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 Sokeon 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 him. To give him food and that sort of thing in a month was nothing and it wasn't worth the energy

[01:03]

that he put on his other things. 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 the newspaper 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

[02:03]

and we had a fine place for it then of course that was one of the main features that we started in with was learning how to sit. So you would be 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 that of the sitting and the hard sitting that I did at Nansenji and the way I was trained there. And the great emphasis that was put upon it there. Great emphasis. Now Goto Roshi, I think 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.

[03:06]

I've never talked to Donna or Vanessa. I know that Walter was always very faithful 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. And he always tried to go to sessions. He of 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 Dai Tokuji Dodo 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 Sanzan. And we had Sanzan in the prescribed manner, you know, sitting out on the Roka. I never really had an O-Session period

[04:10]

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. And I never had Goto Roshi speak to me about that sort of, about sitting. 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 Nanzen-Ji that it's the basic thing. Did you ever hear Goto Roshi express any general views about Soto training and the

[05:11]

function of that and 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. And the, 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 three o'clock and bring Johnny with you and I'll answer them. 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

[06:15]

the question. And that was the end of any questions and any answers I ever had out of him. Well they must have views on these things and they must talk about them or they wouldn't say, they wouldn't be criticizing other people's teaching lines, for example, you see. Well, now you take So Karan, he used to say to me, oh, stop talking about Zen. Stop talking about Zen. That's my business. That's my job. I want something, I want to talk about something else. Well they must, some of the priests or somebody must gospel among themselves if they are in a position, you know, to say well, Sokatsu's lay line, isn't it, or Fukutomi-san says lay Roshis aren't really serious. They have views, no doubt. I expect they have. I guess they don't talk about their views to disciples. Well, they certainly haven't to me. Because when I would be up at

[07:18]

Daishu-in, 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, just odds and ends of gossip. And the other 5% would be now Roshi would say, now today I want to talk to you about Kano. Be up there by myself. 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 childish. It was the kind of thing that you might tell to a country man, country woman or something like that. Well, you said that Goto Roshi was something of an intellectual by

[08:21]

nature before. Did he ever express any views about the value of book study or encourage anything? Yes, I think he was 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 reading texts. And when, what's his name that big boy, tall boy his disciple, Kosen. Kosen? Ko. The present Jusho Kudashi. Yeah, Kosen. Ko. Do you know what you call a ko now? Well, I don't know. That's what you call it in Sōdo. Kosen. Kosen spent nearly a year just doing nothing but reading after he came out

[09:25]

of the Sōdo 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 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 Ryōshinji school. 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 Hekigan and his Mumonkan. And when he was giving Mumonkan Hekigan commentary when I was there the second time I wanted to get somebody to

[10:27]

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. I mean, really angry because he didn't want me to do anything but Zazen and Koan. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And any other study or any other thing language study or that sort of thing was absolutely out with him. But it certainly was not out with Goto Roshi and it certainly was not out with Soke-yan because Soke-yan was not an intellectual in the sense that Goto Roshi 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

[11:31]

a little... some literary work. And he would always read little light books that he... not light books but small books that he had compiled. And he was not prolific but he was certainly had an interest in it. But Soke-yan was a writer and he was much more of an artist writer than the inspired writer. Goto Roshi was never an inspired man. So Soke-yan was more of a creative type? Absolutely. Goto Roshi was more of the scholarly type. That's right. Soke-yan was just a living flame, creative flame. There was no question about that in his ability in, whatchamacallit,

[12:34]

in carving and in writing and painting and in this. What was Goto Roshi's work in Korea? He, after he left Sokatsu and went back to Miyoshinji, he was sent by Miyoshinji to Korea to open a Betsuin Miyoshinji, he was sent to Seoul to open a little ranch temple. And when he got there he found that they'd taken two rooms in the house and 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

[13:35]

preacher. And he was considered the very best preacher in the Miyoshinji line. Preaching was his business. And the teaching, I don't think, I think that Goto Roshi 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 Goto Roshi. But he may have had a few, but of course he never was in Sodo. When he came back from Korea he went to his old teacher's temple at Ogaki and rebuilt it in Gifu. Two or three temples he had there. And rebuilt them. And his ability was

