Sokatsu and Echuksa. And there was another woman who's now Mrs. Matsumoto. She's about 90 years old and still alive in San Francisco, who either went with them from here or had already gone to San Francisco and was associated with them in San Francisco, I think now on the farms. and of course Goto Roshi with. There were 10 or 12 of them all together. But after they'd been there two years, Eichok-san became pregnant. I'm telling you all the dirt there, or all of the way this story really is. And so to have a child born in Japan, Eichok-san and Sokatsu had to come back to Japan. And then she stayed here, and he came back to San Francisco and stayed another 18 months, I think, and then decided that this wasn't the time to propagate Zen.

[01:16]

It was too early in America. So he came back, and that was all of the except Sokeon and his wife, and Mrs. Matsumura, her name is. And she has always lived in San Francisco and still does with her family. Who did Mrs. Matsumura go as one of the students? I'm not sure whether she went as one of the students or whether she had already been a student and gone to America and was in San Francisco. But she was part of that general group. She didn't live on the farm, I know that. They all went out to the farm for a time, and they bought this farm out at some town which is now Hayward. That's right. They bought the farm at Hayward with the idea of raising strawberries. Well, after that, to finish up the story about Sokotsu's children, the child was a girl.

[02:16]

And there was a second child, a girl, also. And the two children were acknowledged only as Ajokson's nieces. And they were very promptly sent somewhere to be taken care of. And as far as I know, there was... nothing, they were brought up entirely apart from their father and mother. And how much contact there was, I don't know. I do know that both of them made excellent marriages due to whatever contacts there were that could be, strings that could be pulled. But I had a very, very interesting experience once with one of these daughters. Mm-hmm. And to me, it's the crux of the whole story.

[03:22]

I wouldn't bother to tell you this, really. I mean, tell you the previous, if it weren't for this. It was after H. Oakson had died. She died after Sokatsu did, about a year and a half after she had died. And I was up at Daishuin one day, And I had heard about H. Oakson's death. And I had heard something about one of these daughters who was married. In fact, both of them married very well. And one of them lived in Kobe. And we had been talking about her with Goto Roshi and Okamoto-san. Then I started out. And just as I got to the outside gate of Dai Shulin, a very fine-looking woman, about 46 or 47, came in.

[04:28]

She was handsomely dressed, very quietly dressed, but very handsomely dressed. And she was a very fine, strong, capable-looking woman. And... Okamura-san, who was with us, then introduced me and said, oh, and she said, this is Mrs. So-and-so and Aichok-san's niece. And I said, oh, I'm very pleased to meet Aichok-san's niece. She drew herself up to her full height. And it was, she's not tall, but I mean, it was still quite a drawing up. And she said, A. Choksan's daughter. So that one remark is...

[05:38]

Pregnant with 48 years. Yeah. That's all you had to hear to see this woman introduced to this so-and-so, a choksan's niece. And then I said, oh, I'm delighted to, very pleased to meet a choksan's niece. In this way that she drew herself up and she said, a choksan's daughter. There's a lot in that. Oh, I mean, that's a whole, how shall I say, concentration of Japanese cultural pattern and its psychological results. Wonderful. It's a wonderful story. Well, where should I go back? Well, what about... I'd like to hear a little bit about Sokatsu as a teacher and if you know what you know about as a teacher and his teaching career.

[06:45]

Well, I think that everybody thought that he was extremely brilliant. And he ran a kind of a layman's zendo at these two or three dojos that he had. And, of course, the first thing that he did was to break with Goto Roshi. Goto Roshi wasn't Goto Roshi then, but when he finished his Zen study, they came back from America and he finished his Zen study. Then Goto Roshi had in the meanwhile decided to become a monk again. And he had belonged originally to Mie Shinji, so he decided to pick that up again and follow a monk's life. And Sokatsu immediately disowned him. His disciples were all non-monks. He wanted non-monks. He wanted... So Kiyon wasn't a monk then either.

[07:45]

No, no. He wanted... wanted only lay people. Now, around about that time, after Goto Roshi left, he had another man whose name was Ohasuma Chikudo as his disciple. That man was a professor of ethics at some university in Tokyo. And he was a man who had come from a very humble or poor beginning, but had been adopted by some very wealthy man in Tokyo, and eventually married that man's daughter, became the Yoshi in that household. And what he had to do was to be a fine professor. The man wanted a professor for a Yoshi. And he was sent to Heidelberg, as you know, and he studied German, and he wrote that little book on Sender, Lebendige, Buddhismus.

