It wouldn't mean that it was unpleasantly so. It was just, everything was tight. The feeling was good, though. The feeling was just wonderful. Absolutely. Did you see once that Narasimha King used to go out and do Samudra with milk? Oh, yes. Often did. And he had a little vegetable garden 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'd 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 6 o'clock in the morning. And it would be lunch in Cantonese. He'd have his little furoshiki and an old straw hat. And he just got bored at the Soto, so he'd come down for two or three days.

[01:01]

So we picked him up in a room. And he used to run, if it was in the summertime, he'd run around just in his fundoshi, run around the house. And he used to sit most of the time talking to Karusan. He really wasn't interested 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 at one of the old sessions, he insisted upon my coming and having supper with him every night. And I think it was the last old 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.

[02:03]

Well, I didn't mind that so much, but I had to. Then he would call this esan up, and then he would begin to gossip. And that I didn't like, because this was inside the old session time. I got very cross about that, but there was nothing I could do. I had to eat that darn a piece about this big around about that thick, you know, boiled in shoyu and water. That I'd 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? 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 never talked much.

[03:08]

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 have no way of really knowing myself. 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 Oseishin time. Five times a day. Five times a day. And during the rohatsu, for instance, he never went to sleep. Of course, nobody went to sleep in rohatsu. He had seven solid days. I was the only one that was allowed to sleep one hour. But he sat up the seven days himself. He never laid down either. But he would get bored if the sanzen wasn't going good.

[04:13]

And he just shut the door and the rest of them would be out, you see. So there used to be considerable competition for the front seats in the Sanzen line because they never knew when he would lose his temper or because he had a quick temper, I should say. and he would lose his temper or intentionally. He would say, there's something that's no good tonight, and he'd just slam the door, and that was it. Nobody else could come in. Nobody else raced? 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 the front seats so they'd be sure to get in did any boys ever stay behind and not be thrown uh there were always on those those nights a few two or three who stayed behind well who tried to stay behind did they ever let them stay never Because, you know, in theory, Dokusan is supposed to be voluntary, in theory.

[05:17]

Yes. And I've heard that at some places, some monks go and some monks don't go, and the ones that don't go aren't made to go. Well, I... Okay. 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, so that he would come over every two days to Senkouan, this little temple.

[06:27]

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, 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 butsadat. And this goes here, and this goes here, and not here, not there, there. And everything was in absolutely perfect order, in absolute cleanliness. Later, a few years ago, I went to Hokuchi. in Okayama. I hope someday you go to Hofukuchi. Ehsan's place. And it's a very grand temple that belongs to the Tofukuchi line.

[07:33]

It's a sub-sodo of Tofukuchi. And there, it's the temple where Setsuo, not Setsuo, what is the Japanese painter? Setsuo lives as a boy. and where on the screens of which are supposed to be his rats, you know, the rat that, or the, 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 Ehsan, 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 Hoboji. But they have a very, very large hondo and an enormously long wood sedan. And the first day that I went there, I went in to look at the butsudan, and I said to Washiwazan, it is only one of Nan Shinken's disciples who would have a butsudan that looked like this, because it was just like his.

[08:47]

I mean, everything, and it was such a long one, and there were so many things from 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 Nan Shinkian 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 it. both him and what he talked of. And he was, his clothes were always old, always old. Even when he was dressed up for a ceremony, his quesa had no particular, showed no particular taste or that sort of thing.

[09:52]

He had no artistic ability at all, in a sense, and no appreciation of art, I think. He was purely a Soto man, a monk's man. He was a monk to the last grain, last air 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 hondo at Nanzen-ji is rather long, or broad, I should say, And the lay people, and I among them, sat over on this side, of course, and the Honda was in the middle, and the other boys sat on that side. And coming from the Sodo, the Zendo, which was beyond there, they used to have to come in, and in a row, they would be silhouetted against the shoji, you know, in the early morning, the light would light up the shoji,

[11:11]

as we used to have at 7 o'clock in the morning earlier during old session 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 beside of his seat, and then he would go and make his raihai to the Buddha. And that I will never forget. His hands as he came in, the silhouette of his 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.

[12:34]

It had no... fuss to it, no arrangement of kesa, no arrangement of robes or anything like that. He just came in and, just like a child, put his hands together and made his raihai. That this sweet, simple Devotion, rather, maybe than devoutness that he showed, was very, very touching. I used to always get it. get a little jerk in my heart when I would see him come in in the morning that way. First, this 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, and very, very sweet, touching way in which he did his raihai before the Buddha.

