And I was fond of him, just a minute, let me, I'm recording, we're recording the music meeting, it's okay. And so I reached out my hand and he kind of withdrew and held up his hands like this. And there was kind of a little flash, I believe, of disapproval on his face. Like, no, this is the way we do it. And so of course I did the same thing, and then that was it. But afterwards, I felt like that was really uptight. You know, I'm reaching out my hand to shake your hand, you can just shake my hand. You know, you don't be so rigid that you have to do a Buddhist bow. Because, you know, I'm new and I haven't been around much. But then at the same time, I had the feeling that I appreciate how strongly he believes in what he's doing and wants to set a standard for some kind of training that he feels is important.

[01:03]

Even though I think it's a little silly to get carried away with that, I also appreciate his determination. So it was a mixed feeling of both of those emotions. And I think both of those emotions are actually true. I think he was being a little uptight. And I think that also he was really maintaining his sense of what he thought would be good leadership. Another instance that happened there was, I lived downstairs with Patrick McMahon and Albert Benoit. And we got along pretty well. And Melvin lived upstairs. And we wanted to smoke some marijuana. So we didn't want to do it covertly. So we went and asked him, we said, how would you feel if we smoked some marijuana downstairs a little bit? I'm not getting carried away with it. And he didn't really want to say yes

[02:03]

and he didn't want to say no. He obviously wasn't enthusiastic about it, but he didn't want to say no. So that's what he conveyed. He didn't say it in words, but what he conveyed was, I don't want to say yes, but I also don't want to say no. And I appreciated that. In a way, it's the opposite of the first experience that he was loose enough to permit us to do something that he really didn't feel that great about, but that he didn't want to be the authority figure who was saying no in this particular case. And then recently working on his book with Kika and him, there's a whole chapter or a bit in his memoir that goes with the lectures, where he talks about his involvement with marijuana when he was much younger and how he was really consumed with marijuana for a while. And so he had that kind of experience.

[03:04]

He grew up, he was in North Beach during the whole North Beach scene and artists and so forth. So he was quite into that. But then at some point, he just let go of it totally. He never did it again. He just made a decision that he didn't want to go down that path and he just stopped doing it. Next story is when we transitioned to Russell Street from Dwight Way in 1979, he had been spending at least a year or two driving around Berkeley on his bicycle, looking for a place that we could actually own because we couldn't really buy the place we were in. He didn't want to sell it. And we found one place that was, he spent a lot of time doing that and put a lot of energy into it. And then the one place that we really tried to get, he found down on 8th Street, I believe it was. It just didn't work out. We couldn't get it, even though the people who were selling it were just very wonderful people themselves,

[04:06]

but it just didn't work out. So he was kind of disappointed. And then it just happened that a woman who was kind of peripheral part of the song I mentioned, she knew about this Russell Street property that the owner wanted to sell it to a group that would kind of maintain it as a cohesive four unit property, not just four separate rental units. So that's the only way we knew about it. And I went by and I think a couple of other people and said, this really looked good. We told him about it. He wasn't that interested in it. I mean, I think he went and looked at it too, but my feeling was that he was disappointed that he wasn't able to find it. Now, I'm just projecting that. So I thought there was some ego there. Why would he be excited about this? But he was kind of muted about his enthusiasm for it. But he didn't say no. He said, well, if you wanna get everybody to go by there and look at it and tell me what they think about it, then we can go take a look at it.

[05:08]

But it was sort of like, okay, you do the work to bring it forward and then I'll respond. Whereas before he had been the one going out and really searching. So of course he followed through on that. And as soon as people came back and said, yeah, that looks great. Then he was totally willing to go and look at it. And it was happily ever after. But it's interesting to me how there was some resistance there that I felt in his enthusiasm because he wasn't the one to have found it. That's just my projection. I can't be sure of that. And the last one I think I would say is, there's several more, but... Just an interesting practice he had after lectures for quite a long time. When he gave a lecture on Saturday, immediately afterwards, after having tea with people, he would go down to the flea market and spend an hour down there, just wandering around and come back,

[06:10]

not usually with anything. He just liked being in that atmosphere of being in the flea market after the lecture. And he did that for years and years. That was his habit. And I just always appreciated the fact that after doing his formal lecture about Zen, he just wanted to go to the marketplace and just hang out and just enjoy the scene. And lastly, I'd just say, working on, maybe one, two, a little more, that he was always, when Kika and I have worked on this book with him for the last eight months or so, and having meetings with him weekly, more or less, and he's really enjoyed it. And it's given me some insight into his life and his memoir in particular that I think everybody will be interested in when it finally comes out, hopefully. But it really delighted me that he was enjoying it.