[08:49]

That was that man. And they had a great deal of money to assist in all of Sokatsu's work. So Sokatsu was very, very... fond of this, of Ohasuma. And later, Ohasuma died. He died actually a year to the day after Sokyon died, and died of the same trouble. But in the meantime, he had already been made a roshi, and Sokatsu was more or less off Eizan, and the white-haired boy was Okasema, Chikugo. They all, I mean everybody that I ever knew who studied with Tsukasa felt that he was an absolutely great teacher.

[09:56]

And I have no doubt of it at all myself because, you know, I saw him three or four times after the war when I came back. Did you know that? Yes, you told me about it once. You went out there to visit him once. Well, that's right. The first time, well, going back, Sokaon decided that to propagate Zen in America, it would be much easier if he were a monk, yes, if he were a priest, than as layman, because while a lei roshi had some standing in Japan because of people's, because of past custom, that he had no standing in America if he wasn't, or at least it was difficult to have a standing, have people understand what his position was. So he became... When Sokyon decided that he wanted to become a monk or a priest in the school or in the light of Daitoku-ji, he wrote Sokatsu.

[11:17]

told him about it, and he ordered him to come back immediately to Japan. And he told him that he was not fit to be... First, he wasn't fit to be a priest, and he wasn't really fit to be a roshi, because he never studied flower arrangement. He couldn't play Go. His calligraphy was bad. He had five things that every Zen... And he didn't know tea ceremony. He had five things that an accomplished Japanese Roshi should have. And Sokyam didn't have any of those five. And when Sokyam refused to go back, he disowned him. This was before or after Sokyam had finished his training? After he finished. Oh, actually. Oh, yes, after he finished. So he wasn't put to be a Roshi after he had finished. That's right. He said... He said that he took back his income, and he was to come back and do this extra training.

[12:30]

And Sokyon refused, and so then he disowned him. He disowned Goto Roshi, too. Then... He kept up his interest in the arts always, not his carving, not his lacquer work, but he kept up his interest in painting, calligraphy, and in antique collecting, and spent a great deal of money in that way. when the war came on, shortly before the war, he had his 70th birthday. In a place in Ichikawa, the dojo in Ichikawa, they had a huge birthday party for him.

[13:32]

And at this, he announced that He had had, that he had given 5,000 different people Sanzen in the course of his teaching life. He was then retiring, he said. And that nine of them had been, he had made, that nine of them had completed their Zen study. And four of them he had made Roshi. That was the story of his work. Then he, after that, he went down to Hyogo-ken, to live with a small, with a little man who was a drug, one of his students who was a druggist, but who gave home to himself and Echoksan. And he left Echoksan in charge of the place at Ichikawa. But as soon as the war was over, for some reason or other, he announced that he had arbitrarily and alone had dissolved Ryomokai, and that Eizan was no longer in charge of it, and he was, what did I say?

[14:59]

He was disowned. Well, he was disowned, too. And shortly after that time, well, since I've been here, he wrote to Goto Roshi and renewed his association with Goto Roshi and said in the letter, you are the only heir I have. Rezan Roshi is one of the finest men I know. And the day that he told me about this, I will never forget. And he ended up with his face really distorted with pain, really distorted. And he said, this, why? I said, why? And he said, why? That is the koan my teacher left me with. But what happened was, as a matter of fact, that he had so many friends and so many personal students already in Ryo Moan, that Soka Utsu had no more dissolved Ryo Moan than they formed a new society.

[16:22]

What did they call it? Ningen Zen Kyogre. and put him in charge of it. And he told me that about, I think, 60% of the former members of the dispersed real Mokai had come back. And, of course, he now has a very fine position. I mean, it's a very Assured he's built a couple more buildings there. His students have built them for him and provided him for him. Have you ever been out to... But that's a place you must go. And because... Oh, yes. So he actually went back to it. Well, he never really left it. He never really left it. That's right. That's right. Now, the Ryomo-an, or the Ryomo-kyokai, he dissolved, and that... just didn't exist anymore.

[17:30]

But the buildings all stayed there. But the buildings all stayed there, and Eizan stayed there, and the majority of the members continued to stay there. In the meanwhile, it's at Ichikawa. It's about an hour out from Tokyo on one of the... I should go see that. Oh, you really must, and you must see Eizan, because he has Eizan Tatsudo. Yeah, well, I... That's a very nice impression. The Nichibei, no, not Nichibei, the Ningen Zenkyokai at Ichikawa Shiba. You take a train, an electric train out to Ichikawa, about an hour out from the city. and you can get a bus to almost the door, and then you have to go across a couple of fields and back into the woods where the place is built.

