I'm going to read Soku number 33, Shin-Shibutsu. Shin-Shibutsu. It's a very short Soku. And... February 22nd, 1966. Tape 1. Well, let's... No, that's all right. I'll remember it. Let's start with... Could you describe what your very first... The first time that you actually went into a Zen dojo was when you went to Nanzen-ji? The first Zen temple that you actually had contact with, in the sense of going in and sitting and... Oh, yes. It was Nanzen-ji. What year was that? And that was in 1932. It was in the spring of 1932.

[01:00]

Dr. Suzuki had arranged for you to go up to Nanzen-ji to sit? He had arranged not to sit. He had arranged... Do you mind if the story's a little long? Not at all. Just talk as you talk. Well, it's a little amusing. In the autumn of 1930, when I had first met him, and in fact the only conversation that I had with him prior to the spring of 1932, he had casually said to me, if you want to study Zen, you really should come to Japan, and you will get more out of three or four months' study here than several years of attempting to do anything by yourself. He had, of course, at Mr. Suzuki's insistence, given me a little bit of information about sitting in a chair and breathing and handling my mind.

[02:04]

And so then later it became possible for me to come, and so I was in constant correspondence with him, and I told him when I could come and arrive and how long I could stay, and he arranged with the Roshi of Daitoku-ji. Who was the Roshi then? I really have forgotten his name. He was a very... Washino-san will know, but he was Mr. Suzuki's very close friend. And he had arranged for him to take me, and then I was going... He arranged for me to live at Koto-in. I don't know if you know Koto-in well or not. No, I don't know. They have two or three rooms at the back, which are the oldest part of the temple,

[03:09]

and Mr. Suzuki had arranged for me to live there. I don't know what I was supposed to do about meals. I didn't pay attention, especially to that. Perhaps they were supposed to feed me, but I was supposed to stay there anyway. And so it was with that understanding that I got on the steamer all by myself in Seattle and left here. And with the exception of Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki, the only other individual I knew in Japan at that time was a Mr. Ikeda, who had been our sort of secretary and guide when Mr. Everett and I had been over here in 1930. A very nice man and a very capable man, a gentleman and so forth. Well, when I arrived in Yokohama, Mr. Ikeda was there and Mr. Suzuki.

[04:11]

I don't remember whether he was there or whether he had sent somebody. At any rate, he very soon came, and we stayed at the Grand Hotel for a day maybe, and informed me that he was very sorry that everything had been, that the Daito-ji had been thrown into the discard. Of course, nothing had been said about sitting in the Zendo or anything like that. It was simply Zen study under Roshi. And that he hoped that he could get the Roshi of Nanzen-ji to take me. Later, of course, I found out the reasons for this, but it took me a little time to find out the reasons. At any rate, when we came, when I came down to Kyoto then, since Mr. Everett and Eleanor planned to arrive in Japan in the late summer, sometime in August,

[05:16]

I thought it would be a wise thing to have a large enough house for them to live in, to be with me. And Mrs. Suzuki had already arranged for one of her former housekeepers, Kato-san, whom you know, to keep house for me here, and she'd gotten a young English student of hers, a Japanese young man, to act as interpreter and secretary. So eventually we were able to find a beautiful house on the Kamo River, and moved in there. And in the meanwhile, I had been taken by Dr. Suzuki up to Nanzen-ji to meet the old Roshi, who was then, let me see, he must have been, he was 70 or 71 at that time. And we were taken into his Ozashiki, and then he came and I was introduced.

[06:31]

And after a certain amount of talking back and forth with Dr. Suzuki as interpreter and so forth, he then said, well, of course, you can't sit in the zendo. And also, you can't do anything very much in your own house where you have servants and things like that. And I have a temple here just across the road from the Sodo, which is my personal temple, which I built some years ago, in which I will live when I retire. And nobody lives in it, and you're perfectly welcome to have it. And I would like you to, now I'm telling it in short form, I would like you to come here every day

[07:33]

and do nothing but zazen all day long in that house. If you will come about 9 in the morning, and come first of all to my rooms in the Sodo, in my inmyo, then I will give you the key, and you can bring a bento for lunch, and you are to sit there all day long, and at 5 o'clock or 6 o'clock you can go home. And it was about 3 miles from Nanzenji to the house on the Kamo, maybe 4 miles. You bring the key to me in the evening and go home. And you are not to bring any books with you of any kind. And I have sent over to the house, to the temple, a Morris chair. And if you want to sit in that, you may.