[07:13]

And he had a very colorful life. There's a lot that we don't know that's in this book about the different phases he went through before he came to Zen Center. And he had a very colorful life. And he really, it gave me a lot of appreciation for his dedication. You can see it early on, it just isn't focused on Zen, but it's a very spiritual dedication. And he's looking for an outlet for that somehow. And he finds it with Suzuki Roshi. So, seeing his enthusiasm about reliving his life like that as he was basically dying over the last year or approaching that, it was very satisfying to me that he could enjoy that and kind of relive his life with some people assisting him and being interested in that. So, I think I'll stop there, but it just, all I wanna say is I have their memories of him

[08:15]

and they usually involve something was just a little bit friction and it's a question, but always there's a feeling of something very positive and strong in his deepest motivation, which I always, always trusted and still trust. Thank you so much, Ron. Thank you so much. Am I still unmuted? Yes. Thank you. That was really interesting. Yeah, more stories about Dwight Way. But our next speaker is going to be Bicah Pratt-Heaton who was a resident here. And when I moved in, she was already here. Hi, everybody. Go ahead, Bicah. It's kind of weird that I can't see people. Hang on a second. Let me do gallery view. Oh, that's better. I don't need to look at myself. Well, I do need to look at myself.

[09:18]

I'll take a break from it at the moment. It's okay. Thank you, Ron. It's really good to see you. So I wanted to talk about really what Mel created in a way and what that meant to me. So, you know, my relationship to him was really, he was just always my Zen teacher. There was, he had no interest in my psychology, but that was kind of a big force in my life when I got to the Zen Do. I just wanted to read a couple of things that I wrote about two different things, which have to do with the Zen Do and then kind of the culture of the Zen Do and how that affected me.

[10:21]

So the first one is I came to the BCC in 1987. I lived over on Alcatraz Avenue at the time, and I walked there. I was really anxious in anticipation of going there. Someone suggested I should go see his friend Mel because I was, you know, looking for some way to settle my life. It was a really, really windy day, and I almost decided to go back home. So I sometimes I think about that moment and my whole life would have been completely different if I had gone back home and not pressed on, walking against a furious wind. And finally reached the gate, the same gate that's there today. And to the right of the gate was the tiniest of signs. I mean, it was like this big, the Berkeley Zen Do, maybe smaller. I thought, wow, not big on advertising, I guess.

[11:24]

So I went in the gate and it was really, really quiet there. I mean, it really felt different when I went into the gate and there was nothing going on. Of course, it was during the week, during the day. It just felt really different to me, like foreign, it felt foreign. And I wandered around a bit, not knowing what to expect. I was just like there in the middle of the week. No, nothing's going on, I'm just wandering around. I'm sure it's happened a million times. People just walk in there, they wander around. Somehow they find a way to connect with somebody or contact the temple. At the time we had a message machine in the community room, which it was somebody's responsibility to answer all those calls, but that happening was kind of rare. So you could call and say, I'd like more information,

[12:28]

but it was really kind of a crap shoot whether you'd hear back or not. So a young woman happened along and greeted me and gave me a brochure and then disappeared. And I found out later her name was Shlomid and she was one of the residents. So that was kind of my first bit of time there. So another little story is, I was told by Bob Yannis, let this go on record, I should go to Dokusan once a week. So that's what I did. I signed up for Dokusan once a week. And I'd go there and I always told Mel, I don't really have much to say. And he'd say, that's okay, that's okay. So I would basically, I would just sit there with him for a little bit and then leave. That was my Dokusan.

[13:29]

So I did that for about a year. And then I found out that most people don't go to Dokusan every week. And somebody thought that was really funny. When they're like, you're going to Dokusan once a week. So anyway, back then we didn't, most people didn't go to Dokusan once a week, but it was good for me because somehow during that time, as I remember it, I was aligning myself kind of neurobiologically to his calm. So it really helped me to calm down, just spending that time with him and not really not saying anything at all. So about Dokusan, my first Dokusan I'll never forget. So I remember knocking on the door and I was following the instructions that Bob Janicek gave me, or Robert. And I remember knocking on the door and I remember the bell ringing.

[14:31]

And to this day, I don't remember how I got sitting in front of him. I remember kind of whoosh in my ears. So I know it sounds kind of weird, but it was this kind of mystical experience where whoosh, I was just right in front of him like that. And I have no memory of bowing to my cushion or doing any of that stuff that we usually do when we go to Dokusan. And so I often had these kinds of experiences with him and I didn't talk about it much because it can sound kind of woo-woo to some people. He gave me the name Baika after many times of going to Dokusan and not talking to him about much. I eventually did open up to him and let him know where I came from and what kind of happened to me before I got to Zen Center. And I think that's why he gave me the name Baika because Baika sort of represent courage.

[15:32]

And even though they've been through great suffering and they're tender and there's frost on the ground, they still come out. So I think he was just kind of giving me a high five for persevering, even though I'd been through so much before I got to Zen Center. And that really was kind of colored my whole practice was this trauma that I had that I was kind of constantly dealing with. But being at the Zen Do and the practices, a lot of people don't like the form so much, but we did so much training with Mel around chanting and whatever, chanting, bowing, ringing bells, doing orioke. And it was really a place where I could settle and have some focus and just let all that stuff. I just let go of all that stuff in those moments. So I was really drawn to the forms

[16:36]

because they were so healing for me. And so that's kind of been my, you know, my practice has been very much form-centered. And then mostly I related to him through Zen Do projects. I would just come up with an idea and present it to him and the practice committee. And he never really, you know, he was very encouraging, but it was always kind of, you know, off to the side. I don't really know how to explain it. It wasn't like, hey, good job. It was more like him somehow expressing to me. And I, you know, when I talk about myself, I feel like I'm talking about everybody there expressing to me how I was part of this wonderful thing that we were doing. Like I was really part of that. And it's just the Berkeley Zen Do,

[17:37]

what Mel created helped me have a life and something that was wholesome and good and made me feel good inside, even though I had all this other stuff to deal with and I still do. So I'm just eternally grateful. And there's all sorts of funny stories I could tell, but mostly they're just, you know, things that I enjoyed or went through or passed through. So besides that, I just set my mind to practice and showing up in the Zen Do and, you know, the garden and cooking and all of that stuff. And it just really, really, really helped me. So with that, I think that's about all I have. Thank you so much, Bicah.