[18:33]

And I took Anthony Tudor out there this last summer, and he was just delighted with Azan, and Azan was delighted with him. And it happened to be a Saturday, and every weekend he has groups of... lay people, lay men come from town and they, if they can, they come Saturday morning or any time during Saturday. And they do lots of Samu and then they have two or three sittings the afternoon and evening and he gives the lecture to them and the same thing on Sunday. It's a kind of a short session. And then other times they have longer sessions, but every week I remember they have this arrangement. Now, Sokatsu stayed in Hyogo with this little apothecary, is what he really was, who was his disciple, and Eichok-san also, and all of his belongings, because then he had belongings, all of these antiques and

[19:46]

things like that that he collected. He had an enormous amount. And after the war was over, and the big airplane site up north of Tokyo, about 60 miles, I can't remember the name of it right now. I'd have to look in my address book. It was returned. I mean, returned to the Japanese people, taken out of the hands of the army, The land was sold to peasants and so forth. And it's great land for growing sweet potatoes up there. And there were a number of new villages that were built. And they sprang up like little wild west towns, all made out of just slabs of wood thrown together and muddy streets and so forth. At any rate, the apothecary decided that that would be a good place to go. So he moved up from Hyogo Prefecture, down the other side of Kobe, and he built a little drugstore, or a drug shop, and behind it a place for himself.

[21:01]

I don't know whether he had children or not. And then he built three rooms for Sokatsu, Honto. And Sokatsu and all of his possessions and Eichok-san moved up there. And Sokatsu was no longer teaching, and it was there that I saw him on three occasions. And the first occasion I went, I went with some gifts and things, and he refused to see me. because I was connected with Sokehan, whom he had disowned. So I was sent away. Well, it was practically what I was expecting, and I had gone up with a Japanese layman from Engakuchi, and it was about, as I say, what I was expecting to have happen. But it did happen that way.

[22:02]

But the next time I went, I took Roller up with me And this time we were allowed to see him. The first time we had seen Achok's son, she came and had excused it and said, Roshi, this and that. And she was a darling, just a darling little woman. And the second time we were shown in. And I will never to my dying day forget the old man. He sat in this room, a small room, built out of the cheapest kind of lumber, first it had a toconoma and all the rest of it, and he sat on a fine brocaded cushion, and he had on all of his robes and his roxa, and he sat as straight as it's possible for anybody to sit. He was then close to 80, maybe a little over 80.

[23:05]

And the room that we come in through, which was the room before his room, was packed to the ceiling with these boxes of all kinds of things, you know, and antiques, I suppose, and things like that. We came into his room. And there was barely room for him to sit and us to kneel and Ah Chok San to get in the door like this. Everything was piled up to the ceiling with Buddhas and lacquer boxes and statues of different kinds and rolled up paintings. It was just like a, just like a Kotoya's place, you know? And in the midst of that sat this old man And the only thing I could think of was an old lion whose teeth had fallen out and who had no more claws.

[24:07]

But there he was. He was king of the forest and no mistake. He's the greatest Roshi I have ever seen. The greatest Roshi I have ever seen at 81. Well, he and I clicked like that, instantly. And Walter was there, and Walter bowed very sweetly, and I introduced him to Sokatsu as your grandson. And he accepted that very sweetly and proudly, and then he rang his bell for little old A. Chokasanthi, She came in, you know. Oh, yes, just exactly. And she went out, and everything was done as if this were a great temple. There was this great man sitting in it.

[25:09]

He still was a great man. How come he didn't go into retirement up at Chiba and just go to a little house off to the side and? Well, he did. I really don't know. This man, this apothecary, I'll tell you some more about him because you're not through with that story. And it was a warm day, and the windows in Choji were open. And across the street, I may have told you this before, but it's part of the picture, across the street, is a, from where he built this little shop, was a processing plant for making alcohol out of sweet potatoes. And the first raw alcohol, and the wind was coming like this and into the room.

