I want to read Kaku number 33. Shinjibutsu. Shinjibutsu. It's very short, Kaku. And... February 22nd, 1966. Tape 1. Well, that's all right. I'll let you. Let's start with, could you describe what your very first, the first time that you actually went into a zendo was when you went to Nanzenji? The first Zen temple that you actually had contact with in the sense of going in and sitting? Oh, yeah. It was Nanzenji. Yeah. What year was that? And that was in 1932. 1932. was in the spring of 1932. Dr. Suzuki had arranged for you to go up to Lanzanji to sit?

[01:04]

He had arranged not to sit. He had arranged... Do you mind if the story's a little long? Not at all. Just talk as you talk. Well, it's a little amusing. In the autumn of 1930... When I had first met him, and in fact the only conversation that I had with him prior to the spring of 1932, he had casually said to me, if you want to study Zen, you really should come to Japan. and you will get more on three or four-month study here than several years of attempting to do anything by yourself. He had, of course, at Mrs. Suzuki's insistence, given me a little bit of information about sitting in a chair and reading and handling my mind. And so then later it became possible for me to come.

[02:12]

And so I was in constant correspondence with him. And I told him when I could come and arrive and how long I could stay. And he arranged with the Roshi of Daitopaji. Who was the Roshi then? I really have forgotten his name. He was a very, Washington will know, but he was Mr. Suzuki's very close friend. And he had arranged for him to take me. And then he arranged for me to live at Kotowin. I don't know if you know Kotowin well or not. No, I don't know Kotowin. They have two or three rooms at the back, which are the oldest part of the temple. And Mr. Suzuki had arranged for me to live

[03:14]

lived there. I don't know what I was supposed to do about meals. I didn't pay attention especially to that. Perhaps they were supposed to feed me, but I was supposed to stay there anyway. And so it was under that understanding that I got on the steamer all by myself in Seattle and left here. And with the exception of Mr. and Mrs. Suzuki, the only other individual I knew in Japan at that time was Mr. Ikeda, who had been our sort of secretary and guide when Mr. Everett and I had been over here in 1930. a very nice man and a very capable man, a gentleman, and so forth. Well, when I arrived in Yokohama, Mr. Ikeda was there and Mr. Suzuki. I don't remember whether he was there or whether he had sent somebody. At any rate, he very soon came.

[04:18]

And we stayed at the Grand Hotel for a day, maybe, and informed me that he was very sorry, but everything had been, that Daito-ji had been thrown into the discard. Of course, nothing had been said about sitting in the Sodo, in the Zendo, or anything like that. It was simply Zen study under Roshi. and that he hoped that he could get the Roshi of Nanzenji to take me. Later, of course, I found out the reasons for this, but it took me a little time to find out the reasons. At any rate, when we came, when I came down to Kyoto then, since Mr. Everett and Eleanor planned to... arrive in Japan in the late summer, sometime in August, I thought it would be a wise thing to have a large enough house for them to live in, to be with me.

[05:28]

And Mrs. Suzuki had already arranged for one of her former housekeepers, Kato-san, whom you know, to keep house for me here. And she'd gotten a young English student of hers, Japanese young man, to act as interpreter and secretary. So eventually, we were able to find a beautiful house on the Kamo River and moved in there. In the meanwhile, I had been taken by Dr. Suzuki up to Nanzenji to meet the old Roshi, who was then, you see, he must have been, he was 70 or 71 at that time. And we were taken into his Ozashiki, and then he came and I was introduced.

[06:31]

And after a certain amount of talking back and forth, Dr. Suzuki, as interpreter and so forth, he then said, Well, of course, you can't sit in the zendo, and also you can't do anything very much in your own house where you have servants and things like that. And... I have a temple here just across the road from the Sodo, which is my personal temple, which I built some years ago, in which I will live when I retire. And nobody lives in it, and you're perfectly welcome to have it. And I would like you to, I'm telling it in short form, I would like you to come here every day and do nothing but zazen all day long in that house.

