you know, not just, but be present in study, not with just sort of like trying to get information, but study the scriptures in meditative state. He highly recommended that. But not like to try to get a lot of information about Buddhism, but like penetrate the meaning of the scriptures. He strongly encouraged that in me. And really wanted some people to do that. And then, as I said, he made that more widely known as he got sick. So that was kind of his parting message in a way, one of his parting messages was to emphasize that. So after that we started the study center, we started classes and stuff. And I started teaching a lot of classes myself at that point. And I had sort of an inclination that way anyway, but then I did it more. And I think since that time Zen Center has become among the Zen Centers, probably the Zen Center has the most study We're much less sophisticated, but some people feel like we have too much studied, but I don't know.

[01:06]

But he studied. Like I say, you know, I studied some of his books, and they're full of notes, And after I studied those books, I could see a lot of where his teaching came from was from those books of Kishisawa Roshi and Nishihara Bokusan, and Dobin Zenji's books. He really studied those texts. So he studied a lot. And like I said, he studied the same for one person or a hundred people. He would prepare and study the scriptures before he gave his talks. And he would translate the texts and stuff like that before. He made a lot of work, a lot of effort like that for us. Did he teach you about the precepts? I'll talk about that later, about when I felt he was teaching about the precepts. So maybe that's enough for now. So we go to Zazen now and then meet here after dinner at seven o'clock.

[02:12]

Okay? He came to Zen Center in 59, I think he went back, I don't know exactly when. But he went back, so he came to America and the Japanese American community didn't know if he would stay. He wasn't sure if he would stay when he first came. He didn't say he would necessarily. But it was starting to look, he was liking being in America, so he was thinking of staying. So then they thought maybe they would have a ceremony to install him as the abbot of Sokoji. but they wanted to make sure that he actually stayed before they went to the trouble of installing him as the abbot. So I think at that point he went back to Japan to check with his home temple and the community there whether it would be all right if he stayed in America.

[03:27]

And they had some discussions and they decided that it would be all right. And he said, are you sure? How can you, I mean, how? He had, according to Oksana, he had a little trouble believing it. Can you believe that? The great Zen master had trouble believing that they didn't need him. However, he didn't ask us if it would be okay for him to go back. We wouldn't have told him it was okay. So as it turns out, they said okay, and we said not okay, so it all worked out. He stayed in America. And he didn't have a lot of disciples in Japan except for that ladies' glee club. I guess they said it would be all right.

[04:29]

they keep practicing their chants without him. So there was nothing like, he had nothing like the community he had in America back in Japan. You know, he had people who, you know, were given their whole life to practice in America, and Japanese people were just, their temple life, their life at the temple was just one aspect, and even a small aspect in their life. So to be teaching a large group of people who are totally into it compared to a large group of people who are a little bit into it, he was happy to be in America. I don't know quite what to do.

[05:31]

Yes? Was Katagiri Roshi his student? Was Katagiri Roshi a student of Suzuki Roshi? Yeah. Sort of. Was he one of the people? He wasn't really a student. Even Katagiri Roshi was one of them. Suzuki Roshi would be one of his later teachers. He would have his own teacher that he was a successor to. back in Japan before he even came to America. But Suzuki Roshi was one of the teachers he studied with after he left his original teacher. Katagiri Roshi also studied with Kishizawa Iyan for a little while when he was young. And then Katagiri Roshi studied with some other teachers who weren't his primary teacher. But he kind of did study with Suzuki Roshi. And what was, how did he come to Tasa, how was it that that connection was? Kadagiri Roshi asked, he asked, he met Osamu at one point, he said he wanted to come to America and asked Suzuki Roshi to help him come to America and Suzuki Roshi did help him come to America.

[06:42]

First came to Los Angeles and then Suzuki Roshi arranged for him to come up to San Francisco and be assistant priest at Sokoji. So he was assisted priest at Sokoji. And so that's when I met him there. He had come just a little while before that. And then his family came over afterwards, his wife and his... I think maybe one of his sons was conceived in Japan, the other in America. And I remember one time I met Kadagiri Roshi's son. I went to visit Kadagiri Roshi one time. Or maybe I was going to visit somebody. I think maybe actually I was going to visit somebody else. I think actually that's what happened. Before I went to visit, remember when I told you I went to visit the president of Zen Center? Silas. Silas sat in his chair and broke his chair. So before I went to his apartment, I went to the wrong apartment also. First I went to the go club instead of Zen Center. And then when I went to the president's office, instead of going to the president's office, I mistakenly went to Katagiri Roshi's house.

[07:46]

So I knocked on the door. And that little boy, five-year-old boy, opened the door. He just opened the door and looked at me and walked off. And went over and watched TV, let the door open. He sat down and watched TV. I was going to get her, she's a little boy. So I went over and sat down and watched TV with her for a while. And then I realized that that was going to be the end of that. That there would be no further... Anything. So I left. I asked him some questions he didn't know the answers to, and then I went looking around for the president's office someplace else. Finally found him. But I was impressed by this little boy. Just like, opening the door to a complete stranger, looking at him, and just walking away. The door... After my first practice period at Tassajara, Suzuki Roshi was supposed to lead the practice period, but he was not feeling well, so he didn't come down at the beginning.

[09:29]

And then when he was feeling better, he tried to come down, but he came all the way to Tassajara, and he came up to the first ridge, but it had been raining a lot that practice period. There was a big landslide on the road, so he didn't want to crawl over the landslide So he went back home. So he never, he didn't, that whole park spirit, he didn't come. So that whole park spirit, we didn't have a teacher. It was just us kids, so to speak. So it was kind of a, in a way, it was a nice experience because there we were, on our own, in the Tasara Valley, sort of stranded, with the road washed out, and not much food, food gradually. went down. We never actually ran out of food. It just got very simple. And we ran out of vegetables and oil and nuts and dairy products and peanut butter and sugar and salt.

