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2012 Suzuki or Suzuki student or friend related posts
from What Was New which has it all going back 13 years.




Go to Suzuki related posts 2011 and 2013

For Suzuki related posts going further back in time, just look through the What Was New for that year.

For this year go to Suzuki Index - right side


The phrase “most important as found in Shunryu Suzuki lectures.

These phrases have been going up almost daily since 6-27-11 - (when the entry was) The phrase “most important” as found in Shunryu Suzuki lectures. 229 instances. 85 each of "most important point" and "most important thing." Read #1

Each entry covers one or more examples from a single lecture. All are on one page. Am not listing each entry here.


What did Shunryu Suzuki have to say about precepts? Here is the page for excerpts with his use of that term found in the digital archive. Started 2-1-12 with entries pretty much daily. Thanks Jenny Wunderly for preparing this series. From 2-1-12 onward we'll post together one or more examples from a single lecture.


Shunryu Suzuki Lecture Transcripts 2012 --- INDEX - lectures and comments added to the digital archive this year - 2012.


12-28-12 - Shunryu Suzuki lecture partial transcription from one of the problem audio - 65-07-31-C. This work is going very slowly but there's only so much of it. Little by little improving the audio and transcripts. Thanks to the noble volunteers. - dc


12-26-12 - Jenny Wunderly on Sticking with It. - part two of four she wrote after the December Sesshin at Green Gulch. -  - on her work with Suzuki Roshi's use of the word precept(s) and cuke.com. Thanks Jenny. I blush. - dc


12-20-12 - Shunryu Suzuki Lecture - 68-10-00-X - new to archive as a separate entry. This is an old transcription. Recently found at end of 68-10-00-J problem tape transcribed by JG but seems to be from separate lecture. All these fall 1968 lectures, especially those on the Lotus Sutra, need to be looked at more carefully. Next year. - dc


12-19-12 - Zen Is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki

the second anecdote:

Once I asked Suzuki Roshi, "What is Nirvana?"

He replied: "Seeing one thing through to the end."

------------ Mel Weitsman, Sokoji, circa 1965


12-18-12 - Zen Is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki

the first anecdote:

One morning when we were all sitting zazen, Suzuki Roshi gave a brief impromptu talk in which he said, "Each of you is perfect the way you are…and you can use a little improvement."
------------- Ed Brown, , Tassajara, circa 1968


12-17-12 -Flint Sparks is a Zen teacher in Austin who sent a note about teaching from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind in France. Here it is.

Here's his APPAMADA site.

ZMBM.net

ZMBM on cuke

Source Lectures for ZMBM can be found at:

shunryu suzuki dot com - In the New Search form under Book, select ZMBM (all but two of the lectures as given)

Beginner's Mind - Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to ZMBM - minimally edited versions

Plan to make a chart for this for easier access to the material. - dc


12-13-12 - Transcript of Shunryu Suzuki part of Sunseed, a film from c 1970 on gurus.


12-11-12 - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on precepts - 129th lecture excerpt - from 68-02 - part two.

That's the last post on Jenny Wunderly's almost year long project to show in context each mention Shunryu Suzuki made of the word "precept" as recorded in the digital archive of his lecture transcripts. The last ten or so entries were out of chronological order because they were from lectures added recently. Jenny wrote yesterday:

I made a plug for Cuke.com and my project. This was in the zendo in front of at least 30 people [at the end of the Rohatsu sesshin]. Linda [Ruth Cutts who'd lead the sesshin] noted Crooked Cucumber and thanked me for creating such a wonderful resource for them to be able to go to when preparing students for refuge etc. It made an impression on some when I said I had spent a year, found 1346 incidences, and came to sit there as a way to mark the end. At the end of sesshin several came up to me to talk to me about taking precepts. I had a great time sitting Rohatsu at GGF and will write something more about the precept project and about my experience at Green Gulch Farm.

Thanks Jenny. Look forward to receiving more from you to post on cuke. - dc


Marblehead Zen Center (Massachusetts) has a new website.


