So, ask me a question. You got questions and I'll see if I have answers. Okay. So, we'll start with the kind of demographic questions. When and where were you born? Born on a planet called Mars. I was born in July 9th, 1929. 29, and what city? Los Angeles County Hospital, which is no longer existing. Okay, okay. Very close to where Shinchuji is. Oh, I just saw that for the first time. Desolation Valley. Yeah, but a great temple. It's a pretty impressive hondo. Akiba Sokan, Gengosho-san is how we refer to him. says he likes Cochinon better because it's just his endo, not all the big altar and all that stuff.

[01:04]

So what kind of neighborhoods did you grow up in? I grew up in Los Angeles, in Hollywood, actually. I grew up in Hollywood. I went to Franklin Avenue School on Franklin Avenue. And then we moved to Long Beach when I was in seventh grade, 1941. And I went to King Junior High and Woodrow Wilson High School. Would you say they were like middle class, suburban, working class? Working class, maybe. Working class, yeah. What's Hollywood, you know? It's like... Yeah. Like, I had friends who were, lived in the hills and were, you know, My parents were wealthy, and so I had a taste of wealthy friends when I was a kid, and it was very distasteful to me. Your own family, you wouldn't care towards them, is that right?

[02:06]

My own family was dirt poor. Oh, okay. This was the Depression, between when I brought in the Depression. Ah, right. And my father worked for the WPA, and then he worked as a clothing salesman in a clothing store that was always going out of business. And never talked about money. But they always provided. My father was a very faithful provider. And we always had a place to live. We always had food to eat. Although my mother told me, she once sent me to the butcher shop to get a bone for the dog, which she put in the soup. And so I never had any money when I was growing up. I had 25 cents to take the bus to school. and I used to hitchhike and get 25 cents of my spending money. But once a week, for a time, I did the laundry for a dollar. So that was, you know. You have brothers and sisters?

[03:07]

Yeah, my brother, who died of Alzheimer's last year. Sorry. He's older. He's older. Okay. How many generations has your family been in the United States? Well, let's see. My grandparents came. From? Russia. Okay, so on both sides? Okay, so Eastern European and your parents were the first generation in the United States. Okay. And so what's your... You talked about your... My mother was born in Russia and she came here when she was about a year old. Oh, okay. All right. So on her side, you're the first generation in the United States. Okay. And you talked about your junior high and high school background. They were also Jewish. Yeah, we're going to get to the religious upbringing. Yeah, we'll get there. So what other education have you had? Did you go to college? I went to art school. You went to art school? Yeah, first in Los Angeles and then in San Francisco. That's how I came to San Francisco.

[04:09]

I went to the Art Institute, which was then called the San Francisco School of Fine Art. And did you... I studied with Clifford Still, and I kind of suffered with... David Park and Elmer Bischoff. So you were doing visual art? Painting. Painting. And did you earn a degree or certificate or anything there? No. I didn't want anything like that. Okay. I just wanted to paint. Okay. All right. So do you have any other degrees or professional certificates of any kind? Well, no. Okay. It's fine. Okay, so how would you describe your religious upbringing? I didn't have any. You didn't have any. Your parents were Jewish, but they were not observant? No. They used to speak Yiddish to each other to keep us from understanding what they were saying. But that was the extent of your religious cultural exposure?

[05:13]

No, I went to Sunday school once. Once? I don't remember it. You didn't do bar mitzvah? Okay. I think that my parents just wanted us to not, they didn't talk much about our background. Uh-huh. They didn't want us to have any, they just wanted us to start out without any background. Uh-huh. You know? And I think there were a lot of family dissension because I used to go to our, we'd go to our grandparents' house because their grandparents were very old. My father's son, they lived in L.A. And all of his brothers and sisters were there, which were quite a number. And it was always this big, you know, argument, you know. Not really arguing with each other, but they just didn't get along with each other, you know. They all went to separate ways. I see.

