It don't mean that it was unpleasantly so, it was just everything was tight. The feeling was good though. The feeling was just wonderful. Absolutely tight. Did you say once that Don Shinkai used to go out and do Samu with the monks? Oh yes, often did. And he had a little vegetable garden in the back of this temple where I live. And he often went out there working. And he, in the summer, in the vacation time, he often came down to my house and stayed. And we always had vegetarian food, you go back to vegetarian food for him. And he would come, I had him come in the summer, we'd hear somebody banging on the door at 6 o'clock in the morning. And it would be Don Shinkai. And he'd have his little furoshiki and an old straw hat. And he just got bored at the sodo, so he'd come down for two or three days.

[01:01]

So we fixed him up in a room. And he used to run, if it was in the summertime, he'd run around just in his fundoshi, run around the house. And he used to sit most of the time talking to Kado-san. He really wasn't interested in talking to me because he wasn't an intellectual in any sense of the word at all. And he wasn't especially interested in intellectual things. He read the paper. And I have to admit that he was something of a gossip. And he made me very annoyed one time because at one of the O-Sessions, he insisted upon my coming and having supper with him every night. And I think it was the last O-Session we had. And he insisted on my coming up and eating supper with him. His little special supper. His little special supper. And his little special supper was daikon stewed in shoyu and water.

[02:02]

Well, I didn't mind that so much, but I had to. So then he would call this Esan up, and then he would begin to gossip. And that I didn't like because this was inside the O-Session time. I got very cross about that, but there was nothing I could do. I had to eat that darn kabura, boiled kabura piece about this big around about that thick, you know, boiled in shoyu and water. That I had to eat every night. Did he ever say anything or express any curiosity or interest in you as a foreigner being interested in Zen? Did he have any particular feeling about Zen in the West? No, not at all. I would say not at all. He was very devoted to me, and he was very wonderful to me. When we would have sanzen, he never talked much.

[03:08]

His sanzen was always very, very short. And many times he wouldn't even let the boys come in. I mean, sometimes they'd tell me this. I had no way of really knowing myself. But that if he didn't like the way sanzen was going, he'd just shut it up. He wouldn't have any more. And the boys used to, the good boys who really wanted to have sanzen, really had to hustle to get the front seats. Because with all of these people, and he used to have sanzen five times during O-Session time. Five times a day? Five times a day. And during the rohatsu, for instance, he never went to sleep. Of course, nobody went to sleep in rohatsu. We had seven solid days. I was the only one that was allowed to sleep one hour. But he sat up the seven days himself. He never laid down either. But he would get bored if the sanzen wasn't going good.

[04:13]

And he'd just shut the door and the rest of them would be out, you see. So there used to be considerable competition for the front seats in the sanzen line. Because they never knew when he would lose his temper. Because he had a quick temper, I should say. And he would lose his temper, or intentionally. He would say that the sanzen is no good tonight. And he'd just slam the door and that was it. Nobody else could come in. And they all raced to the line? Yeah, they would all race to the line to get there, so they could get there early. I mean, to get to the front seats, so they'd be sure to get in. Did any boys ever stay behind and not be thrown out? There were always, on those nights, a few, two or three. Who stayed behind? Well, who tried to stay behind. Did they ever let them stay behind? Never. Because, you know, in theory, doko-san is supposed to be voluntary.

[05:16]

In theory. Yes. And I've heard that at some places, some monks go and some monks don't go, and the ones that don't go aren't made to go. So I'm just wondering about that. Well, I... Okay. Well, I think if I had to characterize Nanshinkan, the two most important elements in his character were his sincerity and his earnestness. I think he had no wish or no will to be a big man or a great man or an important man. He had only a wish to train monks and to train them well. He was meticulously neat and clean, so that he would come over every few days to Senko-an, this little temple,

[06:27]

because though the monks were supposed to keep it clean, to come regularly and sweep it and dust it and everything, he would go around just like the woman in the story with his finger, and literally. And when it came to the Butsudan itself, which was fairly large there, he always took care of it himself. And he taught me how to take care of such a Butsudan. And this goes here, and this goes here, and not here, not there, there. And everything was in absolutely perfect order and absolute cleanliness. Later, a few years ago, I went to Hofukuchi in Okayama. I hope someday you go to Hofukuchi. That's Esan's place. Esan's place. And it's a very grand temple that belongs to the Tofukuchi line.