[07:39]

If you will come about nine in the morning and come first of all to my rooms in the Soto then I will give you the key and you can bring a bento for lunch and you are to sit there all day long and it's five o'clock or six o'clock, you can go home. And it was about three miles from Nanzenji to the house on the Kamo, maybe four miles. You bring the key to me in the evening and go home. And you are not to bring any books with you of any kind. And I have sent over to the house, to the temple, a Mars chair. And if you want to sit in that, you may. And so when I finally did go and I saw the Morris chair, it was a very amusing chair, one that had a footrest and armrest, headrest, and a series of buttons on the arms.

[08:55]

You pushed the button, and the footrest shot out. You pushed another button, and the headrest came out. Another button in the back went down. And so his idea seemed to be that sitting in a chair was perfectly acceptable. And I had been in America for nearly a year and a half, been sitting in a straight-back Chinese-style chair so that my body was this way, you know, at angles. and breathing correctly, I trusted, and doing several hours of that every single day. When he finished talking about this, he didn't talk about my coming to him for Sanzen or anything like that. That's all I was to do. Then he said, now I will give you a koan. And he brought out his Mumonkan, and he read in Japanese the first koan, and then Dr. Suzuki interpreted it.

[10:05]

And I said, well, why do you give me a koan? You don't know whether I'm ready for one or not. He said, well, I think you're ready. Anyway, you begin with this. And you practice, and then he showed me and how he sat and how he breathed and so forth and what how to handle the colon well that was that and it was from that point i began so uh six days a week i did as he said i went over there at 9 o'clock in the morning, and I went up to his inrio to get key. And he usually insisted on my having tea with him. He was very fond of making a sedcha. And his own room was on the second floor of the inrio, actually.

[11:07]

And then I would take the key and go across the street, and I would sit. And I had, of course, a couple of zabotog. And nothing was said to me about sitting with my hips up high. And after some, I don't remember when I spoke to him about it, but I certainly must have very shortly told him that the chair sitting was no good. I didn't want to sit in a chair. And he said, then I must sit seizan, ladies' fashion. And Kato-san, whose husband had been a priest at Nanzenji before he died, then suggested that I sit with those couple of little cushions under me in the back. And it was that way that I practiced. And he would, as I say, he said I was not to take any reading material of any kind.

[12:09]

I was to do nothing all day long from 9 o'clock or 9.30 until 5.30 or 6, except just sit like this and breathe. And when my legs got too tired, I could get up and walk up and down in the garden. That was all. Once in a while, he would send a monk over with some fruit, or the monks would come to clean the yard, and then they would stop and talk with me or something like that. But aside from that, for six days a week for about a month, that was what I pursued, nothing but that. And at home, I had practically the same regime. I got up at 5 o'clock every morning, and from 5 until 7, I did Zazen. And then I got dressed, and I had my breakfast. At 8.30, I left for Nanzenji, usually taking a taxi up there in the morning.

[13:12]

And I was up there all day. I would have tea and sandwiches and maybe some soup or something. I could fix on a hibachi myself. And then I would walk home at night at 5.30 or 6.00 for the exercise, take my bath, and then sit until midnight. I allowed myself five hours of sleep a night. And at the... end of about a month. Now let me see. I got here the first of April, April, yes. So this went on for about a month. And shortly, shortly before the Osession began, the first May Osession began, I had a very interesting psychological experience. And it was so interesting, at least I thought it was interesting, that I

[14:19]

got the interpreter I had to write it down in Japanese. I'd explained it as best I could in English and what the experience was like. And I had him write it down in Japanese. And the next morning, I had him come with me to talk with Nan Shinken and to... No, I didn't come to think of it. I took it myself. And when I got the key, I left it with him. And I hadn't been back in the little house in Senkoan, because that was the name of it then, long, when Roshi came running in. I heard him clattering at the back door, and he came running in, and his wife, underneath kimono. And he had the paper in his hand, and he was waving it like this, and he said, oh, this much Japanese I could understand because I'd had some Japanese language study in America.