[08:36]

And so when I finally did go and I saw the Morris chair, it was a very amusing chair. One that had a footrest and armrest, headrest, and a series of buttons on the arms. You pushed a button and the footrest shot out. You pushed another button and the headrest came out, and another button and the back went down. And so his idea seemed to be that sitting in a chair was perfectly acceptable. And I had been in America for nearly a year and a half, been sitting in a straight-back Chinese-style chair so that my body was this way, you know, at angles and breathing correctly. I trusted in doing several hours of that every single day.

[09:39]

When he finished talking about this, he didn't talk about my coming to him for Sanzen or anything like that. That's all I was to do. Then he said, now I will give you a koan. And he brought out his muban-kan, and he read in Japanese the first koan, and then Dr. Suzuki interpreted it. And I said, well, why do you give me a koan? You don't know whether I'm ready for one or not. He said, well, I think you're ready. Anyway, you begin with this, and you practice. And then he showed me in how he sat and how he breathed and so forth, and how to handle a koan. Well, that was that. And it was from that point I began. So six days a week, I did as he said.

[10:43]

I went over there at nine o'clock in the morning, and I went up to his in-ryo to get the ki. And he usually insisted on my having tea with him. He was very fond of making sencha. His own room was on the second floor of the in-ryo, actually. And then I would take the ki and go across the street, and I would sit. And I had, of course, a couple of zabaton. And nothing was said to me about sitting with my hips up high. I don't remember when I spoke to him about it, but I certainly must have very shortly told him that the chair sitting was no good. I didn't want to sit in a chair. And he said then I must sit seiza, ladies' fashion.

[11:43]

And Kato-san, whose husband had been a priest at Nanzen-ji before he died, then suggested that I sit with those couple of little cushions under me in the back. And it was that way that I practiced. And he would... As I say, he said I was not to take any reading material of any kind. I was to do nothing all day long from 9 o'clock or 9.30 until 5.30 or 6, except just sit like this and read. And when my legs got too tired, I could get up and walk up and down in the garden, that was all. Once in a while, he would send a monk over with some fruit, or monks would come to clean the yard, and then they would stop and talk with me or something like that. But aside from that, for six days a week for about a month, that was what I pursued, nothing but that.

[12:46]

And at home, I had practically the same regime. I got up at 5 o'clock every morning, and from 5 until 7, I did zazen. And then I got dressed and I had my breakfast, and at 8.30 I left for Nanzenji, usually taking a taxi up there in the morning. And I was up there all day. I would have tea and sandwiches and maybe some soup or something. I could fix on a hibachi myself. And then I would walk home at night at 5.30 or 6, for the exercise, take my bath, and then sit until midnight. I allowed myself five hours of sleep a night. And at the end of about a month, now let me see, I got here the first of April,

[13:47]

so this went on for about a month. And shortly before the O-Session began, the first May O-Session began, I had a very interesting psychological experience. And it was so interesting, at least I thought it was interesting, that I got the interpreter I had to write it down in Japanese. I explained it as best I could in English, and what the experience was like. And I had him write it down in Japanese. And the next morning, I had him come with me to talk with Nan Shinken and to...

[14:50]

No, I didn't come to think of it, I took it myself. And when I got the key, I left it with him. And I hadn't been back in the little house in Senkoan, because that was the name of it then, long, when Roshi came running in. I heard him clattering. He was in the back door, and he came running in in his white, underneath kimono. And he had the paper in his hand, and he was waving it like this, and he said, Oh, this much Japanese I could understand, because I'd had some Japanese language study in America. This is what I've been waiting for. This is what I've been waiting for. He was just waving it like that. So then he said... Then the interpreter came, maybe that afternoon. I don't remember exactly the sequence of it. But anyway, he said that he had asked the monks then to let me sit in the zendo. And they were absolutely against it.

