his nature. But certainly he had seen Sokotsu do the other, you know, where he had just drained his disciples. And so nobody could have been more meticulous than Sokaon was about not accepting anything from his disciples. and anything more than he felt they could pay or that was absolutely necessary for his absolute needs. As I say, he used to pride himself on supporting himself by his literary work or wood carving, repairing work, and so forth. up until the time I came, and then I said that was ridiculous. And the few dollars that it cost to give him food and that sort of thing in a month was nothing, and it wasn't worth the energy that he put on his other things.

[01:05]

And, of course, by that time, he always kept up his writing until the war. He always wrote and got his little stipend every month from that. Just pick her up north. But after I came, I began to upbraid him, literally, about this matter of not sitting. And after we got into the big house on 65th Street, actually in the other place, we began to have a morning 8 o'clock zazen meeting. The more enthusiastic ones, the younger ones, who wanted to really come and learn to sit. And he was perfectly agreeable about it, but until they wanted it, and under my urging and spurring them on, that was the beginning of it. And then when we got into the big house, and we had a fine place for it, then, of course, that was one of the main features that we started in when it was

[02:14]

Learning how to sit, yeah. So you're only responsible for getting that emphasis on sitting going. There's no question about that. I mean, I have to admit that because it's true. And it comes from the fact of the sitting and the hard sitting that I did at Mount Zenji and the way I was trained there. And the great emphasis that was put upon it there. Great emphasis. Now, Goto Roshi, I don't think he put too much emphasis. Now, of course, I did it myself here. He didn't have to put emphasis with me. Maybe you know more talking to Donna and to Vanessa than I do. I've never talked to Donna or Vanessa. I know that Walter... was always very grateful about sitting as much as possible, an hour or so, even before he went to Sanzan, and often sometimes would sit for an hour or so in the afternoon.

[03:21]

And he always tried to go to sessions. He up himself sat quite a bit. That might have been from his early experience. Well, he was two years with me in New York, you see, before he came here. And then he was in the Daitoku Jodo for some time. And it's quite true that they had this little room up at Daishuin, which I'm sure you saw. And we used to get up there, all of us, early in the morning. And we would sit until Roshi was ready for us. And we would sit for maybe half an hour afterwards, after Sanzen. And we had Sanzen in the prescribed manner, you know, sitting out on the Roka. And... When I never really had an old session period with Goto Roshi that I can remember with Goto Roshi, but Walter certainly went up there, particularly in the later years, he went up very much more. I never had Godoro speak to me about that sort of, about sitting.

[04:34]

I didn't need any driving, to put it that way. And so I really never heard him express himself about it. But I don't, I still feel just as strongly as I felt after I came out of non-Zenji that it's the basic thing. Did you ever hear Goto Roshi express any general views about Sodo training and the function of that or the value of it? No, I never did. I never did. I never did. You know, Zen people, Zen masters are very, very odd. It's a very, very, in my experience with the three of them, been exactly the same. None of them want to talk about Zen.

[05:35]

And with old Nan Shinken, I've told you this story before, He used to say to me when I first came, you've got so many questions. Well, of course I had questions. And so he said finally, please write them all down on a piece of paper and come tomorrow afternoon at 3 o'clock and bring Johnny with you and I'll answer. And then when I gave it, he said we went and I read the first one. And he said, well, when you can understand the answer, you won't ask the question. And that was the end of any questions and any answers I ever had on him. Well, we must have views on these things, and we must talk about them, or they wouldn't be criticizing one another through those teaching lines, for example. Well, now you take Sokian. He used to say to me, Oh, stop talking about Zen. Stop talking about Zen.

[06:40]

That's my business. That's my job. I want something. I want to talk about something else. Well, the priest or somebody must gossip about themselves if they are in the position, you know, to say, well, Sokatsu's lay line isn't as good, or Fukutomi-san's lay roshis aren't really serious. They have moods, no doubt about it. I expect they have. I guess they don't talk about their news to disciples. Well, they certainly haven't to me, because when I would be up at Daishuin, how many, I mean, I was up there constantly for years, and the conversation was 90% a personal affair. People we knew or people, you know, some just odds and ends of gossip. And the other 5% would be on... Now, Roshi would say, now, today I want to talk to you about Kano, be up there by myself.

