Suzuki Roshi's Legacy and Our Path of Practice

0:00 This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:15 But just as I was standing there, just feeling like, oh yeah, deep bow, deep bow. And in fact, the theme of this whole, what we call a practice period that just started not so long ago. The theme is Suzuki Roshi's teachings. And Report an error in the passage at 0:15 Highlight the passage at 0:15

0:43 sometimes it's good to keep going back to what's familiar or keep telling stories and retelling stories because this reminds us what the practice is, what the lineage is, how we're situated in something. Much bigger than our own particular ideas and stories. And Report an error in the passage at 0:43 Highlight the passage at 0:43

1:22 I was appreciating what I've heard of Suzuki Roshi's path as quite a young man, young monk, already having the idea of coming to America to share the Dharma from Japan. Report an error in the passage at 1:22 Highlight the passage at 1:22

1:42 And I believe he proposed this to his teacher who said, no way. Report an error in the passage at 1:42 Highlight the passage at 1:42

1:50 But he went to some trouble to learn English, and he continued practicing in Japan in large temples and his home temple. Report an error in the passage at 1:50 Highlight the passage at 1:50

2:07 And then in 1959, the opportunity came to come and be a priest to lead the Soto Zen temple in Japantown in San Francisco. And he still had this deep wish to come to America. Report an error in the passage at 2:07 Highlight the passage at 2:07

2:43 There's a photograph of him that I revisit often in my mind, which is of him dressed in full Japanese traveling monk regalia at the Tokyo airport in 1959. Report an error in the passage at 2:43 Highlight the passage at 2:43

3:05 But he is there with his family, his wife. Look on his children, different ages of growing up, their roses to send him off. Report an error in the passage at 3:05 Highlight the passage at 3:05

3:29 And I know in this age of concern around cultural appropriation, what are we doing, this Japanese thing, this isn't Japan. Report an error in the passage at 3:29 Highlight the passage at 3:29

3:42 But I keep coming back to, this was a gift. This was a real gift. The wish to, the willingness to Leave homeland and family to come share something, to feel like there's something here that's been developed over millennia, passed through many countries and cultures, and I believe it would be of benefit. Report an error in the passage at 3:42 Highlight the passage at 3:42

4:16 I believe it's of such benefit that I've devoted my entire life to cultivating and caring for this, and I will leave my personal life to share it. Report an error in the passage at 4:16 Highlight the passage at 4:16

4:39 I was reading on the website kuk.com. I don't know if you know it. There was a biography of Suzuki Roshi by David Chadwick called Crooked Cucumber, which I highly recommend. And that was a name given to him by his teacher because he felt like he was not really an upright monk or he was having a hard time. Report an error in the passage at 4:39 Highlight the passage at 4:39

5:02 He said, oh, you're just a crooked cucumber. So that's where that came from. But in that, I read that when he arrived at Sokoji in San Francisco, 1959, quite an interesting place, San Francisco in 1959. It was not a wealthy temple, and he basically had a suitcase, and he was shown where he was going to live, which is basically a single windowless room. Report an error in the passage at 5:02 Highlight the passage at 5:02

5:30 But he came. Report an error in the passage at 5:30 Highlight the passage at 5:30

5:38 And the temple there was serving the Japanese community in many ways, but there was not so much zazen going on, not so much... Report an error in the passage at 5:38 Highlight the passage at 5:38

5:50 Seated meditation. And he was really interested in zazen, really interested in this core practice that we call zazen, just sitting, seeing into our true nature. Report an error in the passage at 5:50 Highlight the passage at 5:50

6:10 And so at some point, he put out a notice on the streets, I think, that said something like, you know, sitting, I think 5 a.m. every day, people are welcome to come, basically. Report an error in the passage at 6:10 Highlight the passage at 6:10

6:26 And people started coming. It was this time of the beats and hippies and people coming. And at some point, the Japanese congregation was not so happy about this, kind of sharing their priest. Report an error in the passage at 6:26 Highlight the passage at 6:26

6:41 And they said, are you really going to go with all these sort of ragtag hippie people, not us? And he said, I want to go with the people who want to say Zazen. Report an error in the passage at 6:41 Highlight the passage at 6:41

6:55 And eventually out of that, San Francisco Zen Center was born. Report an error in the passage at 6:55 Highlight the passage at 6:55

7:21 Thinking more about Report an error in the passage at 7:21 Highlight the passage at 7:21

7:25 appreciating How we get here. So many causes and conditions. Report an error in the passage at 7:25 Highlight the passage at 7:25