[26:10]

And if you've ever smelled sweet potatoes in the process of being... decomposed and made into alcohol on a hot day. And here the old lion sat. Well, it's more beautiful still in the end because I went up to see him again and it was cold winter and I went up. And the place, the town, was exactly like an Alaska mining town or something like that. Still streets, nothing but mud, and these little shacks all along the road, and the wind blowing off that plain, and the snow in it, and oh, it was just bitter up there. And dust flying and awful.

[27:13]

And I spent the afternoon with him in a choksan and started home. And I had to take a certain train from their house to the railroad station, and it was just a little station. It was about, oh, maybe half a mile. And so when I got ready to go, Roshi said he was going with me to the railroad station. I had somebody with me, I forgot who, some man with me as an interpreter, but was it Konseki or somebody, I don't remember now who it was. Anyway, and we said, oh, you can't go because, I mean, by this time he was past 80, he died 84, so he must have been about 81 at this time. And, uh, We said, you can't go. It's too cold, and look at all the dust flying.

[28:15]

It's about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. You can't go out in the daylight. They said, oh, yes, he was going out. He was going to see me to the train. So H. Oakstown brought his great big coat, covered his koroma, and for a cap. He had an old discarded Army's aviator's fur cap with flaps made out of squirrel, old moth-eaten squirrel or what have you, you know? And that he put on his old head, and then he picked up his big staff, and we started down the road. And the wind blowing and the dirt flying in our face and all that. And we got to the railroad station about five minutes before the train came in. And, um, And so we said goodbye many times and all that. And then the train came. It was a single road track place. And we had to go across to get on the train here.

[29:17]

And there was a picket fence along here to keep the populace from dogs and cats and cows and things from getting on the railroad track. And when our train drew out on the single track line for Tokyo, There was the old man standing all alone by himself, tears just streaming down his face in this old, old squirrel cap, you know, aviator's cap, and waving like this and the tears just running down his face. That's the last time I ever saw him. What do you think he died? He died, well, I've got his death date in Zendast. I've forgotten exactly. He was a great man, full of passions. And the other cute story, Aichok's son was a fine koto player, and he encouraged her to study koto.

[30:26]

And he was very proud of her koto playing. And every so often, she would give, or her teacher would give a koto recital, and she would play at the recital. And he never missed a recital. Sat right up in the front row. But he had one of these scarves over his head and down over his face. so that his face could never be seen. Sat right up in the front row, but he had one of these scarves over his head and down over his face, so that his face could never be seen. I wanted to meet him the second time I came over here.

[31:36]

I had heard about him, not from Sokhear. Before the war? Yeah. But I had heard about him from old Mr. Goddard, who had managed to go to see me. You know, Goddard, the Buddhist by the name. Yeah, that's right. But the Suzuki's wouldn't allow me to go, such a dissolute man. Oh, he really was considered. This really was held against him then. Oh, very much so. Well, by people like the Suzuki's. I don't know about... There couldn't have been too much by his disciples. For instance, one of his pupils was Prince Chichibu. who came out there in Cognito. And when he came through Chicago years after, not Chicago, New York years afterwards, Sokian was invited to have a private visit with him because he had sat in the zendo. Well, Soyen was much the same way. You know, Soyen was a very bad boy.

[32:39]

And he was an awful drinker. Sokotsu never drank, never drank at all. And his devotion to Onizu Kudasai, Pichu Kudasai, nobody ever questioned for one instant that he was ever unfaithful in thought, word, or deed to Eichokusa. He was completely devoted to it. But the Suzuki's, particularly Mrs. Suzuki, was very, very against this rather naturalistic morals of the Japanese. Do you think that the Suzuki with an American background would have been more tolerant than the Japanese? Oh, no, she belonged to the Episcopal Church. At that time, American morality was different. Oh, my, yes.

[33:42]

And I could tell you a very amusing story about that. She, of course, married Mr. Suzuki, and he was a student of Soyen, and they had a little house inside of Ndakuchi Compound and so forth. But she never liked Soyen because he drank too much and he played with geishas. And he made no bones about it. And they tell the story about how he, one night in Kamakura, he was at a geisha house on the second floor. And he took off all of his clothes. And it's summer night and he had all the shoji open and the lights on in the room. And he danced around in this geisha house, the second floor, with all the shoji wide open, populace watching, danced around stark naked. With the idea of what? Showing freedom? I suppose freedom of action.