[06:14]

So there wasn't a lot of discussion about any of that. No, there was no attempt to bring us all together or anything. And I enjoyed, I wanted to do that, but, and it's, it's part of my life that I really regretted. And also my brother kind of alienated me. So, and that was regretful. So, the whole family thing, you know, was a failure. And I just was real happy to get out of there. I graduated from high school in 1947 and went on active duty with Marines. I was getting away from it all. Then I came up here. Oh, okay. So after your Marine tour? I came up here. Okay. So how did you get involved in Soto Zen? Well, that's a big gap between that and Soto Zen. So anyway, but I'd always been interested in religion.

[07:18]

I mean, you're welcome to fill in the gap any way you like. We're only limited by your time constraint. I've got nothing else to do all day. But I was interested in religion, and when I was about 20, in my early 20s, I got interested in Judaism, in Hasidic Judaism. And I became very, you know, involved by myself. You mean reading and study and prayer or whatever? Yeah. But, you know, I was not brought up Jewish, so I had to have my own brand of Judaism. But I did contact a rabbi. And he was pretty nice.

[08:24]

He was an old rabbi from Germany. And he kind of took me under his wing. And I'd go to the shul, you know, and I tried to be part of that. But, you know, If you're not brought up Jewish, those people, at least at that time, they don't accept you. You know, it's like if you're Japanese and you leave Japan and then try to come back, you're considered a foreigner. You're tainted, you know? And so I think it's the same way with... maybe now it's different because there's so many Jews returning to Judaism, you know, or alienated. But at that time it was an alienation city. I just never felt comfortable with it, you know, and also I felt it was too exclusive because I had been, you know, out of the world, you know, I came to San Francisco and I was in the art world and I was in the music world and the dope world, you know, and my field was much larger than more universal, you know, if I was going to

[09:47]

do anything in religion, it would be in a more universal way. And I just felt that being Jewish was too, was wonderful, many wonderful things, but too tribal and too exclusive. So I just kind of went on and I was interested in Tao, if I read about Taoism. And Christianity was interesting too. Alan Watts, that kind of thing? Was it Alan Watts, that kind of thing, how you got exposed to Doug? Well, Alan Watts, I never fell for Alan Watts. I read D.T. Suzuki, and that was pretty interesting. I read the Diamond Sutra, and I read the Platform Sutra, and I think the Platform Sutra was really what was most inspiring, you know. And, uh, I didn't know that there was such a thing as a Zen temple and, you know, and the whole Zen, uh, uh, Mishigas.

[10:58]

So, um, uh, but when, uh, Philip Wilson, we used to have, my wife and I was married. at the time. My wife was a poet, and we had an apartment down in South Venice, a big apartment. And we'd have parties, and people would come over. And I remember Philip Wilson, who was one of Suzuki Roshi's earliest disciples, talking about, telling me about this Zen temple, you know, and the Zen master, you know. Oh, gosh, you know, But I didn't do anything about it. And various other people had told me about this same thing, you know. And then one day this friend of mine, who was a poet, we were up all night smoking grass.

[12:04]

And he said, I go to this Zen temple, you know, and I go there pretty regularly, and it's this wonderful teacher, you know, so we walked up and we stayed up all night and walked up Fillmore Street to Sokoji and walked into this temple, which was an old synagogue, and upstairs in a bare room with, we didn't have tatami mats. We had, there were tatamis around, but no, we didn't have And then we also laid out goza mats on the floor for the overflow. And you'd sit with your ankle on the floor. And then there was this altar. And so we went in and I bowed and sat down.

[13:07]

And this little old man came up behind me and adjusted my posture. It didn't say anything, but it was a very nice feeling, you know? And then I was sitting all by myself. And it was just kind of, you know, nothing else to do but just this. And it was just this kind of wonderful, strange, new experience. And so then I went home. And every once in a while, I'd come back over a period of a couple of months. Okay. So, um... You went back periodically. Yeah. And then, uh... And I remember going back on a Saturday morning, and people sat. They did, they did Zazen, and then they got up and did Kinhep, which was something I hadn't seen.

