When I was living on South Van Ness, I had heard about Philip Wilson. was an early disciple of Suzuki Roshi, was an early disciple of Suzuki Roshi, came over to our house and talked about this Zen master at a Zen temple on Bush Street, 1881 Bush Street. And I had read about Zen, Sub-DT Suzuki, But it didn't occur to me that there was such a thing as a Zen temple.

[01:04]

And Zen master always seemed to me a little, the term Zen master seemed a little pompous or something. So I was aware of this place, but I never went there. And then I was over at my friend Dan Moore's house. Dan Moore was a poet. He married Diane Rorcey's sister. I don't know if anybody remembers Diane Varsity. She played in Peyton Place. She was the star of Peyton Place. And then she never made any more movies.

[02:08]

But she came to San Francisco, and we knew her. She was a friend of ours, and we had a lot of good conversations. And so Diane married her sister, And then they split up. And then Dan had a little house on Divisadero Street, in the middle of the block. It was on Fulton, near Divisadero. And I inherited that house from him, when he left. Had a lot of paintings there, too. And when I left, I left all those paintings there, and I never knew what happened to them. But the people that moved in after me were very happy to have the paintings. Anyway, so I was with Dan Moore one night. We stayed up very late. He told me that he had been going to the Sin Center. And that he was going every day, and there was this Reverend Suzuki there.

[03:16]

Was it called Sin Center? Yeah, it was called Sin Center. It was? Mm-hmm. And this is 1964. So we decided to go. We stayed up all night, and we smoked some pot. And then at 4.30, I think it was, Diane and I and my little dog, India, walked up Fillmore Street to Bush. You took your dog? Oh, yeah. I took the dog everywhere. The dog was always with me. It's a good detail. I never knew that. And I took her to Tassajara, too. People would step on her coming out of the zendo. Just a little? Yeah, pretty small. And so we walked up to the Zen Center, and there was this building at 1881 Bush, which was a former synagogue.

[04:27]

the Japanese congregation had saved up their money when they were in prison camp. And I don't know exactly where they were, but maybe in different places. When they were tortured by the U.S. government in prison camps here in this country. The government, yeah, U.S. government prison camps. And during the war, they saved their money. And when they got out, they bought the synagogue and turned it into their Soto Zen church. And they had a Go Club. And that was the most popular thing at the church was the Go Club. People from all over came and played Go. What's Go? Go is a Japanese game that you play with little round... I never played it myself. Is it a gambling game? It's a kind of game. Well, it's a game. And then if you want to gamble, you can gamble. But it's a game. And it's very... people really get hooked on it.

[05:33]

And it's played with a little round... Like dice? No, more like, little round pebbles, like, you know. And they move around on the board. That's as much as I know about it. And Stanley White was playing at the Go Club. And he was, this is, you know, we don't around in order to move it. But Stanley became a prominent Zen student. So he used to go to the Go Club, but he didn't know anything about the Zen Center upstairs. Really? Yeah. He knew there was a Zen Center upstairs, but it wasn't an interest of him. When I first met him, he was named Sebastian, and he had a beard. And he was a kind of wanderer. And he was in Mexico for a long time.

[06:39]

And he would tell me about how he used to hit squirrels over the head in order to eat them. And I later converted him to Zen. It's his insight. A vegetarian diet. It's upstairs. It's upstairs. The joy of squirrels. with yogurt with wheat germ and honey. That was a revelation. How was that a revelation? He said, this is what I live on. It's great food. And so he introduced it to me and I was just knocked out by it. What had you been eating? What kind of food? Had I been eating? Well, at that time, I have to tell you, see this is before preceding Zen Center, when I had I had my kind of Jewish conversion, and I was reading all these theosophical books, and they were very much full of health food diet, vegetarian health food diets.

[07:50]

So I became a vegetarian, and I made all these raw vegetable salads. And I mean, I was just, you know, really high on all this wonderful raw food, you know. And so that's what I've been eating. So, but prior to the metaphysical diets, you were just eating like a kind of like an American meat and potatoes diet, burgers and whatever. Yeah, I was brought up on meat and potatoes. Every single house had an ashtray in every single room, at least one. And if you were in the living room, there was an ashtray on every table. It was very common in almost all houses. Your father, I remember, smoked. Did your mother smoke, too? No, she ended up smoking, too. Both your parents smoked.