[07:33]

It's a sub-sodo of Tofukuchi. And there, it's the temple where Setsuo, not Setsuo, what is the Japanese painter on Sesshu? Sesshu lived as a boy. And where on the screens of which are supposed to be his rats, you know, the rat that, or the, I don't know, the rats came out, he painted the cat or whatever it was. Anyway, it's that temple. And they have the screens that he later painted also. And it is no longer a sodo, but Esan, being a roshi, is very interested in lay people, has large lay groups, and has since, in recent years, built a layman's zendo there at Hofukuchi. But they have a very, very large hondo, and an enormously long butsudan. And the first day that I went there, I went in to look at the butsudan, and I said to Ueshiba-san,

[08:37]

it is only one of Nan Shinken's disciples who would have a butsudan that looked like this. Because it was just like his. I mean, everything. And it was such a long one, and there were so many things on it. But nothing cluttered it, and everything in exactly its place, everything shining, everything, every bit of lacquer, absolutely dustless, and absolutely beautiful care. And that was what Nan Shinken taught all of his monks. Now, many of the younger ones who hadn't been with him so long thought it was a nuisance and thought it was boring, and tried to get out of doing that sort of thing. But the older ones who stayed with him learned it and appreciated both him and what he taught them. And he was... His clothes were always old. Always old.

[09:41]

Even when he was dressed up for a ceremony, his kesa had no particular... showed no particular taste or that sort of thing. He had no artistic ability at all, in a sense. And no appreciation of art, I think. He was purely a sodo man, a monk's man. He was a monk to the last grain, last hair of his head, which he didn't have. But he was very sweetly devout. And how much of this devoutness was a little on the, what shall I say, superstitious side, I wouldn't really know. But I always remember him when we would have teisho. And the hall, the hondo at Nanzen-ji is rather long, and, or broad, I should say.

[10:42]

And the laypeople, and I among them, sat over on this side, of course, and the hondo was in the middle, and the other boys sat on that side. And coming from the sodo, which was the zendo, which was beyond there, they used to have to come in, and in a row, they would be silhouetted against the shoji, you know, in the early morning, the light would light up the shoji. And we used to have teisho seven o'clock in the morning, earlier, during oseshin times. And I would see the silhouette of this line of boys, first the monks themselves coming in, and then the head monk who carried his book, and then the roshi, and then the boy who carried his teacup, following after. And he would come in, and he would stand the side of his seat,

[11:45]

and then he would go and make his raihei to the Buddha. And that I will never forget. His hands, as he came in, the silhouette of his little head and his little body, and these really lovely hands he had. And the sweet, simple, really I think one could say devout even, way that he... Andrew Tohondo. And his bowing was like the bowing of a child. It had no fuss to it, no arrangement of kesa, no arrangement of robes or anything like that. He just came in and like a, just like a child,

[12:49]

put his hands together and made his raihei. This sweet, simple, devotion rather maybe than devoutness that he showed, was very, very touching. I used to always get a little jerk in my heart when I would see him come in in the morning that way. First the silhouette against the shoji, and then coming around, and he took rather small steps and his little pattering feet, and then the way that these hands were put together. Very, very sweet, touching way in which he did his raihei before the Buddha. Very, very sweet. Now, for his... Of course, he came quite directly from Hakuin. And his nyoi he...

