just be upright with all this information. You collect it, you set everything up so that you've got all the information coordinated and concentrated, and then you can just watch the show. Watch the dependent co-arising of birth and death. Watch the dependent co-arising of pain and pleasure, of you and others, of... Exhale and inhale. Self and other. This and that. All these dualisms then can be experienced right at this point. Also you can experience them up here too. Where the inhale ends and the exhale starts. You can do it up here too. Both places. But the emphasis in Zen is to cool this area.

[18:13]

Cool the head area. Have a cool head and a warm lower abdomen. Not to freeze the head, but not have a hot head. Have a cool head, cool eyes, warm heart, and even warmer center. So that if you use that breathing, if you do that breathing way of thinking, it kind of promotes this when you do that breathing with this posture. You're welcome. That's just one example, okay? And again, you can see it as doing something, but you can also see it just as setting the stage for just being present without any manipulation, which helps you most clearly understand the nature of all these interactions between body, breath, inhale, exhale, life and death, and so on.

[19:18]

Okay? Go ahead. So, yes? Do people have different rhythms of breathing? I mean, I noticed for the first time today in meditation that after I exhale, there's this long pause, and I was surprised. And I was wondering if that was normal or if everyone's rhythm is just different. I think everyone's different. Some people do have kind of what they experience as a gap. And that gap is considered by many people to be very auspicious. In other words, it's a very important time to be present there. If you experience a gap there between the end of the exhale and the beginning of the inhale, try to stay awake during that time. It's a good, what do you call it, adult education center. Not to say children can't learn there too, but usually children don't want to do that. So for us old folks, it's a time, it's a good place to get enlightened in that gap. If you don't have the gap, then get enlightened at the no gap.

[20:21]

But everybody has some little sense of separation there, where the exhale ends and the inhale starts. Otherwise there wouldn't be exhale and inhale. So some people the gap is very thin. Some people it's quite big. But anyway, try to pay attention to your exhale just because you are exhaling. To the end. See if you can feel the end of it and then see if you can watch when it first starts to inhale. And it looks like Jacqueline has watched it to notice that for her there's a gap there. So if you can watch to see when does it actually stop and when does it actually start. And that's very... very helpful thing to be aware of in ourselves. End of one, this face, and the start of the other. Okay? So you want to, like, stretch a little bit and then meditate now a little bit?

[21:22]

Sit a little bit? No, we'll stay here until service. Looks like we're going to have a little break here. So whenever you're ready, a meditative posture. Thank you.

[24:16]

Johnson said to me that sometimes he sweeps his body with his breath. Is that what you said? And he said, but that seems like I'm doing something. Is that all right? And I said, yes. So there is sometimes a meditation of like feeling. If you feel the breath going in and out of your nose, you can feel it. as it goes in and out, right around here, you can develop quite a sharp concentration right at that point of your breathing. When you have that kind of like point of concentration, sometimes it's recommended that you take that kind of concentration and that you then sweep your body with the concentration. Bring that kind of concentration to your awareness of your whole body. So that you can, like, have that kind of one-pointed concentration on your whole body until finally you can have a feeling of the whole body is like one-pointed concentration.

[26:36]

So you feel like your whole body's, moment by moment, one experience. Sometimes it's called breathing with your whole body. breathing through every pore of your body, these kinds of talk. But still you could say, but that seems like doing something. So I said to him, you look and see. Are you thinking of this in terms of you doing the breathing? If so, that's the way you see it. But it doesn't have to be seen that way. It can just be seen as breathing. And breathing sweeping the body, or just the awareness of of breath, or just the concentration sweeping the body. It doesn't have to be you doing it. But if you think of it that way, then, then, notice that that's the way you think of it. That you're thinking of it in terms of something you're doing. And if you just keep watching how you think you're doing the breathing, or how you think you're doing the awareness, or you're doing the sweeping awareness of the body, you just keep watching that,

[27:50]

And at a certain point it may shift from watching how you do it to watching how it happens. Or how this phenomena of awareness sweeping through the body and awareness unifying the whole body, how that happens, how that comes to be. And you shift then from thinking in terms of you the actor does the action to seeing more like the whole thing. this actor, the action, the breath, the body, all arising codependently. So there's not really an actor and an action anymore. They're interdependent, and you get freed of that way of seeing things. But if you now see things in those terms, then if you just simply observe clearly how you see things in those dualistic karmic terms, if you just watch that, and without trying to figure it out, Just watch it. And without trying to manipulate it, just watch it.

