And of producing, in a certain way, a certain type of personality, the Zen monk personality of the Sodos, with a kind of roughness and directness, and sometimes rudeness about them. All of those things which are identified by modern Japanese people as being the Zen style, the Zen monk style, the Sodo style, and the things which, in a vaguer way, Westerners think of when they think of Zen monasteries, those who have read a little bit, they think of the stick, they think of the threatening Roshi, they think of the early morning rising and the Sutra chanting and so forth. What about that image of Zen training? What do you think there is a benefit, say, in early rising and in that kind of diet and so forth? How does that connect with Koan study and Zazen, and with what's essential to your mind? Well, I think there are many things that do not connect.

[01:05]

I think we have to think of the Sodo life as having present-day Sodo life, or the remnants of Sodo life that exist today, to have originated in Tokugawa Japan, in mid-Tokugawa Japan, when Hakuin reformed everything, the whole of Rinzai Zen. And I think there are many things which are purely Japanese cultural, the things that belong to Japanese manners, which are not of necessity, have nothing to do with Zen itself. I think there are many, many things in the Sodo life which are correct to produce the kind of man they want for a temple, or has been correct to produce the kind of man they

[02:11]

wanted to be the priests of temples and so forth. And I think much of it has other kinds, there are many values in it also. I think, but let's take up a few of the things that belong to Japanese culture alone and Japanese life alone. The fact that you go barefoot all the time, must go barefoot, that has nothing to do with the Sodo at all, it has nothing to do with Zen, I mean. Japanese people of lower class go barefoot all the year round in the house and do all kinds of things barefoot. It means nothing to them to go barefoot, it means an ascetic practice for us, but it isn't an ascetic practice for Japanese people. The maids that I have here do their washing in bare feet in the middle of the winter with

[03:16]

cold water, 30 days a month, and there's nothing you can do, you can buy them rubber shoes to put on and say you're going to get cramps in the stomach, but they will not do it because they've always gone around in their bare feet and they prefer to do it. So for Japanese monks, bare feet don't mean asceticism, it don't mean giving up something warm because they've never had it that way, most of them coming from country temples or from the houses of farmers and so forth. The question of communal sleeping, such as you have in a big zendo, one sleeping side by side and with only a certain number of kimonos and a certain number of futon permitted. Well, I don't know about that, that has a certain health value, I mean if you have stimulated

[04:23]

circulation and that sort of thing, I suppose you can work and live, I'm not talking about zazen practice because that's a little different, but in a few kimonos without underwear and sleep that way with a thin futon on top of yourself even in the wintertime, but I think we have to consider the number of cases of monks who come down with tuberculosis while they're in the monastery and what part does this over-extreme insistence upon too few clothes to just not being sensible about them have to do in bringing it on. The same thing comes with the food, the food that they have to eat is basic Japanese food which except that it's in poor quantity and poor quality, both, it's lacking in quantity

[05:31]

perhaps, the way they eat it is ridiculous and swallowing this hot rice as they do and eating in a hurry, I don't know why you have to eat in a hurry, I don't know what zen principle is involved in eating in a hurry, throwing this hot rice into your face as they do and the result of that is the large number of stomach cancers which zen monks have, I mean that to my mind is a perfectly ridiculous way they're eating the way most of them eat, in fact practically all of them do and then they go out for their tensions and they eat like what I say like snakes, they fill themselves up with their guts and everything upright up to their ears and it takes them three or four days to digest what they eat and there's no sense in my, to my view in the eating part of Soto life, I'm not talking about again

[06:40]

the ocession part because I think that the food is quite adequate for ocession, I don't think there's any need to change that but the general everyday food and getting up in the morning, well if you're young and husky, I don't think that it makes any difference for you whether you get up in the morning or whether you don't get up at four o'clock, I mean by that I don't think anything is gained particularly one way or another and maybe it's all right but of course we have to take it that that whole custom of getting up at four o'clock in the morning came from the habits of the Chinese emperors, they always gave their morning, their audiences three or four o'clock in the morning, that is you would have to decide what value that had, you would have to trace it back