7:38 You may think, oh, I just woke up this morning and I decided to come. But what had to happen? Of course, we can never fully grasp it, but it's worth sometimes looking at least a few threads. What had to happen for us to be here today? War Report an error in the passage at 7:38 Highlight the passage at 7:38

8:01 is so difficult and destructive, and yet looking back at World War II, It's interesting to see the cultural exchanges that happened there as well. Like Robert Aitken, who went on to found the Diamond Saṅgha in Hawaii. He had been living in Guam and was a civilian prisoner of war in Japan. And while he was there, someone gave him a book by R.H. Report an error in the passage at 8:01 Highlight the passage at 8:01

8:32 Blythe called Zen and English Literature. And he started reading it. And then later he was interned in the same campus, R.H. Blythe. Report an error in the passage at 8:32 Highlight the passage at 8:32

8:41 And so out of that, when he came back to the United States and ended up in Hawaii, he started a Zen school, temple. Report an error in the passage at 8:41 Highlight the passage at 8:41

8:55 And my own personal history is intertwined with Japan in an unusual way. Report an error in the passage at 8:55 Highlight the passage at 8:55

9:06 Some of you have heard the story, but before I was born, my mother, she had worked as a speech therapist, and she worked in the public schools in the United States Report an error in the passage at 9:06 Highlight the passage at 9:06

9:20 She went to teach in Europe and when she applied for that, they said, it's hard to get a place in Europe. Have you thought about Asia? No, she had not thought about Asia. They said, well, try Japan. She knew nothing about Japan. But she went to teach in 1958 to teach the children of army families stationed in Japan and stayed for two years and traveled all through Asia. Report an error in the passage at 9:20 Highlight the passage at 9:20

9:48 with a friend when nobody was really doing that. Report an error in the passage at 9:48 Highlight the passage at 9:48

9:55 So I think, you know, here's my mother heading to Japan. She actually sailed out of Fort Mason. Report an error in the passage at 9:55 Highlight the passage at 9:55

10:21 It's just my own personal history. And then while she's over here, she's very curious, knows nothing about Japan. She says there aren't even guidebooks to Japan, just encyclopedia entries. Totally blown away by this incredible culture. And she starts studying Zen a little bit. She actually takes a course in Zen Buddhism taught by Jesuit priests at Sophia University. Report an error in the passage at 10:21 Highlight the passage at 10:21

10:50 She starts reading about all kinds of world religions and goes to India and goes to Thailand and all of this happens. And then after a couple of years, she comes back through Los Angeles and then eventually lands back in the town she grew up in, just a small town in Southeast Texas. Report an error in the passage at 10:50 Highlight the passage at 10:50

11:13 And there is a small, somewhat chance that there's someone on Zoom listening to this now from Sillsby, Texas right now. So hi, you know what I'm talking about. Report an error in the passage at 11:13 Highlight the passage at 11:13

11:27 And she redos, when she eventually gets married, my father, who grew up there too, I'm a fifth-generation Texan, by the way, that she redos the whole house in a Japanese style. Report an error in the passage at 11:27 Highlight the passage at 11:27

11:44 So unusually, I grew up in a small, very conservative town in southeast Texas, Bible Belt, with books all about Japanese and world religion and Buddhas and bodhisattvas and soji screens and everything else. Report an error in the passage at 11:44 Highlight the passage at 11:44

11:59 Eating fried rice, and she goes to all the local schools and shares her slideshows about Asia. This is a formative experience for her and for my sister and me growing up. Report an error in the passage at 11:59 Highlight the passage at 11:59

12:15 And after she died, I also, I found this big record LP that it was, and there was Alan Watts with a bell, just like the bell over there, wearing a juban, this white. ...thing I'm wearing here, and hakama, which is like a Japanese martial art thing. And he's right by the bell, and it's about, it's him offering meditations and teachings. Report an error in the passage at 12:15 Highlight the passage at 12:15

12:40 And I thought, I was probably listening to that when I was two. You know, she was playing that. Report an error in the passage at 12:40 Highlight the passage at 12:40

12:57 So none of that really matured. She came back to the Methodist church, and I grew up in the Methodist church, but all of this was there. Didn't really mature till after college. college that I had more of an interest and actually went to Japan and took their course. People ask, I'm interested in Buddhism, but I don't know what kind is best for me. Report an error in the passage at 12:57 Highlight the passage at 12:57

13:24 And partially, honestly, I think it's aesthetics. That was the aesthetic that really resonated with me. So when I first landed at the Berkley Zen Zen Center, Center in 1991. Report an error in the passage at 13:24 Highlight the passage at 13:24