[08:51]

Everybody smoked. Everybody smoked. So, I remember writing notes when I was a little kid. I wrote a note. It said, um, would you please give Melvin a package of whatever they were. Um, wings. And then I'd sign my mother's name. And of course the guy would always sell them to me. Even though, you know, he knew that I'd written the note myself. Anyway, so Dan and I went upstairs, which was where the Zenda was, and into this room, which was a kind of squarish room. And around the perimeter of the room were tatami mats on the floor. And the room was wainscoted, and the wainscoting was about four feet high.

[09:54]

And on the street side, the Bush Street side, there were half-round windows that were about waist high. Because it was a kind of, it was an upper room, you know, it was kind of an attic, a quasi-attic room. Right. What color was the, what color were the walls? Well, the walls were white, and the waste coating was dark black, I think. Okay. The sun coming in through those windows is wonderful. And then the altar took up the east side and went all the way. So there were two doors. There was a door on either side of the altar going into the kitchen. And one door going into the kitchen, which is behind the east wall, and the other door going into a kind of storeroom, as I remember. And downstairs was the auditorium.

[11:01]

And offices. And, um... Want to turn it off? It'll just ring... I'm not answering. It'll just ring three times and stop. Voicemail will get it. So, I'll ring one more time. That's it. And, um... Tsukiroshi's quarters were upstairs above the zendo, except that there was a balcony on the west side, and his room was on the balcony. His bedroom was on the balcony, and his little office. And sometimes he would come and look over the balcony onto the zendo. So the Japanese congregation had turned this over to us as a zendo because they didn't sit zazen at all.

[12:07]

They did services on Sunday and funerals, some weddings. It was more like a social church. church practice. And there was a name for this. When they'd have certain ceremonies, the women would sing and ring the bells. These beautiful silver bells with long handles. And they would ring these bells in unison and then chant with the bells. And I can't remember the name for that, but I can remember it. We'll find out in the book. But they didn't participate with us in Zazen. Our practice was totally separated from their practice. So pretty much during the week, there wasn't much of the Japanese congregation present.

[13:10]

I'm going to call it the Japanese-American congregation, because we have to be very careful about our words. It's Japanese-American congregation. So, Dan and I walked up to the zendo, which was on the second floor, and walked into the two large doors, and there was a room which was, and Tommy Matsura, I just described him, so we walked in, and on the altar was a large bell around a bell called a key, which looks like a big pot turned upside down, but it's round on the bottom. I have one of those in the Zender. You do? Yeah. You mean like the Makuhyo?

[14:13]

No, the bell. And it sits on a cushion. Oh, the bell. Oh, yeah, of course. It's the bell that we use for service, the big bell. Yeah, key. But it's called a key? Yeah. OK. OK. I don't know what I think that that's called. OK. And then there's a smaller bell, made the same way. Key junior. Yeah, junior size. Junior size. Yeah. And these were the bells that designated the beginning and ending of activities and were played during the chanting. in what we call the service. And then there was a large wooden fish called the bokugyo, which was beaten to keep time. And the chanting. And then there was the altar with a big, large, beautiful carved wooden altar.

[15:23]

with Buddha figures and bronze lamps and bronze flowers and all the paraphernalia that go onto a Japanese altar, which is quite a lot. What are bronze flowers? Well, they're bronze vases. And then inside the bronze vases are these tall, I think they're probably lotus flower stems and flowers. They're made of bronze, the whole thing. And then of course there's always the big flower arrangement. Fresh flowers, right? Fresh flower, you know, a huge fresh flower arrangement. I can't remember everything. I tell you the truth, I can't remember.

[16:24]

I cannot remember everything that I had altered. But much more than... There was a Bodhidharma. And... I can't remember everything that was there. So there was a main Buddha figure and then other Buddha figures on an altar? I remember a Buddha figure, but I can't remember the rest of them. I can't remember the rest of them. And then, we'll bet we can find all that stuff out if somebody remembers it. And it was a raised platform. The altar? The altar was a raised platform. Suzuki Roshi sat on one end, in Zazen, and Katagiri Roshi sat on the other side, where the bells and the mokugyo were.

[17:27]

And Katagiri Roshi always did the service, always accompanied. He always announced the sutra, and he did both the mokugyo and the bells. We didn't do anything for a long time, any of that. So when Dan and I went into the Zendo, there were the black cushions on the tatamis, no Zabatons in the Zendo. And so he showed me a seat, and I sat down on the black cushion facing the wall. And then after, and then the bell started the Zazen. And then I was sitting there, and after a little while, somebody came up behind me and showed me how to hold my hands, my mudra, and adjusted my posture.