[07:44]

And then he would read something about Kano or tell me something about Kano. I have to admit, I was never very much interested in that kind of talk because it was... Having done the amount of study and reading I had, it was very primitive to me. I mean, very, very childish. It was the kind of thing that you might tell to a country man, a country woman, or something like that. You said that Go to Russia was something a little less true by nature before. Did he ever express any views about the value of book study or encourage any kind of book study? Yes, I think he was always willing to help me with any reading I was doing, like the Hakuin material and the careful translation of a koan. And certainly he was still himself

[08:49]

reading texts, and when, what's his name, big boy, tall boy, his disciple, Kosin, isn't it Kosin? Kosin, the present Jusha of Ganesh. Yeah, Kosin. Kosin. That's what you call in Kona? Well, I don't know. Kosan. Kosan. Kosan spent nearly a year just doing nothing but reading after he came out of the Sodo here. He had a little room up there. And Goto Roshi had quite a large library of various old books and things like that. And when he had been in Korea in his youth, when he was As a young priest, he had made a fine collection of old Korean books, which he gave, some of them very valuable, to the Hanazono Daigaku, the Yoshinji school.

[09:56]

I mean, he was always interested in books, and I think he read more than, certainly, I don't think Nan Shinken ever opened a book. other than his Hekikan and his Mumonkan. And when he was giving Mumonkan a Hekikan commentary, when I was there the second time, I wanted to get somebody to interpret it for me. I wanted to learn to read it or begin to read it myself. And I finally did find somebody, but he was furiously angry with me about it. being really angry, because he didn't want me to do anything but Sausage and Coke. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And any other study or any other thing, language study or that sort of thing, was absolutely out with him.

[10:57]

But it certainly was not out with Goto Roshi, and it certainly was not out with Sokean, because Sokean was... He was not an intellectual in the sense that he... Gotaroshi was something of an intellectual. He graduated... Something of a scholar. Scholar, yes. And he rather prided himself on that. He had edited the record of Inzan Roshi, the Inzan Roku, and had it published. And... He had done a little, some literary work, and got to read little light books that he, not light books, but small books, that he had compiled. And he was not prolific, but he certainly had an interest in it. But Silkeon was a writer.

[12:00]

And he was much more of the artist-writer than the inspired writer. Gotoroshi was never an inspired man. So Sokyon was more of a creative type. Absolutely. Gotoroshi was more of the scholarly type. That's right. Sokyon was just a living flame, creative flame. There was no question about that. in his ability in, whatchamacallit, in carving, in writing, in painting, and in this. What was Goto Roshi's work in Korea? After he left Sokatsu and went back to Myoshinji, he was sent by Myoshinji to Korea to open a Betsuin. Myoshinji sent Suwo to open a little branch temple.

[13:08]

And when he got there, he found that they'd taken two rooms in the house. That's all it was. And when he left, he had built a great, big, magnificent temple. He was there a long time. I don't know, 17 years or something like that. And from being a very shy and rather inarticulate man, he trained himself to be an excellent preacher. And he was considered the very best preacher in the Myoshinji line. Preaching was his business. And the teaching, I don't think, I think that Odoroshi was his first real Sanzen student. He may have had some over in Korea in the last few years. But that he's told me many times. Of course, he had this Enjoji, but when that man began, it must be after Odoroshi.

[14:15]

But he may have had a few, but of course he never was in a Sodo. When he came back from Korea, he went to to his old teacher's temple at Ogaki and rebuilt it in Gifu, the two or three temples he had there, and rebuilt them. And his ability was, as I say, he was apparently a very, very extraordinary preacher. So most of that time, he wasn't really training students? Disciple. Oh, no. No, he was working from scratch as a missionary with the Japanese who had no religious, nobody to bury their dead. That's where he began was, he said that it began, he didn't know what to do. He once told me how to begin. He had these two rooms and what should he say to people?

[15:21]

And when should he say it? And it began when either somebody died and he had to say something at the little ceremony after the funeral, or there was a little memorial service, and he took that occasion. But that's the kind of thing that has, I think, got to be purged out of Zen in its present extravagant way. I think that a certain amount of ceremony with the proper attitude of mind and inculcating the proper attitude of mind is reasonable and correct, but I don't think that any of us in America can subscribe to the extent even that we have it here.