[10:37]

But we never ran out of brown rice or wheat berries. Just for brown sugar. So we always had three dishes somehow. Crème brûlée without any crème. And also we ran out of, we gradually ran low on kerosene so his ender got darker and darker. And we ran out of Women ran out of the stuff that they need once a month, and we also started running lower and lower on toilet paper. Because Endo got darker and the meals got simpler. People were crabby. Well, they were too weak to be crabs. And approximately how many of you were in this situation?

[11:45]

38. Exactly. It was raining constantly. I basically didn't look up for two months. But the ground is so beautiful with the rain on it. Beautiful rocks. I saw the ground. Day after day I just looked at the ground. It was a very deep experience. Just very inward. I had many wonderful insights. I learned, for example, at one point I suddenly became happy. I was very miserable. I thought the reason why I was miserable was because it was dark. and cold and no food and I worked outside and it rained all the time in muddy pits digging ditches in the rain breaking rocks like in prison that was my job in the rain day after day and I felt really miserable and suddenly one day I became quite happy but nothing changed it didn't get warm the food didn't change

[13:02]

Pain in my knees didn't change, nothing changed. I just became happy. So I had a little insight that happiness has nothing to do with that stuff. Because I was just plain old regular happy. But I was just a little bit happier than happy because I also realized that happiness was not due to the circumstances and unhappiness was not caused by these miserable circumstances. They were nicely coordinated there for a while. But unhappiness had something to do with the cold and starving. in a dark pit with rain on myself all the time and digging ditches. But it didn't have anything to do with it because I'd been very happy with exactly the same situation. So that was very helpful. I also specialized in being angry that practice period. I started being angry at 3.30 in the morning and I was angry until work meeting every day for about a month. But I learned a lot about anger.

[14:04]

Because, you know, I could just totally concentrate on being angry with no interruptions. Didn't have to talk to anybody. I stopped at work meetings because that's when you start talking. And I didn't want to, like, waste anybody. So I just, at work meetings, I just sort of, like, became an ordinary human being and can smile. Stopped studying anger. But then next morning I would start again and I'd be angry at everything. I was angry at everything. Except Suzuki Roshi, who wasn't there. If he'd been there, I would have been angry at him too. I was angry at Buddha, I was angry at Zen, I was angry at the wall, I was angry at the weather, I was angry at all the people, I was angry at the mokugyo, I was angry at the food. Just did it. So I learned also that anger has nothing to do with anything either. It's just a delusion. That was helpful too. I also had an interesting experience that I stopped noticing that women were women.

[15:11]

And I didn't even notice that I'd stopped noticing until I remembered. One day I was walking, actually one day we were going up to get some food from across one of the landslides. They brought the food to near a landslide and the whole community was walking up the hill to get the food and there was a woman in front of me and I noticed that it was a woman. And I just hadn't noticed that women were women for about two and a half months. And I said, oh, it was just amazing. I hadn't even noticed that I was up. There were just these people, you know, in these black robes, all these wet black robes. That's all there was, you know, just me and those other black robes. I just forgot about it. But anyway, he wasn't there.

[16:14]

Then he came down at the end of the practice period when, you know, they fixed the road, and he came down for the summer. And... What happened? Something happened. Oh. Actually, that wasn't... No, that's not right. That wasn't that sleep. It was the next summer that he came down. Then I came back to Al-Sahara again The next winter, they did a practice period. And that practice period, given the last practice period, what they did was they stored up lots of food because it didn't rain nearly as much, so the road didn't wash out anyway, but there was no food shortage that practice period. Lots of stuff all the time to eat. And we didn't run out of anything, really, so it was very luxurious compared to the other one. And we had a visiting teacher named Tatsugami Roshi, who... trained us. And Suzuki Roshi wasn't there for that practice period either.

[17:18]

But before I went down, he told me, he said, I want you to learn how to learn chanting from Tatsugami Roshi, who was a chanting expert from the head monastery in Japan of our school. So he taught me how to chant. And I learned his way of chanting pretty well. And then when Suzuki Roshi came down this summer, He gave, he asked me to teach him those things that I learned from Tatsugami Roshi. Which again, I felt sort of embarrassed, but you can see he was kind of humble that way. Suzuki Roshi didn't have a lot of monastic training in Japan. And Tatsugami Roshi was a monastic training expert. So I was one of the people he trained. So then when Suzuki Roshi came down, I taught Suzuki Roshi the things that Tatsugami Roshi taught me or us. But he asked me to teach him. And then also he asked me to show him the chanting that Kattakamunroshe had taught me.

[18:24]

But I learned it really well. I learned it a little bit too well. As a matter of fact, I learned... I learned it like in his... I learned his dialect, you know. He had a kind of strange dialect from a certain kind of country part of Japan. I learned his special dialect So it was a little bit funny. It'd be like, you know, learning Beatles music with the Liverpool accent or something. So then Suzuki Roshi retrained me, and he kind of ironed my chanting, kind of ironed the dialect out of it. And that was one of those times when I really felt like, I really felt grateful to have the opportunity for him to retrain me. But I also felt really like, you know, I really felt embarrassed and I wanted to get out of the room. But see, the other teacher had taught me enough so that I had something for him to work with. And then he said, like, mold this thing I had learned. So that was a very interesting experience.

[19:25]

I kept trying to get it out of the room. He'd say, try it again, do it again. I'm like, okay, thank you, I'll see you. I'm going to do it one more time. I just kept ironing until he got smoothed out and got to be sort of like normal, you know, normal Japanese rather than the special kind of Japanese that he did. He also did other special things with his voice, which I copied. He said that it's okay, but for me, they shouldn't be there, you know, certain kinds of ways that his voice developed over the years, which I just copied. But it wasn't appropriate, so he ironed all that stuff out. Anyway, then that summer, I was going to order some, you know, I had a sitting robe, and I was going to order a kimono to go under my sitting robe. I was going to wear a kimono under their sitting robe, and I was going to order a jeep bond to go under the sitting robe. What I was sort of trying to do, I was trying to dress like a priest.