[34:44]

I wouldn't know. Well, anyway, Mrs. Suzuki was violently antagonistic to him, and she would not... She took Sanzen from him for a very, very short time, and then couldn't endure it and had to give it up. This she told me herself. And he was followed as the roshi at Ngakuji by a man who was extremely ascetic, tall, thin, and rather, oh, there was nothing could be said against him morally in any way, shape, or manner. And she thought, she told me, showed me his picture, and she said, you see, he's so spiritual. He was the kind of teacher I wanted, somebody who was spiritual, not like Sawyer. And later I told Sofiane about that one day, and he said, oh, spiritual?

[35:45]

How could he be anything else? But he was a kid. He got kicked in the balls by a horse. laughter Well, what does the attitude of the rest of the Zen world actually toward Sokatsu as a teacher, and toward that whole line that Sokatsu sort of following Soyang established? Temple Zen is still against them. Still against them. Still against them. And they felt that though he might be a good teacher... that people were not taught the things that they learn in sodolite, the living together, the give and take, the manners, all the things that go to make up sodolite, and that no really good Zen man, I mean, no Zen man can be a teacher, a roshi,

[37:02]

who doesn't have Soto experience. That's their view. And they have it today. I mean, for instance, if Walter were to try to get a temple here, for instance, in Daito-ji, he'd have violent opposition because they consider that Goto Roshi's handling of Walter, I mean, I've heard this from a number of different priests, that his handling was completely wrong, that he's only developed half of his, he's only had half of his Zen training, that even if Walter has Inka, that it is, the training he has had is insufficient for it, though he may have gotten it through Koan's study or that, that there are other things that are necessary to make a full Roshi And that's one thing that they object to about Oda Roshi, because he was only three years in Miyashinji Sodo, and the rest of his time he was with Goto Roshi.

[38:17]

And there is a feeling that Goto Roshi himself had no Sodo life, you see, because while he lived it at this dojo... for 10 years and went to the university and then in Tokyo and in Ichikawa. Nevertheless, he never had any real Sōdō training. And that's why when, after the war, when he became, he was invited to come here, there was no Roshi. Groto Roshi could not be Roshi at the Sōdō. And he appointed Oda Roshi as his deputy. because he'd had the three years, and they accepted that deputy. And that has always been one problem here, because Goto Roshi considered himself actually the Roshi. But because of his lack of background, early background, he could not be accepted as a Soto Roshi.

[39:25]

So, and I know that Muraroshi, as a real temple man, has made many nasty cracks to me about Sokya. He's not a very polite man anyway, but he's made many nasty cracks. So I think that, I don't think that any, I don't think it's only theirs, but I don't think that any ley lines has the respect of temple men. Now, I don't say that the temple men are any more worthy of respect. That's another question. But I hear it from... I speak about it often with Fukutomi-san because he's really a very... Well, he's a man who knows his way around. He's a very fair. He's a very honest.

[40:29]

He's a very outspoken person. And his antipathy to these lay Roshis and their lines, they're a joke for him, including the Roshi. Well, I didn't know that Roshi felt that way. He expressed that feeling a little bit around me. Yeah. And... So... I think they seem to take it that the lay Roshis and their students are kind of playing at Zen. On the other hand... Sokyon has said any number of times that the very best students that any roshi, lay roshi or any temple roshi had, the best students, nine cases out of ten were laymen.

[41:38]

Sokyon must have said a number of times, one time or another, in defense of his way of doing things. Oh, he was devoted to Sokatsu as a teacher. And he is responsible for saying, but, you know, we have, we boys, we Japanese Zen students have a word. God helped me to get what the role she has, but God help me also to keep from being like him." And that was one of his stories. And his allegiance to Sokotu as a teacher was unfailing, I think, to the end. But to Sokotu again as a man, because he loved Aichok-san very much, so Kean did. And he was very, very fond of her.

[42:43]

And he was very, very fond of Aizan. And I think he felt that both Aizan and Aichok-san were, aside from their Zen side, that Sokatsu was a man, had treated both of them very miserably. But I don't know. I think we come, we foreigners, come with too many illusions or too many dreams of what we imagine Zen masters to be and all that sort of thing. And on the other hand, I don't think people over here demand enough of such people. So I think there's a big gap in there.