[16:22]

Yeah, well, it's not so unreasonable here. Actually, many mornings at Kostodo, the whole morning show is over in 35 minutes. Well, isn't that about correct, 35 minutes? That must feel good. Yeah, oh, I think that, well, if you're going to recital kill yourself, there isn't anything better in the world to wake up in the morning and to... Do they walk around here at... or do you sit for a kill in the early morning sit you sit not say that cross-legged cross-legged sitting because um well i don't know whether it was the early morning one that's during those session time the four o'clock in the morning one or not that we used to walk but we had I think we did. I think we used to walk around the way the priests walk around. You do? Warchanti? Warchanti. And when, in the rohatsu time, when we get sleepy about one o'clock, old Nanchen Ken would come and take everybody out, lead everybody out of the zendo into the hondo and have them walk for an hour.

[17:37]

and chanting. And he would lead the procession. I don't think I saw him do it other than at Rohatsukhman. But at that time, he got everybody packed up and their blood circulating, both from the chanting and from the walking, both. But he'd lead the whole procession. line into the hondo, and then we'd start this snake walking, you know, back and forth and back and forth that way. Oh, I think it's wonderful. I always enjoyed that tremendously, tremendously, because I am very fond of sutra chanting. I think when you get your breathing adjusted and you begin to chant a long series of phrases on your exhaled breath, which is exactly what you're doing when you do zazen anyway, you do it, you do it. chanting exactly the same rhythm and you can do it without any conscious thought of what you're doing it's just one of the best forms of meditation I know and oh it's wonderful but I would never I would

[18:46]

be very sorry to see chanting as a general thing removed from any Western Zen practice. And I don't think that all the, for instance, in the mornings over here, we sometimes chant Namu Karotano for I don't chant it because I never learned it. It wouldn't do me any good to chant it or to learn it because they chant it so fast, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, [...] blah. And I couldn't ever do it. I don't know what they're saying. I can't even chant the Hanya the way they chant the Hanya. Here in that morning service, they chant, the first time they chant Namukara Tano, they chant it slowly. And after that, sometimes there will be seven or eight times in the service that they will chant the same thing.

[19:51]

Well, of course, that's in honor of various patriarchs and various conchos and so forth of Daito-Kokushin, because that service that I go to on the 22nd of the month is the service on the death day, the anniversary of the death day of Daito-Kokushin. And always he gets breakfast and he gets dinner. And this is in between and the chanting and the bowing and all goes on in between this thing. And then on certain days, it's much longer. And there are many, many more people. They read the echoes, you know. And many more people have these sutras chanted in their honor. So sometimes it will go on for a long time and we'll sing the chant namo karatano for seven or eight times in one morning. Normal number is about four times. But other times, it varies.

[20:52]

I have no idea why it varies, except that they read all these echoes and they start all over again. And of course, in America, that sort of thing would never be necessary. And I'm not certain that many of the services, in a sense, that are... enjoyed overhearing a completely part of the of the tradition should be transplanted. I think there would have to be a great deal of pruning and trimming and that sort of thing. But a certain amount of sutra chanting, and that sutra chanting, in my belief, in this bastard Chinese Sanskrit Chinese that they use, which they don't understand, of course, what it means, is the fact that you don't understand it, I think, has great value.

[21:54]

You can't understand it. I mean, you can't stop and think what I'm saying now. You should know what it is, and you should study it before you ever begin to chant it. But once you're chanting it, it should come out of you just like your breath comes out of you, you know. without any thought in it at all, because the meditative state should be going on in your stomach all the time, that this sound is coming out of your mouth. And that, I think, has distinct value, very, very important value. And I don't think any English chanting could do it, because the mind would be instantly caught from time to time with words that you that would mean something, you know. And for them, of course, this doesn't mean anything. They don't know it any better than we do. It's such really what bastard language, whatever it is. Well, apparently that has a quite well-worked-out psychological theory behind it in Sanskrit about the theory of sounds and the theory of magical sounds and mantra and repetition and so forth.