12-02-12 - Just seven posts left on the Shunryu Suzuki use of the word precept series that Jenny Wunderly began with the first post on February 1st. Here's something she just sent about how she got into it. Today she begins sitting the Rohatsu Sesshin at Green Gulch Farm. Gambate! - dc

Rohatsu is Japanese for "eighth day of the twelfth month." December 8 has come to be the day Japanese Buddhists observe the enlightenment of the historical Buddha. - lifted that from here


Just eleven days till I go to Fort Worth. Concentrating on organizing new office-storage focusing on isolating material not yet presented on cuke, the backlog - doing work here I can't do there. Minimizing time on cuke till then. Hope to get the storage shelves all secured today so can get into going through stuff. Already found Stan White's art which Kaz Tanahashi wants to have photographed for a book.  And Niels Holm art was in the same suitcase. Aim to get both scanned and up on cuke. It's mainly notes and tapes of interviews and conversations with no copies that I'll be looking for. - dc


11-28-12 - A light edit of a Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 65-07-29-A - thanks Christian Damian Espicha.


11-26-12 - Made a correction on the interview with psychic Anne Armstrong and her husband Jim which includes contacting our namesake in the beyond. The mistake was that I incorrectly included info quoted from the Internet on Ann M Armstrong (Medium/Healer/Private-Sittings) in England. My apologies to her and to England. - dc

Anne and Jim Armstrong's interview with Michael Toms on New Dimensions Radio


Recent photo of Hoitsu Suzuki during a dharma talk at Rinsoin on the Tenzo kyokun - thanks Isao Miyanoiri.


11-24-12 - Interview with Layla Bockhorst Smith

Layla's sitting group - Mt. Root Sangha in Larkspur

Mt. Root Sangha Readings


11-23-12 - Cuke report: Got 19 days till fly to Texas to hang with mother Ahdel in the same home we moved to when I was 12. No am going to concentrate on doing what I can't do there - go through stuff here and material in new archive storage room big enough to move things around. Set aside notes, interviews, etc not on cuke, tapes not transcribed and digitized, photos not scanned - to backup here then take with me in the continuing struggle to get backlog entered here.

Photographer, sculptor, artist, craftsman Bill Schwob came to Thanksgiving Dinner and dropped off an envelope with negatives of all Rinsoin (Shunryu Suzuki home temple) photos including scrapbooks and pictures on walls and buildings and a photo show he had of the place at SFZC years ago. He let them keep all those mounted prints which are in storage. Also included were negatives of Nona Ransom's photos and Raymond Rimmer's negatives of shots of those scrapbooks done in '94. Bill did his when he was over there. Most the scrapbook photos are in Suzuki photo archive on shunryusuzuki.com. I'd forgotten I'd left all that with Bill for safe keeping.

Will be looking for someone who can scan negatives for preservation ad to get with Suzuki photo archive the images not there.


11-22-12 - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpt 68-12-22. After searching for the word "Thanksgiving" in Suzuki lectures, this is the only one that had that word.

Discovered in this search that this lecture is also incorrectly listed as 69-12-22b which brought up the importance of maintaining an error list to inform other collections of this lecture archive.

Am thankful to Peter Ford for the reorganization of material on shunryusuzuki.com with its New Search Form and to all bodhisattvas, volunteers and donors most who are listed on the contributors on work in progress pages. And a special thanks to MK and JW.

Am thankful for cuke readers, family, friends, all sentient beings, Katrinka, and that which must remain nameless. - DC


11-21-12 - Got this off SFZC.org from this page.

Winter 2013 Practice Period at City Center
Lay Practice: Aligning All Activity with the Heart of Buddha

January 19 - March 30, 2013
led by Abbess Kiku Christina Lehnherr and Entrusted Lay Teacher Dainin Marsha Angus

There is a story about our founder Shunryu Suzuki Roshi answering the phone in the office at City Center. When asked “What time does meditation begin?” He replied, “It never stops!” and hung up the phone.

posted in brief memories with a DC comment questioning its authenticity - thanks Danny Parker


11-19-12 - Lloyd Kahn remembers Phillip Wilson which ends with a neat story about Shunryu Suzuki.

