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About the Book
About Suzuki Roshi |
Interviews
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Anonymous I remember the difference between the impression of Suzuki-roshi's body in robes or in a t-shirt and pants. I think the robes added a certain mystique. I'd see him in his Japanese t-shirt and baggy pants in his apartment. When I first met him I was very intimidated by him - a sort of presumption that he was some kind of magical, special person. At our first dokusan he made me feel like I was the teacher, I was the Buddha. Hands - his hands were so intelligent, delicate. I laughed at first because he was kind of monkey-like, chimp-like. He had a kind of impish look. He seemed frail and unusual for a Japanese. But he didn't look frail when he worked. He was physically enigmatic. He had both an innocence and a ferocity. Chuck Hoy was sweeping and I was sitting on the front steps and there was a black girl of 13 to 15 across the street in an apartment and she had her radio in the window pointed out to the street and she was boogieing and hollering out the window to the rhythm of the music and Chuck was mumbling about how he couldn't fit this into his practice and SR came out the front door and hollered, roared at the young girl. And then he spun around on his heels and went back into the building. It was the perfect answer to Chuck's I don't know how to fit this into my practice. I was a new student and I hadn't been at Zen Center long enough to merit going to dokusan. At the time they asked you to be around for a year. But SR heard that I was considering leaving cause I had been corresponding with Baba Haridas. So he asked me to come to dokusan so I did and he asked me what was my plan and I said I don't have a plan and he called me some kind of a Buddha - I wouldn't remember because I wasn't familiar with it. I kept worrying about spending his time because people were so protective of him at the time. So as we talked I told him about Babaji and that I was thinking of leaving and that he'd said some things to me that were psychic about me before he'd met me and stuff like that. He described me and my friends were coming back and I was going to leave. And then I heard the han for five thirty zazen and I thought this is my out - I'll let this guy off the hook cause I'm taking up his precious time so I said well there's the han I'll go to five thirty zazen and he said, oh, you're going? Oh. I don't usually go to that zazen but since you're going I'll go. So I went down to that zazen and he was there sitting and he started lecturing and he said, I don't understand yoga, but I know that it's very important to rock back and forth before you sit and after. It was clear that he was talking to me and that he cared about me and that he was tracking. He cared whether I stayed or left. That really impressed me. I was a Buddha to him and he really believed it and I was a teacher and he believed it. And I thought this guy has some special quality. He can see right through me and he can see all my foibles and he accepts me so why don't I accept myself? And I had a dream around that time that Suzuki Roshi got on a train and when he got off he turned into Babaji. Around that same time of my being a new student and not knowing him at all, I stayed at the DiPrima family for a month while Dianne was away doing poetry readings. And one day I was in the building and SR came up to me and said, where have you been? I haven't seen you for two weeks. I'd been in their house and Rudra was a baby. I hadn't seen SR - remember he used to bow to people at the end of service. And he knew he hadn't seen me in that amount of time. And then another time I was setting the table - I was taking care of the DiPrima family and I had to do my house job and come back and Okusan came down and asked me if I wanted to come to lunch and I said I couldn't do it and I regretted that. Much later when Tada Sensei came - the Penners [Dentist with Japanese wife who helped us out so much.] in Pacific Grove were sick of him - he was an old guy who smoked cigarettes and burned holes in their tatamis and they wanted to get rid of him so they sicked him on Zen Center and I was a brand new student and I wanted to take classes with him. I asked Katagiri Roshi could I set up a class and he said sure. He'll teach us to paint. The staff were all mad at me for not going through channels but I didn't know about that. And I started following Tada around like an anja because I'd seen other women do that. Some people were mad at me. So I went to Yvonne and R.. R. said Yoshimura told people not to tell me what a problem that old guy was because I wouldn't take care of him if I knew what a pain in the butt he was. But lots of people thought he was a kind of saint. He drew Bodhidharmas with sumi ink all the time. I'd clean up his room. At one point Suzuki Roshi came into Tada-sensei's room and I was there and he thanked me for taking care of Tada Sensei and he pointed to a little piece of fruit in one of Tada Sensei's paintings and he said, this is you. He was very supportive of what I was doing. I think it was fairly pure and that Suzuki Roshi recognized that - my copying the other anjas and my wanting to take care of this man. G. was furious with me - she didn't want to give me the keys to a Zen Center vehicle so I could go pick up Tada Sensei every week. R. said I should pay for his room and board with the class money when Tada Sensei lived in the building. Another time my oldest sister came to Zen Center and wanted to dance in the courtyard and I asked several staff members and they said, we don't do things like this at Zen Center. So Suzuki Roshi and I were standing in the courtyard one day and I said, my sister wants to dance in the courtyard and he said, when? and I said, uh - Sunday." He said, Okay, I'll be there. So we did it. He and twenty other people showed up. I'd put up little posters with pictures of my sister on them and written in white ink on them that she was going to dance in the courtyard and people came and enjoyed it. I was leaving and D. and I for some reason decided to take Tada Sensei to Golden Gate Park. Day invited Suzuki Roshi and Okusan and he said yes. R. heard we were going to take them in the van and he wouldn't let us drive. He insisted on driving. He didn't trust us. And then when we got into the van, R. was very tense and he started the van and accelerated and it was in reverse and it went backwards and it embarrassed him. He was just trying to take care of Suzuki Roshi but he was too uptight to trust somebody else. So we went shooting down the street backwards and he was very embarrassed. He didn't join us - he just drove the vehicle and stayed in it. And totally loony S. who'd been found sitting in a box outside Suzuki Roshi's door, ended up getting in the van with us and sitting in full lotus - he was so destroyed. So the seven of us were on the way to the park and I was telling D. about a dream I'd had and Suzuki Roshi turned around and said, you eat dreams. So we went to the park. We were in the Hall of Flowers and Scott was like a spook hovering around. And this drunk guy came up and started giving us a tour and he was talking to Suzuki Roshi and Suzuki Roshi was just nodding and the guy was pointing out things that were incorrect. I said what are we going to do and D. said, Suzuki Roshi can take care of himself. So this guy was in front leading this group on a bogus tour and talking away and all of a sudden Suzuki Roshi veered off and started going in a different direction and the guy kept going on. At one point Suzuki Roshi was lying in the grass in his brown robes looking up at the sky and Okusan was sitting down and I told Suzuki Roshi I had a letter from Babaji, did he want to see it and he said yes and he read the letter. I was such a young student and I wasn't really a student of Buddhism but I got from Suzuki Roshi: I see through you and I accept you and enlightenment isn't something special. It took me years to see that he really meant it. I remember R. saying that she was on the bridge and she was having an affair and Suzuki-roshi took his stick out and hit her with it on the shoulder and said you should sit more. |
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