[14:10]

Uh-huh. And then they sat again. Uh-huh. And I thought, they're gonna do this again. Because it was very painful, you know, sitting there. And then I could see the kind of strained expression on people's faces, you know. Because at this time, people weren't sitting as well as they do now, you know. Zazen was fairly new to almost everybody. And they didn't have the It was a period, a kind of baby period, beginning period, where everyone was going through a lot of pain in order to sit, you know. Whereas nowadays, people do that, but there's so many people who can sit so well, that when you walk into the Zendo, just, you know, it's a different, it carries you, you know. So, but at that time, everybody had a hard time, you know.

[15:15]

I thought, I can do this again. But I did it again anyway. But I had lots of pain. Very hard. But I went back. Kept going back. And one day I just, what I experienced was just Samadhi. And that was, I kind of recognized it. I didn't know it was Samadhi, but I recognized this kind of indescribable feeling, you know. And I thought, well, this is it, you know, this is what I've been looking for. Because I had been looking for various, I'd been looking for something and going through the various steps of what was available. And I said, this is it, you know. And then, I remember Suzuki Roshi had a questionnaire.

[16:16]

He gave it to people and asked them what they studied and what they thought about this and that. So he was curious about everybody. And I could see that he, you know, was curious about me. And I felt that he was some good feeling from him, some invitational feeling from him, you know. At first, you know, I didn't really have much feeling for him. He'd come in, and he'd do the service, and then he'd walk out, you know, and he'd bound everybody at the end. But as I kept going, I started to realize it, you know, that he was just a really good teacher, you know. We called him Reverend Suzuki. And there were some wonderful people there.

[17:18]

And so I just, I said, this is, see, I was already 35. And I'd been through a lot of stuff by that time. And then I decided that this, this is the practice that I want to do. And if I don't do it now, you know, I'll miss it. ever come up again. And so I said, I'll just stay with this and do it. And I was very, you know, diligent in my practice. And so I just became consistent. You were working, were you working in the arts in various, I mean, were you making a living as an artist or you were doing various kind of day jobs to support your art? I was a taxi driver for a long time. Before that I was a boat painter.

[18:19]

I painted boats in Burnett County. You taught recorder and that kind of thing? Well, I did that afterward, later. All right, so let me see. My understanding of the Japanese system of ordination is that there's Jukai, which is lay ordination, and then on the priestly ranks, there's Tokudo, Shuso, Shiho, Zuisei, Mount Seat Ceremony. Yeah. Okay. So... There are also other ranks in Sofa Zen in Japan. Which are? Well, which, you know, are ranks of... You mean like Kyoshi and Daikyoshi and that kind of thing, or Kyosei? Yeah, there's a whole bunch of them. Yeah, those are ecclesiastical ranks having to do with your education and experience, that kind of thing, right?

[19:26]

I think they have to do with what kind of monastery you can be the abbot of. And I have a whole list of the names. And, you know, at some point you can have a purple robe, and at some point you have a red robe, and at some point you have a yellow robe. If you have a list, could I have a copy of it? It would be helpful to have as a reference. It's the Minnesota Shoe Constitution. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay, yeah. Is that available in English? I'm having trouble sort of figuring out what's actually available in English yet and what's not. in the middle.

[20:34]

You never explained why he didn't... I don't know. Who knows? You can never figure them out. See, there's a priest in this article. The priest in this regulation shall be one who has received a tokudo and is registered in the register of priests. A religious teacher in this regulation shall be one who is the priest on Article 2 and has qualifications, and then priest in monastic rank. Joza has received priest ordination with Shotokudo. Zagin has performed shuso at Keisei Ango, the practice period, 90 day. Osho has performed zuisei at the two head temples. Dai Osho has established a dharma banner by practicing kese ango, conducting a 90-day practice period with a teacher and a student.

[21:40]

With a shuso. And Toguro... academic ranks. Dai Kyosei is a konshu, or abbot, of a head temple. Gon Dai Kyosei is assistant Kanshu, plus, anyway, Dai Kiyoshi, priest over 50. Oh, it's an age thing? Yeah. Gon Dai Kiyoshi, over 55. Sei Kiyoshi, a bright teacher. Nito Kiyoshi, first class. Nito Kiyoshi, second class. Santo Kiyoshi, third class. Besides the eight ranks, there are two ranks of assistant religious teachers, who have names here. And then people can wear a red or purple robe, or the Gon Daikyoshi, and the Pugna.

