Don't mean that it was unpleasantly so, it was just, everything was tight. The feeling was good though. The feeling was just wonderful. Absolutely tight. Didn't you say once that Don Shinkin used to go out and do samba with monks? Oh yes, often did. And he had a little vegetable garden by the, in the back of this temple where I live, and he often went out there working. And he, in the summer, in the vacation time, he often came down to my house and stayed. And we always had vegetarian food, you go back to vegetarian food for him. And he would come, I've had him come in the summer, we'd hear somebody banging on the door at six o'clock in the morning, and it would be Don Shinkin, and he'd have his little furoshiki, and an old straw hat. And he just got bored at the sodo, so he'd come down for two or three days. So we fixed him up in the room, and he used to run, if it was in the summertime, he'd run

[01:06]

around just in his fundoshi, run around the house. And he used to sit most of the time talking to Kato-san, he really wasn't interested in talking to me, because he wasn't an intellectual in any sense of the word at all. And he wasn't especially interested in intellectual things, he read the paper. And I have to admit that he was something of a gossip. And he made me very annoyed one time, because in one of the O-Sessions, he insisted upon my coming and having supper with him every night. And I think it was the last O-Session we had, and he insisted on my coming up and eating supper with him. His little special supper. His little special supper. And his little special supper was daikon stewed in shoyu and water. Well, I didn't mind that so much, but I had to, then he would call this Esa up, and then

[02:09]

he would begin to gossip. And that I didn't like, because this was inside the O-Session time. I got very cross about that, but there was nothing I could do, I had to eat that darn kabura, boiled kabura, a piece about this big around about that thick, you know, boiled in shoyu and water. That I had to eat every night. Did he ever say anything or express any curiosity or interest in you as a foreigner being interested in Zen? Did he have any particular feeling about Zen in the West or the Middle East? No, not at all. I would say not at all. He was very devoted to me, and he was very wonderful to me. When we would have Sanzen, he would, he never talked much, and his Sanzen was always very, very short. And many times he wouldn't even let the boys come in. I mean, he would, and sometimes they'd tell me this, I had no way of really knowing myself,

[03:16]

but that if he didn't like the way Sanzen was going, he'd just shut it up, he wouldn't have any more. And the boys used to, the good boys who really wanted to have Sanzen, really had to hustle to get the front seats, because with all of these people, and he used to have Sanzen five times during O-Session time. Five times a day. Five times a day. And during the Rōhatsu, for instance, he never went to sleep, because nobody went to sleep in Rōhatsu. We had seven solid days. I was the only one that was allowed to sleep one hour. But he sat up for seven days himself, he never laid down, either. But he would get bored with, if the Sanzen wasn't going good, and he'd just shut the door and tell them, and the rest of them would be out, you see. So there used to be considerable, what, competition for the front seats in the Sanzen line, because

[04:20]

they never knew when he would lose his temper, because he had a quick temper, I should say. And he would lose his temper, or intentionally, he would say, well, the Sanzen's no good tonight, and he'd just slam the door, and that was it, nobody else could come in. And they all raced to the line? Yeah, they would all race to the line to get there, so they could get there early. And to get, I mean, to get to the front seats, so they'd be sure to get in. Did any boys ever stay behind, and not be thrown out? There were always, on those nights, a few, two or three. Who stayed behind? Well, who tried to stay behind. Did they ever let them stay behind? Never, no. Because, you know, in theory, Dōkusan is supposed to be voluntary, in theory. Yes. And I've heard that in some places, some monks go and some monks don't go, and the ones that don't go aren't made to go. So I'm just wondering about that. Well, I... Okay.

[05:25]

Well, I think if I had to characterize Nan Shinkan, the two most important elements in his character were his sincerity and his earnestness. I think he had no wish or no will to be a big man or a great man or an important man. He had only a wish to train monks and to train them well. He was meticulously neat and clean. And so that he would come over every few days to Senkō-an, this little temple. Because, though the monks were supposed to keep it clean, come regularly and sweep it and dust it and everything, he would go around, just like the woman in the story, with his finger.

[06:29]

And literally. And when it came to the Butsudan itself, which was fairly large there, he always took care of it himself. And he taught me how to take care of such a Butsudan. And this goes here, and this goes here, not here, not there, there. And everything was in absolutely perfect order and in absolute cleanliness. Later, a few years ago, I went to Hofukuchi in Okayama. I hope someday you go to Hofukuchi. Esan's place. And it's a very grand temple. It belongs to the Tofukuchi line. And it's a sub-sodo of Tofukuchi. And there is the temple where Setsho, not Setsho, what is the Japanese painter?