[13:50]

E-nyoi, I don't know nyoi. I don't know what was the one he always used or not, but E-nyoi he had was one which Hakuin had used. He showed it to me one day and said that that was the sign of the transmission to him. Now, I don't know who got that nyoi after his death. I have no idea. Yes, but he had it still when I was there in about 32, 33. He still had the nyoi and he showed it to me and told me it had been Hakuin's. Now, the robe that he wore for Teisho, and I'm trying to think, not Teisho, but for Sanzen, and I'm not sure that he didn't use it for Teisho also, except when he had grand ceremonies or something like that,

[14:50]

was the most awful old robe you ever saw. Koromo. Koromo. It was made out of hemp, and rather closely woven hemp, and it was kind of been sand-colored or dark sand-colored. And it had belonged to his teacher, and it was several sizes too big for him. I should think that it must have belonged to his teacher's teacher or somebody else because the ancientness of it and the bulk of it, when the little man sat down, when you saw him for Sanzen, there was this bulk of this old, dilapidated, rough, because it was not a fine piece of hemp at all, rough robe, and I don't mean one of these transparent things at all, and this was summer and winter. I never saw him in anything else for Sanzen, except this one robe.

[15:51]

And it was many, many sizes too big for him, and he always had just this rather small head and this big, big mass of koromo that certainly had been made for somebody five sizes bigger than he was. And old and old, and I never really saw that it was tattered, and I never saw that it was really dirty because I never got, with the times that I saw him wearing it, I was never in any position to make any careful examination of it. But you just got the feeling that this thing that he was wearing certainly had come down from two or three generations, and it must have the sweat and everything else of two or three generations of teachers in it. You know, it was such an old, old piece of material and so forth. But to my mind, it was perfectly charming.

[16:52]

It was one of the things that endeared him very much to me, was this old robe. And it was just what you expected the old Chinese people to be doing. One robe, summer and winter. And the same old robe, summer and winter. And I remember the last time I had sanzen with him, the first time I was over, it was a very hot night. And we had all the shoji open to the garden. He was giving sanzen in the ozashiki that night because it was too hot in his little ordinary sanzen room. And I remember his sitting there with the garden all open, and it was so hot that night, and he had this big old robe on just the same. And the perfectly marvelous way he talked to me that night, and his saying now, you must go back to America, and what you can do is you may teach people how to sit.

[17:59]

Of course, he wouldn't let me sit cross-legged. I was still sitting seiza in front of him. But the concern and the sweetness, you asked me if he was fond of me, but if he were interested in me. Yes, I think that I was one of the joys of his life, of his later years. And he got very angry at me one time, which had nothing to do with sanzen or that, but that same year, that same summer, they had the usual farewell tea party for everybody, and I was invited to that, and I was asked to give the monks a talk, say something, at the tea party.

[19:01]

And so I thought about it. I was asked some little time in advance, and I thought about it, and I wrote it down in English, what I wanted to say. And I had Ogarasan put it into Japanese for me, and then I read it in Japanese. It was very short, maybe a page or a little more. And what I said was, what my message was, was that there was one thing that I had felt in living there, in the Sodo, and that I wanted to speak about, that everybody was very much concerned, and correctly, with getting their own enlightenment, and that they must never forget

[20:07]

that Shakyamuni had gotten his enlightenment only in order to help all sentient beings, and that in their eagerness to get their own enlightenment, they must never forget that what they were working at was an enlightenment which was for the benefit, not of themselves alone, but everybody else. Then I presented them with something none of them had, which was Japanese language copies of the Dharma Pada. Well, if you don't think, I was given hell for that. In the first place, the shoujo business had no, books had no business there, you see. And I really, of course, don't know exactly what all I was accused of,