[29:05]

No meddling at all. Just be upright with it. Don't look away from it. Just be upright with it. It will eventually take its mask off and reveal its interdependent dynamic multiplicity of interdependence will start to uncover and reveal itself to you. And then you realize that the actor is just another interdependent phenomena in the whole picture. I'm used to getting the posture and set up the stage for watching the show. I think watching the show at 5 o'clock in the morning, especially before I watch the movies and choose the right lights, I can't do anything about it.

[30:13]

I can't manipulate, or I can't have an opinion about a fish or not, or if I'm watching this, nothing happens. You can have an opinion. The show can be an opinion show. Opinions coming up, that also can happen. Then it's liking or disliking. Liking and disliking can come up too. That's okay. But, so, like, there's, there's, like, breathing, there's, like, liking and disliking, there's, like, opinions, there's inhale, there's exhale, there's body, there's breath, there's self, there's other, there's zendo, there's not zendo, there's morning, there's night, there's sleepy, there's awake, all this stuff's happening. Okay? And all this is your busy mind. Okay? So are you still going to give a talk about this?

[31:16]

Okay. So when you're sitting there, on some level, you're a busy person. You know? Opinions, likes and dislikes, evaluations, pains, pleasures, concentration, distraction, body, mind, self, other, all this is going on. Constantly changing rich, field of experience, rising and going away, okay? You doing this, you not doing that, me doing this, me not doing that, all that's going on, okay? This is called busy. But when one of our ancestors was practicing meditation, was sweeping the ground, but he could have been practicing meditation too, his brother came up and said to him, you're very busy, you're too busy. He didn't say, no, I'm not busy. He probably could have come up to him and said, you're picking and choosing. You have opinions.

[32:17]

You're thinking in terms of self and other. You're separating yourself from me. You think you're a karmic being. Blah, blah, blah. He could have said all that. He did. In other words, you're busy. You're sweeping the ground. You think you're sweeping the ground. Or you think you're not sweeping the ground. Or you think you're one thing and the broom's another. All this stuff you're doing, you're discriminating. You're busy. He didn't say, no, I'm not. he said, you should know that there's one who's not busy. So no matter how busy you are, there's one who's not busy at the same time. It's not exactly that Zazen's the not busy one, but Zazen's the not busy one right in the middle of the busy one. You can't have a not busy one Without the busy one. You take away the busy one, you don't have anything.

[33:20]

You'd have got a dead woman. But to have this unbusy one right in the middle of the busy one, this is our Zazen practice. Which is which? Try to tell the difference between one and the other. If you tell the difference between the busy one and the unbusy one, the one who tells the difference is the busy one. The unbusy one is the one who is too stupid to tell the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, this and that. The stupid one can't get away from this. Always with you wherever you go. You never lose the busy one, the unbusy one. The busy one is changing all the time. You never lose the busy one either. But the busy one is always busy changing into another busy one. The unbusy one doesn't know what to do. So it's always there. Never comes, never goes. The unbusy one is just dependent, co-arising. dependently co-arising. And it is dependently co-arising. And it is whatever is dependently co-arising. The unbusy one is the busy one dependently co-arising.

[34:25]

The busy one is the unbusy one seen as something that's not dependently co-arising. Okay? So... But it's hard to stay awake in the morning and watch this show. Yes. Do you have any specific suggestions for sleepiness in zazen, in sitting? If you fall asleep five times on one exclamation. My suggestion when sleeping is think about opening your eyes. Open your eyes. It's very important. Open your eyes. Sitting in full lotus. If you're not sitting in full lotus, sit in full lotus. Just do it.

[35:32]

Another thing I would suggest is you go to sleep. Go to sleep. See if that's what you really want. You'll eventually wake up. Close your eyes and just go to sleep. Just fall over. And then admit what you're doing. Then you can see what you're doing. You're going to Zendo and sleeping. Just do it. Sleep. Then at least you know you're asleep. And that's what you decided to do. And you can see how you feel about that. And eventually you'll probably decide you've had enough, and you'll wake up. And then you'll see which one you like better.