[15:31]

This is what I'd been waiting for. This is what I'd been waiting for, just waving it like that. So then the interpreter came, maybe that afternoon. I don't remember exactly the sequence of it. But anyway, he said that he had asked the monks then to let me sit in the zendo. And they were absolutely against it. It was against the regulations in Nanzanji for a woman to sit and that they would not have it. And so the first of May, we had the opening of the summer session. And at Nansenji, that was a very, very big affair. They had a very, very large number of supporters in those days. And the first two days were devoted to services and that sort of thing, and to feeding all of the supporters. And they fed something like 2,000 people in those two days.

[16:35]

They had so many supporters. And so, of course, I was present at those two days, at those parties, and met a number of the donkas and so on. And then... I was informed that by one of the head monks, there were six older monks who'd been with Nan Shingen for about, they'd been with him for close to 14 years, all six of them, and one of them who is now the Roshi at Ufukuchi in Okayama, spoke some English, and when my own interpreter wasn't with me, he spoke sufficient to make some kind of contact between Roshi and me. And so he came over to see me in the little house, and he said,

[17:38]

Now the old session begins, and the monks are asking you to come and sit one night with them. He was very specific about the one night. And he said, you come at 7 o'clock and sit until 9.30. because that was there. Then after that, they had tea before 9.30, but I mean, the session went to 9.30. And so I remember very well getting ready to go. I had no special clothes to wear. It was still rather cold, that happened to be. But Kato-san figured out something for me to wear, because I think we were wearing very tight skirts or something. Anyway, I had a Chinese silk, dark silk, Chinese-style robe that Kato-san thought was suitable, so that was put on, and a black velvet coat to keep me warm.

[18:49]

At any rate, I went, and that would be about May 3rd, I suppose, would be the first night that I ever sat in the zindo. And this monk, whose name was Essan, the monk's name was Essan, showed me to my, met me, and showed me. to my seat, which was next to the last one, as you come into the entrance from the back. And all the monks were sitting there, and I had written somewhere about it. The impression, it was the Those days, there was practically no light in the Zendo. We had one electric light, a miserable little thing, that hung in the center of this hall. And that's all the light there was. And so that it was a rather scary place, really.

[19:52]

You'd come in, never having seen it before, in this dark. And everybody was in place when I came. And at that time, we had 47 people at Mount Zenji. And the Sodo holds only, I think, 36. So every ton was taken. And the older monks were sitting in the gisario, the building that they had for the older monks to sleep in. And some of the youngest ones were sitting in the... And some laymen that we had, six or seven laymen, who were living in Nanzen-ji, they had to sit in the hondo because the place was so full. At any rate, they had this seat for me, and the monk had tried to explain to me beforehand what the clappers and things meant, and it wasn't very clear. What I had to do was to get up when they got up and get back again when they got back again.

[20:56]

But I'll never forget the almost fright with which I, and certainly the awe with which I entered this black place, you know, and with all these figures, one after another, both sides in this absolute silence and so forth. Well, I sat down And as a matter of fact, I will never forget it. I sat down and I thought, well, this is all very strange. And yet, I've come home. That's a truly Zen note. Yeah, I've come home. Yes. So that night, things went well enough. The second night, then at that time, at the end of the session, Assam came up to me as I got off the ton, and he said, you sat very well tonight.

[21:58]

Were you still sitting in Cezanne? Oh, yes. I never sat anything else at Vans Edge. And he said, you sat very well tonight, and will you come tomorrow night? So the same time. Well, of course, I was very pleased about that. And the second night, I went again, 7 o'clock. And this night, after I'd gotten seated, the old Roshi came in, and he stood in the door, and he yowled and bellowed. Little tiny man, you wouldn't think he could have that much strength of voice and breath and so forth as he did. And what he said, I didn't know what he said then, but later I found out what he said was that everybody's Sanzen had been terrible. and that therefore there would be no sons in that night, and there would be no walking, no breaks, and we would sit right straight through without any breaks at all.

[23:08]

So we had to sit, I had to sit two hours and a half without moving, or at least I was supposed to. I did move, of course, but then the pain was simply excruciating at the end. And the only thing that I could do to keep from fainting, the only thing I wanted to do was to keep from fainting, I didn't want to fall off the town, was to watch where this little electric light, the reflection, hit the black stone floor. And as long as I could see that, I wasn't falling off the town. And when it was all over, nobody moved all night. I mean, we sat that whole entire time till tea at half past nine. And then Ehsan came again, and he said they had to lift me off a ton because I couldn't move my legs. They were completely paralyzed. And then he said, you sat very well tonight. Would you come again? Come tomorrow.