[22:47]

So it says you can wear a yellow robe, you can wear a red robe. Well, if it would be possible to make a copy of that, that would be very helpful and I would promise to take care of it and get it right back to you. Would that be all right? Yeah, except that it's, you know, it is not, it's in, middle edited form. Okay. Well, I'm more interested in the sort of the content and I will verify any of the details of it with you or Osho-san or Okamura-sensei or somebody that would... Yeah. Okay. So what... I know the answer to this question but I still need to ask it. What ordinations have you received and when? And from whom? Okay. Well, I never did have lay ordination.

[23:50]

Oh, okay. And I had priest ordination from Suzuki Roshi, May 19th, 1969. So that was about five years after you started practicing. Yeah, five years after I started practicing. Okay. And then... And then I was shuso in 1970 with Tatsugami Roshi, Tatsuhara. He came and led a... Yeah, he led the first practice. Well, I was his first shuso. Oh. He came and he was invited. He set up the monastic program, tasahara, in 1970. And I was the shuso. Okay. And then I had a dharma transmission in 1984. October, something like that. Okay. And then your Mountain Seat Ceremony was when?

[24:56]

1995. 1995. And did you do Suisse? Yeah. When was that? I don't remember. Was it after your Mountain Seat? Oh, yeah. It was after. It was, yeah. Okay. Yeah. But I can't remember what day it was or who that was. I mean, I can look it up. Okay. Yeah. Sometime after 1995. Yeah, sometime in the 90s. Yeah. It was before 95. So that would have been before your mountain seat ceremony. It was 80... As a matter of fact, it was... No, no. It was when I was Abbott at Sun Center. I forget when that started. 88. 88. And you were Abbott for like nine years. Okay. So, 88... It was around 90, something like that. And when did... 91, 92. You did a Mount Seat Ceremony at Zen Center in 88, is that right? Oh yeah, Zen Center. Yeah, I did a Mount Seat Ceremony there too, yeah. It was a kind of abbreviated... Is that when you started being avid? Mm-hmm. Okay, so... I did the one in Berkeley in 85.

[26:01]

85, and then later one when you were avid, okay. Yeah. All right, okay. So how would you say that you trained or prepared at each stage? Well, studying with Suzuki Roshi, we had Sokoji Temple. And then in 1967, I started practicing in 64. In 67, the Zen Center found Tasso Hara. And that was the same year that I started the Berkley's Endo. Right, in Attica, the house on Dwight Way. Right. But I studied with Sugi Roshi at Sokochi. And I was very, you know, there a lot. We did sashins and, you know, he was my teacher and I did some tokusatsu with him.

[27:05]

I mean, we practiced through association. It was a lay practice. I mean, it was entirely a lay practice. There were no priests. I mean, except Suzuki Roshi and Katagiri Roshi. Those were the only two priests. And at that time, what's his name? Graham Petchy was a priest, but he wasn't around. By the time I was starting to practice, he had already left that center. When you say that you studied with Suzuki Roshi, you mean through practices of zazen and forms and dokusan? Yeah. You don't mean any textual study? No, we didn't do any textual study. Okay. All right. Just clarifying. Okay. So the question that you were working on was how you trained and prepared at each stage of your... five years, was learning how to do Zazen.

[28:12]

That's what Suzuki Hiroshi's whole thing was, how to do Zazen, and how to understand Buddhism. Experientially. Experientially. Bodily. Not necessarily philosophically. No. I mean, yes, some, you know. And the teaching of non-duality. And he would There are all these cases that I've looked at record, and those are his lectures, Winston had lectures, and it's been a wonderful time. He talks twice a day. You get Winston and I to talk in a discussion, and a Saturday talk, and we learn how to work. official work leader at Sokoji, as far as I know.

[29:21]

And so we had to size in the forms, the chanting, the talks, the discussion, the work, and applying it to our daily lives. and it's through association with the teacher. And then, when I was, actually, at 67 was when I was there for the first sashimi. Chino-sensei didn't come. He was brand new. He came to Los Alamos, but this is a Hiroshi store.