[21:13]

but at any rate, that was not unacceptable. He was very angry with me. For the speech or for the books? For the speech, or speech, books, I don't know. Altogether, because when I finished the speech, I then had a bunch of books, and I proceeded to send them around to everybody in the great big circle that was there. But that didn't go down at all. But in the end, I mean, it didn't make any difference in our relations, but he was very angry about that. Whether it was that I criticized the attitude in the shoujo, but it was true. It is absolutely true. It's still true, I suppose. I suppose so. I think it's very much true. I just think they're not taught that, you know. I mean, taught that, it's not... They say it, how many times a day, shoujo muhen seigando. And it doesn't mean anything. They like to think that you don't have to say it at all,

[22:15]

but it's taken for granted, I think. Well, they were all kindness itself to me. Nobody could have been kinder than all of the monks were, in every way, shape, and manner. And they liked to play little tricks on me sometimes, like they gave me rice with mochi in it and tried to choke me. And, you know, that was just a big joke, a general joke. But because they just considered me one of them, they didn't... They were really wonderful to me. Those were, I suppose, those two years, or that year and a half, actually, in the shoujo, was the most completely satisfactory time I ever had in my life. Oh, it was wonderful. Just wonderful. Just wonderful. And I never saw anything but kindness to myself.

[23:19]

As I say, there was no sake drinking. There were no women hanging around the place. Now, occasionally, because Nanshinkan had... The shoujo had a number of geisha people, geishas and geisha houses, who were adherents of the shoujo and had been. From time to time, I would see that some old former geisha lady was up there, visiting with him. But it was one of the most circumspect, clean... Well, it was famous for that. Nansenji Soba was the way he ran it. And this shows the kind of person he was. He had one thing that he liked to paint, and that was what was known as Onodanuma,

[24:20]

Woman Danuma. And that comes from the story of a certain nobleman, a warrior, rather, who had a very beautiful courtesan as a mistress. And he used to carry her around and camp with him. And one night, he came into his tent or what have you, and she had taken a red cloak of his and thrown it over her head like this, you know. And he said, Oh, Onodanuma. And so Nansenji Soba proceeded to give me one of these Onodanuma paintings. Then the problem came as to how to explain the story to me. And my secretary then later, translator, told me it was very amusing, because Nansenji Soba didn't want me to know

[25:21]

that the lady was the warrior's mistress, that the story must be told so carefully, in such a way that I wouldn't understand that she was his mistress. During that period that you were studying at Nansenji, during your first two trips over here, did you have any chance to see anything of the other sodos in Kyoto or around the country? I didn't see any sodos, no. I was on excellent terms with the old Roshi of Sokokichi. Do you know he's dead? Old Yamazaki. Yamazaki died? Yamazaki Taiko? Yeah. It doesn't surprise me now I didn't know. Well, he died only about two weeks ago. Oh, really? Yeah. And it's been a big, not exactly a nice show,

[26:25]

but at least they never had a service for him. And they will have eventually, but they sent Dana up here to tell me, and tell me not to tell anybody, but there was a little tiny notice in the Asahi paper, that's all we know. I mean, that's all the outside know. And they would tell me when I was to come and pay my respects, but I was not to do it now. He was a great friend of mine. But I never saw the sodo, and I never sat in any of the sodos. Well, let's put it this way then. The Zen world as a whole in Kyoto, not just non-Zenji, but whatever you saw of it as a whole, how did the whole Zen scene in Kyoto seem in those days, especially compared with today? Well, now let me see. Esan took me to see Tofukuchi, and I met Tofukuchi Roshi. And he was something of a scamp.

[27:26]

Esan's line, temple line, was Tofukuchi, that was that connection. I went to a party at Myoshinji, at which the present Roshi of Tofukuchi was given for him when he became assistant Roshi at Myoshinji. Of course I met Shokokuji Roshi. Who else did I meet among the Roshis? Keninji, I didn't know. You see, Daitokuji Roshi I barely met, that's all. Barely met. And I did at one time go to Kamakura

[28:30]

and met Asahina Roshi. But, you see, there's a problem here. Japanese people are not keen about your knowing anybody else than themselves. And that was very carefully taken care of. Mrs. Suzuki took me to Shokokuji. But in the meanwhile, Shokokuji Roshi would come around in the back door and come in my own house without her knowing it. And at Myoshinji I was invited to that party and what else is there? Keninji, Myoshinji, Daitokuji, Shokokuji. Tenryuji. Tenryuji I didn't know anything about.