[24:10]

So I went the third night. And the third night, I was allowed to have sanzen with Roshi. He sent word I was to sit at the end of the line, because he would give me a little longer sansen, perhaps, than anybody else. At any rate, it was more convenient. So the third night, I was reasonably comfortable, and I had my first sansen with Roshi then that night. With an interpreter? Oh, yes, with this monk acting, an interpreter. And then the understanding was that I could come. I didn't have to come every night. I could come whenever I had anything to say. i felt like coming and i suppose i used to go maybe three or four times a week something like that and i did it entirely as he said as i felt but at any rate at the end of the third night then uh ehsan said to me um i don't know whether it was that night or whether it was the next morning when he came over to see me in the little house

[25:16]

But what he said was, all the monks now invite you to come and sit every night with them, that you sit like Kannon, and you are a great inspiration to them, so please come. And from that time forth, I went every night. When they were not having session times, I was informed about it. And then, of course, I didn't go. But I went only the nights that they sat. But that was the first O-Session. But then the next time, when they had O-Session in June, Then they said, the monks said, we now would like you to sit with us all day long for your session, not only the night, but all day long.

[26:21]

So then it was decided. that the thing to do was for me to sleep continuously over at the temple. And I would go at four o'clock in the morning, if that's when they began. over to the Sōdō. And then, as I remember it, the very first thing we had there was sutra chanting in the morning, four o'clock. That's my remembrance of it. And from that we went into the Sōdō, into the Zendo. had a short period of zazen. Then we went for breakfast, and then we came back for a long period of zazen and sanzen and so forth. But then I was there at noontime. I would, after, when they would have a break of maybe an hour or two in the middle of the hour, from one to three or something like that, then I would go and lie down or back in the other little house.

[27:34]

Then I'd come back in the middle of the afternoon when they began to sit again, because they had much longer hours than apparently people have in the Soto now. Were we doing some move? I don't remember that they did any Samo. And I have no recollection of that at all. You're in the session. No. They rested and sat around for an hour or two after dinner. And then around four o'clock, There was sutra chanting again, and then we had supper, and then we went back into the zendo, and then we were right straight through till 10, 11 o'clock at night. And the first time that I did that, I got back, I think, about 10 o'clock they ended.

[28:38]

And I remember this was very charming. This was the first day of that full day sitting from four o'clock in the morning straight through. And my legs were awful painful by that time. It was, of course, just the Cesar sitting. And Roshi came back with me. And he had had one of the monks start the fire in the bath. And he himself went out to see that the fire was was burning brightly and that the water was hot, and then he waited until I'd taken my back, and then he massaged my shoulders and back, and then he went on back, and I slept there and got up again at four o'clock in the morning. Then, that I did for the sessions but otherwise when there was no session I went for the evening sitting just as I had always done so then often between times and they had any breaks at all I used to if it was during the day except at the noon time when I would sometimes go back I would just

[30:02]

walk up and down underneath their covered passageways. And the boys still speak about that, that we always remember you walking up and down underneath the rocas here. And that was the first year. That was the way it was. How long did you hear it in Japan that first time? Well, I was there from really the first of April until the end of... until the end of July. Mr. Everett came over sometime around the middle of August. But, of course, the Soto was closed for the summertime. And it was not, as my memory serves me, it was not Roshi's habit to give Sanzen during the vacation periods.

[31:05]

I don't remember that he did because I know that part of the time the monks moved out of the Sodo, those who were left, I mean out of the Zen Do, those who were left, and they moved, they slept in. Roshi's habit to give some Zen during the vacation periods, I don't remember that he did because I know that part of the time the monks moved out of the Sodo, those who were left, I mean out of the Zendo, those who were left, and they moved, they slept in the Hondo. Then, of course, when I came over the next year, then I went back that November, and I came back the following September, and I took another house this time very closer to the Sodo, And then I just sat continuously for the... And I had the small temple as well.