[43:48]

I take Arnon Shinken. I mean, he certainly, there's a cute geisha story about him, which is the balance to the one about Soyen. One of his visits over to my house along the river, one hot summer night, Johnny, who was my secretary, and old Nan Shinkin and I walked across the bridge and walking around through Shimogamo Jinja there. And there are several, I suppose there still are, there were then several restaurants there. and there again as we were walking through one of them was all lit up and on the second floor it was summer and the shoji were all open and you could see the geisha serving they were standing up and walking around and so forth and the old man stood there and looked up and said i wonder what a geisha party's like i've never been at one

[44:55]

It was Nan Shinkan. And quite the opposite. As I say, I never heard anybody raise the grain of dust against him. He was tight with his money. He had the great misfortune to die with some 30,000 yen, old yen, in the bank. Nan Shinkan. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And that was scurrilous for Roshi to die with 30,000 yen in the bank. A lot of money in those days. It was a lot of money, about $15,000 in those days. And, of course, he seems to have died without a will, and they had to divide it all among the various temples and so forth. He didn't believe in priests marrying at all, and he wouldn't let any married priest have a temple. And he had to get a priest for this little temple where I lived because he couldn't be priest of it when he retired.

[46:03]

And he had a disciple, not an heir, a disciple who lived down in Shikoku whom he asked to come up and take over that temple. Now that man never had any idea of being a priest inside of Nanzenjin. He had a wife and three daughters. And Nan Shinkan insisted that that man come alone. And it was only after Nan Shinkan's death that the man could bring his wife and three daughters up there. That was... We all felt it was awfully mean. Even when I was here, we talked about it. It was awfully mean. The man has died since then. He died two years ago. He was an awful sweet man. Awfully nice man. And we all felt very that Nanshinken was very miserable to him because he did have the wife and the three daughters. And he'd never expected to come up here.

[47:05]

But at Nanshinken's call, he'd come. But he never let him bring the wife and daughters. They never got either, as I say, until after Nanshinken had died. And of course, Nanshinken, I think I forgot to say this the other night about him, He was a great builder, you know, also. He built that present Buddha Hall where they have the services, that great big hall in Nanzenji. Oh, yes, that was burned down. He was called from Koke to come and superintend the building of that. And he rebuilt all the zendo in Nanzenji also. And he was very fond of building. Of course, he built this Senkouan, which was a tiny temple, but it was very beautifully built. Beautiful wood in it, and it was beautifully built. And he loved to build.

[48:07]

He was a very capable organizer. And he was a very penurious, tight man, careful. And he was meticulous about temple discipline, solo discipline, and about solo morals, as women are called. amount as I told you about sake I never saw any sake there and I one of the first year ceremony that I went to for his death was held over in it wouldn't be the year because that was I wasn't here but after the war the first one that I went to after the war was held at Senko on this old temple and the sake was flowing like like water and it was To me, it was perfectly shocking because it was in this room where I had lived and in front of this altar that Nan Shinkan had helped to, had showed me how to keep and how to keep dusted and so forth.

[49:12]

And I'm sure I've told you this story about him, which I think is one of the cutest ones. He loved tomato sandwiches. Kato-san used to make sandwiches with sliced tomato in between, you know. And he just loved them. So one day we were cleaning this altar, and he said, now, when I die, my Ihai will go here. And when you die, he said... your ehi will go here. Now, he said, if I die first, I will put cake and tea in front of your ehi. But he said, if I die first, you put coffee and tomato sandwiches in front of mine. Oh, that's nice.

[50:14]

That's nice. That's a nice story. And I'm sure that the way that he taught koans was the way he'd been taught. It was exact and precise. And I don't think he was the least bit worried about any philosophic background. I don't think he was at all interested in propagating the Dharma beyond among his monks, bringing them up. He was like a father or the schoolteacher with a big school of boys, and he had a job, and he wanted to do the best he could to raise the best lot of monks that he could. And, of course, you must remember that when I came over here, there were

[51:17]

Three or four people had come before to kind of play a bit around with Zen. But nobody thought about Zen going to the West, you see. Dr. Suzuki's first book of essays only had been published, nothing more. Of course, other essays had already come out or were coming out. in the Eastern Buddhist of those days. But it then was practically unknown. It was a doctor, or that man with the bow, what's his name? Hergel. Hergel, was after me, you see. And a doctor, old Dr. Goddard, had come earlier, and was contemporary with me, but he had gotten very disgusted with the ceremony here and decided that it was Chinese Buddhism, Chinese Zen that he really was interested in. So though he visited with Dr. Suzuki and paid calls on people here and stayed here to get hold of manuscripts from Dr. Suzuki and so on, on the other hand, he was not interested and didn't

[52:33]

go any distance in it. And there was one woman stayed at Sokokichi for a little while, and then there was a woman who went to this empukichi in the country, which I'll tell you about another time, because I could tell you a long story about that. But those people nobody thought in those days, really, in terms of getting Zen any more than finding out what it was about through themselves, you know. There was no idea that it might be, have a broader, well, I know a broader meaning. I know that, of course, I had been studying Buddhism for years, but when I came, but, uh, I wrote down someplace my purpose in studying, and it was certainly not to get satori.