[18:42]

Thank you. It's really good to see all the old people and all the new people. Yeah, yeah. We can hardly wait to share our physical space with people who haven't been there yet, the new people who've been studying with us. Oh yeah, yeah. Thank you. Okay, yeah. So I will go next. And, you know, I've been using this metaphor of the daughter-in-law for, you know, my feeling for Sojin. I moved in not to be at Berkeley Zen Center, but to be with Alan. And, you know, I had a teacher. And so, you know, I was kind of like a daughter-in-law and he was so welcoming. And, you know, it was just very, he was just always so matter-of-fact for me, you know, like, you know, just like, well, where shall we meet?

[19:43]

Where can we meet? You know, however, let's just meet wherever we can, you know, and I certainly, he was a teacher for me and I went to Dokusan and all that. And so he always, I just felt like he made space for me and, you know, corrected me. He just treated me sort of like, he took me at face value is, you know, what I can say, which was, you know, and it just was really a nice experience. And, you know, I know he thought I was way too permissive of a mother. And, you know, he just always, there was always a sense of a dance. There was never a coming down or a rigidity, I felt like, you know. And one of the things that I admired about him the most, oh, so actually before I get to that though, you know, it took me a while to figure out what was going on at Berkeley Zen Center

[20:45]

because I'd spent, you know, eight years at San Francisco Zen Center, part in the city and part at Paso Hara. And it was kind of like as a daughter-in-law, it's like if you marry into a family that is really, really way nicer than your family that you were born into, maybe not way nicer, but at least, you know, everything was on this scale, this very manageable scale, whereas at Zen Center, like everybody's moving, it's really hard to make friends, people are always moving on, you know. It just felt like this very manageable scale. And you didn't really, it was hard to see what Mel was doing until you really observed these tiny little elements of the way he created Berkeley Zen Center. And one of the things, and you know, in particular, the way he was so available to people was just like unheard of at San Francisco Zen Center that you would like go by Richard Baker's or Reb's cabin,

[21:49]

you know, anytime, you know, it just was totally unheard of. And in particular, this thing that where the cooks, when you cook for breakfast or sashimi, you would go to have a little encounter with him after the meal. And I know that some people have framed that to me as like going in and getting, whether you get a thumbs up or a thumbs down, like having some evaluation, but I never took it that way. I was like, whoa, you get to have an encounter with the abbot? You know, it just seemed so amazing, you know, and kind of almost like Koan-like or something, like you could have some kind of amazing encounter about the food, you know? And just in little ways like that, little ways that I began to see how he kind of directed things. And he listened to people. He was not as, you know,

[22:51]

and many people have talked about him like he was definitely a strong leader and he wanted everything to go through him and needed, you know, to have his way and such. But for me, coming from this other environment, he seemed very flexible actually. And one of the things that I was most impressed with him was his way he was at a meeting, which is, for some of us, is kind of like the Waterloo of a Zen student is to be at some kind of meeting, like a board meeting or a practice committee meeting or something, you know? It just feels like we are sort of conflict-averse and we didn't really know how to do that. And I just watched him and I was just so impressed with the way he would take everything in. And it wasn't like he ignored, it's like if there was some heat, if people were getting upset, you know?

[23:52]

It wasn't like he ignored that. It's like he took that in as information and just processed it. But he never, rarely was thrown off himself that I saw. And he would sort of be completely quiet through the entire meeting. You know, this is not every single meeting, but I experienced this a lot over 30 years, you know? Take everything in and at the very end of the meeting, he'd just say something very grounded and pointed and appropriate and helpful, you know? And I just, I was really impressive to me. And, you know, I remember this one particular meeting where we got very heated and he and I were on one, both agreeing and a lot of the other people were disagreeing and it was very, it was extremely contentious. And afterward, I sort of went up to him

[24:57]

and admitted like that, you know, I'm really not sure I'm right or something along those lines. He goes, yeah, me neither. You know, like he was totally, you know, he was just so, he just was so matter of fact about things. And it was never, I mean, you know, falsely calm or overly taking things personally, but he just really was listening when people would get upset. He's like, oh, that's interesting. So-and-so's getting upset. That's information for me, you know? And he took everything in and sort of processed it and didn't say a lot always. So I just really admired him and, you know, I wanna be more like that at a meeting where, you know, you're taking people in and you're sort of taking people for what they're, as information, you know, for yourself to think about, to come to your own understanding.