[32:12]

And then, of course, I did the Rohatsu in January all through that winter. And again the next summer also. So I had a whole solid year of... You stayed in Japan a whole solid year then? That time, yes. I was there a whole solid year, second time. Yeah, from October until, what, till... Well, I think Mr. Everett came over in August again, but the Soto activities were all over. I had a total year of Soto activities. What... Remembering what the Nanzenji Soto seemed like then... Can you think of anything or any ways to describe, if anything, how monks and how soto seem different today? What changes you can observe? Well, of course, in the first place, nanzen-ji was full to overflowing, and there was certainly more tightness than you see here.

[33:17]

Certainly, also, because of the large number of monks and the large number of head monks, during the old session periods, the young monks, the really young monks, were not allowed to do anything. I mean, the cooking and serving, everything was taken care of by the six older monks. The young monks had nothing to do with it. The younger monks had nothing to do with it at all. And that was one thing. The second thing is that I remember that during each ossession period, we were not expected or permitted to speak at all. We had a solid week of silence, except, for instance, when the roshi came over to my house like that to see to the bath or something like that.

[34:33]

But inside the monastery, there was no talking whatsoever, none. And the second time when I came back, we had a curious little episode. We had... Because... I was a foreign woman who was allowed to sit in the zendo. This disturbed several of Roshi's women lay students. He had a group of lay students in Osaka, for instance. Not all women, but among them was a young pharmacist and his wife. They had been accustomed to come up for the Osesshin times, and they would always have to sit in the hondo.

[35:36]

And then they had to either sleep in the hondo, or they had to go back to Osaka, whatever they wanted to do. And so she complained bitterly because I was allowed to sit in the zendo. And she was a very, very nice, bright, attractive little woman. young, I suppose 28, 29, something like that. And so they finally gave way. And they said that the second year when I was back, in the first one in the autumn, they said she could sit in the zendo. So she began. And she was a very cheery little woman. And the first thing that she did when she saw you was, hi-yo, hi-yo. And in no time, they'd thrown her out.

[36:41]

Because, I mean, it was just that strict. You couldn't speak to anybody. You weren't expected to speak to anybody. You were trying to be nice and friendly. She didn't mean a thing by it. Not a thing. But as I told Roshi later, If you've been working for 24, 48 hours and not speaking to anybody and getting up in a half dream and going and chatting and going and sitting and eating and not knowing that you're eating and somebody say, oh, good morning, good morning, hi, oh, hi. It's a shock that is terrific. It would take you two or three hours to get back where you were, you know. So she was dismissed, and there was never anybody else allowed to come in while I was there. Later, I understand, some years later, some German woman they let come in, and she was very well behaved. But that was one of the basic rules during Oseishin time.

[37:47]

There was absolutely no speaking. And we would have one solid week of absolute silence, absolute total silence. What about the quality and the personality of the monks? Would you say that they were a higher caliber than most Oseishin day? Or could you say? I would say that some of them were. As I watch these monks here and in other, when I go to Myoshinji or someplace like that, I suppose many of them were practically the same as those we see today as far as general caliber mental and so forth is concerned. But we had more, I think, but of course we had a very large number, you see.

[38:51]

Then we had six laymen who were living there. They wore hakama and kimono, and their life was exactly like that of the young monks. They had to sit as much, and they were forced to sit, and the only work that they had to do was samu, and they did the samu. They lived exactly like the young monks, but they were laymen. One of them became afterwards a priest, but... there were six of them there. And I was told also that there were a couple of Soto priests there in Cognito, but I never knew who they were. They were Zen monks. Yeah, Zen monks, but I had no idea who they were. They were taking sons in. I was told that they were there, but who they were, I have no idea. But certainly the six older monks that we had were... Well, we had Mururoshi and this Esan, who's now at Hofukuchi, who I think is one of the finest men I ever knew.