[15:55]

It was against the regulations in nanzenji for a woman to sit, and that they would not have it. And so the first of May, we had the opening of the summer session. And at nanzenji, that was a very, very big affair. They had a very, very large number of supporters in those days. And the first two days were devoted to services and that sort of thing, and to feeding all of the supporters. And they fed something like 2,000 people in those two days. They had so many supporters. And so, of course, I was present at those two days, at those parties, and met a number of the donkas and so on. And then I was informed that one of the head monks...

[16:58]

There were six older monks who'd been with Nan Shingen for about... They'd been with him for close to 14 years, all six of them. And one of them, who is now the roshi at Hofukuchi in Okayama, spoke some English. And when my own interpreter wasn't with me, he spoke sufficient to make some kind of contact between roshi and me. And so he came over to see me at the little house, and he said, now the o-session begins, and the monks are asking you to come and sit one night with them. He was very specific about the one night. And he said, you come at seven o'clock, and sit until 9.30, because that was their...

[18:01]

Then after that, they had tea. They had tea before 9.30, but, I mean, the session went to 9.30. And so I remember very well being... getting ready to go. I had no special clothes to wear. It was still rather cold, that happened to be. And so, but Kato-san figured out something for me to wear, because I think we were wearing very tight skirts or something. Anyway, I had a Chinese silk, dark silk Chinese-style robe that Kato-san thought was suitable, so that was put on, and a black velvet coat, to keep me warm. At any rate, I went, and that would be about May 3rd, I suppose, would be the first night that I ever sat in the zendo.

[19:02]

And this monk, whose name was Esan, the monk's name was Esan, showed me to my... met me, and showed me to my seat, which was next to the last one, as you come into the entrance from the back. And all the monks were sitting there, and I had written somewhere about it. The impression, it was... Those days, there was practically no light in the zendo. We had one electric light, a miserable little thing, that hung in the center of this hall. And that's all the light there was. And... so that it was a rather scary place, really. You come in, never having seen it before, and it's dark, and everybody was in place when I came. And at that time, we had 47 people at Nanzen-ji. And the soto holds only, I think, 36.

[20:05]

So every ton was taken. And the older monks were sitting in the shisario, the building that they had for the older monks to sleep in. And some of the youngest ones were sitting in the... in the... and some laymen that we had, six or seven laymen who were living at Nanzen-ji, they had to sit in the hondo because the place was so full. At any rate, they had this seat for me. And the monk had tried to explain to me beforehand what these... what the clappers and things meant. And it wasn't very clear. So... it was... what I had to do was to get up when they got up and get back again when they got back again. But I'll never forget the... the almost fright with which I... and certainly the awe with which I entered this black place, you know.

[21:07]

And with all these figures, one after another, both sides in this absolute silence. And so forth. Well, I sat down and... as a matter of fact, I will never forget it, I sat down and I thought, well, this is all very strange. And yet... I've come home. See? That's what you wrote in Zen notes, I think. Yeah, I did. I've come home. So, that night... things went well enough. The second night. Then, at that time, at the end of the session, this esan came up to me as I got off the tan, and he said, you sat very well tonight. Were you still sitting sesan? Oh, yes. I never said anything else on zenji. And... he said, you sat very well tonight,

[22:08]

and will you come tomorrow night? So... the same time. Well, of course, I was very pleased about that. And the second night, I went again. Seven o'clock. And this night, after I'd gotten seated, the old roshi came in, and he stood in the door, and he yowled and bellowed. Little tiny man, you wouldn't think he could have that much strength of voice and breath and so forth, as he did. And what he said, I didn't know what he said then, but later I found out what he said was that everybody's sanzen had been terrible, and that therefore there would be no sanzen that night, and there would be no walking, no breaks, and we would sit right straight through without any breaks at all. So we had to sit...

[23:10]

I had to sit two hours and a half without moving, or at least I was supposed to. I did move, of course, but then the pain was simply excruciating in the end. And the only thing that I could do to keep from fainting, the only thing I wanted to do was to keep from fainting, I didn't want to fall off the tongue, was to keep a watch where this little electric light, the reflection hit the black stone floor. And as long as I could see that, I wasn't falling off the tongue. And when it was all over, nobody moved all night. I mean, we sat that whole entire time till tea at half past nine. And then the esan came again, and he said they had to lift me off the tongue because I couldn't move my legs, I was completely paralyzed. And then he said, you sat very well tonight, would you come again? Come tomorrow. So I went the third night.

