Here’s a story…
Suzuki Roshi wanted to give something really good to America and the thing he had that he thought would be really good was the practice of the Buddha Way.
He thought giving zazen, giving Zen meditation to the people of America would be a really nice gift and he wanted to come and give that gift. He came and gave that gift and when I went to Tassajara in the summer 1967 I didn’t like the smell but somehow I wanted to come back and receive that gift, that practice. So I came back to San Francisco in December 1967 and I went to Zen Centre because I wanted to talk to people about how I could start practicing at the Zen Centre. The Zen centre and the Japanese congregation were still in the same place, and the address was 1881 Bush Street. So I went to 1881 Bush Street and knocked on the door.I was coming to join the San Francisco Zen Centre and I wanted to learn zazen and I was coming to practice with a community and also to practice with this teacher – Suzuki Roshi. When I was at Tassajara, Suzuki Roshi was not there. I didn’t get to meet him when I visited Tassajara after the end of the first practice period.
I went to San Francisco to meet him and ask him if I could practice there with him and his students. So the door opened and there was a Zen monk, obviously, and shaved head and robes and the person looked like he was 35-38. And I heard Suzuki Roshi was about 60 and I thought, wow, he really looks good for 60, really young and vibrant! I said that I’d come because I would like to join the Zen Community, I’d like to become a member of Zen Centre and practice here. He said, come in. So, I stepped inside and he showed me into his office and he said; Please sit here, I’ll call the president of Zen Centre and they can come and talk to you about it. So, he called the president and the president said he’d be over in a little while.
He sat down and worked at his desk and I watched him working at his desk. And he was very diligent but he was very sleepy, so while he was writing he kept falling asleep while he was writing. But when he woke he would go back to work. He didn’t hit his head on the table, but almost….but he kept working. He was very diligent. I was impressed. I still am. And then the president came to the door. His name was Silas Hoatley. He knocked on the door, came in and said, please come over to my place. I went over to his place and said, was that Suzuki Roshi? And he said no that was Katagori Sensi … (who’s about 35 and very handsome). What I may call now a young man. (At the time I was just a little kid, he looked like an old man.)
So I went to talk to Silas about being a new member. He was very cordial to me, explained to me how to do it and offered me some tea. He made me some tea and I went into his kitchen and sat down on one of his chairs and went right through the chair to the ground. He said, you must be rather dense. So I signed the documents of membership … not at that moment; I came back the next day. I think I went to the office and Yvonne Ryan was the secretary and I signed to become a member of the Zen Centre at that time.
But also another thing happened, I found out when zazen was. I was going to stay at Zen Centre for a little while, a few days, over a weekend actually. I came from Minnesota in December to San Francisco by air for a weekend of zazen. So the next morning I went to zazen in the zendo at 1881A Bush Street and I sat there and I was sitting on the ground. At the beginning of the period the person who I assumed was Suzuki Roshi walked around the students and all I saw, because I was looking down at the ground, was his feet. And then when the feet went by I thought … those feet can teach me Zen!
Full talk posted on UTube 12th September 2013
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