[40:00]

And all of those six monks became Roshis later. And we had... one hunchback boy who is still a, who has now become the priest of a very good temple. I see him at Nansenji when I go. And a number of them that still remember me who are now still priests. I don't think perhaps the average was any better than it is today. It's just that there were many more. There were more, yeah. You see, the laymen were all excellent people that we had. One of them was the son of the heir of the Matsuya department store in Tokyo. And their family had been connected with Nansenji Soto for several generations.

[41:02]

And Nansenji Soto was considered the family advisor. And they put him, after he graduated from Tokyo University, they put him down here for six months. And another man was an engineer, a man about 40, 45, I should say. And another man was a graduate of the philosophy department of Kyoto University. And he had had a lot... He was an only son from a fairly good family. He was a very intelligent man, spoke excellent English and German, but drank too much and began to study Zen to try to take hold of the drinking cabinet. And... Later he became a priest, that man became a priest. And I've forgotten now about the others, but we had six of them at that time. No, I think, did I say more?

[42:07]

More, but perhaps only because there were more. Yeah. Could you describe Non Shin Ken as a man and as you, whatever recollection you have of him, how you felt about him and so forth? You said he was small. Yes, he was small, and he was extremely active. Extremely active. Did you ever see a picture of him? I don't think I have. Well, go get it right up there. Isn't there that left-hand picture? Inside here? Yeah, left-hand picture. Right? Left-hand one. The black frame. That picture I took the first day I saw him. Oh, yeah. How old was he here about, do you think? Seventy. Seventy. He died 73 in 1935. Do you know how many Hatsu he had, disciples, Roshi disciples?

[43:10]

Well, I've written about that in Zen Dust, because I wrote a biography of it. Nobody knows exactly how many disciples he had. He never would tell who his disciples were during his lifetime, and it was not publicly known that they were. Occasionally he'd speak about them. He had one of them who was in Korea, who should have followed him, but he was killed during the war. And he'd had one killed during the Russo-Japanese War, who had gone to be a soldier. And then the other, the man who, after his death, became known as his heir, was Nakamura Taiyu, sometime while I was there, the first time, Nan Shinken had decided that they should reopen Kowenji as a Sodo.

[44:21]

And he put Nakamura Tayu, whom none of us thought of as his heir, at least I did I didn't know that maybe the other people knew, in charge of restoring this temple. And it was an awful temple. I mean, it was all broken down. The rain was coming in. It was in an awful shape. But I didn't hear much about that at that time. But he died in 1935 of pneumonia in the summertime, in the Tsuyu time. And he had a, the man who was concho of Nan Zenji was a brother monk of his whose, and their mutual friendship went back to their earliest days.

[45:28]

They had both been monks, gone in together at about the same time to Kōkeizan, which is the regular big country sōdo that belongs to Nanzenchi. That's all up in Gifu. Yeah, outside of Gifu. And there had always been a certain amount of rivalry as monks between them in the very early days. And the Kato Roshi, if I tell you this part of the story, which may be a little long, was able to pass his Mu Koan, his first koan, sooner than Nan Shinkan did, which didn't help the rivalry between them at all. And it was some... maybe it took Nanshinkin something like three years or more to finish the Mu Koan, to get through it.

[46:31]

And the story of his getting through it, I'm sure you've heard me tell that. Yes, about his taking the little Kowloon statue and being able to throw Kowloon into the river. And then when he got But when he was coming back, a monk came running to him and said, Roshi wants to see you, wants to see you. And so he went into the Roshi's room, and the Roshi said, well. And after that, he passed some 40-odd koans in 40-odd sanshins. and left Kato Roshi behind. Apparently the Roshi had made every effort to hold back this Satori, as they often do, if they think that the man is going to be awfully good.

[47:37]

Well, eventually Kato became a Roshi too. And Nan Shinken's teacher came from, their teacher came from Kokazon to be Kancho of Nanzenji. And after he came here, or shot maybe before, there was a big fire at Nanzenji, and the big hall was burned down. And so he called Nan Shinken from Kokeizan to assist him here and left Kato Roshi there, and he eventually became Roshi at Kokeizan. Then Nan Shinken helped him when he wanted to be Katsuo of Nanzenji. He helped him to be elected. But they never got along, and there was always this rivalry still between them, even when they were both up in their 70s.