[24:12]

And the third night I was allowed to have sanzen with Roshi. He sent word I was to sit at the end of the line, because he would give me a little longer sanzen, perhaps, than anybody else. At any rate, it was more convenient. So the third night I was reasonably comfortable, and I had my first sanzen with Roshi then that night. With an interpreter? Oh yes, with this esan, this monk acting as an interpreter. And then the understanding was that I could come, I didn't have to come every night, I could come whenever I had anything to say, or I felt like coming. And I suppose I used to go maybe three or four times a week, something like that, and I did it entirely as he said, as I felt. But at any rate, the end of the third night, then esan said to me, I don't know whether it was that night

[25:13]

or whether it was the next morning when he came over to see me in the little house, but what he said was, all the monks now invite you to come and sit every night with them. That you sit like Kanon, and you are a great inspiration to them, so please come. And from that time forth, I went every night. Whenever, when they were not having session times, I was informed about it, and then of course I didn't go, or I went only the nights that they sat. But that was the first Osession. But then the next time, when they had Osession in June, then they said, the monks said, we now would like you to sit with us

[26:16]

all day long for the Osession, not only the night, but all day long. So, then it was decided that the thing to do was to have, for me to stay and sleep continuously over at Senko-on at the temple. And I would go four o'clock in the morning, if that's when they began, over to the Sodo. And then, as I remember it, the very first thing we had there was Sutra chanting in the morning, four o'clock. That's my remembrance of it. And from that we went into the Sodo, into the Zendo, and had a short period of Zazen. Then we went for breakfast, and then we came back for a long period of Zazen and Sanzen and so forth. But at any rate, I was there at noontime.

[27:19]

I would, after, when they would have a break of maybe an hour or two in the middle of the afternoon, or from one to three or something like that, then I would go and lie down or back in the other little house. Then I'd come back in the middle of the afternoon when they began to sit again, because they had much longer hours than apparently people have in the Sodo now. Were they doing Samu in the morning? I don't remember that they did any Samu. And I have no recollection of that at all. During the session? No. They rested and sat around for an hour or two in the afternoon, and then around four o'clock there was Sutra chanting again, and then we had supper,

[28:21]

and then we went back into the Zendo, and then we were right straight through till 10, 11 o'clock at night. And the first time that I did that, I got back, I think, about 10 o'clock they ended. And I remember this was very charming. This was the first day of that full day sitting from four o'clock in the morning straight through. And my legs were awful painful by that time. It was, of course, just the Seiza sitting. And Roshi came back with me, and he had had one of the monks start the fire in the bath. And he himself went out to see that the fire was burning brightly and that the water was hot. And then he waited until I'd taken my bath, and then he massaged my shoulders and back.

[29:26]

And then he went on back, and I slept there and got up again at four o'clock in the morning. And then that I did for the O-Sessions. But otherwise, when there was no O-Session, I went for the evening sitting just as I had always done. So then often between times, if they had any breaks at all, I used to, if it was during the day, except at the noon time when I would sometimes go back, I would just walk up and down underneath their covered passageways. And the boys still speak about that, that we always remember you walking up and down under these rokas here. And that was the first year. That was the way it was. How long were you here in Japan that first time? Well, I was there from really the first of April

[30:32]

until the end of July. Mr. Elmer came over sometime around the middle of August. But of course the Sodo was closed for the summertime. And it was not, as my memory, as it serves me, it was not Roshi's habit to give Sanzen during the vacation periods. I don't remember that he did because I know that part of the time the monks moved out of the Sodo, those who were left, I mean out of the Zendo, those who were left, and they moved, they slept in the Sodo. Then of course when I came over for the summer holidays, I had been to the Sodo