[13:36]

Very, very sweet Now, for his, of course, he came quite directly from Hakuin. And his nyoi, he, a nyoi, I don't know nyoi, I don't know whether it was one he always used or not, but a 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 mioy after his death. I have no idea. Interesting. Yes, but he had it still when I was there in, what, 32, 33. He still had the mioy, and he showed it to me and told me it had been Hakuin's. Now, the robe that he wore for Taisho, and I'm trying to think, not Taisho, but for Sanzen, and I'm not sure that he didn't use it for Taisho also, except when he had grand ceremonies or something like that, was the most awful old robe you ever saw.

[14:54]

Koromo. Koromo. Mm-hmm. It was made out of hemp, and rather closely woven hemp, and it was kind of sand-colored or dark sand-colored. And it had belonged to his teacher, 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, but a rough robe. And I don't mean one of these transparent things. And this was summer and winter. I never saw him in anything else for a sansan except this one robe. And it was many, many sizes too big for him.

[15:55]

And he always had just this rather small head and this big, big mass of Kodomo 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 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. 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.

[16:59]

And it was just what you expected the old Chinese people to be doing. One robe, summer and winter. And the same old robe, summer and winter. And I remember the last time I had , the first time I was over. It was a very hot night. And we had all the shoji open to the garden. He was giving sanzen in his yozashiki that night because it was too hot in his little ordinary sanzen room. And I remember his 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. 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.

[18:02]

I was still sitting Caesar in front of him. But... the concern and the sweetness you asked me, if he was, not exactly if he were fond of me, but if he were interested in me, 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.

[19:05]

I was asked some little time in advance And I thought about it, and I wrote about English, what I wanted to say. And I had 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 what I said was, what my message 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

[20:22]

in their eagerness to get their own enlightenment, they must never forget that what 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. What? If you don't think I was given hell for that. In the first place, the shoujo business had no, books had no business there, you see. And I really, of course, don't know exactly what all I was accused of, but at any rate, that was not an acceptable, he was very unacceptable. For the speech or for the books? For the speech or speech books, I don't know, all together.

[21:23]

Because when I finished the speech, I then had the bunch of books and I proceeded to send them around to everybody in the great big circle that was there. But that didn't go down at all. 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 soda, 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, it's taught that, it's not... They say it, how many times a day should Joe Mouhen say it on dole? And it doesn't mean anything. They like to think that you don't have to say it at all, that it's taken for granted, I think. Well, they were all kindness itself to me.

[22:24]

Nobody could have been kinder. than all of the monks were in every way, shape, and manner. And they liked to play little tricks on me sometimes, like they gave me rice with mochi in it and tried to choke me. And if you, you know, that was just a big joke, a general joke. But because they just considered me one of them, they didn't, they were really wonderful to me. Those were, 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.

[23:26]

Now, occasionally, because Nan Shinkin had, the Soto had a number of geisha people, geishas and geisha houses, 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 the most circumspect, clean. Well, it was famous for that. 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 Onodonoma, the woman Donoma. And that comes from the story of a certain nobleman, a warrior rather, who had a very beautiful courtesan as a mistress.

[24:34]

And he used to carry her around the camp with him. 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, Onodarama. And so Nan Shinken proceeded to give me one of these Onodarama 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 Nan Shinkian 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...

[25:37]

understand that she was his mistress. During that period that you were studying at non-venger, during the first two trips over here, did you have any chance to see anything of the other sodos in Kyoto or around the country? I didn't see any sodos, no. I was on Excellent terms for the old Roshi of Sokokuchi. Do you know he's dead? Old Yamazaki. Yamazaki died? Yamazaki Toko? Yeah. It doesn't surprise me now, does it? Well, he died only about two weeks ago. Oh, really? Yeah. 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 note in the acai paper, that's all we know.

[26:40]

I mean, that's all, outside note. And they would tell me when I was to come and pay my respects, but this was, I was not to do it now. He was a great friend of mine. But I never saw the Sodom, and I never sat in any of it. Well, let's put it this way, then. the Zen world as a whole in Kyoto, not just non-Zenji, 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. Eson took me to see Tofukuchi, and I met Tofukuchi Roshi, and he was something of a scamp. essence line, temple line was Tofukuchi. That was that connection. I went to a party at Myoshinji at which the present Roshi of Tofukuchi was given for him when he became assistant Roshi at Myoshinji.