[30:27]

And at that time we had an open back porch in the dining room. And it was hot. It was the summer. And we had the first sashimi. Back porch in the dining room. And at the end of that session, the guru, she called me and said, I'd like you to join our order. How do you feel about that? I said, I was very surprised because there were no other priests around. And it's not something I expected at all. And of course, I was totally She's only 70, sorry. Not like that. No. 67, 69, he said to me, I think it's time for you to be ordained.

[31:34]

And I don't know whether to do it in Tassajara or Berkeley. And so, but he decided to do it in Berkeley. I think because it would be good for the people of Berkeley to have them do that. So let me see, when did you move to Berkeley, do you remember? I moved to Berkeley in 67. And you were living in the house on Dwight? 66. And you were living in the house on Dwight? Or how did the Berkeley Zendo initially get started? Well, there were little places where people sat in people's houses. And, you know, it would be in someone's house and then they'd move over or something like that. And Suzuki or she would come over on Monday morning and send us in and do a talk at breakfast. It was very nice. And so then somebody was leaving, and I was living in Berkeley at the time, and he asked me

[32:43]

I had to find a place in Berkeley. That's when I found Dwight Way. And little by little, I developed a practice. But he never told me what to do. There was a lot of trust there. He never said, do this, or he never said anything. He just let me develop it. And I said, well, is it okay if we sit in the afternoon? And after a while, we were just sitting in the morning, I said, you know, let's sit in the afternoon and do whatever you want. So I was very cautious, you know, not to do too much, not to call myself a teacher. And I was just kind of like a caretaker, you know. But I actually didn't I had to make sure that I was not overstepping my bounds.

[33:49]

So he would name me, and so the Berkeley Zendo had been going for some time. He'd go to the attic and send dough and all this. And so he said, well, Not at the time. So we had this ordination at the Zen Dome right now. And then I stopped supporting myself by teaching the quarter point. And I decided that I would let the Zen Dome support me as a priest. And, you know, we just kept... We didn't even have a bank account. It was so easy to live in those days. You know, I can't tell you how easy it was. The rent of the whole house was $130 a month. Wow. You can't even find a studio for $800 nowadays.

[34:56]

And eating was, you know, providing no big deal. So I kept the money. We had dues, which was like $5 a month. And I kept the money in a tin can, a tobacco can. And when I didn't have money to spend, everybody kind of understood that those were the expenses. And there were people living in the house, too. So I helped. And then little by little, it developed. And I remember at some point, he said, well, we should get a bank account so that we can separate your money from the Zimbabwean Zimbabwean, which has some great distinction.

[35:57]

And then they would give me a salary, $150 a month, which went on for years, and move them forward. And then, I remember we didn't want to be incorporated because we didn't want to have a kind of organization. Why not? I think that our idea was that we didn't want to be, you know, we wanted to have this spiritual practice, but we didn't want to have a religious organization. Does that have to do with... I think because people were kind of hippies. We were all kind of in that hippie mode. Some disillusionment with the religious organizations that you knew about?

[37:00]

Well, yeah. Anti-organization was our mode. Right. Right. Of course, you're doing this very formal, ritualized practice, but yeah. Yeah. And in San Francisco, it was incorporated. I always thought that was a little funny. You know that here, the Zen Center was a corporation? What's that about? It sounded like a contradiction to me. Well, you know, I just was reading It was a book called Getting Saved from the 60s. I don't know if you, but yeah, but Zen Center was profiled in it. And it was interesting to read what students were saying about how they understood what Zen was, and they really... Most people seem to understand it in this very kind of formless, spontaneous... Spontaneity, spontaneity... Right, right, kind of way.

[38:02]

Sort of an emphasis more on the emptiness side than on the form side. So one day, though, I decided We should probably get incorporated. I can't remember why. And it was even vague in my mind, but I thought it was a good idea. And so we incorporated. And then I learned how to do the books, which I never wanted to do. I never kept track of money in my life. Never. When I worked, as long as I got a paycheck, my money was in my pocket. I never worried. I never had a worry. I never was concerned about expenses or anything. But I thought, well, I have to keep the record straight. And so I learned, kind of by the seat of my pants, how to keep books.

