So that ends our afternoon session and we'll start again at seven o'clock this evening and we're going to show the primary viewing of these five short documentary clips that have been made using the old archival material of Suzuki Roshi and some interviews. I think it's one of the highlights of the conference to see these clips and then also be some time for telling stories of Suzuki Roshi. We have two hours for dinner. There I think out in the hallway, maybe on the counter there, there's some Xerox like this which lists a whole bunch of almost too many choices of restaurants you can go to if you want that are relatively close by. The closest is just to go down the street here, Embarcadero, to the town and country shopping center. And the speakers and some other people, senior students, have been invited to dinner that

[01:04]

we're hosting and if those of you who've been invited to dinner, could you please come outside and meet me in the courtyard right now? And all of those of you who are not invited to dinner, could you please let them go? And not hold on to them or have a last word with them. And I greatly appreciate that. And also, if I could talk to Melanie, please. Thank you. So, this evening is to somehow speak or evoke the playful, the joyful, the inspiring side of Suzuki Roshi, in part with stories by some of his older students. And also, with great dedication and great effort, a group of students and a professor

[02:10]

from San Francisco State, as a class project for this semester, took all the old archival material that I could find about Suzuki Roshi, the audio tapes, the photographs that we could find, the film footage that does exist of him, and together with some interviews. And each of the students made a five, six-minute kind of creative presentation about something about Suzuki Roshi in the best of their understanding. And I think it's one of the great things that's happened out of this conference, is the creation of these wonderful little documentary clips. The students did a really remarkable job with something I thought would not be so easy. So, it's a real pleasure to me that we're going to show those. And the plan for this evening is to show three of them first, and there's a short ten-second gap between each one, so you know that's what's happening. And then Mel Weitzman is going to moderate this period of time when some of the older

[03:15]

students of Suzuki Roshi will talk a little bit about this side of him that I'm trying to evoke this evening, what I call the joyful mind. Or they'll talk about whatever they want. We don't know. I don't know. And then at the very end, there's two more of these film documentaries, and we'll end with the last two of them. And I end at about nine o'clock. So I wanted to lift the screen up now so that that's the photograph, right, that Yvonne was talking about. And she didn't know we were going to have it here. I was thinking of having her tell the story this evening. Well, now I would like to introduce five of my early Dharma brothers and sisters who

[04:18]

came to practice shortly after Bedi and Dala. And perhaps at the same time, the first person is Phil Wilson. And Phil, when I came to practice in 1964, he already had a very dynamic relationship with Suzuki Roshi. And I used to watch him. And his relationship with Suzuki Roshi, I used to love to watch him and his relationship to Suzuki Roshi, because he's a big guy. Stand up, Phil. I mean, this guy's tough. And 30 years ago, he was a lot younger. A football player, you know, and he could push it his way around.

[05:21]

But with Suzuki Roshi, he was so tender. Reverend Suzuki, I love you. He was afraid of Suzuki Roshi. So I used to watch this wonderful love affair that he had with Suzuki Roshi. And he was a great model for me in that time. And I was really devastated when he left Zen Center, when? 69, 69. 69, yeah, and it left a big hole for me. Anyway, I'm really happy to see him again. I haven't seen him for 20 years, until recently, 30, 25 years, something. So anyway... So anyway, each one of these people will have 10 minutes.

[06:37]

And Phil, you're first. I didn't know I was going to get so sentimental at that vow, please. There's a, one day Suzuki Roshi came up to me and he said, would you help me? And he was always, you know, these big hands, he had big, well-formed thumbs. And I was always amazed that he would always say, would you help me? You know, I knew that he was so capable and very, very, very capable guy.

[07:45]

And I said, yes, Reverend Suzuki, how can I help you? You want me to move some furniture? And he said, no, I'd like you to give a class, a lecture every Sunday to the Sunday school. Okay, well, the thing is, is I had a terrible condition of stage fright, even with the football. My first year, I was afraid to hit anyone in the line. I got stage fright. And in junior high school, they asked me to give a talk during my last semester there. And I wrote out my speech and I memorized it. And I got up in front of me and it was just a blur. And I looked out and I saw all these faces and I couldn't say anything.

[08:47]

And I didn't tell Reverend Suzuki about that. But he had a, like, a wavelength. And when he said, would you help me? I just said, well, yeah. So I said, well, okay. And so he said, well, go find something about the Buddha. And then we can use it with the children. So there was a store around the corner. I've forgotten the name of it, a wonderful bookstore. And they had lots of Japanese things there. And I went around and I found something called the Jakarta Tales. Jakarta Tales? And so they had all kinds of stories about the Buddha in different life forms. And how he had sacrificed his life and given himself to. So I brought it back and I showed him a little book. And he said, oh, that's fine. And so I memorized the story back and forth, back and forth.