[25:58]

He would come, he would take time, you know, Mel was just always feeling his way. He was not, he did not think programmatically. He did not think about pros and cons. He was, it seemed to me like he was always just feeling his way and he would take things in. And then when he knew what he wanted to say, he would say it. And it was really, for someone who'd been in a fair number of meetings, I was on the San Francisco Zen Center board and, you know, went during a really contentious time. So I'd been to a lot of contentious meetings by the time I got here. We didn't have such contentious meetings, but, you know, people do get needed sometimes. And I just really like to watch him and watch him. I was always really curious to see what he was gonna say. So that's one thing. Maybe I'll retell this. I don't know how many people were there on,

[26:59]

whether it was Friday or Saturday when I tell my Shuso story, but I'll tell it again because it's a good story. So, you know, and again, he was very kind to me during my Shuso time. And it's one of the, it's a really fun time to be with him when you're Shuso. So, you know, there's a job that you have to do when you're Shuso, which is that you, when the person's officiating, so he was almost always the person officiating the service. And at the very end, like in the morning, at the end of service, that person that we called him the Doshi, the officiant walked out while everyone is still standing there. And suddenly when you were Shuso, you were supposed to follow him. And that was, there were all these physical ways that the Shuso was kind of put in front, you know?

[28:02]

And in a very body, in a body sense, you know? And so I would always forget because I tend to be spaced out and I was just, you know, sitting there doing what I'd been doing for 10 or 20 years by then, you know? And someone, the next person next to me would like nudge me and, or someone would say, Lori, you know? And then I would follow, then I would follow him. So, and then at the end of that, and at the end of service, you would actually, the Shuso would go into his office with him and have a little, nice little moment of greeting there. And so after this happened, like maybe four or five times, he, when we got to the room, he looked at me with these, and I don't know, I mean, I don't know if everybody's experienced the dragon, you know, but there's definitely a dragon there. And it was these eyes, you know, these fiery eyes. And he said, this is the problem we always have with you.

[29:04]

You never, you won't step forward when we need you to step forward. And it was just so perfect. It was like this physical, you know, it was like he was sort of, he was modeling something and he was pointing me to it. It just seemed like this very complete body mind event, you know, of the two of us. And it was so, it was lovely. And it has really stayed with me. And, you know, my most often memory of, just as of him laughing, you know, especially the more and more and more in recent years, he was just always looking for a reason to laugh and joke around and tease you and, or, you know, just be laughing about something, you know? And so this memory just really stands in my mind as that other side of him, that dragon that was there if he needed it, he could call it forth. So that's about all I had to say.

[30:08]

And we have plenty of time for, and I think Yoni's gonna explain how we're gonna raise our hands and all that business. So thank you, Yoni. Hi everyone. So we're gonna proceed by raising our hands and Lori, why don't you call on people and I will search for and put a spotlight on you once your name has been called and invite you to unmute yourself. So if you need help with raising your hand, you can, if you have the newest updates to Zoom, you should see a reactions button at the bottom of your screen, if you're using your computer. And if you click on the reactions button, there should be a raise hand option once you do that. If you don't have that option, you can go to participants, select your name where it says more,

[31:10]

and it should give you the option to raise your hand there as well. And that should be a consistent across all of the different updates. And let me know if you have a problem with that in the chat. You can just send me a message. And you can ask your question in the chat too and Yoni will read it out to us. And you don't have to only have questions. I mean, mostly we wanna hear your stories. And of course, if you have any questions for me or Biker or Ron, that's good, but we mostly wanna hear your stories too. So please, don't hesitate. Susan, I'm not sure which Susan you are, but Susan, somebody. It's me. I wanted to say, first of all, just how wonderful it is to hear all these stories.

[32:10]

It's so heartening. And thank you, all three of you so much. I had a question for Ron since you were at Dwight Way. Mel told me once, he loved to garden, right? And there was a yard there, a big yard, I guess. And I remember he told me once kind of a long time ago that he had a big garden and he grew so much Swiss chard that he sold it to Berkeley Poll and that he built, either he built or somebody built a little greenhouse for Liz because she also liked to garden. I just wondered if you had some kind of stories about that. And I also know that it was a time when, you know, in that time period, some of you had little businesses and how he fit into that. So that's my question. Okay.

[33:17]

I couldn't stand all that chard. There was just so much chard in that yard and I don't really like chard. So, you know, I'm not really enthusiastic about it. I never heard that he sold it. I'm glad he did. But no, yeah, he had a lot of chard and he just liked being out there. And we actually had practice committees out there in good weather, which is very nice. I highly recommend having practice committee outside if you can do that sometime. And he had really a funky but very effective compost heap that was pretty big, you know, like big fencing holding it all in. So, you know, I'm not a gardener. I like vegetables, but I really, I wasn't, so I wasn't as attentive to all the details of that as one might be. But yeah, it was definitely a feature of the place. And it gave the place a whole dimension, which was important that you could go out

[34:21]

and hang out in the backyard and it was big. So it had those possibilities. And then you could also, like he did raise really good vegetables too. The businesses were interesting. The main business was at some point, Patrick McMahon, who was a gardener, came up the idea of having a landscaping or gardening collective. This is like in 19, maybe 77 to 78. And so we kind of got together several people who were interested in that. And we developed a gardening and landscaping business with him as kind of the expert. And Kurt Regas, who lived next door with Valerie Kulitz, Kurt became a irrigation specialist. And we started from scratch with nothing. And I was the business manager. So I took care of all the phone calls and the checks, and we did everything legally with taxes and the whole bit.