[07:31]

Sesshu lived as a boy. And where, on the screens of which are supposed to be his rats, you know? The rat that, I don't know, the rats came out and he painted the cat or whatever it was. Anyway, it's that temple. And they have the screens that he later painted also. And it is no longer a sodo, but Esan, being a Roshi, is very interested in lay people, has large lay groups and has since, in recent years, built a layman's zendo there at Hofukuchi. But they have a very, very large hondo and an enormously long Butsudan. And the first day that I went there, I went in to look at the Butsudan and I said to Ueshiba-san, it is only one of Nanshin-ken's disciples who would have a Butsudan that looked like this. Because it was just like his. I mean, everything.

[08:32]

And it was such a long one. And there were so many things on it. But nothing cluttered it. And everything in exactly its place. Everything shining. Everything, every bit of lacquer. Absolutely dustless. And absolutely beautiful care. And that was what Nanshin-ken taught all of his monks. Now, many of the younger ones who hadn't been with him so long thought it was a nuisance and thought it was boring and tried to get out of doing that sort of thing. But the older ones who stayed with him learned it and appreciated both him and what he taught them. His clothes were always old. Always old. Even when he was dressed up for a ceremony, his kesa showed no particular taste or that sort of thing.

[09:34]

He had no artistic ability at all. And no appreciation of art, I think. He was purely a sodo man. A monk's man. He was a monk to the last grain, the last hair of his head, which he didn't have. But he was very sweetly devout. And how much of this devoutness was a little on the, what shall I say, superstitious side, I wouldn't really know. But I always remember him when we would have teisho. And the hall, the hondo at Nanzen-ji is rather long. Or broad, I should say. And the laypeople, and I among them, sat over on this side, of course. And the hondo was in the middle. And the other boys sat on that side. And coming from the sodo, the zendo, which was beyond there,

[10:36]

they used to have to come in, and in a row, they would be silhouetted against the shoji. In the early morning, the light would light up the shoji. And we used to have teisho seven o'clock in the morning, earlier, during osession times. And I would see the silhouette of this line of boys, first the monks themselves coming in, and then the head monk who carried his book, and then the roshi, and then the boy who carried his teacup, following after. And he would come in, and he would stand the side of his seat. And then he would go and make his raihei to the Buddha. And that, I will never forget. His hands, as he came in,

[11:39]

the silhouette of his little head and his little body, and these really lovely hands he had. And the sweet, simple, really, I think one could say, devout, even, way that he entered the hondo. And his bowing was like the bowing of a child. It had no fuss to it, no arrangement of the kesa, no arrangement of robes or anything like that. He just came in and like a, just like a child, put his hands together and made his raihei. This sweet, simple, devotion, rather, maybe, than devoutness that he showed was very, very touching.

[12:43]

I used to always get a little jerk in my heart when I would see him come in in the morning that way. First the silhouette against the shoji, and then coming around, and he took rather small steps and his little pattering feet, and then the way that these hands were put together. Very, very sweet, touching way in which he did his raihei before the Buddha. Very, very sweet. Now, for his, of course, he came quite directly from Hakuin. And his nyoi, the ei-nyoi, I don't know what nyoi, I don't know what was the one he always used or not, but ei-nyoi he had was one which Hakuin had used, he showed it to me one day, and said that that was the sign of the transmission to him. Now, I don't know who got that nyoi after his death,

[13:46]

I have no idea. But he had it still when I was there in, what, 32, 33. He still had the nyoi and he showed it to me and told me it had been Hakuin. Now, the robe that he wore for Teisho, and I'm trying to think, not Teisho, but for Sanzen, I, and I'm not sure that he didn't use it for Teisho also, except when he had the grand ceremonies or something like that, was the most awful old robe you ever saw. Koromo. Koromo. It was made out of hemp, and rather closely woven hemp, and it had been, was kind of, been sand-colored, or dark sand-colored. And it had belonged to his teacher,

[14:47]

and it was several sizes too big for him, I should think that it must have belonged to his teacher's teacher or somebody else, because the ancientness of it, and the bulk of it, when the little man sat down, when you saw him for Sanzen, there was this bulk of this old, dilapidated, rough, because it was not a fine piece of hemp at all, rough robe, and I don't mean one of these transparent things at all, and this was summer and winter, I never saw him in anything else for Sanzen, except this one robe. And it was many, many sizes too big for him, and he always had just this rather small head, and this big, big mass of Koromo that certainly had been made for somebody five sizes bigger than he was, and old and old, and I never really saw that it was tattered, and I never saw that it was