[20:26]

I realized that's what I was doing. I was basically ordering priest robes without saying so. So I just said to him, at a certain point when I realized what I was doing, I said, well, can I be a priest? He said, yes. Or he said, well, I've been thinking about that, yeah. Okay. And that's when he said, I'm sure you won't be arrogant. But it just sort of like, I didn't quite like this sort of, it just sort of slipped into that, that I realized that's what I was trying to do. Trying to be a priest without exactly asking. So I got ordained that summer. 1970. 1970. August 9, 1970. So the numerology of my preserdination is the same as my birthday. I was born in 43, so that makes 10.

[21:31]

I mean, that makes 7, right? 43. In 1970, that's 7. And 10. I mean, seven, ten, and eight, nine. Right? If you add those two together, add yours together, you come up with the same number, which is seven. So I'm a seven priest and a seven person. And as I said to somebody, part of my karma, which is my good fortune, is that my My vocation, my avocation, and my occupation are all the same. So I just sort of like, that was all settled when I was 23, all those combined. So that's my good fortune, but I also have to be careful because I sometimes don't understand that not everybody has that conjunction. And therefore, their lives are in some ways more complex. Did you understand?

[22:34]

So my hobby, my religious vocation, and my job are all the same. So that makes life simple for me and that was settled when I was 26 years old. So then it's easy to go to work and also go to play. So people sometimes say, do you ever get a vacation? I say, no, but I'm always on vacation. I'm always playing because this is my hobby. This is my vacation. This is my job and this is my religion. It's all the same. So that's when I got settled in. That's called good karma. So I... I... I have to be careful not to take that for granted. Could the Sukhya Rishi ever do a full practice, Guruji?

[23:36]

I don't know. He could. But so that was 1970. We're in 1970 now. And then that summer he came to Tassajara for the summer, for part of the summer. And then that summer where I passed him to be ordained at Tassajara, he was there. I was there. Also, they did a film, which you'll maybe see tomorrow morning. when he and I were there that's when we were together that summer which is on this film which I guess maybe you'll see tomorrow morning and so then at that time the officers of Zen Center asked me if I would stay at Katsuhara for two years and I went and I said did you have a Suzuki Roshi and they said yes I said well if it's okay with you it's okay with me and so then I said okay

[24:40]

I stayed at Tassajara for two years. And then a couple of days later they came to me and they said, would you leave Tassajara and go to the city center and be the director? I said, did you ask the security? And they said, yes. I said, okay, I'll go. So I left Tassajara and went to the city center, which was, you know, I didn't particularly want to leave Tassajara, but it was a good deal for me because like I said, I went to the city and I became the director so I could assign myself whatever room I wanted. So I assigned myself the room next to his. It was like continuing my post-practice. And I was around all the time. I never left the building, basically. People tease me a little bit, but I never really went outside. Occasionally I went outside, and it was really great to go outside. I mean, it was fantastic. Because I never went outside. So when I went outside, it was like... Can you imagine? So I was just like living like a monk in that building.

[25:41]

I never went outside. You look like you don't understand what's happening. No, I understand it. But you were so busy, you couldn't go outside? Well, I was busy, I was busy. I had a lot to do. I was also the Eno. I was the Eno and the director. And also I wanted to be available to Suzuki Roshi, and also I wanted to watch, make sure I caught him when he tried to go out to the movies. I was always watching to catch him. I was there, but occasionally I went outside and it was wonderful to go outside because it was like, you know, there really is an outside there. It was like going in this fantastic circus out there. Couldn't believe it. Geez. One time some people took me to North Beach and they took me to a coffee shop and they had coffee and they had, you know, they went to Stella's and got some pastry. I thought, geez, you people really know how to live. You know, But, you know, that's what it's like when you stay in the building all the time. But anyway, I stayed in that building there, and it was nice because I got to be there in the building right next to him for the last part of his life.

[26:46]

So that was great for me. And then, did you raise your paw? Yes, I started to. Did your ordination take place at City Center? Yes. It did. And then, well, then things went along and 1971 started. And then we had a nice session in February of 71. That was the one where they rang the wake-up bell early. Boom, boom, boom. that was a good Sashin at that time we also had Sashins every other month at Zen Center not entirely due to me being a Hino but that was during that time when those last couple years when he was alive when I was at the Zen Center we had Sashins every other month either 5 or 7 day Sashins we never had that before or after but for a year or so we did that so I did a lot of Sashins with him

[28:11]

during that last time. And then, and then he invited me to be his attendant when he went to Portland, Oregon to do a weekend sashimi there. Friday, Saturday, Sunday kind of thing. Friday night give a talk, Saturday and Sunday sit and then come back. So we flew up to to Oregon, Portland. It was kind of wintry. And also, I told many people this story, but that was a flight where on that flight up to Oregon, he taught me how to count people in Japanese. You're getting all this surprising things are happening. She keeps going... You know, like in English these days anyway, we weren't always this way, but in English now, we count people like this, one, two, three, four, right?

[29:21]

We also count flowers that way, one, two, three, right? But we didn't used to do that. We used to have different counters for people, like with cows, we'd go one head, two head, three heads, you know? There's 10 head of cow, but we don't have 10 head of people anymore, right? But they used to have things like that in English too. 10 blank of these, Ten blank of those. We used to have that in English, but now we don't have it much anymore. But in Japanese, they still have it. So, when you count bottles, cylindrical things, you say a certain, and you say hon. Hon is for round things, or cylindrical things. For flat things, you say mai. For volumes, for bound things, you say satsu. And for people there's a different calendar than for like, you know, there's other things. Okay? So he taught me how you count people on that flight up. Yes, Bob?

[30:24]

Did he ever have any overall reflection on his trip to America and what had happened to him here? Any overall reflection? Yes. Well, actually, when I was in this recent visit to Japan, when I asked his wife, you know, where she was talking about various things, telling me these stories I told you about, some of those stories, I said to her, I said, Suzuki Roshi taught us, you know, many things. I said, what didn't we get? What didn't we understand? And she said, that he said, Americans are so sincere. They understand Buddhism much better than most Japanese people. They have true spirit of Zen. And they will definitely understand Dharma. So he felt very good about, overall, he felt very good about these American students.