[07:41]

to what started it, but is there a value in that time business, I don't know, I couldn't answer that although I must say that one of the nicest things that one of the things I've enjoyed for years more than anything else was getting up at four o'clock in the morning or a little after four and going up to Ryoan-ji in the dawn, I loved it and I don't consider that that's any hardship provided you can get six hours sleep a night and if you can go to bed by 10 or 11 and big strong husky boys don't need quite so much perhaps, I don't think there's anything wrong in it and I think it has a certain value, do they get up at three o'clock in the summertime? Yeah, they get about five hours sleep in the summer, six in the winter. Mm-hmm, well, I lived for years on six hours sleep and did a lot more than just Zazen, of

[08:47]

course, they do a lot of Samu, now the Samu part of it, I think is a certain amount, it certainly is fine, the physical exercise is fine, has an antidote to the sitting, couldn't be better, but we have to take into consideration that Samu here has to be done because of the size of the temples, the type of the buildings, the gardens and that sort of thing and that you consider only that kind of work, Samu, it seems to me very, very narrow way of looking at it. I think there's much to learn how to do Samu, in what spirit and with what total absorption in that simple work of sweeping or cleaning or lifting

[09:50]

rocks and all that sort of thing, that I think it's fine, but I think there are other kinds of Samu as well, but this is stressed here as Samu because of the particular style of the buildings and the style of the gardens and so forth. Of course, it's quite true in China that in the early days that Zen monks were famous for their Samu, for their garden work and their supporting themselves with their own, the food that they raised. Of course, people don't do that in these city temples anyway, they don't have the grounds for it. When it comes to the manners, I think there's no question that the manners, they are based upon Tokugawa feudal manners

[10:53]

and for today they are certainly in appearance, they are exaggerated, but I think on the whole that, and I don't think they specially belong to Zen, but I think they're admirable discipline, admirable training myself. I have no objection to the formalities. I think they're very handsome, they're traditional, and I think the disciplinary side of learning them and conforming to them is excellent because I have seen, for instance, at Nansenji, the first year I went and seen country boys come in for their first their first year in the Sōdo, and I've seen them three or four years later when they came in as

[11:56]

just louts, and at the end of three or four years they were gentlemen. They could entertain anybody, I mean their manners were such, their neat, clean, exact appearance, their just this and this to their kimonos and all, they could go any place in any society because their manners were so beautiful and so in company. Now that they are rough with one another and brusque with one another, I think, I don't know whether that is Japanese or I don't, personally I don't think it has to be Zen, but it may be, I don't know, Japanese idea of it. What else is there? Sutra chanting, of course, I'm a great believer in a certain amount of that. I think it should be

[13:01]

a kind of studied and practiced as a meditation practice and which I think it's intended to be and means a technique of meditation. I think it's a great, it's a very important thing. What about study, the fact that Zen monks in Sōdo life inhibits any kind of reading or book study of Buddhism, do you think that that's overstressed or? I think it's spoken about in the wrong way. I'm absolutely in agreement that certainly for the first few years and even if you are, well, we have to take that monks living in the Sōdo are living there, as as Shibayama Roshi said, for a different purpose. Then they have to learn many sutras,

[14:02]

they have to learn how to conduct many ceremonies, they have to learn how to manage a temple, they have many things to learn which are not connected with Zen study itself. But I am absolutely of the opinion that for as long a time as possible, five years, six years, seven years, that a man should not read books. He shouldn't even read newspapers if he can keep from doing it. The longest time possible for a person who's studying koans to not to study external things, I think is very important. But after a certain point, where they get where they are, a person is able to use any work that he does, reading or writing or washing the dishes in the kitchen or whatever it is, still continue his inner Zazen practice.

[15:07]

Then I think he may begin. But give him as long a time as possible without anything. I don't mean the whole 10 years or 12 years, but certainly three or four or five without without study. But then I think, of course, that they should have had a great deal of study before they went in. A great deal of study. And I think they should have a great deal of study when they come out. In a more general way, do you find much of positive value in this? It's not just in Zazen, of course, it's within the whole of Buddhism, in this practice of monks removing themselves from society and from the world for a period of time, cutting off family ties and ordinary ties and becoming a member of a special and somewhat isolated community? Well, you call it a solo

[16:09]

and isolated community? Yeah, in a sense it definitely is. It's a very special community. It's not in the stream of life as a whole in the same way. Well, I don't think anybody who is going to try to develop an interior life can do it from the beginning in the midst of the crowd. I think they've all got to, anybody's got to, and I think in the past people always have a certain period of time. I don't think it's that for the layman, I certainly wouldn't recommend the monks' way, but you have to think even in the sodos, today at least, they have only six months in the year when they're really isolated. A lot of those guys are there longer than that, actually. They don't really get to go home.