[31:38]

and people were sleeping in the Sodo, and so it was the time And I didn't know how to use it. I didn't know how to use it. I thought I was going to be a priest. But I was going to be a monk. I was going to be a monk. So the next year, then I went back that November, and I came back the following September, and I took another house, this time very closer to the Sodo, and then I just sat continuously for the... and I had the small temple as well, and then of course I did the Rohatsu in January all through that winter, and again the next summer also. So I had a whole solid year of... You stayed in Japan a whole solid year then? That time, yes. And I was there a whole solid year, second time, you know, from October until... well, I think Mr. Everett came over in August again, but the Sodo activities were all over. I had a total year of Sodo activities. What... what... remembering what the Nanzenji Sodo seemed like then, can you think of anything

[32:53]

or any ways to describe, if anything, how monks and how Sodo seem different today? What changes you can observe? Well, of course, in the first place, Nanzenji was full to overflowing, and there was certainly more tightness than you see here. The... certainly the... also, the cause of the large number of monks and the large number of head monks, during the Osessian periods, the young monks, the really young monks, were not allowed to do anything. I mean, the cooking was... and serving, everything was taken care of by the six older monks.

[33:56]

The young monks had nothing to do with... the younger monks had nothing to do with it at all. And that was one thing. The second thing is that I remember that during Osessian period, each Osessian period, we were not expected or permitted to speak at all. We had a solid week of silence, except, for instance, when the Roshi came over to my house like that to see to the bath or something like that. But inside the monastery, there was no talking whatsoever, none. And the second time when I came back, we had a curious little episode. We had... because I was a foreign woman who was allowed to sit in the zendo, this disturbed

[35:07]

several of Roshi's women lay students. He had a group of lay students in Osaka, for instance. Not all women, but among them was a young pharmacist and his wife. And they had been accustomed to come up for the Osessian times, and they would always have to sit in the hondo, and then they had to either sleep in the hondo or they had to go back to Osaka, whatever it was they wanted to do. And so she complained bitterly because I was allowed to sit in the zendo. And she was a very, very nice, bright, attractive little woman. Young, I suppose 28, 29, something like that. And so they finally gave way, and they said that this second year when I was back,

[36:14]

in the first one in the autumn, they said she could sit in the zendo. So she began, and she was a very cheery little woman. And the first thing that she did when she saw you was, hi-ho, hi-ho. And in no time they'd thrown her out. Because, I mean, it was just that strict. You couldn't speak to anybody. You weren't expected to speak to anybody. She was trying to be nice and friendly. She didn't mean a thing by it, not a thing. But as I told Roshi later, if you've been working for 24, 48 hours, and not speaking to anybody, and getting up in a half-dream, and going and chanting, and going and sitting, and eating, and not knowing that you're eating, and somebody say, oh, good morning, good, oh, hi-ho, hi-ho.

[37:18]

It's a shock that is terrific. It would take you two or three hours to get back where you were, you know. So she was dismissed. And there was never anybody else allowed to come in while I was there. Later, I understand, some years later, some German woman, they let come in, and she was very well-behaved. But that was one of the basic rules during Osechi time. There was absolutely no speaking. And we would have one solid week of absolute silence, absolute total silence. What about the quality and the personality of the monks? Would you say that they were a higher caliber than most of the monks you see today? Or could you say? I would say that some of them were. As I watch these monks here, and in other, when I go to Miyoshiji or someplace like that,

[38:23]

I suppose many of them were practically the same as those we see today, as far as general caliber mental and so forth is concerned. But we had more, I think, who... But of course, we had a very large number, you see. Then we had a number, we had six laymen who were living there. They wore a hakama and kimono, and their life was exactly like that of the young monks. They had to sit as much, and they were forced to sit, and the only work that they had to do was samu, and they did the samu. They lived exactly like the young monks, but they were laymen. One of them became afterwards a priest, but there were six of them there. And I was told also that there were a couple of soto priests there in Kagito,

[39:30]

but I never knew who they were. They were there as zen monks? Yeah, as zen monks, but I had no idea who they were. They were taking sansen. I was told that they were there, but who they were, I have no idea. But certainly, the six older monks that we had were... Well, we had Muro Roshi and this Esan, who's now at Hofukuchi, who I think is one of the finest men I ever knew. And all of those six monks became Roshis later. And we had one hunchback boy who is still a... who has now become the priest of a very good temple. I see him at Nanzen-ji when I go. And a number of them that still remember me, who are now still priests. I don't think, perhaps, the average was any better than it is today.