[36:37]

And the more you see which one you like better, the more you'll try to promote the one you like better. And you'll try to coordinate that with your zazen practice, your sitting practice. Yes? Is there a technique into Zen practice that, for example, for Sashin, to wake up the students? I've sort of heard, maybe at the city center, I even heard some noises that never turned around. Yes. To wake them up? There is the thing of hitting people with a stick to wake them up? Yeah. Here is that. Is that just to wake up that moment, or maybe... Hopefully to wake up for, you know, eternity, but... No, I mean for the whole session.

[37:43]

Why do you hit him in the back? Why don't you hit him in the head? If you want to be hit on the head, please indicate that that's okay. Most people do not want to get hit on the head. But hit on this part of the shoulder, if you hit this part of the shoulder, it doesn't really hurt usually. It doesn't do any damage. As a matter of fact, it sometimes relaxes these muscles, and some people use it as a kind of massage. It feels good. So it's just a kind of massage if it's done properly. Sometimes people miss it when they hit the head. And then sometimes there's a problem, some kind of complaint is lodged within, you know. I think the shoulders is an acupuncture meridian which releases energy. That's what I heard by the shoulders. Uh-huh. So you just have to be awake to... No, in the old days, we used to give it to people even without them asking if they were asleep.

[38:49]

And sometimes they would get angry when I got hit, because they didn't think they were asleep. I'm not asleep, what are you doing? One time, when I was sitting, a little bird landed on my shoulder. A bird, cheep, cheep, cheep. But it was a stick. So I knew that I was asleep. I had no argument that time. Another time, I was sitting and I was awake, but when the person put the stick on my shoulder, I said, That's right. I was daydreaming. Another time I was sitting, And the person was, I was, when I was head monk, like Sue is now, I was sitting, I was facing out, and the person carrying the stick was standing right in front of me. And suddenly, they were standing 60 feet away. It just flew through the air. I can get you over the head of the stick.

[39:55]

No, he didn't. He had his back to me, so he was walking away from me. But I fell asleep between the time he was standing here and when he got 60 feet away, so he looked like he flew through the air to me. Wow! This is called human perception. We imagine that things are happening a certain way. Sometimes we understand that it was a delusion. Sometimes we don't. That time I did. I almost asked him later, did you do this fancy thing? But I figured... Instead of asking him, he flew through the air. I said, how did I look during the period? And he said, you looked like you were suffering a lot. He didn't say I looked like I was asleep. But I was. At least when he has back to me. So the thing is, if you can... If you meditate... The non-discriminating wisdom of the Buddha, which doesn't think in terms of self and other, and this and that, and good and bad.

[41:13]

The mind, this vision of the totality of interdependent reality, of the oneness of all being. That vision, the content of that vision is... dualistic karmic creation. The content, the Buddha's non-discriminating wisdom, the non-discriminating wisdom of the Buddha, the content of it is the karmically created or karmic creation, self-doing things. That's the content of non-discriminating wisdom. And non-discriminating wisdom is inseparable from discriminating delusion. The deluded, discriminating mind is inseparable from non-discriminating wisdom because non-discriminating wisdom is to understand the process of deluded discrimination.

[42:17]

When you understand the process of deluded discrimination, you have non-discriminating, penetrating Buddha's wisdom. So if you think in terms of I can do this by myself, independent of other beings, I can breathe in and I can breathe out, I can stand up, I can sit down, I can talk, I can have lunch. If we think in those terms, we're a normal human being, right? That is delusion. That is discriminations, that is deluded discriminations. The way we discriminate is we think we're separate. That's not correct. That's just a way of seeing it. And we believe it's true, which even more makes us deluded. But that process of delusion is the content of, and is inseparable from, non-deluded, non-discriminating, all-penetrating wisdom. That's what it operates on. That's what its content is. You can't separate the two. That busy, deluded mind is the content of the unbusy, undeluded mind.