Check out Lloyd's blog and Shelter


11-14-12 - Remember once Suzuki Roshi was asked what we seem like to him and he said, "I think you're all enlightened until you open your mouths." - filed in DC Brief Memories of SR. - filed in DC's Brief Memories


11-13-12 - Interview with Naome Rader Dragstedt by DC in April 2012 during the Tassajara Alumni reunion (thanks CM for the transcription), [Removed by her request]


11-10-12 - A light edit of a Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 65-07-26-D - thanks Christian Damian Espicha.

Anyone wishing to do a Light Edit of a Shunryu Suzuki lecture may do so. Just contact DC.


11-09-12 - Rick and Carolyn Morton interviewed by DC in April 2012 during the Tassajara Alumni reunion (thanks Layla Smith for the transcription). This placed at the bottom of Rick's interview of years ago. Contains links to an earlier interview with Carolyn and Rick's brother Jim.


11-08-12 - A light edit of a Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 65-07-28-C - thanks Clare Hollander.  See comment down on 11-02 for more on Light Edits.


11-07-12 - A light edit of a Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 65-07-27-A - thanks Clare Hollander.  See comment down on 11-02 for more on Light Edits.


11-06-12 - Work in Progress - Shunryu Suzuki lecture 68-10-00-H - CM's 2nd pass following JG's 1st pass. - from the audio problem set.


11-05-12 - A light edit of a Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 65-07-27-B - thanks Clare Hollander.  See comment down on 11-02 for more on Light Edits.


11-03-12 - Work in Progress - Shunryu Suzuki lecture 69-06-29 - from the audio problem set - BH 1st pass. - thanks Bill Hackenberg


11-02-12 - A light edit of a Shunryu Suzuki lecture - 65-07-27-B - thanks Jeff Tollefsrud.

In the past, Gordon Geist did many light edits which are posted on cuke and shunnryusuzuki.com. This is the first of many new light edits to follow. The goal is to get a light edit for each lecture that is now in verbatim form. Many of the lectures are already in light edit form from the work of Marian Derby for the Lost Altos lectures, Brian Fikes, and others. There's a Light Edit category on shunryusuzuki.com but so far only Geist's LE's are entered there. It will take time to get this all together and presented well. In the meantime, we'll be posting them here. - dc

Verbatim transcripts are word for word what Suzuki said. Light Edits smooth them out a bit to make them easier to read. For more on what a light edit is, go to this link in the Work in Progress Page


11-01-12 - Work in Progress - Shunryu Suzuki lecture 68-00-0)-B - from the audio problem set - CM's 2nd pass following JG's 1st pass.


Remembering Issan Dorsey By Adam Tebbe in Buddhadharma

Filed on the Issan Dorsey Page


10-30-12  - Work in Progress - Shunryu Suzuki lecture 67-10-00 - from the audio problem set - CM's 2nd pass following JG's 1st pass.

And an updated version of CM's work on 69-08-30 (he pointed out that the latest version of his wasn't posted). A "pass" here refers to the work of one person, not how many times they went over a lecture. - dc


10-28-12 - Sweden as a Monastery by Rick Wicks


Work in Progress - Shunryu Suzuki lecture 67-09-08-A- from the audio problem set - CM's 2nd pass following JG's 1st pass.


10-26-12 - Work in Progress - Shunryu Suzuki lecture 67-03-26-B from the audio problem set - CM's 2nd pass following JG's 1st pass.


10-25-12 - On Hoitsu Suzuki’s Last Day at Eiheiji by Isao Miyanoiri published here 10-18 now is reproduced on the SFZC's Sangha News. Don't miss all Isao's photos.


JW who sent in the first, now discredited, stab at Esperanto translation of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, writes (surely inspired by the recent Shunryu enso discussion):

Having found I have no vocation for Esperanto translation, I have decided to pick up the pieces and devote myself to drawing ensos [circles] instead, where I am sure to find my place in the proper order of things. Here is my first one.