[15:48]

really dirty, because I never got the times that I saw him wearing it, I was never in any position to make any careful examination of it, but you just got the feeling that this thing that he was wearing certainly had come down from two or three generations, and it must have the sweat and everything else of two or three generations of teachers in it, you know, it was such an old, old piece of material, and so forth. But to my mind, it was perfectly charming, it was one of the things that endeared him very much to me, was this old robe. And it was just what you expected the old Chinese people to be doing. And of course... And the same old robe, summer and winter, and I remember the last time I had Sanzen with him, the first time I was over, it was a very hot night, and we had

[16:49]

opened the garden, he was giving Sanzen in the Ozashiki that night, because it was too hot in his little ordinary Sanzen room. And I remember him sitting there with the garden all open, and it was so hot that night, and he had this big old robe on, just the same. And the perfectly marvelous way he talked to me that night, and his saying now, you must go back to America, and what you can do is you may teach people how to sit. Of course, he wouldn't let me sit cross-legged. I was still sitting in front of him. But the concern and the sweetness you asked me, not exactly if he was fond of me, but if he was interested in me,

[17:50]

yes, I think that I was one of the joys of his life, of his later years. And he got very angry at me one time, which had nothing to do with Sanzen or that, but that same year, that same summer, they had the usual farewell tea party for everybody. And I was invited to that, and I was asked to give the monks a talk, say something, at the tea party. And so I thought about it, I was asked some little time in advance, and I thought about it, and I wrote down in English what I wanted to say. And I had Ogarasan put it into Japanese for me, and then I read it in Japanese. It was very short, maybe a page or a little more. And

[18:51]

what I said was, what my message was, was that there was one thing that I had felt in living there in the Sodo, and that I wanted to speak about, that everybody was very much concerned, and correctly, with getting their own enlightenment. And that they must never forget that Shakyamuni had gotten his enlightenment only in order to help all sentient beings. And that in their eagerness to get their own enlightenment, they must never forget that what

[19:53]

they were working at was an enlightenment which was for the benefit, not of themselves alone, but everybody else. Then I presented them with something none of them had, which was Japanese language copies of the Dhammapada. Well, if you don't think I was given health for that, in the first place, books had no business there, you see. I really, of course, don't know exactly what all I was accused of, but at any rate, that was not unacceptable. He was very angry with me. For the speech or for the books? For the speech or speech books, I don't know, all together, because when I finished the speech, I then had a bunch of books and I proceeded to send them around to everybody in the

[20:55]

great big circle that was there. But that didn't go down at all. But in the end, I mean, it didn't make any difference in our relations, but he was very angry about that. Whether it was that I criticized the attitude in the Stotra, but it was true. It is absolutely true. It's still true, I suppose. I suppose so. I think it's very much true. I just think they're not taught that, you know. I mean, taught that, it's not... They say it, how many times a day, shu-jo-mu-hen-sei-dan-do, and it doesn't mean anything. They like to think that you don't have to say it at all, but it's taken for granted, I think. Well, they were all kindness itself to me. Nobody could have been kinder than all the monks were in every way, shape, and manner. And they liked to play little tricks on me sometimes,

[21:56]

like they gave me rice with mochi in it and tried to choke me, you know, that was just a big joke, a general joke. Because they just considered me one of them. They were really wonderful to me. I suppose that those two years, or that year and a half actually in the Soto, was the most completely satisfactory time I ever had in my life. Oh, it was wonderful. Just wonderful. Just wonderful. And I never saw anything but kindness to myself. As I say, there was no sake drinking, there were no women hanging around the place. Occasionally, because the Soto had a number of geisha people, geishas and geisha houses,

[22:58]

who were adherents of the Soto and had been, from time to time I would see that some old former geisha lady was up there visiting with him. But it was one of the most circumspect, clean, well it was famous for that, Mount Zenji Soto was, the way you read it. And this shows the kind of person he was. He had one thing that he liked to paint, and that was what was known as Onodanoma, Woman Danoma. And that comes from the story of a certain nobleman, warrior rather, who had a very beautiful courtesan as a mistress. And he used to carry her around and camp with her, with him.

[23:59]

And one night he came into his tent or what have you, and she had taken a red cloak of his and thrown it over her head like this, you know. And he said, Oh, Onodanoma. And so Nanshin Ken proceeded to give me one of these Onodanoma paintings. Then the problem came as to how to explain the story to me. And my secretary then later translator told me it was very amusing because Nanshin Ken didn't want me didn't want me to know that the lady was the warrior's mistress. That the story must be told so carefully in such a way that I wouldn't understand that she was his mistress. During that period

[25:03]

that you were studying at Namsenji during your first two trips over here did you have any chance to see anything of the other Sōdōs in Kyoto or around the country? I didn't see any Sōdōs, no. I was on excellent terms with the old Roshi of Sokokuchi. Do you know he's dead? Old Yamazaki. Yamazaki died? Yamazaki Taiko? It doesn't surprise me that I didn't know that. He died only about two weeks ago. And it's been a big, not exactly a nice show but at least they never had a service for him. And they will have eventually but they sent Dana up here to tell me and tell me not to tell anybody but there was a little tiny notice in the Asahi paper I mean that's all outside. And they would tell me when I was to come and pay my respects but this was, I was not to do it now.

