Well, let's see. I wonder if to finish what we were talking about last time, that general line of discussion was first about so-and-so, and then about so-and-so, if you would like to say a little bit about so-and-so as a teacher and his... Well, I would have to think a little bit about... is exactly how to say it. I think if I begin with your first remark and speak about it, your last remark, and speak about it first, I should say that Sokyon was very traditional in his viewpoint, very traditional. Certainly, That he had gotten from Sokot, so there's no question about that. As I've said earlier, the matter of Zazen, he was not strong at all because, as I've said earlier, what his reasons for that were.

[01:22]

But when it comes to the actual practice... Sanzen matter. He was convinced that that was the heart of Rinzai then, and it should be carried on in the old way. I mean, as much as possible in America as he could. And he was a most remarkable teacher. in Roshi in Sanzen. I think I've said, at least you personally, if I haven't said it over this tape, that he was the powerful teacher. He was what one would dream of having as a teacher in Sanzen. he was utterly transported out of himself when he sat in the Roshi's chair.

[02:27]

And you had the feeling before him that you were talking, that you were, this was not a man, this was an absolute principle that you were up against. I mean, it never changed with me in the years that I knew him and worked with him. And however intimately, in a sense, I might have known him and did come to know him, In Shanzhen, I never had any different feeling at all. It was up against, I was face to face with an absolute state. And I never saw it any different in any of his Shanzhens. He was, at least with me, he was always very strict

[03:29]

And, well, of course, I don't think anybody ever went into Sokaian. Perhaps they don't do any other Roshi without their knees shaking to death and absolutely paralyzed with fright in front of it until you get there. And... his intuition of what was going on in your mind and how to force you to crystallize for yourself what it was that you were coming toward, well, it's hard to speak about it. But as I say, I think from my standpoint, he was the ideal Roshi.

[04:38]

Perhaps with, of course, with Nan Shinken, I had always to have an interpreter present, and it was only on rare occasions when he and I were alone and at Sanzen. And on those occasions, he usually spoke to me as a teacher to a disciple. So I'm sure that I have no right speak about him really as a Roshi and the way he must have affected his Japanese students, you know, who, I mean, his developed ones who could really... Have you heard some Vietnamese students in New York? Well, no, I say... No, I'm talking about Nan Shinken.

[05:42]

Oh, Nan Shinken. Nan Shinken. Yeah. The way his Japanese students could face him and what they met in him. Groto Orochi was always something of the intellectual, and he had many, I should say, moods in Shanzhen. some of them very beautiful, and his reaction to the handling of a koan and that if there was a certain beauty in it, this would reflect in him in some way. If there were other qualities that were in the koan, he would in a certain way reflect I never saw that quality in Sokyon.

[06:43]

Sokyon was always this absolute thing. This absolute thing. You just mentioned it a moment ago that Sokyon made some special allowances in the matter of Zazen because he felt that American people wouldn't bring themselves to do Zazen in a traditional way. Did he, in other ways, make any significant adjustments in his teaching methods to Westerners, do you think? Or any, you know, transpositions or developments in the Western mind and thought, the Western thought and mind? No, I don't think so. He gave his teisho, of course, he gave teisho twice a week, and he used, he gave it in certainly the old traditional form, reading, translating certain portions.

[07:46]

We'll say he began with Rinzai Roku. He did Rinzai Roku. He did Engappukyo. What other big ones? He did Gokyoshikan, which is a Kagon text. But he did it in the old-fashioned way. He began his Taisho always with chanting, which he himself did. He didn't expect the audience, because he had rather an audience. The students were few, and maybe six or seven students would come to a lecture. which he gave Wednesdays and Saturday nights, but there were likely to be 20 to 30 other people in the audience. So he didn't expect his students to chant sutras. He didn't ask the audience to chant.

[08:47]

He himself always performed a small ceremony in front of the Buddha and chanted. And then... Let me see now. Let me think. How did that go? And he would always... He had some then first always. He would ask people to... his students to come early, and he would have them and there would be about a half an hour before he began Sanzen, and he would be in the shrine room, and when he was ready for Sanzen, he'd ring his little bell, and then the students would go in order for their Sanzen, and when that was finished, then he would perform this. He'd open the doors of his Sanzen room, and he would perform his service in front of the altar, and...