10-24-12 - Work in Progress - Shunryu Suzuki lecture 67-09-12 from the audio problem set. This is the fist 2nd go through of the lectures Judy Gilbert tackled last spring. Thanks CM.


10-23-12 - Andrew Main comments on the Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind in Esperanto post of a few days ago, submits another translation of the same lines as before, and more.


10-22-12 - Nothing Special- the final chapter, thirteen, of Beginner's Mind, Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.


10-21-12 - Shunryu Suzuki dot com has been totally reorganized (thanks to Peter Ford), is more complete, user friendly, and versatile. That's the whole lecture transcript and audio, video, and photo archive - in progress - lots has been added and there's to do with no end in sight.

Cuke dot com is the oral and written history with selective focus on the lectures - and a bunch of other stuff that's caught our eye and which will be more and more moved to another site that's in development. Stay tuned. - dc - posing this in What We're Doing


Higher resolution, larger, versions of Hoitsu Suzuki's family added to the report on his last day at Eiheiji - Click on photos to enlarge


Making a Work in Progress presentation today.


10-20-12 - Two more photos, these of Hoitsu's family added to the report on his last day at Eiheiji


JW decided to translate Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind into Esperanto.


10-19-12 - Forgetting Ourselves- Chapter twelve of Beginner's Mind, Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.


Another comment on the famed Suzuki left to right enso.


10-18-12 - On Hoitsu Suzuki's Last Day at Eiheiji - with great photos - by Isao Miyanoiri

Hoitsu Suzuki main cuke page


10-17-12 - Self-Nourishment - Chapter eleven of Beginner's Mind, Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.


Tomoe Katagiri wrote in a recent email:  "I'm very genki and  happy because I can practice okesa sewing with many people at home and Z centers." (I like that "Z centers." I'm sure most know that "genki" is healthy and energetic in Japanese)

You can download Tomoe's book, Study of the Okesa, Nyohō-e: Buddha's Robe from this page on the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center website.

She was our dear friend and I miss her and her late husband, Dainin Katagiri. - dc

Interview with Tomoe - and a nice new photo lifted off the MZMC site.


10-15-12 - Limiting Your Activity - Chapter ten of Beginner's Mind, Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.


10-13-12 - Memorial Service for Aiko Uchiyama, Shunryu Suzuki's sister, at City Center on October 13th early morning. Here it is on cuke.

1994 Interview with Aiko Uchiyama, Shunryu Suzuki's little sister, by DC - Just took me 13 years to get it up here on cuke. Going over other interviews with her and Suzuki family members from 73 to post.- dc


10-12-12 - Flashing - Chapter nine of Beginner's Mind, Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.


10-10-12 - Bread - Chapter eight of Beginner's Mind, Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.


Shocking News on this famous enso

(not actually shocking - just trying to look like the Huff Post)

 


10-09-12 - Tom Cabarga sends this about his father translating Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind into Spanish.


10-08-12 - The Double Moon - Chapter seven of Beginner's Mind, Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.


10-06-12 - Horse Sense - Chapter six of Beginner's Mind, Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.


From Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains: Dharma Talks on Zen Meditation  by Reb Anderson and Susan Moon. Found this story (cuke link) posted on this page of Wild Fox Zen


10-05-12 - Zen and Excitement - Chapter five of Beginner's Mind, Marian Derby's original manuscript that led to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.


10-04-12 - Memorial Service for Aiko Uchiyama, Shunryu Suzuki's sister, at City Center on October 13th. Includes brief bio. Here it is on cuke.


10-02-12 - Chronicles Project - Talks by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche on Zen and Tantra - video and audio - thanks Howie

On the same talks, read David Schneider's The Teacup and the Skullcup - here's the introduction

filed on Chogyam Trungpa page


10-01-12 - Beginner's Mind - Chapter One for a book of the same name, from Marian Derby's original manuscript.

All chapters will follow this month.


9-30-12 - One Pine Hall - Soto Zen in Seattle with Robby Ryuzen Pellett as the host. His teacher is Hoitsu Suzuki, son of Shunryu. Their new newsletter is out and it's linked to on the site now.