[40:37]

It's just that there were many more. There were more, yeah. You see, with 40... The laymen were all excellent people that we had. One of them was the son of the heir of the Matsuya department store in Tokyo, and their family had been connected with Nanzen-ji Sodo for several generations. And Nansen-ken was considered the family advisor. And they put him, after he graduated from Tokyo University, they put him down here for six months. And another man was an engineer, a man about 40, 45, I should say. And another man was a graduate of the philosophy department of Kyoto University. And he had had a lot... He was the only son from a fairly good family. He's a very intelligent man. Spoke excellent English and German, but drank too much.

[41:44]

And began to study Zen to try to take hold of the drinking habit. And later he became a priest. That man became a priest. And I've forgotten now about the others, but we had six of them at that time. No, I think... Should I say more? More, but perhaps only because there were more. Yeah. Could you describe Nansen-ken as a man and as you... Whatever recollections you have of him, how you felt about him and so forth. You said he was small. Yes, he was small. And he was extremely active. Extremely active. Did you ever see a picture of him? I don't think I have a picture. Well, there's a picture. Go and get it right up there. In there, that left-hand picture. Inside here? Yeah, left-hand picture. Right? Left-hand one. The black frame.

[42:46]

That picture I took the first day I saw him. Oh, yeah. How old was he here about, do you think? Seventy. Seventy, he looks younger. He died 73 in 1935, so... Do you know how many hasu he had? Disciples? Roshi disciples? Well, I've written about that in Zen Dust. Because I wrote a biography of him. Yeah, oh, yeah. Nobody knows exactly how many disciples he had. He never would tell who his disciples were during his lifetime. And it was not publicly known who they were. Occasionally, he'd speak about them. He had one of them who was in Korea, and who should have followed him at Nansenji, but he was killed during the war. And he'd had one killed during the Russo-Japanese War,

[43:47]

who had gone to be a soldier. And then the other... The man who, after his death, became known as his heir was Nakamura Taiyu. Sometime while I was there, the first time, Nansenji had decided that they should reopen Koenji as a sodo. Aha, I've read about that. And he put Nakamura Taiyu, whom none of us thought of as his heir, at least I didn't. I didn't know that. Maybe the other people knew. In charge of restoring this temple. And it was an awful temple. I mean, it was all broken down.

[44:49]

The rain was coming in. It was in an awful shape. But I didn't hear much about that at that time. But he died in 1935 of pneumonia in the summertime, in the suyu time. And he had a... The man who was Kancho of Nansenji was a brother monk of his, whose and their mutual friendship went back to their earliest days. They had both been monks, gone in together at about the same time to Kokeizan, which is the regular big country sodo that belongs to Nansenji. That's a lot of Gifu. Yeah, outside of Gifu. And there had always been a certain amount of rivalry as monks between them in the very early days.

[45:52]

And the Katoroshi, if I tell you this part of the story, which may be a little long, was able to pass his mu koan, his first koan, sooner than Nanshinkan did, which didn't help the rivalry between them at all. And it was some... Maybe it took Nanshinkan something like three years or more to finish the mu koan through it. And the story of his getting through it, I'm sure you've heard me tell that. Yeah, at Kokeizan. At Kokeizan, yes. About his taking the little Kanon statue and being able to throw Kanon into the river, you know. And then when he got, when he was coming back, the monks came running to him and said, Roshi wants to see you, wants to see you.

[46:56]

And so he went into the Roshi's room and the Roshi said, Well... And after that, he passed some 40-odd koans in 40-odd sansens and left Katoroshi, or Kato, the monk Kato, then behind, you see. But apparently the Roshi had made every effort to hold back this Satori, as they often do, if they think that the man is going to be awfully good. Well, eventually, Kato Roshi, Kato became a Roshi too. And Nanshinkan's teacher came from, their teacher came from Kokeizan to be Kancho of Nansenji. And after he came here, or maybe before, there was a big fire at Nansenji