[18:36]

And it was very gently done, and very... confidently done and it felt very good to have, you know, that done. And then I was sitting there and I just thought, this is wonderful. It was like, I'm sitting here all by myself, you know, without any instruction about what to do except sit here and without having to do anything else. And it was a very unique experience just to sit there in that position without any of my conditioning. without any plan.

[19:50]

And time just kind of went on, and there I was. And it felt quite wonderful to me, even though it was difficult to sit. And my legs had pain in my legs and so forth. And I couldn't get my knees down, of course. And then the bell rang after a while, and we all got up. We stood up and there was this little old man standing in the middle with this kotsu, a stick, and his robes and his bald head. And then there was another monk with a bald head and robes who sat down on the altar on the raised platform. and Suzuki standing in front of it. And then people laid out Goza mats.

[20:58]

One mat for two people. Those little straw mats? Yeah, little straw mats. That was part of the routine, laying out the Goza mats and knowing how to fold them up. People don't know how to fold them up anymore. So like the mats that we have in front of the shoe rack? I suppose, yeah. Yeah, just a mat, just a strong mat. And they fold, they don't roll? You grab it one third, and then you pull it over so that it's, there are three layers. Okay. Japanese know how to fold things. They do, they're geniuses. And they know how to fold things. in the most expedient possible way that makes it joyful. I try to show people how to fold Goza mats, and they just can't do it, but it's so simple. It's like folding your wiping cloth in your Oreo key.

[22:05]

You just go like that. So anyway, So we opened the gozanets and then there were these bells. And then everybody bowed and prostrated themselves nine times. And that was quite an experience. Yeah, what was that like? Well, it was a totally new experience. Nice Jewish boy. And I just went, I just, you know, followed along and did it. And I thought about it. You know, and I thought about being Jewish, you know, you're not supposed to bow except once a year. You know that? You're not supposed to bow. And then once a year? Once a year is Yom Kippur or something like that. You only bow one time a year. Otherwise, you don't bow to anything. Not even to GAD.

[23:08]

So, but still I thought, well, you know, I'm not going to let that stop me because this is reverence, you know, and it didn't, I knew that it was not idol worship. How did you know that? Well, because I just knew that Buddhism is not idol worship. I always think of idol worship as maybe some kind of primitive religious practice, but not in a major religion. What was the feeling of reverence? What do you mean by reverence? Well, reverence, I don't know what I felt like exactly, but when you bow, I did feel like bowing is letting go. Because I think I retained a lot of my Hasidic conditioning, which was bowing was more like letting go and offering, but letting go of ego.

[24:39]

I always knew that. So it didn't really bother me. As a matter of fact, I kind of liked it. What did it have to do with sitting, conditioning? Well, letting go of ego. It's really, if you think about what is Judaism, it's letting go of ego. But not many Jews know that. That's off the record. You can say anything you want here. Well, yeah, I felt that there was a lot of egotism in Judaism. Similar to what we see today in Britain. And so, and then, at the end, the little old man bowed, we all bowed, and went, he went left, and went to his office next to me.

[26:03]

When he came up for service, Pat Harishoff, who was his Jisha, was standing in the back with incense. And she came all the way up from the back of the zendo to give him the incense. I remember that. But I don't know where, she must have got the incense from his office or something, you know, and came up with it. And then he left and went into his office. One of the doors was the interest of the zendo. And a door on the side led to his office, and the other door from his office led to the other side of the zendo. So you could walk through his office to outside of the zendo. So he would stop in his office, which was on the north side of the zendo, and we would file out one by one.

[27:10]

and then he would bow to each one of us as we left. And when he bowed to each one of us, he would look at us, or sometimes he would look over your shoulder, or sometimes, and whenever he would bow and look, people would wonder what he was thinking, because they always felt that he was giving them some message in that bow, you know, whereas actually, I think he was just bowing, you know, but people would read all kinds of things into his bowel, because I do that now, you know, and people say, were you mad at me? But when you were at the time, how did it feel? I felt fine, you know, it felt nice to be able to do that, but I didn't know who he but he was the little old priest, you know?