[09:55]

And then when I came to give the talk, it was, we had been very terrible as a nation to the Japanese people. We had taken away their homes. And put them in camps. So these little kids, they said, I started to talk about the Buddha as a monkey king. And they said, the river Suzuki was sitting here. The altar was behind. And they said, as I started, they said, go home. The kids did. We don't want you. Go home, Yankee. So I felt pretty guilty about this Japanese thing.

[10:58]

And I didn't say anything. I looked over at Reverend Suzuki and he had that, what do you call it? Nyorai or the little step? Nyoi. He had it in his hand. He said, that meant, go on, give the talk. So I started again. And the kids in the front row were all relaxed. They said, go home. Go home. And I looked over at Reverend Suzuki and he said, go home. And so in my mind, I thought, well, they're perfectly right to tell me to leave. Because, I mean, look, you know, this old gaijin here. Look what we did to them. But he said, go on. So I did. And Reverend Suzuki came for about a month. We would sit there. It took that long. And I would give the talk.

[11:59]

And then this thing stretched out for about six months. And pretty soon the kids, you know, we'd do the incense thing. And, you know, pretty soon we were, they never, someone said, well, did they apologize? And I said, no. They just, we just began to get along. And then pretty soon Reverend Suzuki missed a couple times and then some more times. And pretty soon he wasn't there. And pretty soon I was giving the talks. And it went on like that. And then after a while the schedule changed. And so I stopped giving the talks. And so that was it. But he had the ability to correct something that was misaligned within me in giving and sharing.

[13:00]

He had a way of putting you on the spot without really putting you on the spot. And making it a natural, a very natural situation. And so you should be grateful that, you know, at least I can finish this story. Is that it? One thing I forgot to say when I was introducing Phil was that I remember Suzuki Roshi taking his nyoi and beating Phil and saying, Ego! Ego! Big Ego! It was wonderful.

[14:09]

The next person is Graham Pitchey who, when I came to Zen Center, there was Graham sitting stock still, totally upright in full lotus position. And I was totally blown away by that. And he was really a role model for me until he left. So I was on my own after that. But I want to introduce Graham. Good evening. When I was first asked to come here this evening and give a little talk, I had no idea of how many people were going to be here, what kind of people, what the purpose of the meeting was. But that didn't really faze me that much.

[15:18]

But when Gil said, joyful mind, that became a problem. I started to think, how can I associate joyful mind with Suzuki Roshi? When I remember mainly blood, sweat and tears. Pain. Lots of pain. So I talked this over with my wife and said, I really don't think I can do this joyful mind with Suzuki Roshi. And she fortunately put me a little straight by saying that you're looking at only little bits of your life. If you think of the totality and then think of joyful mind, then you can speak. I first met Suzuki Roshi in 1961.

[16:25]

I think it was May. I had just arrived in California from Europe. And I had some idealized picture of what a Zen master should be and what Zen Buddhism is about. Of course, I had read Daisetsu Suzuki and studied the Koans and all of that. But I was anxious to meet a real one. I learned about the presence of Suzuki Roshi at Pine Street and went over there one evening while Evening Zazen was going on and sat in the office, waited until the session ended. I was shocked when the door opened and a group of people in blue jeans and sort of working shirts, Philip was one of them,

[17:25]

and then this very small man at the end of the line came out. And it was a completely different picture from what I had expected. I'm not saying I was disappointed, but I had no feeling or idea that this person was going to make such a profound difference to my life from that evening on. Since I had made the effort to come over to Pine Street, he kindly said, let's sit together. And he showed me the posture, which you know how uncomfortable that can be. And we sat together for about half an hour and then went back to the office

[18:30]

and I said to him, please tell me about Zen. I'd like to learn something about it. He said, fine, if you'll come here tomorrow morning at 5.45, then I will teach you about Zen. I said, you know, I'm married. 5.45? So I started going at 5.45 and after a couple of weeks I still hadn't learned anything about Zen. I was getting very impatient and went to him and said, you know, I've been coming for a couple of weeks and you haven't said a word to me. He said, oh no, you should come in the evening as well. So I started going morning and evening and of course Saturday and Sunday. And for session, instead of going on vacation, one went on winter session. And this went on for about two years and I still had not learned about Zen.