[47:57]

and the big hall was burned down. And so he called Nanshinkan from Kokeizan to assist him here and left Kato Roshi there and he eventually became Roshi of Kokeizan. Then Nanshinkan helped him when he wanted to be Kancho of Nansenji, he helped him to be elected. But they never got along and there was always this rivalry still between them, even they were both up in their 70s. And that's when I knew them, of course, Kato Roshi was just about the same age, though he wasn't as strong as Nanshinkan, he'd had a stroke and his face was all on one side. So now Nanshinkan dies and Kato Roshi is still alive and he's Kancho of Nansenji,

[49:02]

but he's not Roshi. So the day after Nanshinkan's funeral, which, as I say, was in June, the middle of June, the summer study period, he moves himself from the Kancho's residence, which is up on the cliff, you know where it is in Nansenji, Nansenjin, up on the hill. He moved himself down, bag and baggage, into the Roshi's quarters down in Nisodo. Now, whether he thought he had the power to do it, or he just did it to present them with a fait accompli or not, I don't know. But at any rate, the monks were furious. That's when they were Roshi. Yeah, their monks were furious. So 14 of them then, thereupon, got together, the six oldest monks, and some of these other young ones, eight, would be eight young ones,

[50:07]

and they cleaned the Sodo, and they packed up their things, and they marched out. And they went to Koanji, to this air of Nanshinkan's. And the reason I know the temple was in such bad condition was that several of them wrote me from there and told me what they were doing, about that all their time was spent in helping in repairing the roofs, and how they sat in the zendo with the water, the rain running down their backs, and things like that, you know. So they finally did get it repaired. And the six of them, after two years, got their Inca from Nakamura Roshi. And that's how Muroroshi is related to Koanji. And he came back there eventually, but after going to two other places in between. To carry on about Nanshinkan, just thinking in terms of Roshi personality types,

[51:16]

the different Roshis you've known, thinking, keeping that comparative notion in the background, how would you describe Nanshinkan? Well, he was, first of all, a very simple man, extremely simple. I think you may have heard me tell the story of one of the early experiences he had after he'd become Roshi of Nansenji, or perhaps even Kancho of Nansenji, because he was Kancho for 15 years also. And simultaneously. And he was invited to give some sermons, someplace, some temple in the country. And he went in his ordinary old clothes. And when he got there, he had no monk. He went all alone without an attendant.

[52:19]

And he got off the train, third class car. And, of course, there was nobody to meet him. And he saw way down the platform, flags and things flying, and lots of people. And so he trudged to the temple. And when he got there, people were waiting. He said, well, where were you? Where were you? Where were you? Well, I was on the train. We didn't see you. And they had all been down to the first class carriages, expecting to see somebody in grand robes and with an attendant or two, you know, and so forth. So then he said that he made up his mind that to make an impression upon the country people, he must wear a very gay and gaudy caisson and so forth. And he then proceeded to buy something in red with gold and all that sort of thing. At home, he was just as simple.

[53:20]

He said, told me that he did not know who his parents were, that he had been brought up in a farming family, but that he believed that he had been brought as a baby to the family and left, and that he thought he came, became a very good, a good family, because he remembers a beautiful lady whom he assumed was his real mother coming from time to time to see him, always veiled as a child. Then he would look at his hands and he would say, See, these are not a farmer's hands. These are not a farmer's hands. These are a gentleman's hands. How many times I've seen him do that. These are not a farmer's hands. And he would be very affected when he would tell about

[54:29]

this lady with a veil, a veiled lady who came to see him when he was a child, came to the farmer's house. But he never knew who anything meant. He had the farmer's name. He carried the farmer's name. And he had some education. I mean, he was sent to what was then Hanazono for a while, and then he was sent to a Confucian school so that he had considerable education. He was very, very strict. He was very strict in his own life and, as I say, and very, very, very strict with his monks. Do you happen to know if he was a vegetarian? I never knew him. I never heard him express himself on the subject, but I never knew him to eat anything in the world but vegetarian food.

[55:30]

Do you know if he drank sake or none of that? Oh, he was absolutely against it. I never knew him to drink. I remember about the sake business, this first time when we had this party at the Sodo for all the believers, you know, there's, I told you, there's two days of thousand people apiece coming to be fed. And the big donkas, the little fellows that sat all over the hondo, I mean, with their children and everything like that, were not served any sake. But the big donkas were taken into a private rooms, and they were served sake. But the general public was not supposed to know that. That was not, that wasn't known. And as far as I remember, Katsu-san could verify this, he wouldn't have anybody who drank allow them to be in Nanzen-ji, a priest.