[26:06]

He was a great friend of mine. But I never saw the Sōdō and I never sat in any of the Sōdōs. Well, let's put it this way then. The Zen world as a whole in Kyoto, not just Namsenji but whatever you saw of it as a whole how did the whole Zen scene in Kyoto seem in those days, especially compared with today? Well, now let me see. Esan took me to see Tofukuchi and I met Tofukuchi Roshi and he was something of a scamp. Esan's line, temple line was Tofukuchi that was that connection. I went to a party at Miyoshinji at which the President Roshi of Tofukuchi was given for him when he became Assistant Roshi at

[27:07]

Miyoshinji. Of course I met Shōkokuji Roshi who else did I meet among the Roshis? Keninji I didn't know. You see, Daitokuji Roshi I barely met that's all, barely met. And I did at one time go to Kamakura and met Asahina Roshi. But you see, there's a problem here. Japanese people are not keen about your knowing anybody else than themselves. And that was very carefully

[28:08]

taken care of. Mr. Suzuki took me to Shōkokuji. But in the meanwhile, Shōkokuji Roshi come around in the back door and come in my own house without her knowing it. And the Miyoshinji, I was invited to that party and what else was there? Keninji, Miyoshinji, Daitokuji, Shōkokuji, Tenryūji I didn't know anything about. And Nanshinken was something the same way also. This was his private preserve. I had thought perhaps too, Dr. Suzuki, you might have visited some other temples and maybe even looked into Minnesota. Well, I did M-Pukuchi out here. M-Pukuchi. M-Pukuchi is at a place called Yawata Hachiman.

[29:11]

It's about maybe 30 minutes on the train. You've never been there. Well, it isn't anything today. But M-Pukuchi I went to quite often. I never sat in the Zendo. But I knew a number of the monks there. But that was because the Suzuki's were interested in the foreigners' Zendo that Kozuki Roshi had built there. That's the reason for that. And so they were interested in my being interested in it. Dr. Suzuki was not really lived a very life very much to himself even in those days. But Mrs. Suzuki who was starved for friends so they were interested in my being

[30:20]

interested in it. Dr. Suzuki was not really lived a very life very much to himself even in those days. But Mrs. Suzuki who was starved for friends grasped under every straw and clutched it. And she was the one who made the connections I mean who would take me and introduce me to people. But they were very few. Partly because I only had Sundays to go and sightseeing. Now Nanshin Ken I have two things that he did for me in introducing me. But they were not Sodo's. The first was that he took me to Ryoanji. And I think you've heard me say

[31:23]

that the priest of Ryoanji in those days the old priest was one of Nanshin Ken's disciples. He was not an heir but he had been in Nansenji Sodo. He was a very nice man. And Ryoanji was a very deserted temple. And so we made a little trip there one day and he introduced me to the priest. And the priest said that anytime I wanted to come up there on one of my resting days because I had used to take always one resting day I was free to come. He'd be glad to have me. So a number of times I went up in the morning with a nice big bento and slept out on the Roka half the day and had lunch with him and then slept some more in another one of the rooms and then he'd fix a bath for me and then we'd sit and have tea and then we'd have supper and sit out on the Roka

[32:25]

and look at the moon. There wouldn't be one human being would come to Ryoanji. Not one. That was in 1932. 1933. I could go there anytime. And I would do the same thing to the mosque temple here. I've forgotten who introduced me there. At any rate I would go and they would give me one of the tea houses and I would just go to sleep in the tea house. I'd have my bento and they'd bring me a hibachi and tea and so forth and sleep all day out there. Nobody. Not anybody. Not a soul. That was really wonderful. Ogata-san took me a few places. I expect Ogata-san took me to Miyoshinji to meet when this Roshi had his party or the party given for him.