[19:39]

So I confronted him and he said, you know, I think you should go to AHA. So I took three months off my work and about one week before I was due to go to AHA, I said, you know, you haven't even ordained me yet. Oh, he said, no, I haven't. No, that's right. We better do that. So he called his wife as a witness and my wife as a witness. We had a short little ceremony. He said, well, now you're a priest, you know. And a few days later, I was on my way to Japan where I arrived and got straight on the train. I couldn't wait to get there. Took an overnight train and arrived in Fukui

[20:44]

to be met by Reverend Suzuki's son, who is here this evening. And I knew nothing. I didn't know how to eat with a rice bowl. I'd never worn an orkessa. I hardly knew a word of Japanese. And there I was, you know, going to enter AHA. The next three months were very, very painful and very, very difficult. Which included being hospitalized three times for malnutrition. I got a catalog of horrors, which I carefully wrote down. And I've kept that book to this day. Once in a while, I brought it out and thought, I'm going to burn it.

[21:46]

And I've been persuaded not to, but I've never, as yet, shown that book to anyone. But anyway, I only have a few minutes. So I came back from this three months and said to Suzuki Roshi, you know, that was pretty mean. He didn't teach me anything, you know. He said, no, but I want you to start giving lectures about it. He said, but not about those bad things you told me, you know. So I persisted with him for another year or so. And then I said, look, you know, it's been nearly four years. Still haven't told me what I'm doing. He said, you know, I really don't know what I'm doing. He said, you know, you should really go and study with someone who does know what they're doing.

[22:57]

So I said, you mean Japan again? He said, yes. So I told my wife that we were, I was going to Japan again. And she said, well, I'm coming with you then, in that case. And what I didn't know was that he'd had a talk with her before. And said, would you mind if Graham went to AHA for a year? You know, it wasn't long enough before. And apparently she'd agreed, you know. So anyway, he wrote the names of five people down. And said, these are the only people I know that may be able to help you. He said, but I only know Soto. I don't know Rinzai. But there are only these five. I left about probably six weeks after he had written down his five names.

[24:09]

I think when I arrived in Japan, two of the people had already died. One was too ill to take a student. The other lived in Shikoku. Anyway, I was fortunate, very fortunate indeed, in that one of them, Sawaki Kodoroshi, was just alive. And I was able to study with him for about two months before he died. As it sounds funny, but I'd given up my job, my life, my house. So it was back to AHA again for a longer period.

[25:15]

And eventually I sort of melted into Japan and never did come back. I mean, obviously I'm back now, but not for a good number of years. Anyway, this was not what Suzuki Roshi had intended for me. And I came to see him, well excuse me, I'm going ahead a little bit too fast. I was intending to come back. This was just before the Tassajara Project became a reality. I was in England and I received a letter from him saying, come back, we are going to build a temple. And two days before I got that letter, I had just signed a contract to go back to Japan. To start some schools. And I wrote to him and said, you know, I can come.

[26:22]

I don't like to let these people down, but this is very important. And he said, no, if you've said you will go, you should go. And I'm trying to cut this short here. We met from time to time. But our relationship became a little difficult in a different way. Since I had come to know the person who first taught him English. An English woman who lived in England when I was there. And I got to know her very well. And I heard lots of stories about Suzuki Roshi when he was a university student.

[27:23]

And later thereafter, he apparently had responded to her advertisement to be a houseboy. And took on that position in order that he could learn English. And as part of that experience, he in fact taught her something about Buddhism. And one of the stories I do remember very well was that he bought her a ceramic, I think it was Buddha. And put it in the tokonoma. And she was saying, you know, I really don't like that idol in my house. But she left it there. But one day she put her shoes in the same tokonoma as Buddha. And apparently this much angered Suzuki Roshi. But they had a good relationship, lasted quite a number of years. And he was talking about coming to England to meet with her.

[28:27]

And somehow he never got there. And he kept on writing. And somehow he never responded. And I went to see him at Sassahara with a special request from her. You know, just to write and respond. And somehow he could never bring himself to do it. And I don't know why, really, I digressed onto that story. But I think the last time I saw Suzuki Roshi in the United States was the time after I had begged him to write that letter. And he hadn't responded. And when he called me to see him, I actually didn't go. Anyway, out of all of the years which I did know him, and the people he introduced me to in other temples I studied at in Japan,

[29:30]

really did, in the end, bring me great joy and fulfillment and I shall forever, ever be grateful to that wonderful person. Thank you. Next will be my Dharma brother, Ed Brown. We spent a lot of time together at Sassahara in the early 60s and 70s. Late 60s and early 70s. And with Suzuki Roshi. And I think you all know him pretty well, so I don't really have to give much of an introduction. Come on. Good evening.