[39:05]

And it was fun, you know? It was kind of interesting and fun. I'd see everything, bells to hum, wind to hum, all these columns of numbers. It's kind of like play, you know. And so I did everything myself, pretty much. This is the way, when people start as endo, they do everything themselves. I did the cooking, you know, and I built this library, you know, out of donated books. And then going out and giving them them for training them in, most, for trade. And getting over the many years, getting all these boats for trade, you know, and delivery. So, but I never used money. And even when we got to Zendo and Dwight Way, I would use scavenged materials. I'd go out on the beach and get scavenged materials, and I'd find something on the freeway, you know, a big piece of plug.

[40:07]

And that was my style, you know. And spending money on some things It just dotted my mind, and it's just not how I'm going to do things. So I just brought it up there. But I enjoy it because it's, in a way, it's like using everything around, not throwing things away and being wasteful. And finding a use for everything. And I thought that, for me, that was part of my SAM practice. Penzo Kilcoyne certainly abdicates that kind of spirit. So people enjoyed that, too. So I never asked for much money. People were appreciative of the fact that we weren't always asking people for money.

[41:09]

We needed a lot of money to run things. So, I'm not sure exactly where I went from there. Well, we were talking about how you trained and prepared at each stage of your training. And so you talked about Suzuki Roshi said that he would ordain you when you're ready and when he was ready. And then he decided to ordain you in Berkeley. in 69, and then so you've been talking about the kind of the development of Berkeley's N Center. Let's sort of move back towards the particulars of your training. Did you do any particular training or preparation for Shuso or for... When I was updated, I said to Sugiyoshi, what should I do now?

[42:13]

He said, I don't know. I said, what is a priest? He said, I don't know. And so to me that was my cue, was to find out why. doing what I was doing. Uh-huh. He was giving me the space to find that out. Uh-huh. And so my training was, with him, was to develop this zen-do and to keep coming back to him with my questions. And, uh, So every time I'd come, I thought every time I would come to him with a question, you know, it was a big deal. And he would give me something else to work on.

[43:28]

He'd say, you came to me with a question, or you came to me with a problem. And I'd just give him a bigger problem than he'd like. So, you know, I could feel that he was not answering my questions, but he always gave me something to work with. Right. He would never answer my questions, but it always, every time I'd take him over the property, he would always give me something bigger to work with. And that was our relationship. That was my training. So what about when you, um, It was time for Tatsugami to come over. Tatsugami was in Edo at the Eiji for 10 years. And he was just a tough guy, a big guy. But he likes to be very sweet.

[44:34]

So I was shuso with him. Suzuki was shuso with him the first time. And he and I got along well, really well together. He spoke Japanese and I spoke English. And he would just look at me and speak Japanese. And I didn't know what he was talking about. So we kind of got along, you know, through us being And that was a wonderful experience. Although a lot of people didn't like him because they thought he was trying to take over from Suzuki Roshi. You did... You must have done ritual and liturgy training, I guess, during that time. Is that when you learned how to ring bells? You didn't have any of that stuff? You didn't have the whole... You know, Suzuki Roshi... We did... Kanegiri Roshi was the old one in Tokyo. Oh, uh-huh. And it was only towards the last couple of years that some of the students were ringing the bells.

[45:45]

Oh. So we didn't have a lot of liturgy training. The liturgy training came in with Dick. Oh, I see. OK. So Hiroshi wasn't worried about that stuff. Up until Tatsugami, we chanted the Heart Sutra three times in Japanese. That was our service. Nine bows, chanting the Harsha Jaya and the Echo, Harsha Jaya Echo, Harsha Jaya Echo, and three bows. And nine bows because Suzuki Roshi knew it was hard for Americans to bow, so he wanted them to bow more. It was hard for him to bow, but we needed it more. Amen. Okay. Liturgy wasn't his thing. Liturgy... Anyway, liturgy came in one day. But Tatsugami introduced more liturgy.