[56:36]

Didn't you once say that he prohibited Toya at Nanzen-ji? He did, yes. I never heard of Toya. I never heard of Toya. But how did the monks, how did the monks feel about him? Did they, mixed feelings, or were they very, very devoted, or some of them hostile toward him? I have never seen anybody who wasn't utterly and completely devoted to him. I mean, they were frightened of him, because he could really use a stick, as small as he was. I have seen him in Sanzan, sitting out there on the roka, waiting. And I remember one big boy, a country boy, going in one night, and he was very dumb and stupid, I'm sure. But in a few minutes, we heard a big clatter, and he came,

[57:37]

Nanshin-ken had thrown off his robe, I'll tell you about that in a minute, and he came out in his white kimono, and he had his stick and his nyoe, and he had this great big fellow who was certainly a foot or a foot and a half taller than he. Somehow or other, he'd gotten hold of his collar, and he was pushing him ahead, and he was kneeling him in the behind, and hitting him. That's the way they went out the roka, this little fellow, the big fellow ahead of him. The monks at the period that I was there were always the older monks, who certainly had the greatest reverence for him. I don't know that anybody loved him, but they certainly had the greatest, greatest respect and awe for him. You say he used the stick, the nyoe, a lot in Sanzu? Well, he never used it on me, but I've heard it, and I wouldn't say too much,

[58:45]

I wouldn't say a great deal, and certainly in the soto, it was practically not used at all. The keisaku? Keisaku was not used at all. It wasn't used so much? Practically. The only time that they used it violently was when they had to drive out some of these young boys that didn't want to go for Sanzu, you know. That's the only time, and that's a kind of shibai anyway. But in the soto, in the zendo, I was never hit but once, and that was a joke. I mean, I knew it was a joke, and this grin that went over the whole room, you know, when it was done. And I don't remember any special, in fact, very little, I should say. Well, just the nyoe itself, and the use of the nyoe in the sanzen room. I think Nuro Roshi has said to me that Nan Shinken used the nyoe, too. Some Roshis have the reputation for using the nyoe,

[59:51]

some don't, and he apparently did. What are your views on the rationale for the use of nyoe in the sanzen? Well, I never had it used on me, so I don't know. Why would you imagine that he would throw a country boy out and hit him like that? Well, I would think that probably the boy was utterly stupid. Utterly stupid. And he made some fool answer that was just too much for Roshi. Because I don't think that he was, that it would be impoliteness on his part. It wouldn't be shibai either. Oh, not with him. No, he was too dumb for that. Altogether too dumb. On the other hand, he had a very nice onji once. Young boy that I knew quite well, who'd been there about four years, that they all hated to be onji for him because he was so hard. He had his own meals. He didn't eat soto

[60:55]

meals. He had his own kitchen, and he was an excellent cook. And when these boys, these two onji, he always had two. And when they would be appointed for that, then they had to be under his jurisdiction about cooking. And it was very, it was very onerous. He had his own bath, and he had his own little kitchen. Was Nanshinkan, Nanshinkan wasn't functioning as the kancho too, was he? Not at this time. He had been. He had been for, he was, I've forgotten, I've got it in dust how many years he was in Nansenji. I think it was something like 45 years altogether. Oh yes, it was very long. Well, no, maybe not, maybe 35, 40 years. And 15 of those he was kancho. Did he seem to read much, or did you have any, you know, did he seem to be interested in reading? No, I would, he wasn't at all intellectual. He was what I would call a soto roshi. He

[62:04]

kept that soto, it was kept immaculate. The grounds of Nansenji, of course, they had all these people, I mean all these monks to do the samu. Nevertheless, the place was absolutely, the temple grounds were absolutely immaculate, and everything was run like, almost like a military camp. I mean, everybody was very exact and very strict. There was no easiness, and I don't mean that it was unpleasantly so. It was just, everything was tight. The feeling was good, though. Absolutely tight. Did you say that Nansenji used to go out and do samu with monks? Oh yes, often did. And he had a little vegetable garden in the back of this temple where I lived, and he often went out there working.

[63:03]

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