Shunryu Suzuki letter to Grahame Petchey 67-01-13

Suzuki letters to Petchey   --  Suzuki Correspondence

Dear Tokujun,

How are you? I hope you had a happy New Year in your old home.

We are all very well, and the Tassajara project is going pretty well. We paid the first payment of $25,000, but now the problem is that the owner of the land has agreed to sell us another piece of land known as Tassajara Hot Springs which contains buildings and facilitites. Our original plan was to buy the "horse pasture" land and buy the Hot Springs place when we could. But now we are in the position to buy the Hot Springs land instead of the horse pasture. After a long talk between the owner and us we find ourselves in the situation to pay another $150,000 and get the Hot Springs property instead of horse pasture.

Now Dick is in the East discussing the fund raising. As soon as he comes back we will have a big land meeting, and will have at least two month’s training period at Tassajara Hot Springs during summer vacation time. As you see now, we have some advantage in getting the Hot Springs property right now as we can develop our schedule instantly.

Excuse me for not writing back to you sooner, but I will send you the name and address of my old teacher of English when I was at Komazawa University.

Nona Ransom
The Calt. Brockweir
N. Chepstone
Monmouthshire, England

Please send my best regards to your wife and children and mother-in-law. Pauline’s drawing of the rock garden at Rinsoin is so real to me that I hang it in my bedroom.

Thank you.

With gassho,

Shunryu Suzuki