[30:32]

I like what Phil said about how Suzuki Roshi could put you on the spot, but not exactly. So I thought I'd just tell you a simple thing he did to me. I was in his cabin one time at Sassahara and I was having a lot of trouble with anger. Actually, I wasn't having so much trouble with it, but the other people at Sassahara were. I thought it was good to be sincere and if you felt angry, to be angry. And not kind of try to cover it or something. Or repress it. I mean, this is America. But anyway, I was talking with him one night and he said, Well Ed, you can get angry if you want, but don't. I'm not sure if my timing was quite right there, but his timing was impeccable and he was so polite.

[31:39]

I felt such permission. You can get angry if you want. Don't. I had heard, now someone said earlier today that I'm expected to tell you about the pickle story. So I thought I'd tell you the pickle story. I don't remember when I heard this exactly, but the Suzuki Roshi told us that when he was at his teacher's temple as a young boy, we heard in the movie when he went at the age of 13, that they used to make pickles in the springtime. They'd harvest the daikon, the long white radishes, and then put them in salt and nuka, rice bran, to pickle. And one year, some of the pickles, they didn't get enough salt in part of the batch. So if you don't get enough salt, the salt is what draws the water out and the salt goes in and preserves the pickles. So some of the pickles were kind of rotten. And we used to make these at Tassajara, and I can assure you that when they're not good, they're very bad.

[32:41]

Anyway, his teacher served them anyway, because this is a Zen way to do it. You don't waste things. And of course, little boys, they all kind of turned up their noses, and they weren't eating them. But the pickles kept coming out, and so finally Suzuki Roshi had this kind of a brainstorm, and so he took the pickles one night after dark to the far corner of the garden and buried them. This was meant to take care of the problem, you know. And unfortunately, the next day they were on the table again. And his teacher didn't say, now who did this? And he didn't know whether his teacher knew who did it or not. He just said, okay, now there's nothing else to eat until you eat the pickles. And he said, I had to just chew and swallow.

[33:48]

Chew and swallow. Because if I thought anything, I'd have to spit it out. So he said, that was my first experience of no thought. Well, anyway, so now that I've started on the food theme, I thought, okay, I'll go with the food theme. So I want to tell you about the time that we... Well, a little background, you have to understand that Suzuki Roshi, as you saw in the movie, a little bit like him, he's a little bit like me. He worked a lot with rocks, and he always had his eye out for rocks, and he was quite adept at fitting rocks together. And his garden at Tassajara, he built the garden, and then after a while, he took it apart and started over again. So if he saw something to do differently, he'd just start over. It wasn't like you get it done and then you're finished.

[34:51]

So that was interesting. Anyway, and I worked with him for a while with rocks, and sometimes you'd chisel the corner off the rock so it would fit in place, and you'd do various things to get everything to work. Well, this one time when I was the Tenzo at Tassajara, I was baking potatoes. And the background of this is that we ate a lot of brown rice because there was about a third of Tassajara that was fanatically macrobiotic. Macrobiotics, you know, used to say that if you eat right, you would be peaceful. And apparently it's true because when they didn't get the food that was right, they were extremely angry. And they would kind of storm the kitchen. You know, like, I had had complaints for a while, like, the oatmeal's too soupy. You know, it's not hearty enough. We're doing physical work.

[35:54]

You know, we were digging septic tanks by hand. And then other people would come in and say, the oatmeal is too thick. You know, you have to chew it. And so one morning I thought, I will do this nice thing and put raisins in the oatmeal. And then the macrobiotics all stormed the kitchen and said, why are you poisoning us? Because raisins have too much sugar, which they called yin. So anyway, this is just to let you know that I hadn't cooked any potatoes in Tassajara in months. And so I decided for the last dinner of a sasheen to have baked potatoes. So we got them in the oven. And I had about an hour and a half or more to cook. And then I didn't understand if you put a lot of potatoes in. You put one or two at home in your little oven, it cooks. But you fill up these ovens with, you know, 100 or 200 potatoes or something. It takes a lot of heat. And then when the bell rings, the food is served. And since then I went to a Tibetan center where when the food is ready, the bell is rung.

[37:06]

So in the Zen tradition, the stress is all on the cook. So the potatoes anyway didn't get done. And it was time for dinner, so we served them. And a lot of people were very excited. Macrobiotics say potatoes, deadly nightshade, you know. But a lot of people were excited because many of us love potatoes. They didn't realize that these potatoes were like little rocks. And for the orioke bowls, you know, we have a little spoon, which was, we had a little metal spoon and then we had a pair of chopsticks. So then I was watching from the back of the Zendo. Because I wanted to see what Suzuki Roshi would do with his potato. And he picked up his, he was so polite, you know. And he picked up his spoon and he went to get a piece of potato. And the spoon just bounced, you know, kind of off the potato.

