I love to taste the truth and then to talk it into words. Morning. Well, today commemorates, I believe, the 59th anniversary, maybe not anniversary is not the right word, but commemoration of dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today I want to talk a bit about that and maybe have some... I'm going to ask Ross to say a little something about his visit to the memorial a couple of years ago when we were in Japan.

[01:01]

And maybe someone else can say something that they want to say. I remember when the bomb was dropped. I think it was 1949. I think I was in the 10th grade. And that abruptly ended the war. So I had to decide how I was going to talk about this. So I want to talk about it from the point of view of aggression and peace and destruction and renewal and how something grows out of something wonderful grows out of something tragic. Before the war, in the 40s, 30s and 40s, this country was sending scrap metal to Japan.

[02:12]

and Japan was making armaments out of it to attack us with. And there were a lot of aggressive, there was a very aggressive movement in Japan, which I think grew out of the Bushido code, you know, the samurai the samurai's were over, but the samurai ideal still pervaded much of Japan in certain circles, and especially the army and navy. I think that in Japan, in the history of Japan, the samurai attitude and the Buddhist attitude had to combine in some way.

[03:15]

And the Buddhists, the Buddhist priests, sort of tamed the samurai in a way. And the samurai developed a code of ethics. But still, it was very aggressive. So there's always this kind of tension and symbiotic relationship between the Buddhist priests and the samurai. the peaceful people and the warlike people. So, by the 20th century, Japan had become very imperialistic. It always was imperialistic. Feudal, apparently imperialistic. And Japan had conquered Korea and devastated China and had a lot of confidence in going ahead and attacking the United States.

[04:40]

as that movement grew more and more aggressive, it became a kind of totalitarian state, and any kind of dissent would land you in a difficult position. Sometimes people say, well, how come the Buddhist priests didn't protest? This is America. We're very lucky to live in America. We think all you have to do is protest. And then, you know, we have this great privilege called protest. But in Japan in that time, there was no such thing as that privilege. So the Buddhist establishment had to go along with the government. There was no other way. So when we were finally attacked, it was a terrible war being fought on two fronts in Europe and the South Pacific.

[06:04]

And we desperately were trying to find a way to end the war. And over the four years, we developed the atom bomb. And then we dropped it. And it was very tragic. And it opened up the atomic age. One of the problems with, you know, splitting the atom is that it creates a lot of waste, and we don't know what to do with it. But we keep producing it, and we still don't know what to do with it. What we're doing, what we have done with it is put it in road beds, and now we're putting it in toys, and we're putting it into armaments and bullets. and sending it to other countries in the form of munitions.

[07:12]

That's what's happening. But anyway, that's a little digression. So, the reason that we're sitting all here today is because that bomb was dropped. It's an indirect cause for all of us sitting here today. My teacher, Suzuki Roshi, didn't feel good about the war. He felt terrible that our idea of the Japanese Our understanding of the Japanese was that they were aggressive people, aggressive warlike people. We sent our scrap metal to Japan, as I said, and a lot of it was used for armaments, but some of it was sent back to us in cheap toys.

[08:27]

Made in Japan at that time meant something very cheap. And this is very dismaying to Suzuki Roshi, that we had this understanding, this particular kind of understanding of the Japanese people. And he wanted to give us something that was real, that came from the real heart and soul of Japan. something that he felt could benefit the whole world. I don't know if he had that idea exactly formulated, but it was an underlying theme for him. He said, when I came to San Francisco, I didn't have any idea about San Francisco.

[09:30]

I didn't know what I would do. He was invited, of course, by the Japanese congregation at Sokoji, but he didn't have any idea that I'm gonna do something for people in America, maybe underneath, but he was open to whatever. He said, when I came to San Francisco, I didn't read any books about San Francisco. I didn't look at any maps of San Francisco. I just came and just responded to what I met. So he was very open. And this was his shikantaza, his practice of shikantaza. Totally attentive and open to what was in front of him, but without any particular idea about it, no preconceptions. So he could respond to and be responded to by people. So when he came to America, The Zen Center was in the phone book, and people who were interested in Zen, like there were a lot of servicemen, ex-servicemen, who had served in Japan, quite a number, and were really interested in Japanese Zen.