[35:24]

And occasionally, Sochi would go out on a job with us, but just very occasionally, just to kind of, you know, just see what it felt like. But we built that from scratch. And I think it went on for five years, including over on Russell Street. And then we just sold all the tools and moved on as people went different ways. But I was very impressed with how that people were able to get together and they could go in concern from nothing and develop it for five years. And we supported ourselves with that. So that was the main business on driveway. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Ken, Nab, go ahead, please. Hi. Okay, I think I just unmuted myself, didn't I? You did. Okay. Fine, now let me get this pop up out of my screen. Yeah, like Ron's first thing,

[36:29]

I think my longest experiences with Mel were during the mountains and rivers because I was doing that for so long. And I had come to that because of, I had taken part in Ring of Bone mountains and rivers, which were more longer and more rigorous. And so I pretty much knew the ropes, like what were the possibilities and how this sort of thing worked. And Mel did not. He didn't even go on the first few ones that people did in the 90s. But when I started being the director in 2000, to my pleasant surprise, he signed up. He said, I'll be going. So he came to the first, the meeting that we have before we're going out the next morning. But it's kind of orientation meeting. And so I went through kind of modeling myself

[37:32]

on how Ring of Bone did it with detailed instructions about how we would, all the logistic things and how we would hike and how we would make sure nobody would get lost and all these different things. And then towards the end of the meeting, he kind of came in and said, more or less wrongly, I will add, just sort of said, well, when we're gonna go out there, we'll just, you know, we're just gonna take it as it goes, you know, just relax it. If this was not what we were going to do, it would have been completely ridiculous it would just be like, if you had a session and just said, well, show up whenever you feel like it and sit wherever you want. These things I had gone over were essential and he did not know that

[38:33]

because he had no experience of it. But the reason I bring this up, I didn't even argue with him about it. That's the last time in 15 years that there was any conflict with us. Like as soon as we got out there the next morning and we had a little thing by the trail side and then started hiking, he picked up on how it worked. And there were no more of that. After that, you know, he was just like, can I do this? Will this work out okay or something? And it's just so remarkable when you're sort of two people that are leading a thing, although in different aspects of it, there could be all kinds of disagreements. And really there was almost nothing in 15 years. There was just that one little road bump the first time

[39:38]

because he didn't know exactly what was going on. And after that, there were 15 years of no bumps. So I think that's all I have to say. It was just so unobtrusive. It was just a pleasure to work with him. Thank you. Thank you. Very adaptable. Okay, and Liz, maybe Liz is gonna tell us about the gardening at White Bay or something else perhaps. Oh yeah, no, I wanted to follow up. About the garden. Yes, there was a lot of chard. And I used to make breakfast. I think I made breakfast every morning for a long time. And there was always chard. But there were also a lot of other things in the garden. The Dwight Way Zindo, which you can go by, it was at 1670 Dwight Way. It was on a, it's a big old Victorian and it's on a double lot. Not just a double lot,

[40:40]

but a very, very deep double lot. So it had a huge garden. I mean, for Berkeley City lot, it was enormous. And yeah, the greenhouse that Mel built me was, I took over another Zen student who went to Tassajara. She had built up this alfalfa sprout business. And I took it over for her when she left for Tassajara and sold alfalfa sprouts to the co-op, which used to be the main Berkeley supermarket. Three of them. And I used to sell alfalfa sprouts to the co-op. I think that's, oh, oh yeah. And then Ron said about selling chard. Berkeley Bowl didn't exist at the time. We sold chard to a place on the corner of Shattuck and Ashby.

[41:42]

The northeast corner of Shattuck and Ashby was a little natural food store called Holy Foods. And they used to buy our chard and other garden vegetables when we had too much. And it was, it was wonderful. Yeah, so that's, that's all I wanted to say. Thank you so much. Thank you. We won't ask you to tell us how you met, about the story about you and Mel meeting. Okay, Ross. Thank you, Lori. Liz, how do you and Mel meet? I'm really curious to hear that story. Although I've heard it, parts of it before.

[42:43]

My question before that is to Ron. And I'm wondering if Ron, if you could say a little bit, if you discerned any difference in Sojan from the early days at Dwight Way, where I gather it was just sitting in the attic and gardening in the back to BCC on Russell Street, where it got more formal and committees and more complicated. If you noticed any difference in his presence and his practice and his relationship to you all. Thank you. Ron. Okay. Okay. I'm glad you asked that because that was one thing I left out that I wanted to say. Mel went through phases like we all do. And over a 30, 40 year period,

[43:44]

there are a number of phases that he went through as we all do. And there was a phase where on Russell Street at one point in the first couple of years there, he started talking about correct practice, for instance. He never talked that way at Dwight Way. And this is correct. It's correct to do it this way. And the correct attitude is blah, blah, blah. And then he kept saying it, you know, and it really started bugging people, especially if he said it in Zendo, like what's all this being correct all about? And eventually he dropped it, he got that. But he had to go, he went through that phase of doing that. So there is innumerable examples, but it's so gradual that it's hard to, because I'm growing up at the same time he's growing up. And it's hard to see when there's a change, but he became wiser.