9-29-12 - Notes on RICHARD BAKER INTERVIEW - from an early WIND BELL. The first in a series of posts from interviews in the early Wind Bell (publication of the SFZC)

Zentatsu Baker Roshi link on Dharma Sangha website


9-28-12 - Shunryu Suzuki lectures on the Lotus Sutra that weren't included in the digital archive. Here's a minimally edited version of the 6th of six that were giving in February of 1968. - Thanks to Brian Fikes for doing this work over 20 years ago.

Other five lectures available via this link.


9-26-12 - The Minnesota Zen Meditation Center now has a Katagiri Project.

Here's their announcement of this project.

Dainin Katagiri was Shunryu Suzuki's assistant from 1964 till 1970 and continued to help out for years. He was more than an assistant really, more of a second teacher, a warm-hearted, sincere, diligent priest who went on to found a center in Minneapolis. There are a number of teachers in his lineage now. I miss him. - dc


Working on a total redo of shunryusuzuki.com to be unveiled soon. - dc


9-21-12 - All three parts are now up of the video of the talk Zentatsu Richard Baker gave at the City Center of the SFZC with Steve Stucky's excellent introduction. - thanks Madeline Landis


This photo from Crooked Cucumber that was in Buddhadharma recently and in the 25 year book [which will be scanned and entered here] - is labeled thus in Crooked Cucumber.

Tassajara, Zen Center, first practice period work-time photo. Summer 1967

(Just entered the following note under it on the CC photo page and in the errata section of cuke.)

[Close but incorrectly identified. It's from the Fall work period following that summer. I realized that recently when I saw Niels Holm upper left and Jim Morton just pointed it out. Both came in the fall for the first time. Most of us were there in the summer though. Names to follow soon I hope. Just went over them with Leslie at Tassajara and have notes and plan to follow up. - DC


9-18-12 - Congratulations to Jakusho Kwong Roshi and all at Genjoji - Sonoma Mountain Zen Center on the groundbreaking for their new zendo

from Genjoji website:

Sep 16 Sun. MANDALA GROUNDBREAKING 10 am. 

After eight years, we have met our fundraising goal in order to break ground for our new Meditation Hall. We invite you to join us for this historic ceremony from 10am to 12 noon on Sunday, September 16, 2012.

The new Zendo – is the womb of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas from which they are born. This birth is like dawn’s light as it dispels the darkness of the landscape by helping the many human beings to restore their inherent nature – Basic Goodness.

Jakusho Kwong-roshi

Sorry I couldn't make it. - DC

Jakusho Bill Kwong cuke page


9-17-12 -

Thanks to the Norman Zendo and Windsong Innerspace Zendo (Windsong Dojo) for the generous donation to the Crooked Cucumber Archives. Donors are not mentioned here on What's New, they're listed on the Contributors page of the CCA Do-it section (where they'll be entered soon). But what they did is something I'd like to encourage. They had a one day sitting to raise funds for the CCA and sent $775. That brought CCA funds to a point where we can see solvency. Thanks Oklahoma! - dc


9-16-12 -

A key goal of this Crooked Cucumber archive work is to get these materials as complete and well presented as possible and then to get them duplicated and printed up on acid free paper by people all over the world. Archiving only extends the life of something a little longer. One way I see it is moving a ball toward a goal that keeps moving away till it turns into a cliff. - dc


9-15-12 - An unfinished (due to technical difficulties) lecture transcript from 69-08-30. Posted in the Shunryu Suzuki lecture work in progress section.


ZIRH is being posted all over the Internet posing as an ad campaign for men's skin care products  but which is actually a subliminal campaign to promote another ZIRH, namely
Zen Is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki.

ZIRH - cuke  ---  ZIRH - Shambhala Publications  ---  ZIRH - Google Books (21 reviews)

ZIRH - iTunes (for download)  ---  ZIRH - Amazon  ---  ZIRH - Amazon Kindle

So when you see ZIRH posted all over the Internet, remember -

Zen Is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki.