[43:23]

Sees how the deluded mind dependently co-arises. Sees all the things that make us dream up this world. And then it's all quite beautiful and wonderful. But we have to study thoroughly to see how it happens in order to be released from the story which we believe is reality. We can't see reality, but we can see through delusion. And seeing through delusion means to be released from illusion, which means to be released from suffering, which means to realize reality. But reality is never something that we can see with our eyes. William? I had thought of a question when you had talked about anger. Yesterday you mentioned that Suzuki Roshi's first teacher said he had a tendency to become angry when he was young.

[44:31]

Suzuki Roshi said that about himself too. Did you ever see him angry? How did he deal with it? Talk about it. So that will be the beginning story this afternoon. The angry Suzuki Roshi. Okay. So be sure to show up in the session. Great teaser. And so we'll start in the zendo at 2 o'clock with a period of sitting. And after that, we'll come over here for further discussion about Suzuki Roshi. Okay? Now there's a service over in the zendo where we'll chant, actually a chant, which is about how zazen and dependent core artisan work together. And then there's lunch. It'll be a vegetarian lunch served in the kitchen, and then 2 o'clock back in the zendo. All right? Thank you. We're taking a macrobiotic lunch today, Brad, in honor of the old days.

[45:32]

It will be. Oh. It will be. Oh, good. We told each other our names, but a couple people weren't here at that time. So would you tell us your name, please? My name's Corrine. Corrine. And Elmer. Elmer. Elmer. Is anybody else not here when we said our names this morning? Do you say Corinne? Corinne. Corinne and Corinne. So let's see, this is out of sequence from my story, but I'll just give you a few examples of stories of Suzuki Roshi in anger.

[47:02]

One thing I would say is that I never heard Suzuki Roshi talk about other teachers' faults. Maybe he did, but I never heard him. I always felt funny if I heard anybody else do that. One time, one of the students at Zen Center asked Suzuki Roshi about whether there was like a meeting, and people were sitting on chairs in the zendo for the meeting. And one of the students asked Suzuki Roshi if the Zen students should go and do peace demonstrations, protest the Vietnam War.

[48:42]

And Suzuki Roshi jumped off his platform he was sitting on, ran over to the guy, and started hitting him with a stick. He hit him repeatedly until he fell off his chair. Another time, the head monk at Kasahara was listening to music with headphones under his covers. And Sukeroshi found out about this and beat on him a lot with a stick.

[49:54]

It didn't probably hurt this guy at all, because this guy was like an all-American football player. He wasn't actually all-American, but he was captain of the Stanford football team and what a most inspirational player on the team. So he was very... He wasn't very huge in terms of very tall, but he was very heavy, stocky, and I'm sure it's because his beating up didn't hurt him physically at all. He was one of the guys who moved a lot of those rocks at Tassajara. What height? What height? Yes, I don't know. I suppose he was five feet tall. I don't think he was under five feet, but about five feet tall. Yes. I don't know what to think about the first story, about the demonstration. I don't understand why it is bad, or I don't know what to think about it.

[51:00]

Neither do I. I could try to find out a happy ending for you or something, but that's all I can tell you that I heard of. Were you there? I wasn't there. Yes? I have the same story, but Super Mercy said, first you have to learn to tie your own shoelaces. You heard that part? I did, sitting with the stick off there. And it was, he repeatedly asked Suzuki Russian, Suzuki, I thought Isaac was an electrician. First they have to tell you, learn to tell you on shoelaces. I heard the same story, but I just didn't understand. He was, you know, dreamer, dreamer. Any other problems? Well, that makes a lot more sense to me.

[52:02]

Was there a time when you saw him lose his temper? I didn't say he lost his temper in either one of those cases. Saw him express anger? Yes. So one time, it was during February Sashin, 1970. It might have been 71, but I think it was 1970. the wake-up bell was rung an hour early. And then after ringing the wake-up bell an hour early, the person who rang it went up and down the halls telling people that it was early and that they could go back to bed.