[29:31]

And Nanshinkan was something the same way also. This was his private preserve. I had thought perhaps too, Dr. Suzuki, you might have visited some other temples and maybe even looked into the sort of... Well, I did Enpukuchi out here. Enpukuchi. Enpukuchi. Where is Enpukuchi? Enpukuchi is at a place called Yawata Hachiman. It's about maybe 30 minutes on an electric train. I've never been there. You've never been there? Well, it isn't anything today. But Enpukuchi I went to quite often. I never sat in the Zendo. But I knew a number of the monks there. But that was because the Suzuki's were interested in the Foreigner's Zendo that Kozuki Roshi had built there. That's the reason for that.

[30:34]

And so they were interested in my being interested in. Dr. Suzuki was not really lived a very life very much to himself even in those days. So they were interested in my being interested in. Dr. Suzuki was not really lived a very life very much to himself even in those days. But Mrs. Suzuki who was starved for friends grasped onto every straw and clutched it. And she was the one

[31:35]

who made the connections, I mean, who would take me and introduce me to people. But they were very few. Partly because I only had Sundays to go and sightseeing. Now Nanshin Ken, I have two things that he did for me in introducing me. But they were not Sodo's. The first was that he took me to Ryoanji. And I think you've heard me say that the priest of Ryoanji in those days, the old priest, was one of Nanshin Ken's disciples. He was not an heir, but he had been in Nansenji Sodo. He was a very nice man. And Ryoanji was a very deserted temple. And so we made a little trip there one day and he introduced me to the priest. And the priest said that anytime I wanted to come up there

[32:35]

on one of my resting days, because I had always, used to take always one resting day, I was free to come. He'd be glad to have me. So a number of times I went up in the morning with a nice big bento and slept out on the Roka half the day and had lunch with him and then slept some more in another one of the rooms and then he'd fix a bath for me and then we'd sit and have tea and then we'd have supper and sit out on the Roka and look at the moon. There wouldn't be one human being would come to Ryoanji. Not one. That was in 1932. 1933. I could go there anytime. And I would do the same thing to the mosque temple here. I've forgotten who introduced me there. At any rate, I would go

[33:37]

and they would give me one of the tea houses and I would just go to sleep in the tea house, I'd have my bento they'd bring me a hibachi and tea and so forth and sleep all day out there. Nobody. Not anybody. So. That was really wonderful. And Ogadasan took me a few places. I expect Ogadasan took me to Miyoshinji to meet when this Roshi had his party, or the party given for him. But there was always a feud between Mrs. Suzuki and Ogadasan on the question of who introduced who to whom. And they were both concerned about who was getting into the other's territory. There was always that had to be very, very carefully handled. And then another thing that Nanshin did for me that was

[34:37]

very interesting. He conducted a jukai. Do you know what a jukai is? It's a three-day, well you have to write something about this. This is a three-day kind of revival in some big country temple. And we went to a place called Inuyama, which is in Gifu, Ken. And one of the monks had a came from a temple near there, and I slept in his temple because there wasn't room where exactly the place where Nanshin Ken was giving this thing. Well, what happens is they have a great big matsuri in which people from all the district come and they have

[35:39]

tents and things set up for them so they can sleep and that other temples in the place bed them down, or the farmers bed them down, or the townspeople bed them down. Maybe 2,000 or 3,000 people come. At least they did this time. And one of the leading donkas entertains the roshi, or the head of the leader of this jukai. And it goes on for three days. And the temple serves meals, food, and they have big cauldrons of food and all that sort of thing. Well, I remember the first day we got there for this. The first thing that happened, I've got some pictures of it someplace, they must be in America. They had a parade through the town. And the parade was the leading priest, because