9-13-12 - On Suzuki Roshi by Mary Quagliata - a gem from the backlog of the cuke archives.


Cooking from the Summer Garden with Deborah Madison

with Deborah Madison and Koyo Dan Welch September 28-30, 201

A benefit at and for Crestone Mt. Zen Center


9-12-12 -

MK comments on a Suzuki comment.


9-11-12 - Interview with Shunryu Suzuki student SH


9-08-12 - Our third installment from our spy in the Edward Brown camp:

Ed says Suzuki Roshi also said that Suzuki was fond of reminding that: "You are the boss."

Thanks Danny. - DC -  filing in Brief Memories


Update on work on getting more Shunryu Suzuki lectures into the digital archive including here on cuke.com and on shunryusuzuki.com

9-07-12 - Again from our spy in the Edward Brown camp:

Ed says that Suzuki Roshi was big on being vague and encouraging each person to find out for themselves what might work for them. Experimentation-- even groping.

Ed abbreviates that now, and it has become his favorite line for his own teaching on how to practice: "See what you can find out."

Thanks Danny. - DC -  filing in Brief Memories


9-06-12 - One of our spies relays the following that Edward Brown said about the old Crooked Cucumber:

Ed told about Suzuki Roshi on zazen (I have heard this one twice): Someone asked, "Why don't you give us better directions on what to do in zazen?" Suzuki: "Because if I told you that, you might try to do it." - thanks Danny - filing in Brief Memories

Ed Brown cuke page


My Love letter to Plum Village:  Thay Nhat Hanh and the Brocade Fan - by Katherine Cook


9-03-12 - Interview with Suzuki student Meg Gawler


9-02-12 - Katherine Cook and Peter Martinelli radio interview, - Festival of First Fruits, is on this page of Pt. Reyes' KWNR's site

Katherine's cuke page


On the Work in Progress  - Added NOTES for someone wishing to help, even just a tiny bit (in getting the Shunryu Suzuki lecture archive more together) followed by DC Suggestions for transcribing Shunryu Suzuki lectures for the archive. There are a few people doings things now so if you want to help please let me know. I'm going to make a chart with tasks and who's doing what and I'm planning on scanning some transcripts today and signing people up to do just one page. I figure we can get more done that way.

Looking for a name for volunteers, helpers. How about Accomplices? - dc


9-01-12 - Going through old collections yesterday thrown out by GGF with a note that the new verbatim lecture archive supplants it, found six transcripts not in archive - and identified more work to do using the old transcripts. Have brilliant plan to get these new so to speak ones all transcribed on to disc quickly and here on cuke and on shunryusuzuki.com. More to say but must go with Katrinka now to Sausalito Arts Festival. Later. - dc


8-31-12 - Made a more complete list of Shunryu Suzuki lectures that need work on the new transcript page. A few have audio but haven't been transcribed. Most need to be listened to to check transcripts in progress. Some audio is really bad. Most have modified audio that attempts to make the words easier to understand. There are a number of those to add, lectures that we have transcripts for but which have not received the V seal of verbatim. Going to go down the list of all lectures on shunryusuzuki.com and add those with these transcripts marked with a U in the name (for un-verbatim). - dc


8-30-12 - Help us get some Shunryu Suzuki transcripts done. Got good ears? We've got some modified audio of previously untranscribed lectures that has made them easier to understand and have some transcripts in progress and a few not yet done. Go to the new transcript page. Contact DC to get started. Don't need to make a big commitment.


8-29-12 - Richard Baker mentioned the following book in his Saturday lecture at the City Center recently: Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogacara Buddhism and the Ch'eng Wei-shih Lun (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism). Danny Parker sent me that link. Reminds me of the time that Shunryu Suzuki suggested to Stan White Buddhist Logic (2 volumes) by Th. Stcherbatsky (1962), a book that got through his Stalinist censors.