[53:22]

And I was director of the building at that time, and my room was right next to Suzuki Roshi's. So, after a little while later, then, Mr. Suzuki Roshi came out of his room and went trotting down the hall to the zendo. And he got down there, and there was nobody there. So, of course, everybody should have been there before him, but there was nobody there. He might have stayed, but I wasn't with him down the zendo. But then I saw him come back up to his room. And an hour later, wake-up bell happened again, and the monks went to the zendo. And Susikura, she went to the zendo. And I don't know if he sat down. I think he sat down. Yeah. And he said, I think he said, Someone rang the wake-up bell early this morning and you didn't come down to the zendo.

[54:42]

Maybe because he said you could go back because it was early. He didn't come down when the wake-up bell went. He said, what do you think we're doing here? And then he got up off his seat and went around the room, starting with me, of all people. And hit me with a stick. I think once. But when he hit him, he went, oh! And he hit me really hard. And that pretty much tired him out. But he continued to hit everybody in his endo. By the time you, the last few people didn't get hit much at all. Then he sat down.

[55:48]

But he really hit as hard as he could, as long as he could. But I think everybody, I don't know everybody, but anyway, I certainly was moved to tears by his love for us that he expressed in that way. And maybe, I don't know if anybody experienced any pain. It was a real hard hit on me, but I knew he was just saying to us, what... Do you think you're doing here? Do you think this is something like, you know, the bell rings and then somebody says it's late, then you go back to bed? Is that what you're doing here? This is, you know, this practice is far more important than our life, in a way. So, anyway, I seem to be angry, but it also seemed to be, you know,

[56:53]

I really trusted that, him hitting us that way. I think everybody felt that way. This isn't so clear to me, but it seems that once, and I was listening to a talk, that he made some distinction between anger and maybe something that was arising and looked like anger. I don't know if that makes sense to you. He made a distinction? Yeah. When something comes up suddenly, maybe... I don't know if there's a difference between pure anger or what we call that. Yeah. Well, one of the characteristics of the anger... I didn't witness all these cases, but... There was one more case I'll just tell you about. He was coming into the Zendo one time, over at the Sokoji, came in the door and stopped to bow.

[57:57]

And then one of the monks came in after him and ran into him. Which kind of like, the way I didn't see it, but what I picture is he went like this. You know, she was bowing like this, and the monk ran into him, and then he just went like this. Maybe almost like just a mechanical reaction, you know, of getting knocked forward when you're bending forward and your elbows go back. Anyway, he did give the guy a elbow in the stomach, and the guy kind of got shocked by that, you know, and somebody else watched it and thought, oh, my God, sweet little Suzuki Roshi. So, I don't know, in all those cases, I never saw any leftover... It wasn't like there seemed to be any leftover thing there. He seemed to be fairly clean, and as soon as it was over, he was perfectly normal and wasn't quivering or self-righteous about any of it.

[59:03]

But in all these cases, they were kind of like, I think... Kind of like, disciplinary in the sense of shaking, you know, shaking the monks and, you know, bringing them back to themselves. These statements of tie your own shoelace or, you know, dreaming? What was it? Huh? Dreamer? Yeah. So... In other words, this particular person who was hit was... I mean, it's nice to do peace demonstrations, but I think it is important to, first of all, also tie your shoelaces and be able to take care of the basics of your life. If people who aren't taking care of themselves go and do peace demonstrations, in some sense it could discredit the peace demonstration. If a bunch of, you know, like I remember the big peace rally in New York a few years ago where there was 800,000 people walked in New York.

[60:15]

Remember, wasn't that it? It was a peace march. Wasn't it 800,000 or some huge number like that in New York about maybe 15 years ago? And afterwards there was no litter. Or very little litter. They cleaned up there for themselves. So I think sort of if you do these humanitarian acts, but then you, like, ask somebody else to clean up after you, or, you know, or you beat people up in the process or something like that, it makes people wonder, you know, it discredits the whole thing. I don't know if it discredits the whole thing, but it undermines it. And this particular person was a person who didn't take very good care of himself in a lot of ways. He often... you know, he often checked out of ordinary kinds of responsibility. Instead of taking care of those things, he often would move ahead and overextend himself and then back off that extension and, you know, he would, like, extend himself into some... some good act or some good deed, but then sort of, you know, drop it.