[09:54]

Then he would come take his seat and give his lecture, which was most of the time based upon some one of the texts. When he got over into the 65th Street, He gave Sanzen up in his own study on the second floor, and he did the same thing. The students came early and sat quietly for about a half an hour, and then he would ring the Sanzen bell, and they'd go up, and then it would be after that. After their Sanzen was completed, he would come down and do the bowing, And he used to have all of us, of the students and anybody else who wanted to, when he finished his bowing and his chanting in front of the altar and burning incense, he would take his seat and then his oldest student would go and bow

[11:06]

and burned incense, and the next oldest, and the next oldest, and the next oldest. And at the end of the line of students who had bowed and burned incense would come any of the audience who wished to do the same thing. And when that was finished, then he would sit down and he would begin his tesho. That was the way it, that was the general routine. What about its sons in itself? Was he making any kind of creative adjustments to Westerners? Well, he was giving koans in English. He was giving koans in English. one problem that his students had with his English translations was that he would sometimes vary the English translation of the same koan so that if you went one

[12:10]

one week he would give you the koan and then the next week he would change the english translation a little bit that was sometimes confusing uh... as for the uh... physical situation in sanzen he had uh... one of these uh... he he had he owned two of these uh... chairs such as roshi sit on Yeah, with the rounded back, and he had two of those. And he sat in one, and the students sat in the other, and facing him so that he did not... get down on the cushion and the student did not get down either. The student bowed outside the Sanzen door and rang the bell and entered and closed the door and bowed and then stood before him and bowed the third time

[13:22]

and then sat down in the seat facing him, two chairs face to face. And he always carried a nyoi in his hand, and over this side he had his little bell. That was the physical situation. That was the adjustment that he made. Did he modernize his translations in other ways at all? Like, for example, some type of seating symbol, colon, is changed to the train or the cars? No, he never modernized. It was whatever he did was either to... Perhaps he thought he improved it a little bit or something like that. But he stuck very, very, very closely to, as closely as he could to the English, I mean to the traditional koan itself.

[14:25]

I never knew him to give any, and I took a good many koans from him, I never knew him to give any adaptation. He told me about the adaptation. It was Soyen himself who made the adaptation of the train one. And, I mean, the sailing boat to the train. And with almost tragic results, you know. The man went and laid down on the tracks, one of his Sanzen students, a layman, some boy. And... to stop the train. And they'd stop the train without running over him, but it was a very close shave. He was very literal about it. But he did not, for a long time, ask for jacobo. Even koans that should have had jacobo he did not attempt to.

[15:36]

And then he did not attempt to use Zenrin Kushu, because none of it was translated. And when he asked for Jahongo, of his older students or more experienced ones, he would ask for something from English poetry, or he often suggested Alice in Wonderland. He was very fond of that, and he felt that there were a number of lines in that that could be used as jacago. Did he have any particular favorites in English poetry, which he would suggest? Any authors or periods? No. He suggested nursery rhymes, too. Nursery rhymes and Alice in Wonderland or the others were what they had to find themselves.

[16:40]

But, I mean, those two sources, nursery rhymes and Alice in Wonderland, were things that he felt had suitable lines in them. But I never knew him to use anything from Zenrin Kushu or to ask it because we had no copies of it. Nobody knew anything about it over there. But I think this is interesting about Sokaon and Sokaon's teaching. We used to find that continuously that he came always back in almost every, not every lecture, but so many lectures, he would repeat himself. And what he was repeating himself on was the way of... explaining or trying to make people understand what the dharmakaya or absolute state of the experience of that was like.

[17:56]

And he used to say, when I have questioned him about it, and said, well, you start out with a lecture, we'll say, on a technical term, which has nothing to do with it, because he did give a series of lectures on technical terms, just as he gave a series of lectures, some 40-odd agamas, which he felt had in which the Buddha's teaching could only be correctly interpreted through Zen teaching, at least, shall I say, the teaching in the Agama itself, or the Nikaya, was exactly what was being taught in Zen. The teaching was analogous. But he was constantly coming back to describing, explaining, trying to make people feel what the Dharmakaya state was.

[19:02]

And asking him about it, as I say, which I did two or three times, I would say, You started out tonight with a technical turn, and you were explaining that, and you were going along beautifully. And then before you knew it, you were back in the Dharmakaya again. And tonight's lecture, theoretically, had nothing to do with Dharmakaya. How is it that you're always getting back to the Dharmakaya? And he said, well... He said, you know, there's one thing which the West knows nothing about as yet, and that is the Dharmakaya, that there is an absolute state which they can experience and which must be experienced. And I don't expect in my teaching life to ever do any more than to inculcate some people in America with either the feeling or the understanding or the realization of this dharmakaya state.

[20:10]

That is the basis, he said, for our Zen study. And until they come to realize that, or first of all to know about it, And then to understand it, then to realize it, they cannot go on into real Zen study. That's the basis. And because nobody knows about Dharmakaya state in the West, absolutely an unknown realm, therefore I must come back, I must come back, I must come back and teach it to them. talk to them about it. And as a matter of fact, he would become so lyric. His spoken or the copied down notes don't show it very clearly because most of us, when he would really... come to work himself up to the high point of this statement on the Dharmakaya, would be himself so completely transported

[21:20]

that everybody there thought they were experiencing the Dharmakaya state with him, and you couldn't possibly. Everybody's pencil stopped. That was a continuous phenomenon. I mean, it happened constantly, and that is the kind of power he had. I mean, he could take an audience, and his English was not awfully good, you know, But as a poet and a writer, he had a capacity for a happy choice of words. And when he would get really going on the Dhammakaya, he would become literally a lyric poet. And he himself would just... Well, he would just actualize that state, and everybody in the whole audience would be caught in it.