[23:04]

There's no question that it's a very, very interesting and very important science, which we know practically nothing about. Practically nothing. And that whatever value we get as individuals from the practice of sutra chanting ourselves is due to this sound, this mantric value which it has, and the effect upon the mind of these sounds. That's why I would be and have always been against there being the chanting of English an English version of it, because I don't think that it would do the same thing. Of course, you can say, well, that all these sutras that are chanted are translated from the Sanskrit into Chinese, and therefore the true mantric value which they may have had in the Sanskrit

[24:08]

has not been correctly transformed or transmuted when it was changed into Chinese. But so much of that Chinese is nothing but sound translation anyway. Well, the whole... Transposition is... The whole Namu Karatana is just very kind of sound translation. It's just Chinese ways of pronouncing Sanskrit. So you could argue that If we were to start chanting the Namo Karatana in English, sooner or later it would take on certain features of English pronunciation. Yes. Certain unconscious features of English pronunciation. Except that we would have to... Well, we would want to translate. The Chinese didn't translate. Well, you see, what I'm saying is you wouldn't translate. You'd do the same thing the Chinese did, which is just, you know, hear it with your ears and repeat it as your ears hear it, and your ear will put a certain English tone to some of the Raoulton consonants eventually. But you've done no more than the Chinese did, or the Tibetans, who pronounce it differently from the Sanskrit to it. Mm-hmm. trying to stay to the same thing anyway.

[25:14]

So in that sense, it's historically valid. Well, you would have to put all the Chinese sounds in Roman letters and then in English consonant and vowel combinations. Well, it comes out that way when you start Romanizing it and then trying to chant it. You're not chanting quite the same one. Well, that's one of the things that I think should be kept, and I think a certain amount of volleying should be kept, because I think that the respect for that volleying gradually inculcates, just the act itself, that again, that is the psychological effect of that mudra as it is.

[26:16]

It is, it's exactly the same thing, you know. Yeah, it's a basic, almost biological mudra of exposing yourself, of making yourself vulnerable. You mean bowing? Yeah. How do you mean that? That's what its historical function is. I mean, bowing apparently originates in the man making fealty to a penal guard, to a chief, actually, originally to a chief, and he makes his signal of acceptance by putting his head down where his head can be chopped off, by putting himself in a position where he can't defend himself. Well... And there's a biological base for this. It's very interesting. Monkeys do it. I read an article on the behavior of monkeys, group behavior of monkeys. And there's always a chief monkey. And every once in a while, some of the other monkeys will challenge his authority in some way.

[27:19]

And he'll grab them and he'll either scare them by grimacing and growling at them or actually knocking them around a little bit to calm him down and to get him to stop. beating up on them, they get down into a certain posture, which signifies, well, like a cat turning over on its back, or a dog turning over on its back, saying, you know, you don't kill me, I give up. And I think that the bow is that kind of thing. It's putting yourself where you can't defend yourself, and a position of total trusting acceptance. And the bow has exactly that psychological function, because you feel very vulnerable when you bow. I hadn't thought about it from a biological standpoint, but I think that so many of these things that we do or are done have a significance like that, or have a source of that kind. Well, the deep Chinese bow is actually an extension of the head, you know, putting yourself in a position to be beheaded.

[28:24]

That's true. And that's the way they understood it, apparently, originally. Well, that's very interesting. There's a lot of privilege and pride in these kind of symbols and acceptance of authority. Well, then, how do you take this putting the palms together and bowing that way, what you call a gassho? Gassho. Well, I don't know. You're not holding a weapon. No, Sokian used to explain it. Perhaps it's in some of his lectures. It's a union of man, and I don't want to say what he said because I don't remember well enough. He gave it a, shall I say, religious or metaphysical significance. A primitive significance, for example, like shaking hands is supposed to be the primitive sign of I'm holding no weapon.

[29:31]

And anything like that, like putting your hands together, then you're not in a position to, you don't have anything to seal, you don't have any hands behind your back, and so forth. Well, and I think of it in this volume, particularly this gassho, as a later development, the expression of respect towards, for instance, when you come into the Zen Do, too, this hall in which is more or less, shall we say, dedicated, using a big word, to this particular exercise. And also when I bow at the little shrine every morning, bowing to the Buddha and the expression of respect and reverence to, not the Buddha image, of course, up there, but to that which is the source of everything, including myself, and actually is my being, as it were.

[30:48]

Well, I don't think I should tell you this tonight, put it on this tape, because this is something fairly recent, something that's come up in the last few days in one of the Rinzai notes.

[31:03]

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