[17:12]

They stay many weeks before and after, and some of them aren't allowed to go home at all during the interim period. Well, I guess the first year they're not allowed to. No, I think it's, I would have no objection even to three or four years of being isolated. You think there's a positive? Oh, I do, definitely so. Just a little bit of concentration on your work. Because if the, just take, when I spoke about the little girl that said hello, or good morning, now that of course was in an Ossetian period, but that not having outside worries, outside diversions, outside thoughts coming in for a period, long period of time, is certainly conducive to the development of this,

[18:19]

what, intuitive awakening, or whatever you want to call it. And it can certainly be done much better that way, I think. Much better. Here's another question, which is kind of a prickly question, and it's very basic, and you may not even want to answer it. And that is, from your standpoint, do you see any intrinsic value in the traditional Buddhist monk's insistence on celibacy and on vegetarianism, for a person who wants to do Zen study? Well, I have some views on that. I think it depends partly upon the people. I think it's, on races, shall we say, I think it's not very difficult for, hasn't been very difficult for Japanese people to be vegetarians. I think there are these other items, like tofu and that, in their beans and bean paste and things like

[19:27]

that, which will take the place of meat. And that if they were to eat correctly within their diet, that they could, within the possibilities of their diet, that they could be adequately fed. I don't think that foreign people, Europeans and Americans, can accept that kind of diet. Not that they can't accept it with their mind, they can't. That's simple. But to have this physical organism accept that kind of diet, I think, is very difficult. And personally, I don't think that meat-eating interferes to any great extent with one's spiritual attainment or the attaining spirituality. But I do think, for instance, during the ocession weeks,

[20:28]

I'm only speaking from my own experience, that the kind of food that you have at ocession, which is light, which is starchy, is apt to have more sugar than you other times have, the kind of diet of food that takes very little effort to digest and is quickly turned into energy. And you don't need much food when you're doing it. You're better, you must not have much food. So I would, myself, and I always have, if I were doing any continued Zazen practice, even when I was not at Zanzenji, I used to do it here, take a week off at a time, and eat absolutely nothing but vegetarian food. And I think that is absolutely necessary for that period of time when you're giving eight, ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day to Zazen. Then I think certainly that light, vegetarian food is the proper food for that period.

[21:35]

But between those periods, I don't think that foreigners should try to live on a vegetarian diet unless they happen to have their system, their bodies, to adjust to a Japanese diet. And it certainly should not be the meager Japanese diet that is given day by day in the Sodo. Now, when it comes to the question of celibacy, I don't know about young men. I think probably that one of the main reasons for celibacy in Buddhism has been that if you were bothered with girls, that was really a bother, and it interfered with your Zazen practice and so forth. And if girls were, women were cut off,

[22:37]

and you knew that there was no chance to think about them or to go out with them, that was just as if with money is with money. You don't have anything to do with money, you're not earning money, and you're not spending money, so money is not a concern. Of course, girls are not quite like money because they are a physical concern. And at Danzen-ji in those old days, I don't know what the boys do in this monastery, I haven't any idea, but they used to regularly feed them every so many days. They would give them, I don't know, saltpeter, that's what they do in the prisons in America. I don't know what they gave them here, but they gave them something which brought about emissions of semen and relieved them from this, I suppose, physical pressure or whatever you want to call it. And that was just as regular as their baths or something else, not quite as often, of course,

[23:44]

but as regular. But when it comes to not living in the monastery, I am, for instance, Roshis, I'm all for Roshis being married. Well, you see, the traditional, one of the traditional lines of argument in Hinduism and in the yoga tradition is that salwasi is a positive aid to meditation and spiritual achievement, you know, and some of this thought lies behind, no doubt, Buddhist history. Well, I don't know whether it's positive or not, I mean... Indians definitely feel that way. Well, of course... Right up to Gandhi and his brahmacharya. I know. Of course. The priest, the Jesuit priest who went up to Hoshinji told me himself that he used to go for obsessions and that what he did was that he had permission from the, from Harada Roshi