[28:18]

And one time, when we were doing Sashin, I bowed to him on the way out. But I had set, I started sitting full lotus after about six months, I think, which is really hard, I can't tell you. Maybe it was later than that that I started. Or maybe I was just sitting... Anyway, I'm trying to sit through the whole session without moving. But the last... It full outed. Well, I always did that. But the last... This is when I first started. The last sitting, I uncrossed my legs before the bell. And I felt really bad, you know, and I walked out and bowed to him. And he kind of looked over my shoulder, and I thought, oh God, you know, he's judging me as a failure.

[29:23]

So I addressed him and said, I'm just kind of sounding him out, do you think I should continue to practice? He said, oh, isn't it hard enough for you? He said, if you can find something more difficult to do, maybe you should do that. So that would be my encouragement. He was always encouraging me. So we left and then I went, you know, bowed to him and we went out. That was my first encounter at Zen Center. So I was living over in the, well, I was living in that house. No, I was living in, at Hunter's Point, in somebody's basement.

[30:32]

It had a dirt floor, as a matter of fact. Oh, right. So you were low in terms of... Yeah, I had a low estate. Right? Yeah. But every once in a while, I would go to the Zen Center and do Zazen. And then at some point, Dan Moore moved out of his house and left me the house on Fulton. And so that was nice. And I remember entertaining all these black kids, because there were a lot of black kids on the block. And they would come knocking on the door. And I would let them in the house. They'd never been in the house of a white person. And it's a whole different experience. People don't realize and do not understand the divide between black people and white people. They just don't understand it.

[31:33]

I mean, it's not in their experience. The black people have never been inside of a white person's house. And it's like this mystery. And they want to see what the inside of a white person's house is, how do white people live, you know? So the kids would hang around, they'd knock on the door, and I'd let them in. But I was not a typical white person at all, you know? Yeah, they didn't know what you were saying. I hardly had any furniture, you know. But they enjoyed it, you know. You had a lot of paintings, right? Because you loved paintings. Yeah, you know. And I enjoyed having him around. We'd jive with each other. But I would go to the zendo and do zazen every once in a while.

[32:34]

And then I started I think when I moved in there, I started practicing more regularly. This is still 1964. And I remember I never had any toothaches. I was 35 and I never had a cavity and never been to a dentist, really. But I had this toothache. my first one, and in the middle of the night. So I would get up in the middle of the night and I'd sit Zazen because there was nothing else I could do. And at that time, my legs hurt really a lot, sitting Zazen, you know, really painful every time I sat. And so concentrating on the pain in my legs, took my toothache away and it just disappeared until the next night.

[33:39]

And then the next night, the same thing. So I went through this about three nights. And every time I'd sit Zazen, the toothache would go away. And so I really started having a lot of faith in Zazen. Finally, I went to a dentist at the dental clinic, the dental school. And the dentist reached his fingers into my mouth and gently took the tooth out. Anyway, so I would go back to the Zen Do and sit down and I kind of got familiar with Suzuki Roshi and Katagiri Roshi. Katagiri Roshi was Suzuki Roshi's assistant. So this is, may I ask you a few short questions? This is around 1964, you said, and you're about 35 years old and Suzuki Roshi was about, how old was he then?

[34:42]

He died at 67 and 71. So he was in his late 50s. Seemed like a whole band, right? No, he was 60. He was 67 when he died at 71. Yeah. So he would have been 51. He was in his 50s. Yeah, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71. Seven years. So he was 60. He died, I'm sorry, he died at 67. And it was seven years before he died. Right. So he was 60 years old. Not very old. No, but when you're 35, 60 looks old. Yeah, it's interesting. Old man. Yeah. So, I mean, sometimes he looked like a young man. Sometimes he looked like an old man. Just like me. When I reached 67, I thought, well, I got up to where Suzuki Yoshi was.

[35:46]

So, Kanegiri Roshi and Suzuki Roshi were the two... Kanegiri Roshi was Suzuki Roshi's assistant, and they both had Dharma transmission. Kanegiri Roshi had Dharma transmission from his teacher, but not from Suzuki Roshi. Who was his teacher? Do we know? I don't know. There's a name, but I don't know. It's okay. Someone will know. We can put that up. Kanagiri Yoshi was at Eheiji when Gene Ross came there. And Kanagiri Yoshi was interested in foreigners, and I think that he had been assigned to show foreigners around at one time. And so he was interested in Americans. And so he came to Los Angeles. I'm not sure where he landed first, maybe the East Coast.