[14:39]

as I say, he was apparently a very, very extraordinary preacher. So most of that time in Korea he wasn't really training disciples? 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. He said that 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? 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. That's the kind of

[15:45]

thing that has, I think, got to be purged out of Zen. I mean, 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. Yeah, well, it's not so unreasonable here. Actually, many mornings at the Sodo, the whole morning Okyo is over in 35 minutes. Well, isn't that about correct? That much feels good. I think that, well, if you're going to recite Okyo yourself, there isn't anything better in the world to wake you up in the morning and to

[16:45]

do they walk around here at, or do you sit for Okyo in the early morning? Sit. Not sit, cross-legged. Because, well, I don't know whether it was the early morning one during Oseshin time, the 4 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 here. They do, while chanting. While chanting. And when, in the Rohatsu time, when we get sleepy about 1 o'clock, Old Nan Shinken would come and take everybody out, lead everybody out of the zendo into the hondo and have them walk for an hour, and chanting. And he would lead the procession. I don't think I saw him do it other than at Rohatsu time, but at that time he got everybody

[17:48]

pepped up and their blood circulating, both from the chanting and from the walking, both, but he'd lead the whole line into the hondo, and then we'd start this snake walking, you know, back and forth and back and forth that way. That's pretty fun. Oh, I think it's wonderful. I always enjoyed that tremendously. Tremendously. Because I'm 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 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. So I would never, I would be very sorry to see chanting

[18:52]

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 namakarotano for, I don't chant it because I never learned it. It wouldn't do me any good to chant it because, or to learn it, because they chant it so fast, you know, 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 namakarotano, they chant it slowly. And after that, sometimes there'll be seven or eight times in the service that they will chant the same thing. Well, of course, that's

[19:52]

in honor of various patriarchs and various kanchos and so forth of daitokuchi, 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 kokushi. And always, he gets breakfast and he gets dinner and this is in between 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 you'll sing, you'll chant namakarotano for seven or eight times in one morning. Normal number is about four times, but other times, it varies. I have no idea why it varies, except that they read all these echoes and they

[20:56]

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 over here and are completely part 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. You can't understand. I mean, you can't stop and think what I'm saying now.

[21:59]

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 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 would mean something, you know. And for them, of course, this doesn't mean anything, because they don't know it any better than we do. It's such really 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

[23:03]

and so forth. 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 had,

[24:07]

which they may have had in the Sanskrit 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 karatan is just straight sound transposition. It's just Chinese ways of pronouncing Sanskrit. So you could argue that if we were to start chanting the namu karatan 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 we would we would want to translate. The Chinese didn't translate. Well, you see, what I'm saying is you wouldn't translate it. 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 vowels and consonants eventually. But you've done no more than the Chinese did, or the Tibetans

[25:09]

who pronounce it differently from the Sanskrit. You know, trying to stay to the same thing anyway. So it's, 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 anyway, when you start romanizing it and then trying to chant it. You're not chanting it quite the same way. Well, but that's one of the things that I think should be kept. And I think a certain amount of bowing should be kept, because I think that the respect for that bowing gradually inculcates just the act itself. That, again, that is a

[26:10]

psychological effect of that mudra, as 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 feudal lord, or 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

[27:12]

there's always a chief monkey, and every once in a while some of the other monkeys will challenge his authority in some little way, 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, and 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 can 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. That's very interesting. 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

[28:17]

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. That's true. And that's the way they understood it, apparently, originally. Well, that's very interesting. There's a lot of primitive 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 gashō? Well, you're not holding a weapon. No, Sōkyōn 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, but he gave it a shall I say religious or metaphysical

[29:20]

significance. Well, the primitive significance, for example, like shaking hands is supposed to be the primitive sign of I'm holding no weapon. And anything like that, like putting your hands together, then you're not in a position to, you don't have anything concealed, you don't have any hands behind your back and so forth. Well, and I think of it in this bowing, particularly this gashō, as a later development, the expression of respect toward for instance when you come into the zendo to this hall in which is more or less, shall we say dedicated, using the big word, to this particular exercise. And also when I bow at the little shrine every morning, bowing to the Buddha, and the

[30:23]

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. I, 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. Something that's come up in the last few days in one of the Rinzai notes.

[31:04]

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