8-28-12 -

Here's a flyer for the Oklahoma retreat to benefit the Crooked Cucumber Archives with all the necessary info. Thanks Frank! (Special thanks for mentioning my books though it should be noted that To Shine One Corner of the World is now called Zen Is Right Here.) - dc

Immediate goals for this work are to keep organizing the archive materials with an eye to setting aside interviews, notes, photos, etc to be entered here onto cuke and other work to be done such as tapes to be digitized and transcribed then entered. Wish to get this stage of the work done quickly as funds are dwindling and I realize I must devote a block of time to fundraising soon. Other tasks such as transcribing interviews, work on web presentation of Suzuki lectures, index and maps for Crooked Cucumber (with volunteers and poorly paid semi volunteers) and daily posts will continue.

The First Church (First Congregational United Church of Christ) in Santa Rosa has offered a room for further organizing. In the next step I wish to have a lot of flat space to lay materials out. Thanks to senior minister David Parks-Ramage. - DC


8-26-12 - Infinite City (UC Press link) (SFMOMA Link) by Rebecca Solnit mapping twenty-two of the countless versions of San Francisco (or any city), about cartography, geography, imagination, and the coexistence of many worlds in one place and then focus on one particular map, which pairs the topics of salmon migration through the waters of the Bay Area and the migration of Soto Zen Buddhism throughout the region and beyond. (lifted this blurb from this page on SFZC.org with month and day for an event but not year) with essay by Genine Lentine on SFZC and Coho Salmon sites in Bay Area. Bought the hardback of the book yesterday at Book Passage to be part of Crooked Cucumber Archive library which includes tomes with something on Suzuki Shunryu and spent an hour reading it before leaving store. Also, Ray in Maryland is working on maps for Crooked Cucumber so it seemed like a relevant and justified purchase worth 3% of remaining CCA funds. - dc


8-25-12 - Off to SFZC City Center for morning zazen, lecture, and lunch with Blanche and Narcissus Quagliata. See a video interview with him got off YouTube. He was the first director of that building in 1969 and did the stained glass hands of Shunryu Suzuki and Dainin Katagiri in the doors between the dining room and the kitchen, then the one at the end of the lobby hall, the beginning of a prominent career. In the photo of Suzuki he shows in the video, that's me on the right. More later. - dc


8-23-12 - Just got back from five good days at Tassajara. Tons to go through. Lots to do. Here are a few items to peruse.

Fear is not your Friend - Another Elephant Journal excerpt from Jack Elias.


The third installment of Rob Lee's Collaborating with Angels about Issan Dorsey is now up. Cuke page on Issan


8-18-12 - Video of Zentatsu Richard Baker's talk at the SFZC's City Center last Saturday. (It starts with people arriving and the densho bell then Richard then Steve Stucky's introduction at about 27 minutes in - so you can get some good meditation in before the talk starts.)

Zentatsu, Steve, and I are on our way to Tassajara early this morning. I won't be back till Thursday so nothing here till then. Please dig into the labyrinthal depths of cuke in my absence. - dc


8-17-12 - Appalachian Dharma & Meditation Center - learned about this dharma center from Peter Ford in Tennessee who's doing some significant revising of the presentation of Shunryu Suzuki lectures on shunryusuzuki.com which will be making its debut there in the future. And one thing we'll be doing is linking each lecture to its presentation on other sites, mainly SFZC's excellent site for this. - dc


8-16-12 - Chauffering Richard Baker now who's visiting Grahame Petchey. Next, Dave Haselwood. Then Pam and Mike Dixon. A good day.


8-15-12 - Read an excerpt from Always Beginner's Mind by Colleen Morton Busch from the September 2012 issue of Shambhala Sun.


Barrie Mason remembers what is surely the first contact that led to the SFZC's purchase of Green Gulch Farm, featuring Huey Johnson, Bill Lane, and her - in 1970.

Her email had the subject line: You Seem to be the ZC historian - DC comment on this


8-15-12 - Yesterday's final event for the 50th anniversary of the SFZC was most enjoyable. More on this soon. - dc


8-13-12 - Off to the ceremony at the new Sokoji in a minute. See yesterday's post. