One hundred and eleven years ago today, Shunryu Suzuki was born

- by DC

published on Sweeping Zen May 18, 2015

Our mind should be free from traces of the past, just like the flowers of spring.

High winds blew across the green hillside, driving rain into the storm doors of Shoganji, an obscure Japanese country temple, when on May 18, 1904, Yone Suzuki gave birth to a baby boy. Her husband, Sogaku, the priest of the temple, gave his first-born son the name Shunryu, using the written characters for Excellent and Emerging, a rather formal Buddhist name full of high expectations. It was the year of the dragon, the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Emperor Meiji.

– Opening lines of Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki

Note: Weather Report  for Chigasaki, a small area, which I understand to be or include the hill where the temple was located. On the 18th of May, for three four hour blocks there was rain and strong wind giving the opening line a 50 % chance of being correct. Thanks to Toshikazu Yasui for obtaining this information and sending it to Grahame Petchey seventeen years ago. – dc

Read  Crooked Cucumber Comes to America , a 3300 word story of his life. Enjoy. – dc

The above is what I posted on cuke.com What’s New today. Suggest you just use the above link to Crooked Cucumber Comes to America [Written for the Association for Asian Studies-sponsored teaching journal, Education About Asia (EAA). EAA is a peer-reviewed journal] and add the bio info at the bottom but in case you want it, here’s the text:

Crooked Cucumber Comes to America

From an early age Shunryu Suzuki, a Japanese monk, had dreamed of bringing Buddhism as he understood it to the West, the way of his teachers and ancestors. He not only dreamed, he studied hard, prepared, struggled, suffered, and matured. It took so long to come true he almost gave up. He later said it was good he hadn’t gone earlier for he wasn’t yet ripe. And neither was America.

On May 23, 1959 Suzuki descended from a prop plane in San Francisco and took his first step in the United States. After clearing customs he was met by a group of older Japanese Americans who came to greet their new priest. No mistaking him. He wore Japanese priest’s robes and had a shaved head. He was exceedingly short – less than five feet, soft-spoken, unimposing. A young Japanese priest in a suit drove Suzuki to the temple in Japantown where he would live. It was a distinctive old cavernous wooden building, once a synagogue. A plaque in front read Sokoji, Soto Zen Mission. His bedroom was a small room without windows above his second floor office. There was a bathtub he could use in the basement.

Fifteen blocks and twelve and a half years away from that spring day, his Western successor by his side, Suzuki died, and “became American soil” as he had phrased it. The impact of what he accomplished in that short time is still radiating.

With enthusiasm he studied English in school, at home, even tutored it, and used it extensively in college. His father was a Zen priest and young Shunryu grew up in a poor temple. He left home to be a monk at about the age of twelve. His strict master, So-on, called him Crooked Cucumber, a put-down referring to the tiny twisted runt fruit at the curling end of the vine. Even as Suzuki grew up So-on would say he felt sorry for him because he’d never have any good disciples. He never did have any Japanese disciples except for two nominal ones – his eldest son and the son of a friend – for purposes of passing on his two temples. Lay students during the war, however, who lived and meditated with him continued to meet and honor him for decades. They describe how his temple in those dark times was like a beacon of light. Suzuki had many responsibilities in neighboring temples which included instruction to monks in training. After the war he opened two kindergartens and conducted local meetings for young people. He studied from the early thirties to the fifties with a second teacher, the greatly respected master and scholar Kishizawa Ian who lived in a sub temple of Suzuki’s Rinsoin in Yaizu.

Suzuki’s wish to cross the Pacific was frustrated by So-on, and then after his master’s death, by duty to his superiors, temple, congregation, and family, by a war he despised, by the death of his wife. Suzuki told a young neighbor in the fifties that he wanted to get way from the mundane obligations of tending to a large temple and hundreds of families – doing endless memorial services for their departed relatives – that he wanted to go to America to bring the actual practice of Buddhism and teach peace and international understanding. The neighbor said he’d never heard anyone else speak of such things, that no one realized what a great man Suzuki was, that what he dreamed of was over their heads. The Japanese say “tied up by duty” and it seemed he’d never get loose, but finally at the age of fifty-five conditions were right to accept an offer. He left behind his temple, family, and responsibilities. He went to take the lonely job of tending to another much smaller and poorer congregation far from home. He was eager and ready.