[53:39]

That emphasis never occurred at that period. My purpose, as I remember writing it down, was simply to see by practicing according to the exact method that I was taught, as it was practiced in a solo, whether this method would produce any results for a foreigner or not. That's all. to have thought in terms of getting satori for yourself. I mean, it never occurred to me. I mean, this was some step on the way to Buddhist understanding, but more than that, I mean, as I say, we were too new at it altogether, too few at that time. I don't think the teachers thought. Sokatsu had, at one period,

[54:42]

But of course, that was long before. And the majority of his students in San Francisco, aside from the Japanese who studied, there were a few Japanese in San Francisco living there. The others were all missionary ladies who were coming over to Japan to do mission work. And there is some place, I suppose, I have it, perhaps in one of the files boxes with photographs and things that belong to Sokyon and Kura. a picture of Sokatsu, who was one of the handsomest men that you ever laid eyes on in his young days, but he was in his old age, too, sitting in his clerical costume, which was a long coat like this and buttoned up the top, sort of like the Indian swamis wear, you know, and sitting in a chair with all the big, busty visionary ladies

[55:49]

in their white blouses, you know, with buttons up here and the high lace collars and so forth, and their pompadours and so on, and a few Japanese sitting on the floor of that room. There must have been eight or ten of these missionary ladies. They were his students, and he was sitting in the middle of his group. Just as cute as it can be. Should have been sitting there. But, as I say, nobody really thought in terms of spreading Zen or Zen going outside was just something that we were just beginning to consider. So I was thinking, you asked me if I had seen other sodos. That wasn't in the picture at that time. I mean, there was no interest in other sodos. I was Nan Shinken's disciple, and he'd been wonderful to me.

[56:54]

It didn't ever occur to me to go to look at other SOTOs because I wasn't interested in organization or what another SOTO could provide or different methods. The time hadn't come for that yet. Would you like to say something about Goto Roshi's teaching, a little bit about his background and his attitude toward teaching and toward practice in relationship to all this as one of Soka's disciples? Well, I think Goto Roshi was an excellent teacher

[57:58]

in Sanren. He was rather intellectual, you know. He was the most intellectual, certainly of the three teachers that I worked with. Nan Shilken was the typical, old-fashioned, traditional Soto man. Sokyon was the free enlightened man teaching. And Gotoroshi was an intellectual. He was primarily an intellectual. And for instance, Sokyon's power in Sanzen could be blasting I mean just literally power and that I never saw with Goto Roshi any exhibit of power like that and he was always more cautious and but he could be a very tender

[59:22]

And he could be marvelously revealing sometimes and very patient. And I am most, most grateful to him. He never talked a great deal to me in Sanzen. Well, I'm also taken with that. could be perhaps a little more concrete. What sort of stress he laid on Zazen? How was his view about solo life, perhaps? Did he feel that solo life was so essential or not so essential? Well, I don't think he felt it was essential. I don't even think that he felt that sitting was very essential. Mm-hmm. And it is quite true that, so if I tell you the truth of the matter, that Sokaian didn't feel so either.

[60:29]

But it was I, coming back from Nanzenji Sodo, and coming into Sokaian's group several years later, after my return, who began the actual practice of sitting among his disciples. He used to take them for Sanzen after they'd sat. He made people come to his lectures for a minimum of three months before he would consider them for Sanzen. This was so gaon. So gaon. And he was quite content to have them sit on chairs, and when I upbraided him about not making any effort with them about Zardin, he said, well, he said, at least I have to have the roof over my head. And if I put them down on cushions and made them do Zardin, he said, I would have no roof over my head.

[61:33]

Nobody would come. Hmm. He always prided himself upon supplying through his writings practically all that he needed for his daily necessities. And all that he ever asked of his students was to supply him with a place. And the membership in his society was based upon the cost of it, was based upon the number of students he had, and the cost of the room divided among the students. Very practical. Oh, he was very practical. And he was, I suppose, yes, I think it was his nature. But certainly he had seen.

[62:23]

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