[31:28]

He also felt Americans were great because they had empty heads. About Buddhism we have empty heads. Our heads are full of stuff about sports and, you know, racism and stuff like that. But about Buddhism, we relatively have empty heads, whereas Japanese people know a lot about it, so you can't get anything in. They're crammed full of knowledge of Buddhism, so you try to teach them and they say, mm-mm, it doesn't fit, it doesn't work. So it's very easy to teach Americans Buddhism. They kind of go, just take it in. That's good in a way. It's bad in another way, though, because you can get junk that way. But for one who's trying to teach us, Americans are relatively... Very good. So he was very happy to teach Americans. Thought we were very sincere. And you know what? We were pretty sincere. So he was pretty happy, I think, about the whole overall thing. I think he was a little surprised, as you'll see later, how his time came to an end so quickly.

[32:34]

I think overall, he felt really good about the whole thing. So anyway, so on the way up there, he taught me. He taught me how to count people in Japanese. How many people know that story? One, two, three. You know it, Galen, don't you? You tired? No, I just want to hear it. You mean you're lying? Raise that hand. Three, four, anybody else? Five, six. Okay, you people can take a break. Because this is a good example of how he taught. So he taught me. Here's how you count people in Japanese. So I told this story before, right? So you know how to count people now, David, in Japanese? Did you learn? I didn't learn how to say it, no. Now, did you, sorry? No. Did you? No. Did you? Okay, Sonia. Story. Story. Story.

[33:43]

Huh? Story. Right. She learned. She heard me tell that story, she listened, so now she learned. Story. Huh? Story. No, story. Story. If you listen to this story... What? No. What's five? If you listen to this story carefully, you will learn how to count people in Japanese. So this is... You'll learn something this weekend. This will be a direct transmission from Suzuki Roshi to you. Through me and Sonya. Five? Go-nin. Ah, yes. She knew that. Roku nii. Shichi nii. Aichi nii.

[34:48]

Kuu. Tok. Hitori, itari. San nii, yo nii, go nii. Roku nii, chichi nii, hachi nii. Kuu. Tok. Kuu nii, tok. That's how they count people in Japanese. And then 11 is Juu Ichijinin. 12 is Juu Nichinin. And so on. We just did up to 10 on that trip. So he taught me that and he said, now you do it. So then I did it. And he said, okay, keep doing it. So I kept doing it. And then he fell asleep. So when he fell asleep, I stopped. So when I stopped, He woke up and said, So I started again. And he fell asleep again. So when he fell asleep, I stopped. When I stopped, he woke up and said, I think maybe that time I kept doing it all the way to Portland.

[35:56]

But it was an airplane ride, not a bus ride. I remember seeing Mount Hood, you know, in the snow. Beautiful. We landed. So then we went and gave, we went and gave a, this thing, you know, he gave a talk at Reed College that Friday night. And that talk I just read it, you know, again, in preparation for this workshop, and I realized I pretty much forgot that talk, and it was a great talk. He covered a lot of stuff. He taught about the Four Noble Truths and about how to work with suffering. He taught about zazen and compassion and extending zazen in daily life. Actually, kind of a big lecture, a lot of stuff in it. Great job. I don't know, maybe tomorrow I'll be able to tell you about that wonderful lecture that I gave, which I really didn't remember until, but now I remember it.

[37:05]

Now I read it again. I think now I can remember it. I would go through it again tomorrow, but I think maybe it's a little too long because I'm supposed to not make a very long lecture tomorrow, so that people can wash dishes and stuff. Oh, we'll see. Anyway, he gave this lecture, and then we went and stayed at the home of our hostess, Rowena Leary Pate. Rowena Leary was his end student, who took a picture, maybe, who took a picture of Suzuki Roshi, which is in my room. Very nice picture of Suzuki Roshi that she took. And, um, And the next morning we went to the Sesshin, which was at an art school. Maybe it was at the art school of Reed College, I don't know, or maybe it was separate. I think it was a separate art school. And here's a picture of Suzuki Roshi. This is the hands on top of the head picture. Huh?

[38:11]

He looks young? He looks young. Actually, that was not too long before he died. Here's the picture of when he left His temple, when they kicked him out, when they said, we don't need you anymore. This is what the abbot, this puts on his walking gear and goes to America. He's looking, do you want to look at this? He's looking slightly macho there. And here's a picture of him at Sokoji before he lost weight by going to Tassajara. Little bit more round in the cheeks. And of course, here's the famous one. Bob Boney took that one. And here's his calligraphy, right? Which is written with the yucca leaf.

[39:13]

You know, you have yucca plants at the top of the heart. If you pull them out of the ground, pull them off the thing, they have, at the bottom, they have kind of a When they tear off, they make kind of like a brush. And so he wrote this with the yucca branch, with the yucca stem or yucca blade. Could you say to me a little bit about his relationship with Trudy Dixon? Pardon? Could you say just a little bit about his relationship with Trudy Dixon? Yeah. Well, I don't know all about it, but I think he really appreciated Trudy Dixon. And... I went with him one time. I was with him and I heard him. I was taking him to Mill Valley to go to the Zen group in Mill Valley. I went to sit with him a couple of times in Mill Valley's Endo Reach. As you know, we live right near Mill Valley here, don't we? But you just go over the hill here and down to Tam Junction. Then you take a left at Tam Junction from coming this way.

[40:14]

And you go just a little bit, you know, about halfway to the high school. There's a little kind of like a community center called Alamonte Improvement Center or something like that? Anybody know that place? No, it's called Alamonte or something like that. Alamonte, right. Alamonte what? Something. Alamonte something. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's a little kind of nice little open space, like good for like having dance classes or something. And we went there and sat Zazen in that place. That was the Mill Valley Zen Center, Zen group there. So he went there and sat there. And Trudy Dixon lived in Mill Valley, too. So I heard him, and we went over to these people's house to have some simple breakfast after we sat, and I heard him call her up, and he said, Hello, Trudy, this is Reverend Suzuki. May I come to visit? Trudy Dixon? Trudy Dixon is the editor of this book. Edited by Trudy Dixon.