Suzuki carried little with him – some books and robes, a framed picture wrapped in brown paper, a potted plant he sneaked in. Only in retrospect can we see what else he brought – the confidence, determination, and patience to plant in America a concrete way to apply the teaching of emptiness.

Like a skydiver who parachutes into the center of a target, Suzuki landed at the right time, in the right place, in the heart of Western interest in Zen, Asian thought and culture. Right away his part-time assistant Kazemitsu Kato, brought him to a class at the American Academy of Asian studies where he met some of his first students. Kato introduced him to brilliant Zen popularizer Alan Watts, to poets and artists from the Beat and post Beat generations. Young seekers dropped by the temple to meet the new Zen master. They wanted his Oriental wisdom, his ancient secrets, the instant satori they’d read about in the books of Watts and DT Suzuki. Some wanted him to help them get to a Zen monastery in Japan. He offered them the chance to meditate quietly with him in the very early dark morning. He called it zazen or sitting. “I sit every morning at five thirty,” he’d tell them adding that they were welcome to join him. Some did. Soon he added a brief period of chanting, zazen in the early evening,a lecture on Wednesday evening. And on Saturday morning there was an extended schedule which included a cleaning period, breakfast, lecture and additional zazen. Before a year was out he conducted his first sesshin, a whole day of zazen. Soon he would hold a week long sesshin.

In his definitive narrative history of Buddhism coming to America, How the Swans Came to the Lake, Rick Fields begins the section on Shunryu Suzuki with a quote and a comment . “’Where there is practice there is enlightenment.’ This above all was the message Shunryu Suzuki brought to America.” There had been intellectual interest in Buddhism for at least a century. It had influenced the thinking of the transcendentalists. Edwin Arnold’s book on Buddha, The Light of Asia, published in 1879, was phenomenally successful well into the twentieth century. People read about Buddhism but with few exceptions* it remained distant. Suzuki offered something to do – zazen and practice. Zazen was “just sitting,” sitting and following the breath, being aware, being awake, paying attention. He used the word “practice” to connote bringing zazen, bringing this alertness into ones activity, into daily life. Suzuki gave people nothing but themselves in uncluttered form. There was nothing one had to believe, nothing hidden. Buddhism may be the path of realizing no-self but he’d say, “Just be yourself.” He taught that the way to express this best was to practice zazen while sitting, standing, walking, and lying down – but without throwing off the world, warmly including everyone.

It became clear that Suzuki was going to stay longer. His second wife, Mitsu, and teenage son joined him. Suzuki and his students formed the Zen Center, later to be called the San Francisco Zen Center. As Kato had moved on, a priest named Dainin Katagiri came to help out full time. A few satellite groups formed which Suzuki or Katagiri would visit in nearby communities. Occasionally Suzuki would travel to the East Coast to meet people interested in Zen. A publication called the Wind Bell began with one page a month and increased in size.

The hippie migration to the Bay area brought more seekers to Suzuki’s door. And so many of them were unkempt, barefoot, and long-haired. When he heard exasperated comments about these young seekers from Mitsu, Suzuki said he was very grateful to them and would do all that he could for them. So Mitsu started putting out damp towels that people could clean their feet on before entering the meditation hall. There was much talk of LSD and marijuana. Without making a big deal out it, he requested that students not come high to the temple.

In December of 1966 the group took a great leap and made a down payment on an old resort south of San Francisco named Tassajara Springs. Finally they had a retreat, a monastery, Zen Mountain Center. For financial support and to keep in touch with society at large, Tassajara continued being a resort in the summer. And with hardly a precedent in Buddhist history, women and men lived and practiced Buddhism together.

The days of the small somewhat informal zazen group, when one could have breakfast with Suzuki after zazen and service, hang out drinking coffee and chatting, were over. Suzuki didn’t have the time to see people as often as they wished. He now had a secretary and a busy schedule. Some of the older students were resentful or disappointed. Even his name became more formal. He had been called Suzuki Sensei or Rev. Suzuki but in 1966 people started addressing him as Suzuki Roshi, a title that Alan Watts insisted was proper for a Zen master. When Suzuki was told this he laughed hard and long but he acquiesced.

Now with Tassajara on the Buddhist map there were even more students coming to Sokoji. A number of apartments across the street and elsewhere in the neighborhood became communal housing. The downstairs office was alive with activity. Not everyone, however, was interested in participating in this burst of energy. Suzuki was forced by his Japanese American congregation to choose between them and his zazen students. The temple which once was theirs was now overrun with outsiders, mostly Caucasians. In November of 1969 Suzuki and Mitsu moved to a fine residential brick building on Page Street. Fifty or so students also moved into this four story building, a former Jewish women’s home that came equipped with an institutional kitchen, offices, and large rooms perfect for a meditation hall, a chanting hall, and dinning room. Other students moved into the adjacent neighborhood. Still others drove from the surrounding area. Katagiri followed and a new priest was sent from Japan to Sokoji.

In 1970 Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind was released, a carefully edited book featuring a series of simple and eloquent lectures Suzuki had given to his Los Altos group. Mitsu was upset there was an unshaven photo of her husband on the back. He picked the book up and said, “Nice book. I didn’t write it, but nice book.” It continues to be one of the most popular and respected books in the Buddhist library. The Tassajara Bread Book was published that same year and was an even bigger hit.

Suzuki always said that Buddhism had become covered with moss in Japan. One ambitious dream he had was for fresh Buddhism in America to help to revitalize stale Buddhism in Japan. But first it had to go the other way. He said that change was ceaseless and adjusting to it necessary, but not to force it, suggesting that transmitting Buddhism from Japan to America was not like passing a football – more like holding a plant to a rock and waiting for it to take hold. He had been remarkably open and flexible in dealing with Westerners – especially for an older Japanese Zen priest. He’d come from a fairly medieval past and had adapted to so many changes in his life. Suzuki allowed Buddhism to take on new forms in America. Since his disciples could date and marry, there was not a clear dividing line between priest and lay in the Zen Center. This bothered some people who wanted a more definite distinction but Suzuki seemed to be comfortable with a high level of vagueness – and of difficulty. When problems arose he was not flustered. He said that when we fall down on the ground we use that same ground to help us to get back up. He told his students to be patient with themselves and with each other and that they had within them what it took to meet whatever came.

Not everyone who met Suzuki, however, was compelled to be his student or to practice zazen. Some weren’t into Buddhism or gravitated toward other forms such as Tibetan Buddhism. Some Zen Buddhists were more drawn to Rinzai Zen over Suzuki’s Soto Zen. Some Soto practitioners preferred other Soto teachers. A common complaint was that he was not available enough for private discussion, for one on one relating. Joshu Sasaki in LA would see people up to five times a day.

Suzuki was sick a lot in the last years of his life and spread thin when well. He’d say that Zen Center had gotten too big and mentioned that maybe he should go off somewhere to work more closely with a few students at a time. Katagiri had started his own group and continued to help out but was slipping away. But rather than call Japan for help, before Suzuki died he showed confidence in his students and disciples by urging that Zen Center have no more Japanese priests.

Suzuki’s disciple Richard Baker who had orchestrated much of the growth and development of the group before being sent to Japan in 1968, took over as the new abbot shortly prior to Suzuki’s death. Suzuki said he wasn’t worried, that he’d taken his cookies from the oven, they were done, and now he was going to crawl in. He had ordained twenty men and women as priests, ordained well over a hundred senior lay students, and had been a significant teacher or influence to thousands.

Taizan Maezumi Roshi, founder of the LA Zen Center was younger than Suzuki but had come to the States three years before him. Maezumi spent time with Suzuki in the early years in San Francisco and was at Tassajara during the first practice period in 1967. He had studied and received transmission of the teaching seal with several great teachers including Hakuun Yasutani Roshi who came to America to lead many sesshin. Maezumi said that Suzuki was an unfathomable person, that his understanding of life and death was too great to be encapsulated or summarized. All we can do, he said, is to look and see what marvelous things happened as a result of Suzuki having come to America. To him it was Suzuki who made something click where Zen practice took hold in the culture. He said that there had been a number of priests including him going back decades who had tried to get zazen groups going in the US, but until Suzuki came and did what he did, that nothing really took hold. Now he said there are people meditating with big groups, small groups, and even comfortably alone all over the country and into Europe and South America.

