Ding! Maybe it's better to ask how to play like Brazillian. It's a better question. Brazillian is so much. Like that.

[01:23]

So welcome everyone. And I wanted to start with Suzuki Roshi. And we're starting late and he started late too because it cut into the tape a little bit later than it should have. I wanted to start with his laughter because one of the things that I found difficult about putting on a conference on Suzuki Roshi is how to convey him or how to evoke him or how to speak about him. And I realized, listening to many transcripts, listening to many of the tapes of him speaking, that a lot is lost in simply talking about him in the abstract, and a lot is lost actually reading Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. And, for example, one of the things that's lost is that he laughed a lot. And how do you convey the joy or the laughter of someone who inspired a lot of people? So I hope to play that little bit of tape to give you a good way of starting the conference. And also, when I first started talking with people about putting on this conference, I talked to Peter Schneider about it.

[02:39]

And he interviewed Suzuki Roshi in the late 60s, I suppose, about his life, his biography. And Suzuki Roshi apparently was quite reluctant to talk about his own life and his own biography. But finally, seemingly reluctantly, he agreed to be interviewed. And at the end of the interview, he told Peter If this is the way my life is remembered, all is lost. So, given that kind of introduction to the conference, I don't know if we'll see how it goes here. In part, I hope that the conference will be somewhat participatory. I think the success of it or the magic of it will depend on everybody's kind of involvement and we'll have time for people to certainly ask questions, but also some of you who might have known Suzuki Roshi might actually, if you have one or two minute little stories or comments about him as we go along through the weekend, you might want to stand up and tell those stories for all of us.

[03:47]

I tried to invite everyone to this conference to speak or to be here, but I couldn't. I tried to, but I couldn't do everyone. And some people I think certainly were left out that shouldn't have been left out, but it's not really possible in a short time like this to include all the hundreds and hundreds of people who are deeply influenced by Suzuki Roshi. I wanted to mention two people in particular who I went to great effort to invite. Bill Kwong and Richard Baker. And they have very busy schedules and they plan their schedules way in advance. And they had sashims this week in Europe. And I tried... Ten months advanced warning wasn't enough for them because of their commitments they make. And I think if they hadn't made prior commitments, they would be here today. And I was told... Bill Kwong told me that... Bill will be here in... He's included in the videos tonight, in documentaries, so he's here kind of in that way.

[04:59]

And Bill told me that he was going to offer incense in Iceland this morning as we start the conference. So he's here in that way. The conference has a kind of direction to it as we go along. And there's a kind of a today, the Saturday day, the title of the day is called Beginner's Mind. This evening is called Joyful Mind because the impression I had talking to a lot of the people who knew Suzuki Roshi, I didn't know him, is that it was kind of his joyful and very trusting way he had around people that was part of what inspired many people and I want this evening to try to find a way to kind of evoke the joyful side, mostly through telling stories. And one of the highlights, I think, of the conference will be these documentary clips that we've arranged to be made.

[06:01]

They'll be shown tonight. And then tomorrow is called Zen Mind, and we'll talk about Suzuki Roshi's teachings, which I found very challenging to figure out how we would do that. And I'll talk more about the choices I made tomorrow morning for that. But there's a kind of direction and flow, and the grand climaxes will end at five o'clock tomorrow. One of the great joys and privileges of having put on this conference is to have spoken with a lot of the people who knew Suzuki Roshi, a lot of his students and friends and family people. And it's been really special for me to have that contact with them. Every single one of them has expressed support and appreciation and trust and joy and all these wonderful qualities, that kindness, that if the fruit of a teacher is seen in the teacher's students, I think the fruits of Suzuki Roshi's work in America has been...

[07:02]

brought to tremendous fruit here in this country just by the quality of the people that I've been interacting with. And so I'm very grateful for that. And one of the things I felt in contact with everyone is the tremendous amount of trust that people had in my recklessness in putting on this kind of conference. But this is one of the qualities that apparently Suzuki Roshi conveyed to a lot of people was tremendous trust. People seemed to feel they were deeply trusted by him and his presence. And I hope that the spirit of the conference today can be the spirit of mutual trust of all of us. And that I don't know what's going to happen here in the conference. I just kind of made a program. And the program will proceed somewhat differently, I'm sure, than what I planned. It's already happening differently since students don't know how to start on time. And so that's quite nice. And we'll see how we create it together as we go along. So I want to thank you all for coming.

[08:05]

Oh, the other thing I wanted to say is I also, in a sense, want to invite Suzuki Roshi back to Palo Alto. Because Suzuki Roshi first started coming to Palo Alto in November 1964 to lead a little sitting group here. In the beginning, there were three or four people who sat with him. And that sitting group moved to Redwood City and then moved to Los Altos. And that's where he gave the talks for Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. And that first sitting group in Palo Alto was just down the street from here, just a few blocks away. You can go drive by the house. 1005 Bryant. So, you know, don't disturb the residents. They don't know it's a historical building. So... So it's a great privilege also now that I can invite and welcome Rick Fields, who knew Suzuki Roshi in the 60s, and who I think all of you probably know, wrote a very important book called, maybe should have been called, How the Dragons Came to the Lake, How the Swans Came to the Lake.

[09:17]

And he's one of the premier kind of writers observers of the development of Buddhism in America in all its various forms. And I think it's a great honor that he's here to speak to us and talk a little bit about the place that Suzuki Roshi has in American Buddhism, which is so important. So thank you all for being here, and thank you, Rick.

[09:41]

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