[22:24]

And when it was over, everybody that they had thought, I mean, they felt that there was somehow an extension from him of... this state that he either was experiencing or lived in all the time anyway, it was really remarkable, really remarkable. I've never seen anybody else do anything like that. I suppose like a great theatrical performance sometimes, but this was quite different. And of course in Sanzen also, when he was really completely engaged in Sanzen, it was as if there was no man there. at all. The room was just completely filled.

[23:26]

It was very interesting. He was very remarkable in that aspect of things. His scholarship was not too good. There were many deficiencies from the standpoint of accuracy and pure scholarship and his ability to read Chinese and that. But I think there is nobody who ever listened to him through one lecture, ever doubted. that he was not a thoroughly enlightened man. That was so clear that you couldn't forget it ever. Once you had heard him and you had seen him as he used to sit there because he would become so beautiful that it was almost hard to look at him.

[24:28]

I mean, I'm not, of course, I have great personal affection for him but it had nothing to do with that and I'm not alone by any manner of means in speaking about it because if you wanted to see a person transformed, a physical body transformed and really glowing with what he was experiencing, where he was living, that was so clear and inundational. It was remarkable. Just remarkable. Of course, not every time, because some days he'd be very tired or the material in his lecture would be poor and it was too scholarly a section or a passage for him. He wasn't equal to it from a scholar's standpoint.

[25:30]

But let him once get going. on the Dharmakaya and anything related to experience, then experience. And he was really something out of this world. And I really mean something out of this world. I've never seen anything like the great... I'll never forget the effect he made on our county lawyer, the first time he ever met him. And he came down the stairs in that house on 65th Street, and he'd been up in his room, and he came down to meet Mr. Winston, and he was a big man, you know. He was 5'10", which is big for a Japanese, and when he was well, he weighed about 185 pounds. And a man of, you saw him, he was power.

[26:34]

That was, he really was, he was power and personified. And Mr. Winston said, well, he said, that's a man. He said, that's a man. That's a man. He looked so little beside him. I had just exactly that feeling of me meeting Cat's yawn a few weeks back. Oh, really? And the thing that struck me about Soap Man, he's a man. The choice of words and the way he hits things. Yes. A real man. Yes, he was a man. A real man. And he didn't want to be anything but a man. I... The last informal talk he ever gave, and I think it's the last talk that he ever gave before he was, on the 15th of June, before he was taken by the government, was what he had gotten out of Zen, what Zen had meant to him.

[27:44]

And he said, there is only one thing, he said, I got nothing. And But there's only one thing I want and the only one thing that matters and that is to be a human being. It's a very lovely lecture. I've got about 15 or 16 of those that really someday should be edited and published. They have their creaky points and I'm always shy about turning them out where more or less, I mean, scholars could find the mistaken dates and things like that and disparage him for it. Because he would talk about historical things off the top of his head. Yes, oh, very often, very often. He didn't bother about that because he was, first of all, he was an artist.

[28:46]

and a poet, and those things were all right, but he didn't have time for too much. What was more important for him was the exact word that he needed to use to get over what he wanted to say, you know. That was much more important than whether the man's states were right or that sort of thing. And that's what he would spend time with, on that word, finding that word that he was going to use. That moves me to another question, which I think is kind of important. especially from the standpoint of the experience we've had with those who are going to America. And that is, how accurate and how deep do you think Sofian's insight into the Western mind, the American personality was, finally, and into that society and into the kind of people that society produces? Did he come to understand America deeply? Or to what degree? Well, he was hardly Japanese at all.

[29:51]

He had nothing to do, particularly the last 10 and, wait a minute, I think, certainly the last 10 years of his life, from the time before I knew him, he had little or nothing, he had nothing to do with the Japanese community whatsoever. And he didn't like Japanese people. He didn't like Japanese ways. He loved America. He had, of course, tramped the West, and that's what he loved. He loved the freedom of Oregon, Washington, the Columbia River Valley. He tramped all that country. And he tramped Utah and... perhaps I'll tell you more, give you a little story of his life next time, and you will see. And he used to say, when I would come back to Japan, I would feel as if I was lifting the ceiling of the house with my shoulders, with my head, and my elbows were sticking out through the shoji.

[31:03]

And he was a very completely free man. He had... he insisted upon no special decorum or patterns of politeness or that sort of thing in the Japanese sense at all. Not at all. But he was very quick-tempered. He could become angry very quickly. And I remember his telling once the old man Goddard came to see him. Was it old man Goddard? Yes, for the first time, I guess, old man Goddard came to see him. And that was early in his having his own place on 71st Street in New York, 70th Street, on the west of Central Park.

[32:03]

He had a great big living room

[32:08]

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