[36:40]

Nanshin Ken had only one thing he was going to do. He was the head of it, but he had only one real serious duty. And there were any number of preachers who came, specialists in preaching. And the preaching went on all day long. One man would sit here and he'd start to preach and he'd finish. And then the next man would begin over here. The next man would begin. Oh, they were really preaching. But the big thing that Nanshin Ken had to do was to read the, what, 10,000 or 30,000 or 50,000 names of Buddha. But about the parade, so all of these dignitaries that were going to, and their attendants and everybody else, who were going to take part in this as preachers or what have you, were provided with jinrikshas. And they were all provided,

[37:42]

not all, because the lesser ones were not, lesser ones had to walk. The great big red umbrellas and an old man in a happy coat coming along behind the riksha holding this great big red umbrella. And the procession was led by the mayor and he wore a hakama and a haori and a derby hat. Walked down the, walked through the center, the main streets of the town with Roshi and his red, red, you know, red and gold and one of these funny hats on his head, you know. And then the lesser people with the big red umbrella over him and the little man behind and the little man ahead pulling him in the riksha, and then several rikshas for the major priests behind. And then all the other people, priests walking behind and they parade through the town. Well, they

[38:43]

had, I think only once a day, or it may have been twice a day, that they had this reading of the names and it seems that there's a big book in there or some sutra in which lists all the names of Buddha and I can't tell you how many there are. Fifty thousand maybe, anyway. It's a very, they had a very grand edition of it. And Roshi would sit up there and this was the biggest job or the most important job. He would sit up there and he would read Namu Samanda Dadadadada Buddha. And then everybody in the audience because the place, everybody, that's what they mainly come from, they would all bow down. And then he'd read B Shaman Dadadadada

[39:46]

Dadadadada, because it went ABC or something like that. And wait, everybody would bow down. He'd get through about 25 or 30 in a city. And then he'd have to stop and then the sermons would begin and the people would be running around and the food would be coming in and so forth. And then he'd go home and sit in his little hojo for a little while and then come back again and start reading again. And then everybody that went there got some kind of a that attended and did all of this bowing to all of these whatever thousand names it was got a paper a very elaborately folded and printed paper which said that you had attended this Chukai and that you had Raihaed all of these these Buddhas. And it went on for three days. Did you meet Nakamura Tanyu? I didn't

[40:48]

I met him I didn't meet him in the beginning. I met him after the war. I met him a number of times. And because he came for he was Kajo Keninji, you know, for a while too. That time he was he came up to Nanzenji for one of the services memorial service for Nanshin Ken. And I was considered one of the boys and one of the six or seven boys and we all sat up there were eight of us but there were six boys and I and Nakamura and Shibuyama Roshi we sat up in Nanshin Ken's room around his old kotatsu and talked about the old days. Would you say well let's see do you feel that Zen was clearly

[41:51]

stronger in Japan in those days as a whole in terms of the respect it received from the public at large? Oh I think there's no question about that. No question about it. No question at all. And in terms of sheer numbers of monks and followers and Dalkan I think certainly the numbers were greater very much greater and the caliber of the people of the Dalkans and so forth was very much better and as well as their number and the monks as I say what I've said before I don't know that their caliber proportionately was much different but the Dalkans yes and I don't know I can't tell you about the society about the lay societies

[42:52]

because Nanshin Ken never took me to any of his lay meetings he had a society in Osaka that he went to once a month and the month of August he spent all his time in Akita he'd been doing that for many many years and he had a big layman's group in Akita and they would take a temple for the whole month of August and he spent the entire month of August up in Akita with this group up there just what they did or who they were or how many or that I have no idea so now I'm afraid I've just talked and I haven't given you any opportunity to ask questions but you can do that next time I've been asking questions all along hmm um what about Sokatsu Roshi? well that's another story since we're talking about different Roshi well I'll tell you but I'll tell you another time