[24:50]

to perform his mass in his own room before he went into the meditation hall. Yes, Hoshinji. Yes. So, he said he told me he had permission to do that. So, then he goes in, he performs his mass, private mass, in his own room, then he goes into the meditation hall. Now, what is he doing when he gets in the meditation hall? What is he meditating about? Is he, is he just sitting there and enjoying the quiet atmosphere which the meditation hall gives him in the midst of these, this other group of people who are doing zazen? And he sits, maybe cross-legged, probably he does. But what's he doing with his mind? Is he practicing zazen? Because ultimately, zazen is not just sitting with your feet crossed in a proper way.

[25:53]

Zazen is handling your mind in a certain way, and it certainly is not meditating upon any Christian religious subjects. It's primarily getting rid of every kind of concept, and he's just filled his mind with concepts before he comes in. So, if he comes with that kind of mind, he's getting nothing, is he? Not getting no zen. He doesn't know what real zazen is. He's not practicing it. And if he were to practice it, he would lose his Christianity. Yeah, well, that's the real point. I mean, it's going to be one or the other. It's only going to be phony, phony sitting. Have you said this to Dumoulin? No, I haven't said this to Dumoulin. It's all going to be phony sitting, or it is going to be... or they're going to lose their Christianity. That's why I won't...

[26:55]

I never have taken a missionary for anything. I've had any number of them ask me, these Protestant missionaries around here. I think I must have told you the time the Norwegian one came, and he hounded me for months. He used to come every so often. Please show me how to practice zazen. Please let me come and do your... and sit in the zendo. And I said no. So, one day he came, and he came with Harry Hunson, who took over for him later. And who is now the head of the Norwegian mission, and they have a farm in Shizuoka someplace. And that day he said, I've come again to ask you, please, to take me as a student. And I said again, no. And he said, but I'm willing to give up everything about Christianity.

[27:57]

Everything, he said. Everything except Christ himself. So, I said, well, what are you going to do when you go into sanzen, and the Roshi says to you, slay the Buddha, slay the patriarch, slay your father, slay your mother, slay your kinfolk. Do you think that Jesus Christ is going to be left out of that? Well, Harry Hunson burst into laughing. And the man never came back to see me again. That ended it. Now, this is the payoff. He went back to Norway. But somebody went to, it was Dick,

[28:57]

went to some temple in Shizuoka, where Takashina Roshi, so it's a Soto sect temple. Takashina Roshan. Yes. Is now the priest. He's quite, must be very old by now, because I met him years and years ago. And he was old then. And Dick went to some kind of fancy matsuri in which they had Shinto and Soto Zen. And I don't know, he'll tell you what this is. He told me a little bit about that. He did tell you a little bit. And among other things, he told me that at that matsuri, he was told that Takashina was giving San Zen to Harry Hunson, Hanson. Well, there he is. Well, of course, it wasn't Harry Hanson who asked for it here. Harry Hanson laughed when I said,

[29:58]

do you think Jesus Christ will escape? That's Harry Thompson. Oh, Thompson, that's right, Thompson. He was a classmate of mine at the Nari-Numa school. Oh, really? Yeah. Yes. Harry Thompson. And he's written a very nice book on the modern Japanese sects. I know who he is now. Well, now he is head of the mission, and they've moved to Shizuoka, and they have a farm there. They're raising cattle, and they're going to try to develop a dairy farm there. But Dick was told, not by Harry Thompson himself, but he was told that Harry Thompson was taking San Zen with Takashina Rosen. That would be Soto San Zen. Oh, yes, Soto, yes, whatever it is. He did everything else. Yes. But nevertheless, nevertheless, nevertheless. And this business over here bothers me very much. It's none of my business. But if you will talk, perhaps you have talked to Ken or to Irmgard or to Dick

[31:05]

in here what that young man is having to say. I mean, how disappointed he is, how unhappy he is, what he's not finding out what he expected to find out. I haven't talked to him. Yeah, well, that's what they've told me. That all came up at the time that Ken left the Soto, and they spoke about him. I haven't talked to him. Yeah, well, that's what they've told me. That all came up at the time that Ken left the Soto, and they spoke about him and how difficult he was with the monks. I mean, he was dissatisfied with this, and he questioned them all the time about that. And when you ask them about it, what that situation was or is,

[32:08]

because he's still there and will be there until May, I think, when his wife and children come from Israel. But he's a dyed-in-the-wool Jewish adherent, and that's fine. And nobody has any objection to it, but why they have to come to Zen, I wouldn't know what they're looking for. Of course, you can say that in their, what is it, Hasidah? Hasidim. Hasidim. Hasidim sect of Judaism. It is a mystical sect, and they have, I believe, some technique which resembles Koans. They have, yeah, they have dark scenes, but their practice is on the ecstatic side. They dance. Do they? Yeah, they dance, and they're very ecstatic.