[48:42]

And that's when I knew them, of course, and knew Kato Roshi was just about the same age, though he wasn't as strong as Nan Shinken. He'd had a stroke, and his face was all on one side. So now Nan Shinken dies, and Kato Roshi is still alive, and he's Kancho of Nanzenji. But he's not Roshi. So the day after Nanjinkin's funeral, which, as I say, was in June, the middle of June, so the middle of the summer study period, he moves himself from the Kancho's residence, which is up on the cliff, you know where it is in Nanjinkin, up on the hill. He moved himself down, bag in baggage, into the Roshi's quarters down in the Sodo. Now, whether he thought he had the power to do it or he just did it to present them with a fait accompli, I don't know.

[49:48]

But at any rate, the monks were furious. That's when you were a Roshi. Yeah, the monks were furious. So 14 of them then thereupon got together, the six oldest monks and some of these other young ones, eight would be eight young ones, and they cleaned the Soto and they packed up their things and they marched out. And they went to Koanji. to this heir of Nanshinkin's. And the reason I know the temple was in such bad condition was that several of them wrote me from there and told me what they were doing about all their time was spent in helping in repairing the roofs and how they sat in the zendo with the rain running down their backs and things like that, you know. So they finally did get it repaired. And the six of them after two years, got their Inca from Nakamura Roshi.

[50:53]

And that's how Muraroshi is related to Kawanji. And he came back there eventually after going two or three, two other places in between. To carry on about Nanshinken, just thinking in terms of Roshi personality type, the different groceries you've known, thinking, keeping that comparative notion in the background, how would you describe Nunshingkin? Well, he was, first of all, a very simple man. Extremely simple. I think you may have heard me tell the story of one of the early experiences he had after he'd become roshi of nanzen-ji, or perhaps even kancho of nanzen-ji, because he was kancho for fifteen years also, simultaneously.

[51:59]

And he was invited to give some sermon someplace, some temple in the country. And he went in his ordinary old clothes, and when he got there, He had no monk. He went all alone without an attendant. And he got off the train, third class car. And, of course, there was nobody to meet him. And he saw way down the platform flags and things flying and lots of people. And so he trudged to the temple. And when he got there, people were waiting. He said, well, where were you? Where were you? Where were you? Well, I was on the train. We didn't see you. And they had all been down to the first-class carriages expecting to see somebody in grand robes with a attendant or two, you know, and so forth. So then he said that he made up his mind that... to make an impression upon the country people, he must wear a very gay and gaudy caisson and so forth, and he then proceeded to buy something in red with gold and all that sort of thing.

[53:15]

At home, he was just as simple. He said, told me, that He did not know who his parents were, that he had been brought up in a farming family, but that he believed that he had been brought as a baby to the family and left. and that he thought he became a very good family because he remembers a beautiful lady whom he assumed was his real mother, coming from time to time to see him, always veiled as a child. Then he would look at his hands and he would say, see, these are not a farmer's hands. These are not a farmer's hands. These are a gentleman's hands.

[54:17]

How many times have I seen him do that? Very sweet. These are not a farmer's hands. And he would be very affected when he would tell about this lady with the veil, a veiled lady who came to see him when he was a child. He came to the farmer's house. But he never knew anything. And he had the farmer's name. He carried the farmer's name. And he had some education. I mean, he was sent to what was then Hanazono for a while, and then he was sent to a Confucian school so that he had considerable education. He was very, very strict. He was very strict in his own life, and as I say, very, very, very strict with his monks. Do you happen to know if he was a vegetarian? Yes, I do. I never knew him, I never heard him express himself on the subject, but I never knew him to eat anything in the world but vegetarian food.

[55:31]

Do you know if he drank sake or not? Oh, he was absolutely against it. I never knew him to drink. I remember about the sake business, this first time when we had this party at the Soto for all the believers, you know, as I told you, these two days of a thousand people apiece coming to be fed. And the big donkas, the little fellows that sat all over the hondo, I mean, with their children and everything like that, were not served any sake. But the big donkas were taken into private rooms, and they were served sake. But the general public was not supposed to know that. That wasn't known. And as far as I remember, Kato-san could verify this, He wouldn't have anybody who drank allow them to be a nunzenji, a priest.