[44:48]

That's all I can say. He became more mellow and wiser and less, and he's talked about this, you know, feeling less anxious about doing things the right way, although he still maintained there was the right way to do things, but it was less anxiety and tightness about doing things properly. And it was more enjoying and sort of seeing the bigger picture. That's what I would sort of summarize it as. And being able to do things the right way and being able to loosen up a little bit. After Mel and Liz's wedding at Green Gulch, Chokshu Kuang was talking to me and a couple of people, and he said, well, you know, Mel has, you know, he's lost that stink of Zen. In other words, he's not as fixated on being a good Zen teacher as he was,

[45:52]

he's more subtle and more easygoing. So I think gradually that's what happened. And he just, he kind of grew with everybody else. That's great. Thank you, Ron. Liz, your hand is still up. Did you want to circle back or was that just so you didn't put your hand down? Oh, I didn't realize I was supposed to put my own hand down. Somehow I- You probably don't. I can lower it for you. Oh, okay. Sue, Sue Moon? Hi. So yeah, well, just going back to the Dwight Way times, which I was there then too, and the question that Ross just asked, it was much more informal. For one thing, it was much smaller. I mean, when I started going, sometimes there would only be a few people in the Zen Do in the morning.

[46:53]

And it was like a family. I mean, it sounds very nostalgic, but really we would, Liz would make these delicious oatmeal breakfasts and we would, well, especially, I remember there was always the case on Monday morning. After Monday morning, Zazen, we'd come down from service and Liz would serve this delicious breakfast for whoever happened to feel like staying. You didn't have to sign up or anything. You just stayed if you wanted to stay. And there was a table in the dining room there and we would sit around the table and eat breakfast and chat informally. And then, and there was Samu for a little while. I guess it would have been, I don't know if it was before or after breakfast. I suppose it would have been before, but in the living room, which was the front living room of the Victorian house. And I remember, well, maybe in Sasheen's we had longer work periods, but it was the living room of, I mean, the fact that Mel and Liz's house was also the house of the Zen Center.

[47:59]

So they didn't really have any privacy at all. And we, the living room was where we would have meetings and it was their living room. But in work period, we would be, I remember waxing the floor and I had never in my life, I was not a good housekeeper and I learned various housekeeping all the time. Zen practice has been a help to me in learning housekeeping and how you wax a floor and things like that. And also about cooking, of course. But anyway, so we took very good care of the place as good Zen students. And that was sort of revelation to me. And then the sense of informality that Mel was just welcoming to different people coming. And I remember for a while in those days that on Dwight Way, there was a young Japanese monk who was staying there named Gitai. Do you remember Gitai, Ron? And he was a really nice young guy and he was just kind of always there

[49:05]

and he wore a sort of rag wrapped around his head during work period and he was out in the garden a lot and I'm not sure why he spent so much time there but Mel was being very hospitable to him. And then there were kind of, we had things like cookie sales to raise money for the Zen Dome. We would all bake cookies. One time we went into the, or a couple of times, maybe we did it every year or something for a while. We'd go into the Tassajara Bakery in the city and take over the bakery at night because they're busy working there all day. So we would go and work at night and bake hundreds and hundreds of cookies till four o'clock in the morning or something. And then we would sell them the next day in Live Oak Park at the Himalayan Fair or something like that to benefit the Berkeley Zen Center. So it was very down home type of things that were going on. And Mel was kind of just going along

[50:07]

with all that informality and hanging out and recommending books to read at the breakfast table and stuff like that. So it was different and it was also, I mean, it wasn't just always so wonderfully, perfectly family life exactly because there were difficulties too, of course, but I think we were all growing up. I mean, I think about, I was just so ignorant about Zen practice and we were all kind of learning together. So yeah, and Mel, I think he was really, I think he was really appropriate to the size of the group. I mean, he was growing this Zen Center. He grew it for whatever it was, 60 years or whatever. And the whole time his behavior,

[51:08]

his leadership was kind of appropriate to the level of the people who were coming and the numbers of people who were coming. And so he changed along with the Sangha changing a lot. That was an interconnected type of change that was happening. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. I mean, I don't see any more hands maybe, and it doesn't have to only be old stories from the old days. It could be newer students or middle students. You want your hand? Oh, there's Mary. Hi Mary, go ahead. Now I think I'm unmuted, is that right? Yes. Hear me? Yes. We can hear you, yeah. I just wanted, I'm sorry, this is another story about the olden days.