[33:26]

But there was always a feud between Mrs. Suzuki and Ogata-san on the question of who introduced who to whom. And they were both concerned about who was getting into the other's territory. All of that had to be very, very carefully handled. And then another thing that Mount Shinden did for me that was very interesting he conducted a jukai. Do you know what a jukai is? It's a three-day... Well, you have to write something about this. This is a three-day kind of revival in some big country temple. And we went to a place called Inuyama which is in Gifu prefecture. And one of the monks came from a temple near there and I slept in his temple

[34:28]

because there wasn't room exactly at the place where Mount Shinden was giving this thing. Well, what happens is they have a great big matsuri in which people from all the district come and they have tents and things set up for them so they can sleep and the other temples in the place bed them down or the farmers bed them down or the townspeople bed them down. Maybe 2,000 or 3,000 people come. At least they did this time. And one of the leading donkas entertains the roshi or the head of the leader of this jukai. And it goes on for three days. And the temple serves meals, food, and they have big cauldrons of food and all that sort of thing.

[35:28]

Well, I remember the first day we got there for this, the first thing that happened I've got some pictures of it someplace it must be in America. They had a parade through the town. And the parade was the leading priest because Nan Shinkanen had only one thing he was going to do. He was the head of it, but he had only one real serious duty. And there were any number of preachers who came, specialists in preaching. And the preaching went on all day long. One man would sit here and he'd start to preach and he'd finish. And then the next man would begin over here. They were really preaching. Oh, really preaching. But the big thing that Nan Shinkanen had to do was to read the what, 10,000 or 30,000 or 50,000 names of Buddha about the parade.

[36:33]

So all of these dignitaries that were going to, and their attendants and everybody else who were going to take part in this as preachers or what have you were provided with gym rickshaws. And they were all provided not all, because the lesser ones were not the lesser ones had to walk with great big red umbrellas and an old man in a hoppy coat coming along behind the rickshaw holding this great big red umbrella. And the procession was led by the mayor and he wore a hakama and a haori and a derby hat. Walked down the walked through the center of the main streets of the town with Roshi in his red red you know, kesa, red and gold in his, one of these funny hats on his head, you know and then the lesser people with the big red umbrella over him

[37:34]

and the little man behind and the little man ahead pulling him in the rickshaw, and then several rickshaws for the major priests behind, and then all the other people priests walking behind and they parade through the town. Well, they had, I think only once a day or it may have been twice a day that they had this reading of the names and it seems that there's a big book in there or some sutra in which lists all the names of Buddha and I can't tell you how many there are 50,000 maybe anyway it's a very, they had a very grand edition of it and Roshi would sit up there and this was the biggest job or the most important job he would sit up there and he would read Namu Samanda Buddha and then everybody

[38:38]

in the audience, because the place, everybody that's what they mainly come for, they would all bow down and then he'd read Bhishamanda because it went A, B, C or something like that and wait, everybody would bow down he'd get through about 25 or 30 in a sitting and then he'd have to stop and then the sermons would begin and the people would be running around and the food would be coming in and so forth and then he'd go home and sit in his little hojo for a little while and then come back again and start reading and then everybody that went there got some kind of a that attended and did all of this bowing to all of these, whatever thousand names it was got a paper a very elaborately folded and printed paper which said that you had attended this Chukai

[39:40]

and that you had raihaed all of these buddhists and it went on for three days Did you meet Nakamura Tanyu? I didn't, I met him I didn't meet him in the beginning, I met him after the war I met him a number of times and because he came for he was Kancho Keninji for a while too that time he came up to Nanzenji for one of the services, a memorial service for Nan Shin Ken and I was considered one of the boys and one of the six or seven boys and we all sat up, there were eight of us because there were six boys and I and Nakamura and Shibuyama Roshi we sat up in Nan Shin Ken's room around his old kotatsu and talked about the old days

[40:43]

Would you say well let's see do you feel that Zen was clearly stronger in Japan in those days as a whole in terms of the respect it received from the public at large? Oh I think there's no question no question about it no question at all In terms of sheer numbers of monks and followers and Dankas I think certainly the numbers were greater, very much greater and the caliber of the people of the Dankas and so forth was very much better and as well as their number and the monks as I say what I've said before, I don't know that their caliber proportionally was much different but the Dankas, yes and I don't know, I can't tell you

[41:49]

about the society about the lay societies because Nan Shin Ken never took me to any of his lay meetings he had a society in Osaka that he went to once a month and the month of August he spent always up in Akita he'd been doing that for many many years and he had a big layman's group in Akita and they would take a temple for the whole month of August and he spent the entire month of August up in Akita with this group up there just what they did or who they were or how many or that, I have no idea now I'm afraid I've just talked and I haven't given you any opportunity to ask questions but you can do that next time I've been asking questions all along What about Sokatsu Roshi? Well, that's another story

[42:50]

Since we're talking about different Roshis Well, I'll tell you, but I'll tell you another time because it's half past nine

[42:57]

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