[33:10]

Well, I think, Irmagard, somebody told me he belonged to that sect. But the problem is this. Here, anybody that wants to come in is welcome. Well, that has its good side. I mean, Buddhism, Buddhist monasteries or Buddhist temples or that are open, and I think in the past, historically, they've been open to everybody. But the people that they were open to, for instance, if we say that historically Chinese temples were open to anybody that came in, who came into them? Chinese, didn't they? Not Western people. And they would be either Buddhists or Taoists or, of course, Confucianists, but they would be people of Chinese culture. And this coming from Europe and America is another matter,

[34:19]

coming from a totally different cultural and religious background. And there's no objection to people coming, but in my view, that if they're really going to practice Zen, really practice Zen, then they ought to have left their own fold, and be willing to and be ready to become Buddhists, if they're not already in that line of thought. Because I think they will only be bitterly disappointed if they follow any length of the way and give it up anyway. I never knew any of Sokaion's students, and he must have had a number, who were good Christians who stayed Christian, who became Buddhists.

[35:23]

Even George Fowler, who was president of the Society for over 20 years, has become a Christian again. Yeah, that's what you told me, being an Episcopalian. Episcopalian. And Mrs. Townsend, who was with Sokaion for so many years and helped him with his translations and all that, died a Catholic. And he has spoken many times of the various Christians who came and to whom he gave sounds in. And after a certain length of time, invariably they would say, thank you very much. I mean, this would be the gist of it. You've made my Christianity much more understandable, much more living, and much more vital for me. But this is enough. So, of course, then people, if I speak like that to some people,

[36:25]

then they think that I'm very strict and very orthodox and very narrow and wishing to push other people out. But there's a difference between quiet sitting and the real practice of Zazen. And the real practice of Zazen certainly would seem, from what little I know of it, to bring people to inner experiences which equate or which are the same as, resemble closely, are Buddhist experiences. And Buddhist experiences are not Christian experiences. And if you were to have, if a Christian were to have a Buddhist experience,

[37:32]

a real Buddhist experience, I think it would be a very serious matter, a very wrecking matter. If his Christianity was serious. Yes, I mean, a real Christian were to have a Buddhist experience. You may say, well, then are the great mystics like Berman and Eckhart, they were Christians. But I expect both of those men, and whatever others there were like them, were more or less geniuses, don't you think so? And they had gone through their religion. But these, but other people, normal people who are good Christians, practice it and have what we could call a Buddhist experience. And I would think it would be very shocking. I don't know, but I don't approve of it at all.

[38:39]

I think if they want, if people want to learn to do quiet sitting as a physical exercise, that's quite all right. Yeah, I suppose the line would be drawn practically, speaking of the difference between people who are just allowed to sit and those who become sons and disciples. You know, Soto, for example, like lay people that come in aren't questioned about anything they believe or think at all. When they start sons, and then things begin to turn up. Well, I think theoretically, that's probably where the line has to be drawn. And, of course, Sokyan always insisted that people had to listen to his lectures for three months before he would consider them for sansen. Well, I think that makes sense, too. Well, I think that's the minimum myself.

[39:42]

I don't think that that was... Something like that would be in lieu of what you were talking about the other day, of having a sort of a basic collection of texts to be read as a preparation for zen studies, to ground yourself, or at least to get some acquaintance with what that worldview is, what the background of it is. Well, that's what I will have to talk with Mr. Humphreys about, because he's concerned about that now. And what can he do with these people who want to study zen? Well, I said to get up a class in Mahayana Buddhism, instruct them in basic Mahayana Buddhism in its developed form and in simple physical sitting. And if they hang on after that and want to go further, then that's another matter, then to consider it. But of course, Yasutani Roshi will take anybody for any purpose whatsoever.