[27:55]

Of course, I met Shokokuji 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 the problem here. Japanese people are not keen about your knowing anybody else than themselves. That was very carefully taken care of.

[28:58]

Mrs. Suzuki took me to Sokoku-ji. But in the meanwhile, Sokoku-ji Rose should come around in the back door and come in my own house without her knowing it. And I was invited to that party. What else is there? I didn't know anything about. And was something the same way also. This was his private preserve. Well, I had talked perhaps to Dr. Suzuki. You might have visited some other temples and maybe even looked into some of those. Well, I did M. Pukuchi out here. M. Pukuchi. M. Pukuchi. Where is it? M. Pukuchi is at a place called Yawata Hachiman.

[30:01]

It's about maybe 30 minutes on an electric train. You've never been there. But it isn't anything today. Mm-hmm. But Ampukji 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 foreigner's zendo that Kozuki Roshi had built there. That's the reason for that. And so they were interested in my being interested. Dr. Suzuki lived a life very much to himself, even in those days. So they were interested in my being interested.

[31:03]

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, Nan Shinkin, I have two things that he did for me. in introducing me, but they were not Sōdōs. The first was that he took me to Ryoanji.

[32:04]

And I think you've heard me say that the priest of Ryoanji in those days, the old priest, was one of Nan Shinken's disciples. He was not an heir, but he had been in Nan Shinken's Sōdō. He was a very nice man, and Ryo-Wanji 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 any time I wanted to come up there on one of my resting days, because I used to take always one resting day, I was free to come. He was 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 Roca 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 Roca and look at the moon.

[33:11]

There wouldn't be one human being with country lunch, not one. That was in 1932, 1933. I could go there any time. And I would do the same thing to the Morse 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 pendulum. 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. And Ogarasan took me a few places. I expect Ogarasan took me to Myoshinji to meet this, when this Roshi had his party, or the party given for him.

[34:12]

But there was always a feud between Mrs. Suzuki and Ogarasan on the question of who introduced who to whom. And they were both concerned about who was getting into the other's territory. That had to be very, very carefully handled. And then another thing that Nan Shenden 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, Ken. And one of the monks came from a temple near there, and I slept in his temple because there wasn't room exactly at the place where Nan Shinken was giving this thing.

[35:23]

Well, what happens is they have a great big matsuri at 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 two or three thousand people come at least they did this time and the one of the leading donkas entertains the roshi or the the head of the of the the leader of this chukai 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. But I remember the first day we got there for this, the first thing that happened, oh, I've got some pictures of it someplace.

[36:28]

They must be in America. I don't know. They had a parade through the town. And the parade was the leading priest, because the Nan Shinkan 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. The next man would begin. They were really preaching. Oh, they were really preaching. Talking. Oh, really preaching. But the big thing that Mount Shinkan had to do was to read the, what, 10,000 or 30,000 or 50,000 names of Buddha. But about the parade, 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 gin rickshaws.

[37:39]

And they were all provided, not all, because the lesser ones were not. The lesser ones had to walk. The great big red umbrellas and an old man in a happy coat coming along behind the rickshaw holding a very big red umbrella. And the procession was led by the mayor, and he wore a hakama and a haori and a derby hat. He walked through the center of the main streets of the town with Roshi in his red, red, you know, kissa, red and gold, and he has one of these funny hats on his head, you know. and then the lesser people with the big red umbrella over him, 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, the priests walking behind, and they parade through the town.

[38:41]

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. It seems that there's a big book in there, or some sutra, which lists all the names of Buddha. And I can't tell you how many there are. 50,000 maybe, anyway. 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 Dada Dada Dada Buddha. And then everybody in the audience, because the place, everybody, that's what they mainly come from, they would all bow down. And then he'd read, B, shaman, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, because it went A, B, C, or something like that.

[39:49]

And wait, everybody got that. He'd get through about 25 or 30 in a sitting. And then he'd have to stop, but 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 again. 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... a paper, a very elaborately folded and printed paper, which said that you had attended this Chukai and that you had Raihide all of these Buddhas. And it went on for three days. Did you meet Nakamura Tanya? I didn't meet him in the beginning.

[40:52]

I met him after the Boer. I met him a number of times. because he came for... He was Kanjo Keninji, you know, for a while, too. That time, he came up to Nanzenji for one of the services, a memorial service for Nan Shinken. And I was considered one of the boys, and one of the six or seven boys, and we all sat up, and there were eight of us, but 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. 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?