[41:21]

So Trudy Dixon is also the wife of Mike Dixon, the painter. Willard Dixon. He painted the clouds of greens and he painted those two flies there in the dining room. In the library. And he also painted the fly in the middle of here. Where's the fly? Hello, fly. There, he painted this fly. Why did he do that? Do you know why there's so many bits of the fly in the book here? Why did he put the fly in there? I don't answer why questions. How come? I realize that they are not good to answer. Hey, that's maybe it. What did you say? So anyway, Trudy Dixon had cancer at that time. And so, but I remember I thought, I thought it was kind of neat. He called and said, this is Reverend Suzuki. May I come to visit? How polite.

[42:22]

How polite. Of course, you know, it just seemed so polite. The master calling the disciple and saying, may I come to visit? I guess he said yes. We went over to his house and Mike, the painter, he's a very nice guy, but the way he answered the door really amazed me. He had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and he She just sort of held the door open like that boy did and just sort of walked away. There was a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I thought, geez, does he know who you're talking to? Anyway, maybe he was depressed because his wife was dying or something. But anyway, we went in and visited Trudy. And then after that, she would come to Zen Center and she would practice Zazen with us pretty much you know, this is like 1968, right? So she would practice Zazen with us and she would practice Zazen lying down because she couldn't sit up anymore. And so she did that until she was really weak.

[43:29]

She came and sat, came and lied down with us, laid down with us. And then she died. And then he did a funeral ceremony for her in that, you know, in that big synagogue, Zen center. And I'd never seen a funeral before in all my life because in my family, my mother thought funerals were terrible. She thought it was terrible to go look at dead bodies and stuff. So whenever anybody died, she never encouraged the kids to go. I didn't go to my grandmother's funeral because in my family, my mother didn't really put that down. So I kind of went along with that. But at Zen Center, I thought, well, I'll go. My teacher's giving a funeral. I'll go see what it is. And I remember he said, you know, and you can maybe look in an old window about what he said, but I remember the thing that impressed me was he said, I never thought I would have such a wonderful disciple. So he really appreciated her.

[44:30]

And I thought, geez, this is, at the end of the funeral, I thought, this is wonderful. God, I never thought Cunard would be so wonderful. This is so great. It was such a great thing, that ceremony. I was really... I mean, I didn't... Ceremonies had nothing to do with why I came to Zen. I just came to practice Zazen and be a great, compassionate Bodhisattva. That's all I came for. I wasn't going to be into ceremonies. But when I saw that ceremony, I thought, well, that's kind of a nice thing to do, actually. Beautiful. Beautiful. thing to do for somebody to do a beautiful funeral ceremony. So now I think they actually live kind of good, those ceremonies, some of them anyway. So he had a really good relationship with her, and she was a great person. But then he died not too long after, so he never really got to put her ashes in the ground. So many years later, I put her ashes in the ground.

[45:35]

I toss her out. I knew her a little bit. She was really great. And now I know her husband, too. He's great, too. At my house, you know, actually, some of you had tea at my house. That's Mike Dixon's painting, that thing that looks like a shelf. That's Mike Dixon's painting. And he comes to Green Gulch. There pretty often. So anyway, we went to Sasasheen, right? We were back in Portland. So he's sitting there, and I'm carrying the you-know-what. The stick. And then suddenly he's sitting, and suddenly he goes like this. Which I never saw him do before. And I went over and I said, you know, what's the matter, Roshi?

[46:39]

He said, I don't know. I feel terrible. Damn old pain. So we took him home, and I stayed and finished the sitting. That day, and I went home to the place we were staying and asked how he was, and he'd been spitting up this real bitter stuff, you know, and eating, trying to eat rice, you know, rice cream, white rice, but still spitting up this real bitter, you know, bile, right? We didn't know it was bile, but it was bile. So, then the next Sunday, I did half a day of sitting and then came home and then we left back to San Francisco. And he was in a lot of pain. But I don't think he was, you know, But, you know, I don't think he was showing off, but he was very nice to the woman, to the little boy of the woman we were staying with.

[47:41]

Even though he was in a lot of pain, he was still very nice to this little boy. And when we got out of the car, the little boy wanted to go into the airport with us, but his mother wouldn't let him, so he was very upset. But Sigur, she was really nice to him. And, uh... And then I was, like, and in that talk that he gave the night before, he remembered, see, he remembered what he said in the talk and then he was practicing it, right? He said that it's very important to not just practice, he said most people, I don't know, most people, but a lot of people, he said most people, most people practice Zazen when they're feeling good. He said, but you should practice Zazen when you're not feeling good. Of course you should practice Zazen when you are feeling good too, but you should practice Zazen when you're not feeling good so that you'll learn how to cope with your difficulties. So you can learn how to practice zazen even when you're in pain with confusion and so on. So the most important thing is that when you're in pain and when difficulties come on you that you can continue to be kind and warm.

[48:49]

That's the real test of a Zen student. Can she be warm and kind even when it's tough? So that's why we should practice zazen when it's easy So it's hard. It isn't that we go looking for pain, but when the pain comes, we try to find a way to meet it and continue to be kind and warm. Not like, oh, I like pain, yummy, yummy, but just like continue your warm heart practice even when the pain hits. And so he did a really nice job of that. So then we flew back on the airplane to San Francisco. And I noticed that I couldn't stay present in my seat. I just couldn't sit next to him. I was sitting next to him, but I couldn't be there next to him. And I really felt bad because here I was with my teacher and my teacher was suffering, but I couldn't stand to sit there with him.