[46:47]

He introduced the Sado-kai and the... Sado-kai and the... Kyoza-mai? Kyoza-mai? Oh, Kyoza-mai. No, no. The Daishidara. Oh, uh-huh. Those were the three things that he introduced, and we translated them, and translated them again, and so forth. So, that was part of the practice period, was dealing with those chants. And he taught us how to chant. And so that got K.V. Watasagami. Basically, that's true. K.V. Watasagami. He actually never taught us that stuff. He was only interested in zazen. and not duality, and being kind to people. That was his whole thing. But he appreciated the rest, you know, because he wanted somebody who was really a kind of an expert at monasticism to create the monastic style.

[48:06]

And that's what Tatsakami did. And, uh... So... In 1971, Sugiyoshi died. So then... So I had already been Juso by the time he died. So then, uh... Takumi came out of it. And when Dick became head of it, he just took over. And he, originally we were considered affiliates, et cetera. But at some point, Dick just kind of dropped it. And that's a whole other chapter between me and Dick, et cetera. But there was a lot of alienation.

[49:12]

But he asked me to come down and talk to him. I'm the director. 1972, or was it 72? It was actually 1972. And so I said, OK. So I was director. And I was like, what? So it's just going back and forth. It doesn't harm. And working with the students there, and working with the students here, and developing this, and working with... Well, you also had Yoshimura, who was a priest who was there for a couple of years at that center. And so I worked with a number of Japanese priests. Suzuki-yoshi, Katagiri-yoshi, Chino, Sentei, Shimoji, you know. and Tatsugane.

[50:13]

So I had an experience of a number of Japanese priests in a short period of time in different styles. So I kind of absorbed the kind of Japanese style. But the kind of Japanese style I absorbed was not ritualistic style. It was more their comfortable style. The style that made comfortable with themselves as priests. Having come from a long tradition, when people come from a different country, and enter the tradition, they become more exaggerated.

[51:19]

Self-conscious. Self-conscious. Yeah. And like, you know, exaggerated in their strictness and exaggerated in this and that and so forth. I noticed that during Rahatsu Sashin this year, that the, you know, Osho-san has the whole sort of tradition in his bones, and so there's a sort of easiness and low-key quality to a sashin. It's not slack, but there's a certain kind of low-key quality that's different from the feeling of a sashin here, where people are much more, myself included, much more, you know, uptight about the rules, right? absorbed Tsukigoshi style, and the style of those priests that I studied with. And that kind of style allows things to work easily.

[52:26]

It allows for lots of lubrication. and flexibility, which makes things work as well. We've never had a financial problem here in a long time. I mean, there have been some questions about finances, but it's never been a real problem. I remember one time we had a treasury who was a businessman, and he was running this real successful business, you know, but then he moved to a computer business, and he moved to a new building, and he just totally lost the business. And he was running our finances the same way that he was running his, you know, and from that point of view, it looked like we needed to sell the buildings, you know?

[53:34]

But actually, that kind of looked to him like a crisis, but just our usual way of, relaxed way of doing things. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay, so... You were worried about whether I was 90 minutes. We're still on verse third up here. Okay, so I gather that your relationship with Dick Baker was a bit strained. Did you actually train with him or prepare with him for Dharma transmission? I did prepare with him, but it was late because from 1972, which is when he took over, until 1980, he left in 83.

[54:36]

Right when I started. Yeah. We had this, you know, really rocky relationship. And of course I wanted, I felt that he was the person that should be giving me Dharma transmission. You felt that he was the person from whom you should receive Dharma transmission? Because of the lineage connection to Suzuki, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, Suzuki Oshii died and he only had the opportunity to give one person a drama transmission. It started with Bill Kwang. Oh, uh-huh. Started working with Bill, died before he even finished. Uh-huh. And Dave should have given, finished it for him. Uh-huh. And, uh, but he didn't, you know. I mean, it totally, Bill and I were both able to get it. We were on that, we were, you know, we had our own places. Mm-hmm. And he didn't want to cooperate with us. He wanted to build everything for himself.