[52:10]

I was not there. But one of my favorite Lou Hartman stories, which you may have heard before, because he loved to tell this. He and Blanche started practicing at the Berkeley Zen Center. Does everybody know who Lou Hartman was? When you lean back, we lose your sound very well. Okay, I hope everybody knows who Lou Hartman was. But at any rate, Lou was very in his head a lot. And he tells, you told the story about, as he was starting out, he was reading a lot of things. And he read some book that he thought was just marvelous. And he went by the Berkeley Zen Center on White Way. And as people have said, that just felt like Mel was always there. At any rate, Lou went by and he had this book and he's saying to Mel, like, he's writing down this and he's saying, you have to read this book. And Mel said, no, I don't. I don't have to read that book,

[53:12]

but you can sit with us if you want. Just go on upstairs. And that's just a perfect encapsulation of both of them. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Rondy, please unmute yourself and tell us. I think it was me. Oh, Charlie, sorry. Well, I'll just do two quick ones. I remember Lou Hartman very well. And he was a very charming guy. And he came in as a guest lecturer one Monday morning. And he sat in the seat, the speaker seat. And somebody came in and handed him a book wrapped in a suture cloth. And he picked up the book. And he said, in Zen, the book is always upside down.

[54:16]

Anyway, all right, I got another one here. Mel was very interested in real estate. I mean, witnessed the fact that he took his bicycle around practically every city block in Berkeley for a year, looking for a place for, other than Dwight Way, a new place. And I guess Mary and Rondy and I came in 88. And shortly after that, a large complex on Chabot Road opened up and was for sale. And I asked Mel whether he'd like to take a look at it. And we went up there. He said, sure, I wanna take a look at it. And it was built by someone who was very interested in Japanese architecture and Japanese carpentry.

[55:22]

And there were three buildings on this triple lot. And so we looked around and he was impressed. And we got back and I said, well, I have no idea what the price is, but whatever it is, are you interested? He says, yes, I'm very interested. And the next day he said, Charlie, forget it. Akiva Roshi and Yoshi bought it out from under us on a wish only. So it's probably worked out pretty well that we didn't go up there. Yep, I think we're happy where we are. Linda Hess, please unmute yourself and speak up. Hi, I'm old, but I have a new story,

[56:24]

a recent story that I just thought of. So I have a dog, Mel always had dogs, Mel and Liz. And so one day recently, maybe a year ago or so, I was at Point Isabelle with my dog. And that's like the greatest off-leash dog place in the world. So I often go there with my dog. Maybe you can see her over there, just kind of resting on the bed. And I ran into Mel with Dakota. And I said, oh, hi Mel, hi Dakota. And then we started walking together, but I was very kind of anxious about my dog because my dog wasn't good at recall and she would run away from me. And I was just always anxious. Excuse me, I have to go chase her. I have to make sure she stays, I gotta give her a treat. And at some point he just said, she's gonna stay with us, don't worry so much. He didn't say, I promise you,

[57:26]

but he kind of conveyed that. She's gonna stay with us, don't have to worry so much. So I was worried, but I sort of stopped chasing her and demanding that she come and get a treat and stuff. We just walked, we walked from one end of Point Isabelle to the other end where the cars were parked and darn if he wasn't right. She walked off leash all the way to my car and then she peacefully jumped into the car. So I thought, Mel just demonstrated the giving your animals and people a large field. So that's it. Thank you so much, thank you so much. One thing I've been learning from Karen Dakotis, just a sec Joel, is that it's okay if there's no hands raised for a couple of minutes. We can just sit quietly and then, so don't get anxious when there's no hands raised. But now we have a hand, Joel, please.

[58:28]

Yeah, hi, I have two quick questions for Ron about marijuana which is the first is, did you guys wind up smoking or not after your encounter with Mel? And the others, I've heard lots of different stories about Mel stopping, doing drugs. And most of them are stuff like he went the first time and sat with Suzuki Roshi and that was the end. So anyway, it's just those two stories. I just have those questions. And there's a story I have that Biko suggests, reminded me of, the first time I got to Berkeley's Zen Center for the first one and only time I went in a plane, had a cab and when we got to Russell Street, we could not find a Zen Center. And the cabbie and I looked around Russell Street

[59:31]

for 10 minutes together and couldn't find a Zen Center. We could not find a Zen Center. And then I saw this little sign totally covered by this big bush and walked in and Mel was on the porches and so I introduced myself and said hi. It was very simple and quick and wonderful and said, yeah, great guy. And then years, years later, he said from the very first time I met you, I knew you were crazy. And I thought that was perfect and it certainly was true. So Ron, if you can tell us more about Mel and Grass, what can I tell you? Okay, thanks everyone. Okay, there's not a lot to tell.

[60:33]

I think what, I don't have a clear memory, but my sense is we did smoke marijuana, but very lightly. It was actually kind of inconsistency with what his attitude was. So we did it, but we didn't get carried away with it at all. And I don't think we ever did it again. So, but we just had the satisfaction of smoking some marijuana at the Berkley Zen Center and it was okay to do it. We weren't violating somebody's rule and that was enough actually. And then looking at his memoir, yeah, there's a very, I can't remember exactly what point it is. It's after he's at Sokoji for the first time with Suzuki Roshi, but at some point, it's very clear to him that because he realized that he was getting carried away with it. He liked the mystical quality of it, so it's kind of consistent

[61:34]

with his fundamental interest anyway. But he was, depending on the kind of drama of that, of the drug to make it really live, bring it to life, that's my interpretation. And he realized that that just wasn't gonna work. And he just stopped and never went back. The other thing that people don't know probably is he was a smoker. He was quite a smoker for quite a while. And I think probably before he was at Dwight Way and for at least 10, 15, even 20 years and a fairly heavy smoker. So he stopped that as well. So those are two aspects that by the time most of us had seen him, those were not part of his life. But earlier, they were definitely very strong parts of his life. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I think I overheard him or Alan recounted to me about his painting. He was a painter. He was an abstract expressionist.