[49:56]

So I was, you know, My mind kept flying away, you know, other places. And I was conscious it was happening, but I just couldn't sit there with him and just suffer with him. I forgive myself. I was just a kid. But anyway. What did you do? You were sitting there next to him. Well, you know, just thinking of other things. Oh. You know, I don't know where I was, but I flying off other places, doing other things, some other state, back in San Francisco already, or whatever. But not just sitting there, like I told you to do, right? I thought I had an alternative to just sitting in that seat next to my suffering teacher. So it's hard to practice all that. It's hard to just sit there in your own suffering, and then also to sit there with the suffering of someone who's important to you. It's very hard to sit there.

[50:58]

And I couldn't do it much at all. So that was my immature practice at that time. And we got back to San Francisco and got off the airplane. And his wife and Yvonne Rand were there waiting for us. And they had a wheelchair. And they asked us if we wanted a wheelchair. And he said, no. I'll walk, I'm a Zen master. I thought, hmm. Anyway, so he walked, and then when we got home to his house, he did something else which I never saw him do. When he walked in the room, he just took his robes off and let them drop on the ground. He usually wouldn't do that, right? Pulled them carefully, but he was having a hard time, so he just let them drop. And they called the doctor, and the doctor said, to the hospital. So then handlers came and they carried him on a stretcher.

[52:02]

And he went to the hospital and right away had a gallbladder operation. And hearing that it was gallbladder removal, we actually felt pretty good because oftentimes people feel a better shape after they have gallbladder removal when they're old. Like his wife then, when she was 70, she had her gallbladder removed and she'd been really healthy since then. But what he didn't tell us, and he knew, was that the gallbladder was malignant. He didn't tell us. He and his wife kept that secret from us. So, and you know the gallbladder's right next to the liver. And that was, you know, things have changed a lot in 20, whatever, five years. It was not quite 25 years, 24 and a half and some years. Things have changed. Our knowledge of cancer and so on has changed. But anyway, at that time, they just went from removing this gallbladder and nothing much was done.

[53:07]

And we were looking forward to him being healthier than he was before. And he actually did recover from the operation and he did get healthier in a way. But then I remember one time, he was giving a talk after he was feeling better, after he was giving talks again, and suddenly, I was sitting there right near him, right about where Renee is, and he seemed like, maybe he looked at everybody at that moment, maybe he looked at everybody in the room, but it seemed like he went like this, and looked right at me and said, things teach best when they're dying. And I went, what's that about? And I didn't think, was he telling me he was dying? You didn't think that? I didn't, you know, it was like too obvious. I couldn't, you know. If I heard him say it, that's for sure. But I didn't think, well, he's telling me something about himself.

[54:09]

And he kept saying, also other times he said, you know, I'm not going to be around forever and you people are picking my flesh off me. He said stuff like that. But anyway, I He seemed to be getting healthier. So then he was going to go to Tassajara in the summer, and I said to him that I wanted to go to Tassajara with him. I didn't know this would be the last summer at Tassajara, but I wanted to go anyway. He said okay, but then I reminded him that if I did, people might feel jealous. Like, why could I get to go? Other people would like to go too. So I didn't go, and it was his last summer at Tassajara. And he worked really hard at Tassajara on his rock garden, and he also gave lots of lectures. But then when he came back from Tassajara, it was a very sad thing to see because it looked like he had really spent himself. And he came back from Tassajara, his eyes were yellow and bloodshot, and he looked like a wreck.

[55:11]

And people thought maybe he had hepatitis, but he didn't. He had liver cancer. So, that was that. And it looked like he was going to die, right? Because liver cancer is pretty much, even now, right? Pretty much, that's it. But still, he thought, you know, it was going to be a while. So we were making some plans to do various kinds of things, because he wasn't that bad off at first. So we had various plans for various kinds of studies that were going to occur for the priests. Like, for example, Kishizawa Iyan's father major disciple, Noidaro, she was going to come over and we're going to do a lot of Dharma transmission ceremonies, was the idea. But his health went went very, went downhill very fast.

[56:15]

And so it wasn't too long before he kept sitting, but then after a while, he couldn't get back up the stairs. So we made, we carried him up the stairs and made his little, these little seats, you know, how you do that? One person goes like this and grabs the other person's forearm. So we made these little seats to carry him up and down the stairs, which is really nice, but he didn't get weaker and pretty soon he stopped coming down to his endo. Pretty much was up in his room. And again, I said, you know, I didn't want to tire him or anything, like I didn't want to, like, he wasn't giving, he wasn't going to Zaza and he wasn't giving lectures, he wasn't doing Doksha anymore, but I said, can I just watch you when you have your, you know, acupuncture, not acupuncture, but when you have your shiatsu and maksa bashing, can I just watch you? So he said, okay. I said, you don't have to say anything to me. So I just watched while he got his shiatsu and his maksa bashing. And, um, so, that, you know, that's an example for how, you know, a person can teach you, and they're lying on their stomach, getting a massage, by somebody else, they can teach you.

[57:38]

He was teaching me, by the way he was, by the way he was dealing with his sickness, he taught me. Not taught everybody, but... I was sitting there watching him suffer, watching the way he got his massage. I watched the way he got his massage, and I watched the way he winced when the cone burned down. It burned down, and he'd go, and take it off, and take it off. So again, you know, then one time the person who did the massage in Oxibustion got sick, so he said to me, you do it. So I'd been watching, so suddenly I was the, the suicide, I was the moxibustion burner. I just did the same way, I just like, I'd burn and watch his, watch his, till his face winced and then I'd take it off. And he said it was alright. I mean, the way I, the way I did the massage, he said it was alright. So anyway, that's the way I, that's the way he taught me to a great extent, just, he was there, doing his thing and I was watching.

[58:43]

And see, I wasn't trying to be like him, but I was learning from him by the way he was an old man, taught me how to be who I was to some extent. That was his teaching to me. And so that came in very deeply, that teaching of him being sick and the way he was sick. I didn't have to remember anything. It just went right in. So he got sicker and sicker, faster and faster. He was surprised. I'll fast it up. And he asked me to stay at Zen Center. He said, things will change after I die, but I want you to stay. So I stayed. For a while.