[10:54]

And so they would look up Zen in the phone book to see if there was any such thing. And they would find Sokoji Temple. I don't know if his name was there in the phone book, maybe. And he would say, yes, I sit at, I do Zazen every morning. It was 5.45 at that time. And you're welcome to come and sit with me. So people, little by little, come and sit Zazen with him at 5.45 in the morning and 5.45 in the evening. Little by little, this sangha grew, and got bigger and bigger, and then they were given a room upstairs. The Japanese congregation was very supportive, but wary. They would see these American hippies types, but it wasn't just hippie types, it was professors, artists, intellectuals.

[11:59]

all types of people who came to Suzuki Roshi. And then they were given a nice room upstairs for zazen instead of sitting in the pews which are down in the auditorium of the Sokoji Temple. But it was the Japanese temple, you know, and they had their own way of doing things. And they didn't sit Zazen. It was more like a church. So Suzuki Gyorshin was taking care of them and their problems as a pastor, and he was taking care of the growing Zen Center as a Zen teacher. So, little by little, the Zen Center got bigger, I think, than the congregation, and we moved to the present location on Page Street.

[13:06]

But that was an interesting time. I remember Suzuki Roshi talking to us about how, in the 19th century, the Japanese exported a certain, I can't remember the name of this pottery, but it was kind of garish and manufactured. And he said, this is not real Japanese. A real Japanese product. It's not like that. And the real Japanese articles are satisfying to our inner accord.

[14:17]

The real quality of Japanese articles comes from a very peaceful place, comes from a settled, peaceful, concentrated place. and satisfies something within our inner peace. So this is what he was trying to convey to us. But for him, the very core of that inner peace I don't like to use the word peaceful, but true, maybe, you know, something that rings true for us, was zazen. And that if we really understood zazen, practiced zazen, and

[15:23]

found our true nature that we could understand the Japanese people in their best nature, the best part of their nature. He said, when we find that, there's no difference between Japanese and American. Absolutely no difference. We find that we're exactly the same. So, because of this upheaval, he was able to come to America and do this. So, it's interesting how the karma of one destructive act can create the conditions for a a wonderful creative situation.

[16:37]

I think in civilizations, wars, as terrible as they have been, create change and bring people together. It's too bad that that has to happen that way, but it does happen that way. And often the conqueror is the conquered. Quite often the conqueror is the conquered. I remember when I first started practicing at Sokoji, we used to say to each other, do you think that this is the Japanese way of conquering us? It's a good way. Yeah, peacefully. Conquering peacefully. But usually a conqueror absorbs the nation that they conquer and it changes them.

[17:54]

And I think that It's kind of like, if you think of it, it's like, you know, there are insects who eat other insects. And the insects that these, the other insects that these insects eat are made up mostly, they're just like bags of little insects that when they are eaten, eat their way out of the host. The British in India, the British were actually conquered by Gandhi. This little man, Churchill hated him. He said, this little brown, skinny brown something, you know, in a loincloth, isn't gonna blah, blah, blah, but he did. So, Tragic, you know, it's really hard to, it's always going to be a controversy about whether it was a good idea to drop that bomb or not.

[19:09]

On one side people say we had to drop it in order to end, you know, the bloodshed. On the other hand, people say, why did you have to do that in order to end the bloodshed? So, there's no way to solve that problem, I think. There's just no way to solve that problem. But it shouldn't happen again. I think the way to solve that problem is to not let it happen again. Ross, how did you feel when you went to the museum? Well, we were on tour. We went to Rinzowin. It was a pilgrimage and practice period of sorts back in 98.

[20:12]

And after that, we had a little time to travel around the country. And there was a as an American Jew traveling with a Would anybody like to say something?

[24:25]

Yeah. The thing that I remember most about that exhibit was the... You have to turn around so people can hear you. The thing that I remember most about the exhibit was the enormous pain that was shown in the pictures, the photographs taken of just droves of people walking down the street And in great pain, and their skin was falling off, I mean not falling off, but hanging from their faces and their arms, just sheets of skin falling off or hanging. And the great pain in their faces, and they were just in a state of shock, just walking down the streets. So I wonder if you could say something about hearing all this stuff is very evocative and you sort of suggested at the beginning of your presentation that at least from our point of view, it's difficult to look at any event as being entirely negative, acknowledging the uncertainty there and how things change.

[25:53]

Yeah, I think that it reminds me of what you said, you know, there's a far-right Christian sect who wants the apocalypse to happen so there can be the second coming of Jesus. I don't want to criticize Christianity. I don't feel I'm criticizing Christianity because I don't think it's Christianity. So they're kind of forcing that to happen by aiding the Israelis. who they don't care about because when the apocalypse happens, all the Israelis will become Christians. This kind of thinking is doing something bad is doing something good. Einstein said you can't prepare for war and peace at the same time.