[36:50]

Then he came to Los Angeles, and I think he was with Maezumi Roshi for a little while, and at Senshuji maybe. And then he decided that he wanted to come to San Francisco because Suzuki Roshi, he had heard about him, and he really wanted to help him. So he came to Sokochi and became Suzuki Roshi's assistant. Kanagiri Roshi... You know, he had transmission. Already, yeah. Kanagiri Roshi was kind of like, and Suzuki Roshi were, I felt that they were kind of like ma and pa, you know. Because Kanagiri Roshi is about my age, maybe a year older. And so for me, they were an example of how a student and a teacher relate to each other.

[37:57]

Katagiri Roshi was the assistant. He did all the ritual work and the service. And Suzuki Roshi was the teacher, the master. And the way they interacted with each other was very important, I think, for everybody to see that. And then there was Okusan, Suzuki Roshi's wife, who didn't come over until later. Suzuki Roshi was alone for, I can't remember how long, I think Okusan came over, anyways, in David's book, all that stuff. So my experience was with Katagiri Roshi, Suzuki Roshi, and Okusan, who was a cook.

[39:08]

I mean, she always cooked Suzuki Roshi's meals. She was very nice to everybody actually, although she was a critical leader, and didn't speak so much English. I liked her, and we were always kind of playful with each other. And at the time, you know, I didn't have any girlfriends, you know. And I remember that there was this woman whose name I can't remember, a Japanese woman, who was a little older than Japanese women are when they are not married. And they kind of wanted us to get together, you know. David Suzuki and Okasan, trying to fix you up. They're trying to fix this up together.

[40:14]

She's a nice lady, but that's not what I was interested in. And then I liked Okasan. And sometimes I would criticize Suzuki Roshi a little bit for the way he treated her. How did he treat her? Well, he treated her... nicely, but he always felt that a monk likes to have a girlfriend. But when he has a girlfriend, he feels like he shouldn't have one. So all those factors come into play in a relationship. I remember when we were at Tassajara, and he was talking about this problem, and I said, and this is also in the branching streams that came out, where I said, he talked about, you know, she's always hitting him on the head, you know, and I said, we have a term for that, it's called henpecking.

[41:33]

Oh, henpecking, yeah. She used to literally hit him. Yeah. And then I said, and then he said, well, you know, you can't, uh, uh, you have to have them. And yet, um, uh, or you don't want to have them, but you can't help having them. You know, I said, well, we have a term for that too. It was called, um, um, Oh, can't live with him, can't live without him. Right. That's what women say about men. Well, same thing for women. Right. To be fair. To be fair. So, it was... He took care of her, you know. But it was always with a little bit of...

[42:35]

This is cool. I want you, but don't interfere with me or something, you know? Right. Just do the things I want you to do to help me. Well, it wasn't exactly like that either. I mean, it was intimate, you know? It was not, you know, just distinct from me. It wasn't like that. It's just that he accepted her, but there was always the edge of, I'm not doing the right thing by having a girlfriend or a wife, you know? Right. Because he felt he should just be a priest. Kind of conflicting feelings, which transmuted into the attitude, right? Right. But that's the interesting thing.

[43:46]

I'm trying to get you to say more about that because... I am. So, I remember when he was very sick. And it was about a month before he died. And I visited him and Oksan was giving him a massage, like his hips, his waist, like around the kidneys, you know. And he... let this huge fart, and she was behind him, and he said, that's for you. Everybody laughed, but it was kind of funny, you know. Oh yeah, so when I was kind of defending her in a way, and he says, oh, if you want her, she's yours.

[45:01]

If you want her, you can have her. Or maybe it was just that I was being kind of over, you know, real kind to her or something, you know. I can't remember exactly. Well, in later years, Oka-san would say to us that Suzuki Roshi was a great priest and teacher, but not so good husband and father. Yeah. I guess that was the conflict. Well, also, he said that the practice and the students come before the family. Right.

[46:09]

So it's a building conflict. Yeah. Do you feel that in your own life? Do you have tension between your family duties and your duties as a priest and teacher? Oh yeah. Constantly? Yeah. I don't put as much effort into the family as I do into the practice. Do you think it's different than, how is it different for a man who's a priest teacher like you are, rather than say like, corporate executive or a lawyer or a doctor, someone else who has a very consuming job. I think it's the same. I think it's the same conflict. I remember Liz's mother, we went to a, you know, her father is this eminent scientist, and we went to the party of his colleagues one time, and I remember her mother talking about how neglected she was, and how neglected the wives of the professors are.