[61:28]

and then back away, plus not even take care of ordinary things of his life. So then other people then had to spend a lot of time taking care of him. Massive efforts to take care of him. Massive search parties for him in the city to try to find out where he was. He would disappear, this guy. from sight, you know, and then we'd have these big, big search parties looking all over the city for him because, uh, we were, you know, worried that he was gonna kill himself or something. So, um, I think, I think what Suzuki Roshi was saying was, you know, don't try some big fancy thing like, you know, trying to end the war when you can't even when you're basically just causing a lot of trouble as it is for everybody.

[62:30]

Why don't you first of all take care of your life and then see if you have any time left over to do peace demonstrations. Maybe you will. It's possible. But some people don't want to, like, wash the dishes. Somebody else can wash the dishes. They don't want to do their clothes. Somebody else can do their clothes. They don't want to, like, you know, just, you know, take care of their life. Their roommates can do that. But they have... So then since their roommates are washing the dishes for them and cleaning up after them and, you know, blah, blah, blah, then they have time to go do these humanitarian deeds. And also maybe... Ask other people if they should be, ask, ask, ask the security if other people should be doing that too. I think if somebody else had asked who was, you know, taking care of his own business and not having other people do things for him, I think the security's response would have been different.

[63:40]

And I also think that person's question would, probably wouldn't have been asked. That's my sort of guess about this. But I don't remember him being angry like and doing something harmful to anybody ever during the time I knew him or while I was at Zen Center. Maybe when he was younger he did, because he did have a problem with anger. But most of the anger I saw him demonstrate was was inspiring, and I think to the point. Maybe I'll call that guy up and ask him what his point of view on it now is. Finally, that guy's okay. Now, he finally is a normal person who takes care of business himself.

[64:45]

He was a wealthy person who didn't have to work. And so now he did new work, but he didn't do anything else for himself either, and was often on the verge of suicide. But getting everybody else involved in it, and so on. So it really was a situation like that, but you know, that those comments sort of reminded me of that aspect, but maybe that wasn't it either. But a number of times anyway, Sukhriyasi got angry, and usually people would notice that it just went . That was it. There was nothing afterwards. No self-justification, no self-righteousness, It's just like a flaring of heat. What do you think, folks?

[65:54]

Pardon? I'm just thinking about that point. Anything more you want to discuss about that point? It seems pretty abusive to me, but having been brought up in an educational system where the stick was wielded quite freely, it reminds me of public school where there was a rather vicious way to deal with people who were like. So I'm not angry. It sounds abusive to you. Yes? I can really see how, as you talked more about this particular person, how maybe we really have to be there to understand all the causes, all the conditions, everything that was present to make this action seem right in that moment.

[67:10]

We can't understand that during that. Yeah, I don't know. I heard that story, but somehow I never got around to asking him how he felt about it and whether he thought it was helpful. But I just thought now maybe I'll call him on the telephone. I know where he is now. So maybe I'll call him and see how he sees that over the landscape of his life. Yes, Corrine. It also has something to do with the tradition and culture of how he responded, as opposed to, you know, words. Instead, the tradition or the way people were reprimanded in this tradition could be in this quick, forceful way so you get the message, as opposed to using words. It didn't sound in all your examples like he had used words in any of the situations. Actually, the one case I think he did use was when he was beating up the head student who was, you know, supposed to be setting an example of, you know, leader of the practice period.

[68:19]

I think when he was beating him up, he was saying something like, you know, what a bad disciple he was. He was saying that too, in that case. But again, I think this is, it was because he was a head student, you know. He never was rough with new students. It was only with his senior students that he would sometimes do that. This guy who was on, he did in the chair too, was one of the senior students, somebody who he felt very close to. And one time, I think a couple times in lectures too, another one of the senior women would ask him questions and he would talk to her very brusquely sometimes in lectures. But it was usually with senior people, the closer people. But I think you're right, though. It was part of his tradition to use a stick. And that's part of the Zen master thing. They call it the Zen stick, right? So for a Zen teacher to use a stick is a traditional thing.