Not everyone was impressed. Many people in Japan who knew Suzuki couldn’t understand how he’d done so well in America. Figures in the establishment of Soto Zen in Japan have tended to regard Suzuki’s stature in America as a fluke. His loyal assistant Katagiri thought that American people were a little romantic and naive in their uncritical swooning over Suzuki. Katagiri said if they were Japanese that they’d not be able to fool themselves into thinking he was so flawless. Mitsu, who was actually a sort of student of her husband, would get angry at him a lot and often said, “Good priest, bad husband.” She said that when he went to America that she was gravely ill with an unknown ailment and that he’d just told her good luck and left. He’d actually married her only shortly before that and for expediency – because Sokoji wanted a married priest. They never lived together until she came to America. A number of Japanese priests have commented on how close and unusual their relationship was for older Japanese.

Suzuki’s forgetfulness was legendary in Japan. He’d almost always forget something when he went to a home to visit or perform a service. Then he’d return to get what he’d forgotten, and leave something else. He didn’t have that problem in America so much because he was always with people who’d look after him.

There were more serious criticisms from his children who described him as a cold and distant father with a bad temper. He seems to have mellowed in the States. He took responsibility for his first wife’s death after insisting, against his entire family’s urging, that an unstable monk with wild eyes remain at the temple where they lived, a monk who one day went berserk and murdered Suzuki’s wife with a hatchet. Many Japanese thought he went to America to escape the shame of that tragedy. When his youngest daughter committed suicide in a mental institution in the early sixties, he did not return to Japan for her funeral and he didn’t tell her brother in America of her death for a number of months.

What is important about Shunryu Suzuki on a larger scale, is not the story of the man, but what he revealed, what he pointed at as best he could with his whole flawed life. It was the heart of each of us, the reality we share. It was not belief. Suzuki didn’t encourage true-believing or any superstitious faith in something. He empowered people to know themselves, to pay attention to each moment, to be awake. A professor of psychology once asked him a question about consciousness. Suzuki said he didn’t know anything about consciousness, that he just tried to get his students to be able to hear the birds singing in the trees. His teaching was grounded in nature, in the earth, in the immediate physical reality – in form, identical with emptiness – whatever that is.

Suzuki loved to work, to move stones into place, to putter in his garden. He was disciplined as heck but he had a great deal of fun and play in him. He laughed all the time, especially when he gave lectures. And he’d often come out with the unexpected. Once he said, “I’ve come here to destroy your mind.” By that he meant the small-minded thinking we torture ourselves with. He talked of the unity of body and mind, of joyous mind, way-seeking mind, kind mind, big mind, beginner’s mind – the mind that isn’t “attached to some idea,” that doesn’t know anything but discovers it and is amazed minute by minute. He said that the miracle of life was that we have just enough problems, that we are up to dealing with whatever arises. He said we just had to learn to not compound a problem with unnecessary intellectual and emotional activity. He related an old Chinese saying that you could ride a horse but you can’t ride a horse on a horse. That’s adding imaginary problems to your actual problems. He prescribed zazen for this malady – just sit and allow this mental activity to calm so that it exists within a broader stage rather than surrounding and confounding us.

In Japan, Kishizawa’s revered disciple Hakusan Noiri (now in his nineties) said that no one should write about Suzuki who had not experienced the same enlightened states of mind. Sorry about that. He claimed Suzuki was one of the greatest Japanese figures of the twentieth century. That seems to be going a bit far, but who knows? A translator who worked on interviews in Japan concerning Suzuki said that someday Japan would wake up and recognize Shunryu Suzuki as a source of pride to the nation for he took something completely Japanese to the West and was successful.

Suzuki said he was just a spiritual friend who needed to make a greater effort.

Quote from Rick Fields’ How the Swans Came to the Lake, a Narrative History of Buddhism in America, Shambhala, 1992 – p.225
*with few exceptions – Among them are the First Zen Institute in New York City, Nyogen Senzakiin San Francisco and LA, Gary Snyder in Marin County California. There was also a great deal of early activity with Nichiren Shosu in America, a branch of Japanese Buddhism that emphasizes chanting homage to the Lotus Sutra and more – see Rick Fields’ book, above.

Comments by Taizan Maezumi, Dainin Katagiri, Mitsu Suzuki, and some others herein were personally told to the author or collected by him from other sources.