[47:14]

Sounds just like Liz. This is much better. What? This is much better. Maybe she accepts it better, or... But it's the same kind of situation. It's just describing the same kind of thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I never liked the way her mother dealt with the situation. Because what happened to her is that she protested by doing everything she could to make herself comfortable. You know? Materially comfortable? Well, not a lot of things, but getting a big comfortable chair and a big comfortable bed, you know, and kind of lying in it, right? Like, stress, you know? Whereas Liz does gardening and hiking and all this stuff. That's more positive.

[48:18]

Like, I'm going to take care of my life. That's what she does. She has a life. She has a life, and she takes care of her life. And it's not that dependent on me. Right. You're part of her life, but you're not the whole, her whole life. That would be disastrous. She's not always just waiting for you to come home, but for her life to begin when you walk in the door. at eight o'clock or stuff like that, which is hard for me. If you don't like to eat late. Well, if we eat at eight o'clock and then we're done at 8.30 and then I take the dog for a walk for a half hour and it's nine, you know, and then there are all the things you do before you go to bed and then I don't get to bed until 10 or 11 or something like that, you know. And then you have to get up. So I like to get up at six or seven. It's better for your body to eat earlier. Yeah. Okay, back to Sokoji Okasan and Setsubi Roshi.

[49:23]

So there was just a built-in tension that caused conflict in that situation. But they also had affection with each other. Yeah, they also had affectionate life with each other too. That was also there. So you can see it in that picture, you know, at the end of her beating him over the head. Do you know that? Uh-huh. I loved it. I could see that it expressed something wonderful. The whole thing is there. Yeah, I had it re-shot and everything because I thought that's it. I love that they put it in your book. It's great. It's like, you bad boy, and I'm a naughty boy, but we both love it. Right. It's part of the play of their marriage. Yeah. So, um, So, we would have zazen every day and I would go to zazen.

[50:27]

I remember when I got into it, I remember one time sitting in the zendo, this is shortly after I started, and I felt this feeling that I hadn't felt ever, you know. And I thought, this must be samadhi, you know. It was kind of this kind of indescribable feeling, you know, a settled feeling. And I could feel it in my head, you know. And so that really clinched things for me, you know. I finally, I said, this is, I'm on the wavelength, you know. It's a nice way of putting it. And then when I got up, I walked home and I felt really, you know, wonderful. You know, there's this kind of wonderful feeling. Connected feeling.

[51:29]

So after that I started... Connected feeling? Connected with everything, you know, like walking. I just felt like, you know, when I'm happy everybody's Jewish, But so then I started going back a lot and going back regularly. I went back, I'd sit Zaz in, because I was still driving a taxi. So I would get off, and in those days you had to have a suit on. And so I drove until about four o'clock at night, in the morning. So I'd get off, And then I'd go home and then I would, um, uh, maybe I'd have something to eat. I can't remember what I did. But then I'd come back and sit Zazen, but I'd still be in my suit.

[52:32]

And it was nice to sit Zazen in my suit on. And tie everything. I never knew that you had a suit and tie. Is that how you said? Yeah. I have a student who's a banker. He's about a little younger than me. And sometimes I'd come for doksan with his suit on. I'm sorry, you know, that I'm dressed this way. It's fine to dress that way, you know. I'm dressed in my Chinese court robes. And I used to sit zazen all the time in my suit. So I'd sit Zazen and then I'd go home and sleep I guess and get up and sit Zazen in the afternoon and then go to work.

[53:35]

What time was... I don't remember what time I went to work. I'd just go to work after Zazen because by that time I was working for De Soto and I could do my own hours. Or I would... What time was Sarsen? 5.30? I think. I think it was 5.30. Yeah. 5.30 and then to 6.30. And then I'd eat dinner, I think. And then... I can't remember exactly. And then 7.30 I'd go to work. three or four and then so that was pretty good that worked out well and I'm trying to remember everything I can't remember the transitions and then there was a Saturday practice

[54:47]

Saturday morning. And in Saturday morning practice, we would have two praises of Zen, service, and then we'd have a work period. And what we would do, we'd do various things, but one of the things that we would do is wax the floor of the Zen Dojo. And we did it Japanese style, where you'd get down on your hands and knees and wax the floor. And then you'd take these rags and stand on the floor and then put the rag bent over and put your hands on the floor. And then run across the floor with the rag, back and forth, back and forth. And that was really fun for everybody. But that's a really aerobic exercise. That's hard. It's a great aerobic exercise, but I was skinny at the time, you know.