13:41 Right. Report an error in the passage at 13:41 Highlight the passage at 13:41

13:48 And I think too about lineage. You know, we talk a lot about lineage in Zen, passing down the teaching. They say warm hand to warm hand and carrying on the lineage. But there are different kinds of lineages. So I very much feel myself as my mother's daughter. This is my inheritance from her, part Report an error in the passage at 13:48 Highlight the passage at 13:48

14:18 of my lineage. I also have a 24-year-old daughter who I actually grew up here, but said, you know, I grew up at a Zen center, but I've never really done a long retreat. And so she just did an outdoor camping retreat for young people in Vermont sponsored by the Berry Center, which I think really deeply impacted her. Report an error in the passage at 14:18 Highlight the passage at 14:18

14:43 And when she came out, she said, I can feel how much I am your daughter. Report an error in the passage at 14:43 Highlight the passage at 14:43

14:55 And we also come from a long line of female Methodist Sunday school teachers. My grandmother had a whole classroom in our church named after her. And I remember sometimes spending the night over there and peeking in early morning Sundays where she was in the kitchen practicing. Report an error in the passage at 14:55 Highlight the passage at 14:55

15:18 And that goes back. So what are our different lineages that we carry and how do we care for them? Report an error in the passage at 15:18 Highlight the passage at 15:18

15:41 Perhaps part of the way we care for them is creating a space. A practice field like this. Of Report an error in the passage at 15:41 Highlight the passage at 15:41

15:58 course, practice is everywhere. You don't have to come especially on Sunday to Green Gulch. That's good news. Report an error in the passage at 15:58 Highlight the passage at 15:58

16:08 But somehow it can be a little bit easier to come into a space that's dedicated, that has the architecture and the soundscape and the words and the bowing. And every little thing is going, wake up, wake up, wake up. Do you feel it when you come in this room? Report an error in the passage at 16:08 Highlight the passage at 16:08

16:43 And this has been cultivated over decades. This was a barn originally. And now how many thousands and thousands of hours of sitting here, of caring for the space, caring for the land. Report an error in the passage at 16:43 Highlight the passage at 16:43

17:12 The other day we had our Opening ceremony for the practice period, and there are about 25 people or so who are here really devoting themselves, not leaving the valley, for nine whole weeks to be cared for by this practice field. That's kind of amazing, to take that much time and really devote oneself. But the practice period has a beginning. Report an error in the passage at 17:12 Highlight the passage at 17:12

17:41 Zen is good at this. Beginnings and endings. And by marking them, by marking a beginning and an ending, you create something. You create a structure, a field, a practice space, physically, psychologically. And the ceremony for opening the practice period is one of my favorite ceremonies. And it seemed to be particularly beautiful this time. And we do many, many ceremonies here. Report an error in the passage at 17:41 Highlight the passage at 17:41

18:14 In this room, as you might imagine, but in this particular ceremony to open the practice period, everybody starts here and then we go out. And this is early in the morning. It was kind of damp, although beautiful starry sky, very dark still, if you can imagine here. And somehow when the air is a bit damper, you can even hear the ocean more. Report an error in the passage at 18:14 Highlight the passage at 18:14

18:44 And so we started here and then formally exited and went out and bowed to the kaisando, what I was just talking about, Suzuki Roshi, and then everybody, you know, dozens of people, all processing out going to the kitchen where the tenzo, the head of the kitchen, was waiting and offered incense to the abbot, Juryu, who's leading the practice period. Report an error in the passage at 18:44 Highlight the passage at 18:44

19:12 We all bow in the kitchen. And then we go out different places, going to the office, the welcome center, the head of the welcome center offering. We go to the maintenance shop right over here. Report an error in the passage at 19:12 Highlight the passage at 19:12

19:29 We go out all the way down to the farm, all the way down to the farm, walking in the dark, offering incense at the farm altar. There's an altar at the farm. Coming back to the garden, the garden altar. And then to The beautiful new memorial area, it's behind that side of the garden if you haven't seen it. It's really coming together and the Suzuki Roshi of ashes site is there and offering there and coming back here. Report an error in the passage at 19:29 Highlight the passage at 19:29

20:05 So with our bodies, we're marking out, establishing, not just practice here sitting, but practice in this whole life. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. Report an error in the passage at 20:05 Highlight the passage at 20:05

20:41 May we fully enjoy the Dharma. Report an error in the passage at 20:41 Highlight the passage at 20:41