[59:45]

So he was only at Tussauds for a few summers? Two or three summers? 67, 68, 69, 70, and 71. Five summers he was there. Not all of those summers. but he was there during part of five summers. And in 71, he didn't do any practice periods. And in 70, he didn't do any practice periods. And in 69, he did one, the fall practice period. 69, he did one. 68, he did two. Because he's seven, he did one or two. How long was it from Portland trip until his death? Portland was, I think, like right now, this time of year, March, March 4th.

[61:00]

Do you recall? No, it's actually, the Portland trip was March 12th. 1971, almost exactly 25 years ago, as of Tuesday. So it was March 12th when he came back, or 13th, 14th, when he died on December 4th. It was the first day of the Rohatsu Sashi, the first morning So, the new abbot, Richard Baker, and I, I was his attendant. Susie Kirsch asked me to be his attendant, so I, he and I opened the zendo, and then after we opened the zendo, after the door opened, the priest's entrance opened in the zendo, I looked over and it was Oksana standing in the doorway, so I knew, I mean, I guessed what she was standing there for.

[62:10]

So we went up there, and he had just just died so he was cleaned up and he was brought into his doksan room and just laid out and we did a service for him right away and he was just lying there in his room from that time through the day into the early afternoon and then people came to offer incense to him there and many many many people came And then we took him to the mortuary, because in those days we followed the current contemporary Japanese way, which was to take him to the mortuary. So we took him to the mortuary and did that kind of, whatever you call that, commercial scene. And then brought him back to Zen Center, where he was in a casket for the rest of the week.

[63:15]

And then we had a funeral ceremony. Again, many people came. And then we took him to a crematorium. And he was cremated. And his ashes then were brought, some of his ashes were brought back to Japan. And also, I I remember that somebody asked him on one of his, on that visit where he came back, you know, and they asked, he said, oh, no, no, when he went back in 1970, he went back in the fall of 1970, and people asked him, is there anything you'd like him to do? And he said, yes, I'd like you to repair the Abbott's, the Abbott's Cemetery, where the Abbott's are buried, to repair that. The cemetery was kind of in disrepair, so they repaired it. And then a little bit more than a year later, his ashes were taken back there and put in his position there.

[64:27]

And then in 1973, we put his ashes in a place there at Tassajara. And again, I had the good fortune to be able to work on putting a rock up there. Dan Welch and I built a big rock up there at his ashes site. We built underground. touches container So it was as you said Sonoma 17 it's another mountain city. Yes, I think so How did you move that rock? Well, we pulled it out of the side creek there, which is behind the reservoir where we get our water. And when you drive in, it was behind there. We pulled it out with a hand winch, a 6,000-pound hand winch.

[65:29]

Pulled it out by hand until we got it up where a truck winch could get a hold of it. And then... and then pulled it over to the road with the truck winch and then put it on a sled and dragged it from there over to the base of the mountain. Base of the, not the mountain, but the hogback. And then he and I stopped working and another crew spent a month pulling it up the side of the hill in various ways, bringing it up there. And then when they got it up there, then we came back in the job and we built a tripod and we winched it up in the tripod And then you get up on a tripod and then you connect the stone by another winch to a tree or something. And then you pull the stone over a little bit in the hair. And you have it hanging from pulling and you let it down so it moves over a little bit. And then you move the tripod over and lift it up and then you pull it in the hair and then let it down.

[66:32]

and it moves overseas, and that way you can move it. And also that way you can move it over rocks, you can lift up over things so you don't destroy what's in the path of it. If you just drag it, you would destroy the stuff in the way. He had already done some rock work there himself and specified where he wanted his ashes sites, so we walked this rock over there and set it in place. That took about a month also. We did that in the summer. of 72 and then in the spring of 73 at the same one. So, yes? Did the Rahatsu session continue? It did, yes. It finished. It did. It followed his course. Did the Kassahara kill at the same time? I think there was, yeah. And it's interesting that he died upstairs lying down just as a hundred people started to sit.

[67:37]

So that's kind of his way. Rather than, he didn't do some big spectacular death in terms of his own personal thing, but he just simply let go. But when he let go, the session, the session started. So that was his life, you know? He had this wonderful, played this wonderful role in history to help Zen get started here in America. Yes? Did you feel when he died that you had got what you needed from him? The only way I can think of it is if a parent dies before the child feels like it is grown up and self-sufficient. Yes. Did you feel that you were grown up and self-sufficient in that way? I didn't, but I also felt like maybe I wouldn't grow up if you stayed around because it was so easy for me to be a little boy with my grandpa around.

[68:47]

So maybe, I don't know, in a way I would have liked to study with him and learn much more from him for many years. And one time I said to him, I said, Roshi, how come I don't have any problems with you? How come we never fight? And he said, well, we will. But then he died before we had a chance, so... I never grew up enough to have any struggle with him. To me, it was always just very easy and, you know, it was just all just great. So I never got over the honeymoon. I always wondered when it would happen, but he split before I got a chance to have a problem with him. So in that sense, he left too early for me because I never really could struggle with him, which I guess I would have done, maybe. So in that sense, he left too early, but On the other hand, then I had to grow up. So that was the other side of it.

[69:51]

I don't know if a teacher ever dies. Well, I think sometimes a teacher dies not too early. But this particular lineage, sorry to say, has a tendency of people dying a little on the early side. So be careful. Don't waste time. Somebody may be gone before you've finished. But, you know, I do sometimes wish he was around just for a little while. I have a few questions for him. He talked about that, but I never asked him what he meant. I feel kind of bad about a few things like that, but... I feel that way about some other people. I feel that way about Shakyamuni Buddha and Dogen, too. I wish I could talk to them just for a little while. I don't exactly want them to be around anymore, but I just have a few questions. I can ask them. We'll just see them just for a second, you know.

[70:54]

Just see them. We don't have to talk. Wouldn't it be nice to see Shakyamuni Buddha just for a little while? Oh, wow. I don't know. But that's the spiritual thing, so in some way, you know, Shakyamuni Buddha said, if you, you know, practice all virtues, and you're upright, and you're gentle, harmonious, you will see me teaching the Dharma right now. So, we can see the Buddha somehow. The real Buddha, if we really practice wholeheartedly, thoroughly, harmoniously, gently, we can see the Buddha right now. And if we didn't practice that way, even if the Buddha walked in, we wouldn't be able to see.