[55:52]

And very flexible, you know, I'd never even thought about it. So you could just bend all the way over. Oh, yeah. And run. Yeah. They do the, I've seen a film of Aheiji. Yeah. I've seen them do that. That's right. Aheiji, that's great. Right. And... What about sweeping the street? Is that an activity? We would sweep the street with part of that activity. The sidewalk, not the street. We'd clean around the building, clean the sidewalk, you know, clean the building. And that was appreciated by the Japanese American congregation. And Suzuki Roshan wanted to make sure that we, you know, I remember one time we were, there was a, they were having a party. Japanese American congregation used to have parties and where they had chicken, but it was all in the zendo. And they would invite us.

[56:54]

But I remember cleaning up, afterward we were cleaning up, and the Japanese women were standing around, and they'd watch us sweep, and they'd say, oh, they'd point to a place in the corner and say, oh. You know? Missed it. Yeah, you missed that one. Oh, you missed that one. Did you receive any instructions from Suzuki Roshi, like about how to sweep the sidewalk, or how to do this work, or how was it taught to you? He didn't tell us how to work. He just did the work. Matter of fact, I was the first work leader. But somebody must have been taught, because they never would have known how to do these things. Well, they just taught by example. Suzuki Roshi never taught by instruction. I mean, he may have taught some things by instruction, but his characteristic was always to teach by example and not by instruction.

[57:58]

So nice. It's the best way. Never taught by instruction. And you were expected to watch what he was doing and to, you know, catch on. This is a certain kind of Japanese traditional teaching. that you're supposed to catch on. You watch the teacher, you practice with the teacher. This is why Suzuki Ryoshi, he said, I don't want to do a lot of teaching here and all this. I just want to sit with you and eat with you and work with you and talk with you. And that's what I want to do here. But that was his subtle way of saying, this is how I teach. But he wouldn't say that. I'm going to teach you everything. I'm going to teach you how to eat. That's right. He teaches how to eat. He teaches how to work. He teaches how to sit. He teaches how to speak. How to think. All by not teaching.

[59:01]

All by not teaching. Very clever. Very clever. But which meant that he had to be on his toes and do everything the way he expected things to be done. And that's people learned it from him. Those people who are who were with him, you know, who were his real students. That's how they learned. And they knew that. And who were the people who were with him who were his real students? Well, there were a lot of people who are still around from those days. Who? Well, Yvonne and Catherine and Well, there was Mike Dixon, who I, he and I became friends rather early. I remember Mike used to, he was sitting in the full Lotus when I came.

[60:01]

And I remember saying to him, boy, this suzanne really hurts, you know? And he said, yeah, it always will. Oh no! That was another insight. Yeah, talk about Zen insights. That's wonderful. And then Suzuki Roshi is saying, the problem you have now is the problem you will always have. Did he say that? Oh yeah. Is that one of his teachings? Oh yeah. Don't try to get rid of your problem. The problem you have now is the problem you will always have. The weak will always be weak and the strong will always be strong. But if you find yourself in the weak position, your weakness is your strength. And your strength can be your weakness.

[61:05]

So when he would say something like that, he didn't mean it in a dualistic sense. Matter of fact, everything he said was not meant in a dualistic sense. And if you thought that he was speaking in a dualistic way, you didn't understand him. And of course, I worked with him in Tassajara, you know, moving stones, big rocks. That was toward the end of his life. And so Koichi, he would work with us, but often he would go into his office and take care of the plants and things like that. And Katagiri would be more like working with us.

[62:09]

So you would learn from watching Katagiri? Yeah, we learned from watching both of them. And Kali Giri would teach us things more. He would teach. Instruct more? Yeah. With words? More instruction. He would give us more instruction. And he used to also give us Zazen instruction. He was the Zazen instructor. And then later I became a Zazen instructor. And I think some other people did. What was the instruction in Zazen? We just talked about this recently, but I want you to say it again. Oh, that's a big subject. Right. I think I should talk about Zazen instruction separately because Zazen instruction is a very specific thing.

[63:04]

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