[41:58]

Oh, I think there's no question. No question at all. No question at all. Yeah, in terms of sheer numbers of monks and followers and down kind. 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, as well as their number. And the monks, as I say, what I've said before, I don't know that their caliber proportionately was much different. But the Dankas, yes. And I don't know, I can't tell you about the lay societies, because Nan Shingen never took me to any of his lay meetings. He had a society in Osaka that he went to once a month.

[43:04]

And the month of August, he spent all his time 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, with this group up there. Just what they did or who they were or how many or that, I have no idea at all. 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. Well, no, I've been asking questions all along. What about Sokatsu Roshi? Well, that's another story. Since we're talking about different Roshi. Well, I'll tell you, but I'll tell you another time because it's at last nine now. This I... February 25th, Mrs. Sasaki, Reel 1, Side 2.

[44:10]

I'll tell you the story as I know it for Katsuroshi. It has its shadowy parts as well as its brilliant parts. But I think he's not totally uncharacteristic of certain Japanese roshis over a long period, perhaps. He was originally a layman. who was engaged in making and very good at making what is known as Kamakura lacquer. Do you know what Kamakura lacquer is? Some special kind of lacquer? Yes. It was produced around about Kamakura.

[45:10]

It's red, thick lacquer that is very deeply incised. And at that time, he became interested in studying with old Kosen Roshi. And later, after Kosen Roshi died, he went to Soyen Roshi. He was still quite a young man at the time. And under Soyen Roshi, he decided to become a monk. He gave up his layman status. And he was adopted by Sokatsu, and given the name of... He was adopted, rather, by Soyen Roshi, and given the name of Shaku, which is a family name which Soyen took for himself.

[46:11]

It was not his family name, but it's one that he took for himself. And which he, and he legally adopted Sokatsu as his heir. How old was Sokatsu at this time when he became a monk and was adopted? Do you know? Roughly? Well, let me think back. Soyen died, I think, about, when did Soyen die? 1918? Or was it later than that? I think it was about 1918 when Soyen died. I suppose, well, Sokatsu was very young. He was 30, 32 when he finished his Zen study. Did you ask me when he became a monk? How old he was? Well, I would think probably about 25. About 25. He wasn't married then, right?

[47:15]

No, he hadn't married. And he was the apple of Soyun's eye. And Sokyon has often said, though, that his pride was his shortcoming and that Soyen had used often to come from Sanzen with his head cut and bleeding from Soyen's having hit him with his nyoi to try to destroy, in some fashion or other, try to destroy this violent arrogance. At any rate, After Solyan retired as Kancha, well, when Sokatsu finished his Zen study, he was in his early 30s, and he then went to Burma and Siam, India, Ceylon, and he made the whole trip.

[48:27]

He told me this himself many years later. dressed like an itinerant monk, and he picked up his living as he went, begging from door to door. He was gone, I think, about two years. Then he came back. And during Kosen Osho's life, you remember Kosen was the teacher of Soyen. Yeah. Well, Kosen had founded a very aristocratic society called Ryomo Kyokai, which was for the study by lay people, study of Zen by lay people. He had many friends in the palace group, and many of those very important men were original members of this

[49:30]

and were his Chan Zen students. Later, Kosen died, and Soyen was not interested particularly in the society, and it died down into nothing. But when Sokatsu came back from Burma, he was too young to do much of anything, to get much of a job, because it was expected that he was going to become the concho of Roshi at Engakuji on Soen's retirement. Soen suggested that he take up, that he revive this Ryomo Kyokai of Kosen, which he did. And he started a, he built a very nice house with a dojo and near the pagoda in Ueno Park, still exists.

[50:35]

And there he began to teach. He had among his disciples a doctor who was quite well-to-do. And this doctor was a widower with a daughter. And the daughter was in her, what, late teens, and was brought to Sokatsu with the idea of his giving her Sanzen also. And then, quite suddenly, the doctor died. And it was found that he had left his estate to his daughter, which was a considerable estate, and he had left Sokatsu as her guardian. Well, that's the way it began.

[51:37]

And the next thing we know, Soyen has retired from Ndakoji, and the young lady is compromised with Sokatsu. secretly compromised. And the time comes for the election of the new Roshi, or evidently Roshi and Kancha, that I can't answer exactly, of Ndakoji. And nobody thought for a minute that there would be the slightest problem about Soen's heir being elected. The day before the election, however, the major newspapers in Tokyo broke out with a story of this man, this priest of Ngakuchi, who had misled this ward of his and was living with her and was making great use of her fortunes.