[27:15]

So we should just always prepare ourselves for peace, I think. War will happen. You don't have to force it. To think that by making change that you bring about something good. By making change forcefully, you bring about something good. It just doesn't compute. We should always just be working to make the world a peaceful place because there's so much opposition. that that's all we need to do. But we can't be attached to the result because the pendulum always swings. Peace means this, means totally upright. It doesn't lean this way, doesn't lean that way, doesn't lean that way, doesn't lean that way.

[28:20]

It's just this is peace and this is peace. But this means something happens. And as soon as something happens, it can be harmonious or disharmonious. But our practice is this and this. Everything in the universe is practicing zazen. It's not the property of Zen Buddhists. The earth is practicing Zazen in total quiescence, perfect stillness. And yet there's all this activity that grows out of this stillness. So peace means harmony, and it means understanding the basis of harmony, understanding the basis of peace, which is stillness.

[29:34]

And out of stillness grows activity. And the stillness allows for harmony. So to practice stillness, which is zazen, and harmony of activity, which grows out of that. We should never give in to war, only to defend ourselves when there's no other way. I was thinking about the fact that the session today was short because of the, to give people the opportunity to go to the vigil memorial service this evening at Aquatic Park.

[30:45]

And would you say that Our practice here is to sit and then to take it into activity this evening. Oh yeah. This is energizing your batteries. Then you go to the meeting, the aquatic park, and express yourself. I just wonder if people who didn't hear about it, who aren't participating in this session, or who came for instruction this morning, if they know about this ceremony tonight. I think it starts at about 6 or 7, something like that.

[31:48]

I looked for a sign on the bulletin board and I didn't see one. This is very moving when you get right down to it. And then the floating of the lanterns. There are a lot of them and it takes a while and it's kind of fun because sometimes the wind doesn't take them and you have to push them out so they get in the current. The light down there at twilight is just beautiful and it gets darker in the lights in the lanterns.

[32:51]

came about because they do this, I believe in Hiroshima, I'm not sure about Nagasaki, this ceremony. And the Japanese have a lantern floating in water as a memorial, a tax for remembering the ancestors, people who have family members who have died at a different time here, October, I guess. But it came about here. because a member of the Berkeley City Peace Commission several years ago, or maybe four years ago now, went to Hiroshima for the commemorative programs. And while he was there, he met a woman not from Hiroshima. She was very old, because she was a survivor of Hiroshima. And no. She may have been a survivor of the bombing of Tokyo, I'm not sure which.

[34:00]

But in any case, every year since the bomb was dropped, or two bombs, she had come to Hiroshima for the commemoration. She got talking with a Berkeley—I can't remember his name. She was too old now, too fragile, too ill. And she thought this would be her last. She would not be able to come again to the grocery. She couldn't make the journey from where she was living. And so this man was so moved by her and by his whole experience, he said that he would He would go to it for her. He would carry it on for her in memory of everyone.

[35:02]

So he came back. And so that's how he just sort of began this, talking to people and getting it together. And so the leg is with all of those who suffered And there's a very specific layer, which I think is lovely, of how a person can pass the torch so sweetly. So that has come here from someone going there and from a Japanese woman who persisted for so many years. Thank you. It starts at 630. I was just going to say that I appreciated Ross's image of the little school kids going by the memorial in Hiroshima.

[36:19]

next generations, this information about what happened and commemoration. That's why, you know, I'm going with my granddaughter tonight to this event. It's hard information to pass on. It's impossible really to pass on, but I think it's important to try, to try to understand, for her to understand at her level. She's nine years old now. It is important to pass on. And one of the problems we have is that the younger generations don't pay much attention, and they don't really know the history of things. And it's so surprising when you're talking about something that they've never heard about, which is so significant. Pretty bad. So I've always had this idea that because we don't live so long, you know, 80, 90 years or whatever, we never have the, every generation has to relive the whole thing all over again.

[37:41]

That's the fate of the world. So, pendulum swings from war to peace and we just have to cope with it and do our best to maintain peace in the world. So I'm not gonna tell you who to vote for but You should vote. Please go out and vote at the right time. Whether or not your vote counts. Thank you very much.

[38:35]

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