[69:22]

We don't do it so much around here anymore because of the current cultural situation. It's pretty hard to use a stick now. But... At Tulsa Har last practice period some people asked for the stick because they'd never experienced it and they wanted to see what it was like. So I carried it during one period and The person who asked for it, I guess, didn't know... The person who asked me to carry it didn't know I was carrying it, so she didn't ask for it. So I walked around most of the zendo before somebody asked for it. And so I hit one person, and then the next person asked for it. They requested it. And the next person asked, and [...] the next person asked. Everybody all the way around the other side of the zendo asked for it, right in a row. They just wanted... They'd never experienced it. They just wanted to see what it felt like. And would anybody tell Sahar, coming out of Crack's Creek, hear about that? What review on that was?

[70:24]

Yes? Oh, not a review. Well, we've done it in past years, too. And you were on the other side of the Zendo. It was Jennifer that asked for this pic, so it was on the other side of the Zendo that they asked for it. There was a Sushi here last year, too. This is the difference between being half-as-thick to wake up and using all this force to whack you and go around whacking everyone in the world. The way you put it, it didn't seem to be an instructive whack. To me? It filled up with energy to make sure it hurt from going around and around. Didn't you get the impression from me that it was an instructive hit to me? Oh, I mean, I did. get that impression from you. Yes. But this seems to be different because I'm just thinking that it's on one flag and going around angrily and giving everyone a flag. Whether they want you to do it or not.

[71:25]

Personally, I mean, that's good. I didn't understand. It was instructive to me and it was instructive to everybody else, let's say. I just had the impression that everybody appreciated it. All the people. That was my impression. that it was instructive to everyone. What did you learn? What did I learn? I learned that he loved me, and that he wanted me to consider whether, he wanted all of us to consider what we were doing with our lives. And he was asking that question verbally, and then he asked it with a stick, whatever number of times. And it was hard for him to do that, tired him out. He was, you know, he was getting old, but he just, you know, gave his energy to us in that way. That's the way it seemed to me. He could have, you know, come to us and touched us softly to ask the question, but I think it was more penetrating the way he did it.

[72:29]

Because he was, you know, he was a very gentle person and small and not very strong anymore. So for him to do that, it seemed like a great gift of his energy to me. very penetrating, you know. And that question, you know, is, here I am feeling it, whatever, about 26 years later, I still feel that question. So it was very instructive to me as to the seriousness of his question. That's where I took it. But again, it wasn't, I didn't interview everybody in that session. So I don't know how they all felt. It would be interesting to see how they all took it. But like I say, you know, he started with me and it got... everybody else knew it was coming and everybody else knew that everybody was going to get it. When he hit me, I didn't know anybody else was going to get it. So after a while it became very clear that this was just going to be something everybody was going to get.

[73:34]

It wasn't like some special people were getting special attention. The person who rang the wake-up bell wasn't the only one who got hit either, but he got hit. So I'm not at all trying to talk you out of anything. I just want you to know that for me, it wasn't abusive to me, and I appreciated it. Basically, everything he ever did for me, basically I always felt he was going out of his way to be kind to me, that he didn't have to... None of the attention he gave me did he have to give to me. It wasn't doing it because it was his impulse to do so, like, for his own personal gain. I never felt like that. Except when he was, like, asking me to do something for him. Then it was for his personal gain. I'll tell you about those times. Yes? It seems to me that among our culture there's an awful lot of mixed feelings regarding the use of the stick.

[74:37]

And you mentioned that it was a sort of a thought out, or maybe not thought out, but it was a decision to not use the stick or to phase out the stick in our culture. What kind of cultural things in Japan sort of lent itself to the use of the stick versus our culture that would not lend itself to the use of the stick? Well, one thing about, one of the differences is that Japanese culture is homogeneous. And also the people who got hit were all men in Japan. So it was within a homogeneous culture where everybody's the same race and not only that, but they basically feel like they're in one family. And also, generally speaking, they just hit men. And also there's a tradition to do it. And also, I think there's a lot of trust in the teacher.

[75:39]

So those are some factors that maybe make it different in Japan. And also Japan is much, in some sense, more physical than we are in certain ways. But just generally, I think there's a lot more trust among Japanese people, among themselves, than there is among almost any other countries. But, you know, that's in some sense their drawback, too, is that they're somewhat insular. And within that circle, they have a lot of trust and a lot of, what do you call it, permission with each other. And outside that circle, they're maybe not so... That's maybe what they do outside the circle is more of a problem. But inside the circle, certain, you know, things that are... Like in Japan, some things will happen like this. Like sometimes people will, you know, like... push you out of the way to try to get on the subway. Or rush ahead of you to get a seat at a movie theater. But it's not considered to be, almost never leads to a fight.