[52:49]

So, of course, the thing went to pieces. He lost the election, naturally. And he shook the dust of temples off his feet. It was a curious thing. He would never take off his koromo. And he always shaved his head. And he continued to live with the girl, whose name was Echokosan, until his death at 81. They were the most devoted couple that you ever saw. She was utterly devoted to him. She was a wonderful woman. But he never would marry her, though his students often urged him to take off his koroma and become a lay teacher, I mean a real lay teacher. But he refused to do it. He always wore his hair shaved. And he always, but he always wore his koromo.

[53:52]

And in public, unless, well, except in the most intimate, with the most intimate friends, Eichok-san took the role of his onji, waited upon him with the utmost formality, and he addressed it with the utmost formality. he then concentrated on teaching laypeople. And he had a number of temple men, monks we'll say, or priests, come to study under him because he was considered such a brilliant teacher. And I have no doubt that he was, of his time, probably the most brilliant of any of the Zen Roshis of his particular period. But he was bitter, bitter, bitter against temples and temples then. And when Goto Roshi came to him as a disciple, he had already taken off his koromo.

[55:04]

Goto Roshi had entered temple life as a little boy and then had gone up north to Sendai to high school. and decided he didn't want to be a monk. So when he came to Sokatsu, he was a university student. He was in the philosophy department of Tokyo University. When Sokaon came to him, he was a student at the art department of the university in Tokyo. At other times, though, he had several priests whom I had met in the course of years who studied under him for a time, who came back to work further on their koan study or something like that. But the main group of his students were all lay people, and he especially liked the students, university students, And I think that Keough University, if I'm not mistaken, is up in that area.

[56:08]

And whichever university is in that area was the university from which he grew a large number of his students. Later, he moved further out in the country. And eventually he built this quite large dojo out in Chiba at Ichikawa. And that still exists. And it is that that Eizan Roshi is the head of. That's still a lay dojo. Oh, yes. Entirely a lay dojo. Eizan Roshi. Eizan Roshi. He was still Captain Chikago? Now, Eizan Roshi came to him in fairly early days. Well, Eizan now is about my age. He's about 72, I think.

[57:09]

Eizan Roshi, the Roshi with the little beard? That's right. He came here with his white clothes. That's right. And Eizan Roshi was a university boy when he went to Sokotsu first, and he came from a very good and quite wealthy family. And you've met his wife. What's her name now? Well, I forget now. But they both became very much interested in taking sansen. Eizan himself was a professor of natural science or natural history, something like that, a combination of... and I think, could there be a professor of natural science? I don't know. Here. He taught for many, many years in one of the universities near Yokohama. And as a youth, he told me, Eizan Roshi, told me that after some period of study, when he was about 19 or 20,

[58:18]

that he took three months off in the summer and went up to Matsushima in the north and lived most of the summer in a cave by himself to do Zazen. And that is where he made his real breakthrough into Zen was during that period of the summer vacation that he'd taken up there. After he was married, he went to live in the dojo with Sokatsu, or in a house in the same compound. And he remained with Sokatsu until just before the war. As I say, his family were very well-to-do, and Sokatsu, who was a very extravagant man, managed to go through A. Choksan's fortune and to go through A. Zan's fortune.

[59:27]

How could he do it? Well, he liked robes for one thing. He liked to build for another. He liked to collect antiques for another. He was an excellent painter and calligrapher, a very fine painter and calligrapher. And he liked to have his things elaborately published. printed and published, and there was always something. Building. Building and that sort of thing. And Azan could not have been a more devoted student, nor could his wife. They had either, I think, three children. And their entire married life was lived in the same compound with Sokatsu and Echok's son. Did Sokatsu and Echok have any children? They had two daughters. And one of them, at one period in 1906, wasn't it, that Sokatsu went to America.

[60:34]

And this is very amusing. According to Sokaian's story, Sokatsu told him that he would have to get married because he was taking Eichokusan to America with him, and he couldn't take her without proper chaperonage of another married couple. So among his students, he picked out a wife for Sokaian. And that was how Sokaian and his wife went to America, as chaperones for Sokatsu and Echukusa. And there was another woman who's now Mrs. Matsumoto, she's about 90 years old and still alive in San Francisco, who either went with them from here or had already gone to San Francisco and was associated with them in San Francisco, I think not on the farm.

[61:55]

And of course, Gojo Roshi, there were 10 or 12 of them all together. But after they'd been there two years,

[62:03]

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