[56:36]

Didn't you once say that he prohibited toya at nunzenji? He did, yes. I never heard of toya. Is that right? I never heard of toya. How did the monks feel about him? Did they have mixed feelings, or were they very, very devoted, or some of them hostile toward him? I have never seen anybody who wasn't utterly and completely devoted to him. I mean, they were frightened of him because he could really use a stick, as small as he was. I have seen him and Sanzen sitting out there on the roca, waiting. And I remember one big boy, a country boy, going in one night. And he was very dumb and stupid, I'm sure. But in a few minutes, we heard a big clatter. And he came, Nan Shinken had thrown off his robe, I'll tell you about that in a minute, and he came out in his white kimono.

[57:43]

And he had his stick and his nyoi, and he had this great big fellow who was certainly a foot or a foot and a half taller than he. Somehow or other, he'd gotten hold of his collar. And he was pushing him ahead, and he was kneeing him in the... in the behind and hitting him. That's the way they went out the Roca, this little fellow, the big fellow ahead of him. The monks at the period that I was there were always the older monks who certainly had the greatest reverence for him. I don't know that anybody loved him. But they certainly had the greatest, greatest respect and awe for him. You say he used the stick, the niory of Ivan Samson? Well, he never used it on me, but I've heard it. And I wouldn't say too much.

[58:46]

I wouldn't say a great deal. And certainly in the Soto, it was practically not used at all. The Keisaku. Keisaku was not used at all. It wasn't used when they were sitting. The only time that they used it violently was when they had to drive out some of these young boys that didn't want to go for suns in, you know. That's the only time, and that's a kind of a shabai anyway. But in the Sodo, in the Zendo... I was never hit but once, and that was a joke. I mean, I knew it was a joke, and this gridlet went over the whole room, you know, and it was done. And I don't remember any special, very little, I should say. Well, just the Nguoi itself and the use of Nguoi in the songs in the book. I think Nguera Roshi has said to me, that Nan Shinkan used the nioi, too.

[59:46]

And I was, what are you, some girls, she said, had a reputation for using the nioi. Some don't. And he apparently did. What are your views on the rationale for the use of the nioi in Sanzang? Well, I never had it used on me, so I don't know. Why would you imagine that he would throw a country boy out and hit him like that? Well, I would think that probably the boy was utterly stupid to me. Utterly stupid. And he made some fool answer that was just too much for Roshi. Because I don't think that it would be impoliteness on his part. It wouldn't be shibari. Oh, not with him. No, he was too dumb for that, altogether too dumb. On the other hand, he had a very nice onji once. young boy that I knew quite well, who'd been there about four years, that they all hated to be onji for him because he was so hard.

[60:51]

He had his own meals. He didn't eat soda meals. He had his own kitchen. And he was an excellent cook. And when these boys, these two onji, he always had two, and when they would be appointed for that, then they had to be under his jurisdiction about cooking. And it was very, it was very onerous. He had his own bath and he had his own, his own little kitchen. Was Nunschenkin, Nunschenkin wasn't functioning as the concho, too, was he? Not at this time. He had been. He had been for, he was... I've forgotten, I've got it in thin dust, how many years he was in Nanzenchi. I think it was something like 45 years altogether. Oh, yes, it was very long. Well, no, maybe not, maybe 35, 40 years. And 15 of those he was Kancho. Did he seem to read much, or did he seem to be interested in reading?

[61:56]

No, he wasn't at all intellectual. He was what I would call a Sodo Roshi. He kept that Sodo. It was kept immaculate. The grounds of Nanzenji, of course, they had all these people, I mean, all these monks to do the sahur. Nevertheless, the place was absolutely, the temple grounds were absolutely immaculate. And everything was run like, almost like a military camp. I mean, everybody was very exact and very strict. There was no... no easiness, and I 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 see once that Narasimha King used to go out and do samudra with monks? Oh, yes, often did. And he had a little vegetable garden in the back of this temple where I lived, and he often went out there working.

[63:03]

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