[40:51]

I mean, who has any purpose? If it's to get their health, if it's to enjoy quietude, if it's just to see what zen is like, or if it's with some problem to solve, which they think by quiet sitting or zen sitting or something will solve it. Yeah, like one time I was in the fusu-ryo at Daitobu-ji just before an O session, and some totally unknown layman turned up in the fusu-ryo. Japanese layman? Japanese layman. He asked permission to sit for the session. Kosan is the fusu, and so Kosan talked to him briefly, and he said, Well, do you have some atamanoshigoto, some work you want to do with your mind? And the man said, Yes, I have some problem I want to think over. Kosan said, Well, that's good, because if you didn't, it might be kind of tiresome for you. But if you have something you want to work out, why don't you come to the session and sit?

[41:54]

So apparently there's an accepted idea about that. Well, I think with the Japanese ambivalence in regard to religion, I mean, anything goes. There is a fairly recent book called Twelve Doors to Japan. It's something gotten up by Yamagata and Richard Beardsley and Michigan University, I think, published by McGraw and Hill. And they speak about the fact that even in these new religions, that people often belong to three or four of them at once, that they're never questioned in them, Do you belong to anything else? But if you want to become a member, surely become a member. And some of them belong, as I say, to several of these modern, these new religions, as well as, of course, having their own household temple background,

[42:56]

or their Shinto shrine background, and all the rest of it. They were speaking about the fact that the Japanese don't have any clear differentiation in their thinking about religion. It all kind of flows together. And the problems that the Christians have had, because, and one thing that has delayed the progress of Christian teaching here, or Christian conversion here, is the fact that it interferes so with a certain established household and neighborhood practices, because you're not supposed to, if you're a Christian, to, at Obon, and at wherever it is, the ancestors come back to the shrine, you know, Obon, and there's one other time that they come, of course, the Higan times,

[44:00]

and you're not supposed to go to the shrine, and at certain times, and your neighborhood shrine, and that disturbs all of the relationship in the neighborhood and in the household. Well, I haven't had any time to, I was going to do that today, make out that list, because I had to consult something, I mean, of dates for Soke-yan. Oh, about Soke-yan. Yeah, but perhaps you have some other questions you want to ask that we might do this evening instead of that. But before I forget it, this is just something else I want to ask you. Are you free Monday night for dinner? Yes. Well, please come over, if you will, because Sokokoji Roshi and Dana are coming for dinner,

[45:03]

and I thought it would be a rather pleasant way for you to pick up that friendship, or whatever you call it again, acquaintance. That's very nice, yes, I'd like to very much. Because he's really very sweet, and he's become very devoted to me. I've had him over here once for a luncheon, and I've been, because of Dana, two or three times to the Soto to see him, and I send him, what, some jam and some marmalade and different things like that from time to time. I think that's lovely. What time are they? Well, they're coming quarter of six. And I thought this would be a good time for you to renew that friendship, as it were, because it was an earlier friendship, as I remember it. It was just a brief acquaintance. Yeah, without any, you know, temple business at all, because just coming here, and Dana has left the Soto now, but he's going to live close by so that he can continue his sansen and go for the o-sessions.

[46:10]

He's got a room or something. Because he wants to work more on his Japanese language, and he needs more food than it's possible for him to get, and he's been there a year. And I think that's long enough. He came to see me the other day, and I told him I was very glad he'd made that decision, because I think that's long enough. I think it's as Chibiame Roshi said the other day, now temples or sotos are fairly well geared for producing priests, rather than enlightened men. He didn't add that, but I took it that he might add it. We might add it. I wonder if today, if we might just talk about a few other roshis then. Yes. What I'm trying to get is something of a picture of the range of personalities and personal histories and types and styles that you've been acquainted with.

[47:13]

Well, Tofukuji Roshi is one of my very good friends. And Tofukuji Roshi came out of Myoshinji. My acquaintance with him began when he was about 36 years old. It's a long time ago. He's now about 70. And he was then, he had gotten his Inca from the old roshi at Myoshinji. And at that time, Myoshinji had 80 monks, and the old man was too old to handle all of them, and they needed a deputy roshi. And when he had finished his Zen study, and he was only 36, he was appointed deputy roshi. I don't know how much time elapsed between his getting his teaching Inca and his being given this position at Myoshinji.