[43:55]

because it's half past nine now meaning this I February 25th Mrs. Sasaki room one side room two I'll tell you the story as I know it of Sokatsu Roshi it has its shadowy parts as well as its brilliant parts but I think he's not totally uncharacteristic of certain Japanese Roshis over a long period perhaps he was originally a layman who was

[44:56]

engaged in making and very good at making what is known as Kamakura lacquer do you know what Kamakura lacquer is? some special kind of lacquer? yes it was produced around about Kamakura it's red thick lacquer that is very deeply incised and at that time he became interested in studying with old Kosen Roshi and later after Kosen Roshi died he went to Soen Roshi he was still quite a young man at the time and under Soen Roshi he decided to become a monk he gave up his layman status and he was adopted by Kosen by Sokatsu and given the name of he was adopted rather by

[45:58]

Soen Roshi and given the name of Shaku which is a name, a family name which Soen took for himself it was not his family name but it's one that he took for himself and which he and he legally adopted Sokatsu as his heir How old was Sokatsu at this time when he became a monk and was adopted? roughly? well let me think back Soen died I think about when did Soen die? 1918? or was it later than that? I think it was about 1918 when Soen died and I suppose well Sokatsu was Sokatsu was very young he was 30 32 when he finished his Zen study and

[46:59]

when he did you ask me when he became a monk? how old he was? I would think probably about 25 about 25 I was curious he wasn't married then no he didn't marry and he was the the apple of of Soen's eye and Sokyan has often said though that his pride was his shortcoming and that Soen had he used often to come from Sanzen with his head cut and bleeding from Soen's having hit him with his nyoi to try to destroy in some fashion in some fashion or other to try to destroy this violent arrogance

[48:01]

at any rate after Soen retired as well when he when Sokatsu finished his Zen study he was in his early 30s and he then went to Burma and Siam India, Ceylon and he made the whole trip he told me this himself many years later dressed like an itinerant monk and he picked up his living as he went begging from door to door he was gone I think about 2 years then he came back and as during Kosen Osho's life you remember Kosen was the teacher of Soen Kosen had

[49:01]

founded a very aristocratic society called the Ryomo Kyokai which was for the study by lay people study of Zen by lay people he had many friends in the palace group and many of those very important men were original members of this and were his sadzen students later Kosen died and Soen was not interested particularly in the society and it died down into nothing but when Sokatsu came back from Burma he was too young to do much of anything to get much of a job because it was expected that he was going to become the

[50:02]

Kansho of Enroshi at Engakuji on Soen's retirement Soen suggested that he take up that he revive this Ryomo Kyokai of Kosen which he did and he started he built a very nice house with a dojo near the pagoda in Ueno Park still exists and there he began to teach he had among his disciples a doctor who was quite well to do and this doctor was a widower with a daughter and the daughter was in her

[51:03]

what, late teens and was brought to Sokatsu with the idea of his giving her Sanzen also and then quite suddenly the doctor died and it was found that he had left his estate to his daughter which was a considerable estate and he had left Sokatsu as her guardian well, that's the way it began and the next thing we know Soen has retired from Endakuji and the young lady is compromised with Sokatsu secretly compromised and the time comes for the election of the new Roshi

[52:03]

evidently Roshi and Kancho that I can't answer exactly of Endakuji and nobody thought for a minute that there would be the slightest problem about Soen's heir being elected the day before the election however the major newspapers in Tokyo broke out with a story of this man this priest of Endakuji who had misled this ward of his who was living with her and was making great use of her fortune so of course the thing went to pieces he lost the election naturally and he shook the dust of temples off his feet it was a curious thing he would