[38:14]

He was kind of bemused. And he kind of looked at it. And then he picked up his chopstick and poked a hole in the potato. And then moved it over a little bit, poked another hole. Poked three or four holes across the potato. And then took his spoon and chiseled off a piece of potato. And then picked it up and ate it. So he managed to eat his whole potato. Lots of the potatoes ended up in the wash water. Well, I'm going to give you a little aside. Slightly off the food theme. But one time at Tassara someone, a student asked Suzuki Roshi, Why haven't you enlightened me yet? Which I thought was rather impolite. And he said, I'm making my best effort.

[39:18]

In situations like that he would be quite polite for the most part. Oh, so that's reminding me anyway. You know, for a while there at Tassara, when I first got there, people had been there for a while before I got there. I was going to be the cook. And they said, well, for breakfast with our cereal, we serve milk and half and half and canned milk. Because some people don't like the regular milk. This is before, you know, low fat milk. People wanted, if anything, higher fat milk. And then some people like white sugar. And then there's people who want brown sugar. And then people who don't want sugar at all. And they want honey or molasses. So we would be serving about seven different condiments for breakfast. Which worked out all right when it was family style. We're sitting around a table. And then we started eating in the zendo. One of the first zendo's at Tassara, when we started doing that was in what's now the dining room. And we just rebuilt it. So I was thinking about this when I was down at Tassara.

[40:27]

So we figured out that you, you know, it's hard to pass seven condiments down a row of like ten or twelve people. You know, that takes a lot of time. And then your food's getting cold. And so we figured out finally that you should have like a set of condiments for every three people. Or it will take too long. So then we'd have these big trays with the seven condiments. One tray with three condiments. Another tray with four. One with the milks. One with the sugars. So we were going through this whole rigmarole. And it was a lot of work, you know, because then you have to clean all those things afterwards. And you have to fill them ahead of time. So one morning after breakfast, we heard Suzuki Roshi wants everyone to come in because he's going to give a little talk. And then essentially he said, I don't understand you Americans. You know, when you put all that milk and sugar on your cereal, I don't understand how you can taste the true spirit of the grain. And, you know, you can't make everything in your life taste the way you want it to. So we went back to the kitchen and celebrated.

[41:34]

And David was there. And we decided, okay, sesame salt from now on. The one and only condiment. Why don't you taste the true spirit of the grain? So one more story. I wanted just to, you know, people have mentioned various things about Suzuki Roshi's presence. So when we used to serve in the Zendo, we often felt, I felt very well charmed and touched. And I was very careful when I served Suzuki Roshi, very respectful. And he would just bow and then his bowl would be right there. And then I would serve him, it wouldn't be any problem. And one time in a Sashin, at the end of a Sashin, we know we have that Shosan ceremony and someone said, what do you feel when I serve you in the Zendo? And he said, I feel like you're offering me your entire being,

[42:39]

your perfect, your most perfect love. And I felt that way, you know, and he got it. But he elicited that from us, you know. And then, and then after once I served Suzuki Roshi, I decided, you know, I had heard that in Zen, you know, we were very, you move quickly and you don't, you know, you throw yourself into the activity. So I thought, I thought I could do that better than the person across the Zendo from me. So I would kind of race the person on the other side of the meditation hall to see who could get down to the row the first. And when you're doing that, then it's a concern, not whether you're serving the person, but can they get their bowl up quickly enough to help you? And would they not be so fussy about what they want? And they, they want not the liquid, but the, you know, more of that. And then could they just have a little bit more and, you know. So I had something to criticize about everybody

[43:40]

after I had finished serving Suzuki Roshi. And I did get down the row usually faster than the person across the way. And if it was, if I didn't, you know, it's because of the people I was serving, not because of, but anyway, one day I thought, well, what's really the difference between Suzuki Roshi and everyone else? And I couldn't think of any real answer. So then I thought, well, why don't I just serve everybody as though they are Suzuki Roshi? And why don't I, you know, be that kind and careful serving each person? So little by little, you know, at first, by the third person, I'd be back in my old habit. But eventually I could just serve each person and go down the row one by one. So I think that's part of, again, that's something to do just with his presence.

[44:44]

Well, I think that's about it. I have lots of other stories, but that's probably been about 10 minutes. Thank you. Thank you.

[45:02]

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