[48:14]

That I can't say. But my acquaintance with him first began when I was invited to a party at Myoshinji for him in celebration of his being made the deputy roshi. And he was so shy. He's a big man and shy and chic, like a country boy. And he is a country boy. He's still a country boy, but he's a big man. And about 12 years ago, I guess, Tofukuchi needed a kancho and roshi. Things were kind of rickety at Tofukuchi. And the present roshi at Myoshinji, one now, I believe, was a younger brother of Tofukuchi roshi. And he had stomach ulcers or something and wasn't awfully strong. And according to what Goto Roshi told me at the time,

[49:15]

the present Tofukuchi decided to resign. By that time, he was full roshi at Myoshinji in order to give his younger brother the chance to be roshi before he got sick and died and then went on to. So he resigned and went to Tofukuchi, took his position there. Of course, Tofukuchi is a very large temple compound and rather sprawling. And it needed a good many repairs and the whole thing needed a lot of pulling together. The Sodo was pretty much shot. I think there weren't very many monks there. And he has taken hold of things extremely well. And he's not in any way an intellectual man. He's rather a talkative man, the most talkative of any of the roshis I know. But he's a very, very fine person. And he's much more like a, well, in a sense, like a Catholic prelate or

[50:26]

something like that who's interested in administration and so forth. How old is he now? He's just 70, I think. He's just a little younger than I am. What's his name? Hayashi. We always call him Hayashi Roshi. I don't know. Hayashi Ekiju. And I don't think that he has any other accomplishments than running a Sodo. I believe he's built a smaller zendo. So now he has, what, he was down here the other day. I think he has something like 14 monks there now, which is much more than he used to have in the beginning. He had only four or five. And so they had a huge zendo. He was very good to Donna. He let her come. And I remember Donna was very friendly to her. Yes. Oh, he's a very nice man. He's a warm man. He's the man who goes out to you and accepts you and wants to do for you in

[51:31]

the sense of whatever he can. And he's generous and big. And he said, oh, I'm just a country boy. I've had no education at all. And I don't think he has had much in the way of scholarly education. How does he stand amongst the other Roshis? What sort of opinions do they have of him? Well, that I wouldn't. I've never heard any Roshi speak about any other Roshi. But of course, as Kancho of Tofukuchi, he has a top position here in Kyoto. I don't know anything about any of his disciples. I only know one of them, knew one of them. But he's no longer here. And at one time, I went to Uwajima in Shikoku to talk with another of his disciples, whom he had told me was living in a temple in Uwajima, with the

[52:34]

idea of his possibly going to America or being a candidate for going to America. And he was one of this Tofukuchi Roshi's heirs from Mishinji. Uwajima is the far southwest corner of Shikoku. And he was a very nice man, a small man, a very energetic little man, very mission and very sincere, but anything but suited for American people. Tofukuchi Roshi would not be suited in any way for American people either, I think, because largely because he has no intellectual background and no intellectual... I don't think he know what to do against the questions and things that the ordinary westerner would ask. But as a good man, I mean, as a completely monastic man, I've never heard

[53:39]

any gossip about him, any kind of description. Completely, completely good man devoted to his temple and devoted to his monks. And he is going to have this big... or they are going to open that big zendo at Tofukuchi in October, I told you, the big gathering for Rinzai's 1100th anniversary. Well, now the man at Keninji, he's also a very sweet friend of mine. He's a small man. He's also, I suppose, in his 70s. He's like a little bird. And he is an excellent painter. And I think things of that sort are of much more interest to him.

[54:41]

He only has had for years, he's only had two or three monks in his zendo, and I understand it's a very poorly run zendo. And he's a very sweet and very talented man. He's a very talented painter. I don't know whether he writes poetry or not, but I think he's very little of an administrator, but just a very sweet, bird-like little man. Keninji, is he the consul? I suppose so. I really haven't heard in the last few years whether he is or not. The Keninji Soto is still in operation, is that right? Well, I guess so. It's been in operation always, but it's never had more than two or three monks. In the old days, when I first came over after the war, the old man who was the

[55:42]

owner and editor of the Chugai, which is the Buddhist religious paper, lived in a hanari at Keninji. And I used to go quite often to see him, particularly after he got sick, and I saw Keninji Roshi then many times. And he's been here to see me, and he sends me one of his little paintings every Christmas and every New Year's. And he's a very good painter, really a very good painter. Well, now there's Miyoshinji. Miyoshinji Roshi, I do not know. The Soto Roshi. Soto Roshi. I really don't. I don't know him personally. I've seen him many times, and I understand that he is an excellent, excellent Soto man. But what his intellectual background is, I know nothing about that.