[53:05]

never take off his koromo and he always shaved his head and he continued to live with the girl who's name was Echokusan until his death at 81 they were the most devoted couple that you ever saw she was utterly devoted to him she was a wonderful woman and but he never would marry her though his students often urged him to take off his koromo and become a lay teacher I mean a real lay teacher but he refused to do it he always wore his hair shaved and he always but he always wore his koromo and in public unless well except with the most intimate friends Echokusan took the role of his onji waited upon him

[54:07]

with the utmost formality and he addressed it with the utmost formality he then concentrated on teaching lay people and he he had a number of temple men, monks we'll say or priests come to study under him because he was considered such a brilliant teacher and I have no doubt that he was of his time probably the most brilliant of any of the zen roshis of his particular period but he was bitter bitter bitter against temples and temples and and when Goto Roshi came to him as a disciple he was had already taken off his koromo Goto Roshi had entered temple life as a

[55:08]

little boy and then had gone up north to Sendai to high school and decided he didn't want to be a monk so when he came to Sokatsu he was a university student he was in the philosophy department of Tokyo University when Sokeian came to him he was a student at the art department of the university in Tokyo at other times though he had several priests whom I have met in the course of years who studied under him for a time who came back to work further on their koan study or something like that but the main group of his students were all lay people and he especially liked the students, university students and I think that Keio University if I'm not mistaken is up in that area and whichever university

[56:10]

is in that area was the university from which he grew a large number of his students later he moved further out in the country and eventually he built this quite large dojo out at out in Chiba at Ichikawa and that still exists and it is that that Eizan Roshi is the head of it. That's still a lay dojo Oh yes, entirely a lay dojo Eizan Roshi Eizan Roshi Now Eizan Roshi came to him in fairly early days, well Eizan now is about my age, he's about 72 I think now Eizan Roshi is the Roshi with the little beard

[57:11]

That's right That's right and Eizan Roshi was a university boy when he went to Sokatsu first and he had he came from a very good and quite wealthy family and he met his wife what's her name now well I forget now but they both became very much interested in taking Sanzen Eizan himself was a professor of natural science or natural history, something like that a combination of science and I think could there be a professor of natural science I don't know in the old days especially he taught for many many years in one of the universities near Yokohama and as a youth he told me

[58:12]

Eizan Roshi told me that after some period of study when he was about 19 or 20 that he took 3 months off in the summer and went up to up to Matsushima in the north and lived most of the summer in a cave by himself to do Sanzen and that is where he made his real breakthrough into Zen was during that period this summer vacation that he had taken up there well after he was married he went to live in the dojo with Sokatsu or in a house in the same compound and he remained with Sokatsu until after just before the war as I say his family were very well

[59:14]

to do and Sokatsu who was a very extravagant man managed to go through Eichoku-san's fortune and to go through Eizan's fortune hmm how could he do it? well he liked robes for one thing he liked to build for another he liked to collect antiques for another he was an excellent painter and calligrapher, a very fine painter and calligrapher and he liked to have his things elaborately published printed and published and there was always something for building and that sort of thing and Eizan could not have been a more devoted student nor could his wife they had either I think three children and their entire life was

[60:14]

married life was live in the same compound with Sokatsu and Eichoku-san did Sokatsu and Eichoku have anything? they had two daughters and one of them at one period in 1906 wasn't it that Sokatsu went to America and this is very amusing according to Sokatsu's story Sokatsu told him that he would have to get married because he was taking Eichoku-san to America with him and he couldn't take her without proper chaperonage of another married couple so among his students he picked out a wife for Soke-yan and that was how

[61:16]

Soke-yan and his wife went to America and as the chaperones for Sokatsu and Eichoku-san and there was another woman who was now Mrs. Matsumoto she's about 90 years old and still alive in San Francisco who either went with him from here or had already gone to San Francisco and was associated with them in San Francisco I think not on the farm and of course Goto Roshi went there were 10 or 12 of them altogether but after they'd been there two years

[62:03]

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