[76:42]

Because it's like, it's, you know, it's more like in the same family. And oftentimes, if you push back, they won't they won't be a problem. So it's just a different culture. I'm not an expert. Yes? She says, if I felt it was love, how come I used it as an example of anger? I've had other experiences in my life where someone has expressed anger to me

[77:42]

And I completely trusted it as love. But it was anger. I mean, it wasn't like... It wasn't like, you know, Hi, sweetie pie, you're really doing really well. This is really nice what you just did. It was like... It was like, you are... You are... really, you know, kind of like getting way off the mark here, fella. And this is here, this is an expression to let you know that we don't like it and it's not okay in a very, very big way. I've had that happen to me. I've had this, the world, you know, rise up, you know, in the form of a person. and come right back at me and give me a big, fiery, not hateful, wrathful, wrathful, great wrath come at me and snap me out of perhaps being dishonest.

[79:19]

Like somebody says to you, somebody says to me, well, what's happening? And I say, blah, blah, and they say, Not only is that not true, but you cannot live like this. This is not going to work. It isn't always a good thing to do. I mean, I'm not maybe being explicit enough, but maybe you don't get it yet. You don't? It's not coming across crystal clear? I mean I can make it more and more clear to you by blowing you off your seats but basically the point is that that you know somebody can come at me with tremendous wrath not negative energy like negative towards my life but negative towards me not really being the person I can be

[80:27]

Somebody who just takes me and gets my attention and says, this is not the way for you. Do you understand that this is a waste of your life? This is no good. I am here to tell you that this is not what I want from you. This is not what I expect of you. This is not the fulfillment of your potential. But I'm not screaming at you right now to tell you this, but sometimes that's what it takes to get somebody's attention. And the reason why you're telling them that is because you love them and you have confidence that they can do better than this. And not only that they can do better than this, but that they want to do better than this, and that you want them to do better than this, and somehow squeaking it at them doesn't get in their attention, and they're still sort of like wobbling and wiggling away from the issue.

[81:34]

So you have to sometimes, not you have to, but I've had this happen to me that it's had to get kind of like flare up there, tell me to, you know, get with the program. At that time, the person wasn't really a person. The person was like a god or goddess, acting on behalf of hundreds of people. But with that kind of authority, where everybody would want me to change my tune, so to speak. You can say something, you know, it can be just a little off, you know, and then you can get called on it, but sort of like not, you know, you get, since you started off kind of like a little off, you feel embarrassed to like say, well, I actually, that wasn't quite what I meant.

[82:37]

You don't want to like say, just drop it and say, okay, I'm sorry. Then they have to up the ante, and then maybe you feel cornered, so you don't want attention. So then they have to way up high for you to finally just say, okay. Do you understand? I mean, is this clear? Yes. This is what someone who loves you would do to snap you out of wasting your time. And at that time that this has happened to me, I never felt like it was personal. I never felt the other person was on a trip. The other person was almost like possessed by reality or something. to do this service for me, to snap me out of my arrogance or whatever it was, or my dishonesty, or my cowardice. Now, sometimes Suzuki Roshi gave me feedback, and he never gave me angry feedback, except that one time that, but that was everybody, and I didn't, you know, I didn't take it personally.

[83:40]

I just took it as all of us being asked by our teacher what's up. But otherwise, he was very gentle with me. But some other people have not been gentle. And sometimes it's been off and really off. And it wasn't kind at all. But usually when it's off, usually my experience in my life is usually when it's off, people don't go all out. in my life people have not like gone all out in their rage towards me when they're off when it's personal it's when it's when it hasn't been personal that they've like totally opened up and given it to me completely because there was integrity there it wasn't a personal trip it was just honestly what was a true response to my my dishonesty or my You know, my dishonesty, my lack of complete straightforwardness. And sometimes people just do not tolerate it from me. And in that case, I pretty much, I fortunately snapped out of it at that time and said, thank you.

[84:49]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_79.94