[56:50]

He is the younger brother of To Fukuchi, as I told you. And he seems more and more to get stronger and stronger each year, so that he's a little heavier than he used to be, and he looks very well. He's a very... Do you know him, To? I've just seen him. He's a very severe-looking man, with a very small, very firm mouth. He has a true style. That's right. And a rather high-bridged, thin nose with rather flaring nostrils. And he never goes out of the Soto. He has no personal donkas, which is very troublesome to the Miyoshinji boys, the boys in the Soto, because, as one of them whom I know quite well told me once, when the Roshi has donkas, then when we go takahatsu, we can go to those donkas houses, and we're always

[57:55]

sure of getting something, or getting a meal, getting tea and things of that kind. But he has no donkas. So when we go out takahatsu here, we get a few pennies from the houses that we stop at along the road, and it's pretty poor pickings. But he never gives lectures. I mean, he never gives lectures outside. He has no rei zazenkais or teishokais. He is completely devoted to his Soto and to his men. His total life is lived there, so they say. And I say, I've never been introduced to it. I never had any special reason to, and I think that when Bill Laws was there, he insisted

[58:55]

upon Bill's taking sanzen, which Bill did not like, and resented very much, but he was forced to do it if he was going to stay. But more than that, I really don't know about him. What about Yamada Mugon Roshi, from Myoshinji? Yeah, well, I don't know. I suppose he must have come out of Myoshinji Soto, but that I don't know about. Yamada Mugon is a little man, and he's just about as busy as they come. He's the very opposite from the Soto man at Myoshinji. He is busy with kais and newspaper articles and television performances and meeting people and going here and there. He's busy as a beaver all the time.

[59:56]

Right now, he's president of Hanazono Daigaku, which doesn't mean much except that his name is there because Professor Kimura does most of the work there. Do you know what? He looks like he's a chinless man. I've never seen him. You've never seen him? No. But he's very small, too, and he has no chin, and he has rather prominent teeth. He's sweet-looking, and he's certainly very interested in having foreigners come to Shofukuji, which is his Soto in Kobe. Oh, that's good. You see, this is a city Soto, Shofukuji, I think is the name of it. He is there when he has time to be there.

[60:58]

He lives in a Myoshinji temple and has various kais of all kinds going on in this Myoshinji temple, lay and so forth. I mean, zazen kais and lecture kais and all sorts of things going on there. And he does get down to Shofukuji, I guess, for O-Sessions. Crowley says he's down there quite frequently. Is that so? Well, quite frequently, yeah. Roshi ought to live in the Soto. Yeah, but he says he's there more than just Sessions. At least during this last winter, he says he was there for Sanzen almost all the time. He's giving Sanzen quite regularly. Well, that's something, I think, according to what I have heard, it's rather new. That may be. Or maybe Crowley has an exaggerated notion of what frequent Sanzen is. I don't know. I don't know, I'm sure.

[62:00]

But he doesn't mind a little advertising for himself. He's written a lot of books, hasn't he? Yes, he gets his lectures taken down on tapes and things like that, and then published. Does he receive a kanjo? No, no, he has no connection with Miyoshinji. Oh, I see. No, he lives in Miyoshinji, in a Miyoshinji temple. He was a big gun in Miyoshinji, too. Well, I think he's the president of Hanazono Daigaku, and he lives in, I think, in his temple, in Miyoshinji. And whether he came out of Miyoshinji, whether he was a monk in Miyoshinji, before that I don't know. I think he must have been, to be living in Miyoshinji now, to have this temple. And I suppose Shofukuji must be connected with Miyoshinji, must be a sub-sodo of Miyoshinji. And he is, he would like to go to America, he talks about going there to teach.

[63:10]

I think he's rather given to drooling from the mouth.

[63:19]