[71:58]

So it's pretty clear what our job is. So you want to do it for a little while, before we go to bed? Mm-hmm. Stand up and stretch for a second, then sit down. Uh-huh. Do you remind me? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Chubby, puffy-looking guy. Shida Roshi, the person who came and taught us sewing. When we first started sewing these robes, you know, in the traditional way, she was our first sewing teacher. She's a roshi. She has a monastery. She teaches mostly women, but she has some men students. But there's a women Zen teacher. There's been women Zen teachers all along because they've had, you know, monasteries with women teachers. But it's true that the most famous teachers are men.

[73:02]

But here we have a bunch of women, so you know, in 40 years we could have some great teachers here. If anybody has any questions about tomorrow morning's schedule, I can answer them.

[75:11]

It's the usual early morning sitting and informal breakfast tomorrow. And then there's a class here tomorrow morning on Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And then, with which I think we'll show some videotapes of Suzuki Roshi. And then meditation after that. at 9, classes at 8, and then 9.25, or 9.20, a meditation in the zendo, and then talk in the zendo, and then question and answer. I'll talk in the zendo, then tea here, then question and answer back in the zendo, then lunch, and then a final session probably here. Yes. On the practice period, people are not covered to the final session, are they? I just want to clarify that. I guess not. I guess you have to wash dishes or something. You just have to wash dishes for 15 minutes and then the chair is done.

[76:13]

Yeah, they're at work. Many things. Busy things. I just think everybody wasn't clear about that. Right. What time is it? What time, how long is the last session? About an hour. Is it one? One to two? Does that work? One to two? Are there any refugees here? at Khan's community. So he goes to Tassajara where we're walking around in black robes. The next scene is like these bare-breasted women in Arizona in the sunlight. A hard sell. But they also made a separate film of that section called Zen in America.

[77:25]

and I think, you know, if that company is still in existence, then you'd be able to buy that one video. What's new? Actually, I don't know if you can buy the video or if you buy the film. And you might also be able to, you could ask Zen Center, you can make a copy of the Zen Center video. I might let you do that. So you contact the Zen Center office. Anyway, it's a commercial film, so you could also get the film. Richard? I remember seeing on television once a film that was up in Tassajara and one sequence was showing some people in a stream making different rhythms with rocks. I think that was a KQED film. A film made by KQED. I'm not sure. Is that right? Yeah. I think it's a film Filmed by KQED. And it's not, that's not commercially available.

[78:29]

But if you wanted to see it, you already did see it. Right? That was a long time ago. Yeah. Do you remember where you saw it? Did you see it on television? Did you see it on television? Yeah. Yeah. KQED. That was in 1968. Are those available for viewing here? Yeah, so if you want to, next time we're going to show them, we might call you. If you want to, we'll call you up and tell you that we're showing them and come watch them. I don't know. They might be showing them. There's something more in class we might show them. I don't know. We'll find out. How did that morning class go? Huh? I like the way she's teaching. Very interesting. One really beautiful way for people to personally access the writing. I've never, actually I've never seen anything like that.

[79:32]

I won't teach that much again. It was also wonderful to see Suzuki Roshi's face hundreds of hours now in the archive project we're doing. And when I saw his face I started crying. Every moment is perfect. He's such a radiant human being. I thought she did a very careful integration of the two groups. When I came in, I was aware that I was sitting in with someone else's class. And at the beginning, she asked those of us in her workshop if we had special memories of things that you had told us about Suzuki. And after that, I felt like it was one career. I thought that was very skillful on her part.

[80:34]

I suggested to her she had very much welcoming you all. When I first suggested, she thought what I was suggesting was that she send her class to our group and that I teach them. Then I said, no, no, I want the workshop to join your class. She said, oh. So, Catching really hard, in some ways, to watch, laughing like them. Because you could see the disintegration, and pain, and suffering, and everything. And then when he smiled, I just, I don't know, I was crying. I couldn't see him.

[81:39]

So weird. At first I was frustrated by the absence of a soundtrack, and then that quickly gave way to gratitude, because then I began hearing things that I'd forgotten about that we'd been talking about over the past two days. Oh, yeah. It formed a really nice backdrop just to see the man and to see his mouth moving, and all that's been going on here was on the tape. It was really sweet. It was also nice to hear his talk this morning and find out what he would take when he was speaking. It was so simple.

[82:39]

Was that his normal way for many of his talks to speak so simply? It really wasn't all that simple. It certainly seemed so as he was speaking, but as I was trying to reconstruct the discussion afterwards, there was a lot of... It was really a fairly complex subject that he was treating. Well, I think you too show that his teaching could be very simple, and also very profound or complex at the same time. When he was alive, I read Zen Mind and Beginner's Mind, and I thought, I just put it down. I didn't read it. Come up close, Renee. And I didn't read it because, of course, he was there, right? And I thought also, I thought, well, this is kind of like beginner stuff.

[83:45]

But then later when I read it, After he died, I realized he actually was going very deep in all those talks. So there are these two levels. Kind of like, in some ways, a very concrete, often very concrete and simple level, and a very deep level at the same time, with lots of philosophical sophistication in the background. Sometimes the philosophical sophistication came up to the foreground, though, occasionally. But a lot of times it was in the background, and it was something simple. in the foreground. So he's, you know, I think it's a matter of priority that better to do something very grounded and simple than something quite sophisticated that's not grounded. If you can do both, well, that's good too. But everybody can do the basic thing, though. So that's the main thing, that's universal.

[84:49]

Not everybody can be kind of like a doctor of the church, so to speak. But some doctors of the church, if they lose track with the basis, it's kind of confusing. And it's better if they would ground themselves before they would talk about certain things that are fairly, perhaps abstract.

[85:11]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_78.06