[62:36]

And he just, once he started Zen practice, he just made a right turn and that was that. He just left it completely without a backward glance. Which is, you know, you can sort of picture him. He sort of did things without a backward glance in a way, I think, you know. Okay. We can sit quietly for a moment. See if anyone else wants to say anything. And we don't have to go on forever either. Elizabeth and then Charlie. Well, I just thought I would fill in a little bit more about the subject that was just being talked about. Mel started smoking in his early teens. And he smoked like a pack a day.

[63:38]

And when we were at Tassajara in the early seventies, so he was in his mid forties. On his birthday, I had this perverse idea that as a birthday gift, there's not many birthday gifts you can give people at Tassajara. But so as a birthday gift, he used to roll his own at Tassajara. He had a can of tobacco and papers and he would roll. And so for his birthday, I hid his tobacco and papers. And that inspired him to quit smoking. And he quit smoking. And then, well, another time in the early seventies on Dwight Way,

[64:49]

he went out, people who've been around a long time knew Rebecca Mayeno. He used to go out with Rebecca and some other people out to Bolinas where a close friend, Liz Twomey. At the time, Liz Okamura lived. And one day they went out there. I wasn't with them, but they went out there and somehow, I don't know how, they all ended up dropping acid. And Mill came back and he had to give a lecture in the Zendo. And he was still a little bit stoned when he was giving this lecture, but he managed to give the lecture. And that was the last time he did that. I think that was everything I was gonna add

[65:51]

to the story about drugs and tobacco. Thank you. Thank you so much. And Charlie, is that you again or is it Ronnie? Yes, it's me again. I just wanna mention two facets of Sojin's life that we don't hear too much about. He was in the United States Marine Corps and he was a cab driver in San Francisco. I wonder whether anybody has any stories from those lives of Mill. Go ahead, Ron. Yeah, the most dramatic story is twice people pulled a gun on him. This is in his memoir. And both times they were just,

[66:52]

they were basically, I don't know if you call it fooling around. They weren't really serious. They were trying to scare him. And one time, I think he probably perceived that. He said, go ahead. I'm not gonna beg for my life. If you really feel you need to do that, go ahead. And the guy just put out his gun and felt ashamed of himself. That's Mill's telling of it. And the other one, I don't remember what the situation was, but twice he had a gun pulled on him. The thing that Mill told me about taxi driving was that he wound up being like a sort of a therapist for his passengers. They would tell him his problems and he would kind of like offer an ear, but also offer suggestions or chat with them about their problems. So he was actually being a priest as he was being a taxi driver.

[67:55]

It just came naturally to him. Thank you. One thing that Ji-Ryu said that stayed with me on Sunday was that he theorizes, or he felt that Mill was probably always a very intuitive person, but he just found some way to ground that and express that and solidify it in his Zen practice. So that was a capacity he probably had all along. That was his feeling. Okay, well, it's 8.15 and the hands are not raised. So does anybody wanna have a last word or a last comment before we'll... And we're gonna gather again in a couple of weeks. So we'll hope to see many of you again

[68:55]

and other people can tell their stories. Oh, Alan, did you wanna say something? You're muted, you're muted, you're muted. I noticed that these gatherings coincide with the seven day cycle of Sojin's transition. So today is the seventh day. The next one will be the 21st and so forth. And our last session will... Well, I don't know if our last session, we have to see how far we go, but we will have a session on the day of the 49 day and maybe we'll do a little ceremony then. But I also want to suggest that what's traditional actually is to do

[69:56]

a little private ceremony for your teacher every seven days for that 49 day period. So each of us can do that at home. Very simple, put a photograph of him, of Sojin on the altar, do some bows. Do a chant of either the Heart Sutra or the Enmei Juku Ganongyo and just recognize that it coincides with our gatherings as well. So it's something that you can think about doing. So thank you. And thank you also, Yoni, for tech hosting us and everybody for your good listening and participation. Thank you so much. I think maybe we could,

[70:59]

can we do the thing where we just all unmute to say good night if we want? Thanks everybody. That was a wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all the wonderful stories. Thank you for this. Thank you very much. Thank you, Lori. Lori, you're a good guy. Thank you for hosting and for all the stories. Take care, stay well. I know there's people on this screen who have good stories, so don't be shy. They can be negative. They can be, we can have a little, we can have a little spice and smell in our thing here too. Lori, maybe we should talk about practice committee sometime. Yeah. Absolutely. It was in the late 80s, early 90s, that it was a big thing. Yes, I know. The women were having an uprising. That's true, that's true. That would be a fun, that would be a good one. Hi, Karen Thomas.

[72:01]

Good night. Good night, Judy and everybody. Good night. Good night. Take care. Good night.

[72:08]

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