[55:39]

And he didn't want to bond with us. It was a kind of competition for him. So Bill was totally alienated. And he suffered a lot. I decided that I wasn't going to be pushed out of Zen Center. So I just stayed with it, you know, and just stoically dealing with it. Because even though I was, I can't tell you how angry I was with Zen Center. I can imagine. But I wasn't going to let that stop me. It took a lot of years for a long, many years. And then in 1980, I think it was, probably 1980. Well, I'd have to explain. If you don't want to answer the question, that's completely fine.

[56:58]

You don't have to answer any question you don't want to answer. I'd rather not answer it now. Okay. That's fine. But in RAD-19, he brought me in one day and he said, well, I'd like to start working on Darwin transmission. Oh, uh-huh. So I said, okay. And so we started, but we didn't really do anything. I, you know, I haven't copied some games or something like that. But I did start working on the Samotsu. Samotsu is the three things. The three documents. So I started working on that. And then, you know, it's a Kichimiyaku, and Shisho, and Taichi. Then, I know what the Kichimiyaku is. Shisho and Daiji, can you tell me a little bit about what they are?

[58:00]

Well, Shisho is the actual dormant transmission document. Uh-huh. It's in a different circle. Uh-huh. And then there's Daiji, which is kind of a map of practice. And you copy them onto Silk by hand. So I was doing that. Mm-hmm. And there's a commentary that accompanies them, is that right? Norman said something about it. There is a commentary that accompanies them, that's true. But that was translated. But I took it and made it into a book. Oh, uh-huh. And then I gave it to people. I have a copy of it. But so I was doing that. And then he had his crisis. By the time that I had, that he had asked me about that, asked me to do this, I had reconciled myself with him in the sense that I knew who he was and I knew how I felt about him.

[59:17]

The fact that he asked me to do this I felt was the right thing to do. And the fact that we hadn't sat with buddies or liked each other or anything like that, felt honest to me. Not that he didn't have something, he never did anything that was not calculated. I knew that this was calculated in some way, I don't know exactly how, but he never made a move that was not calculated for his benefit. It's interesting though, in his interview with Helen Tworkov, you know, in San in America, he may have been doing it in a calculated way, but it revealed him in a way that was not particularly flattering to him. Yeah, that's right. In fact, I think it was in that interview, or some interview, he said that I was the only person who didn't, he admired me for not buying into his thing. Oh! So I felt that was really good, you know.

[60:24]

Uh-huh. that there was something honest about it, something, you know. So I went, I started doing that. And then when he had his downfall, all the people who had supported him all these years and would, you know, come down on me for not going along with it, just trashed him. Oh, right. And I was the only one who was, He was able to say, well, you guys take it easy. Just the opposite. But at some point he said, you're not supporting me. I don't wish I could continue with you. I don't feel you're supporting me. I said, OK. Because I was willing to continue with him and see him through this. But I felt, well, You know, this is fine, too.

[61:27]

So I said, OK. I wasn't going to say, beg him to continue, if that's the way he felt, you know. This is a very touchy thing. So I said, OK. And then, you know, Bill had a Dharma Transition with Huizhou. And so he got Huizhou and I together. Had there been some kind of maintaining a relationship between him and Zen Center? Oh no, it was just through Bill. No, just through Bill. Okay, and Bill initiated that on his own? Well, as a matter of fact, my Zengyuroshi, I think, I believe he says that, we just said that, Zengyuroshi asked him to take care to complete Bill. But he didn't do anything about it.

[62:31]

And then Bill and I were at L.A. 's Inn Center with my Zoomy machine. My Zoomy machine had a lot of sympathy for Bill and I. And he used to provide us down. So I remember he took the telephone, the bigger telephone and called it. and asked him if he would complete Bill's Dharma transmission. Oh, uh-huh. And he said yes. So he did that. And then Bill talked to him about completing my Dharma transmission. I see. And he did that. But we had, and it's interesting because, you know, we didn't know each other. You and Hoytson? Yeah. Right. And in the month that we were together, working on the Dharma chants, working on the preparation for Dharma chants, we had to

[63:30]

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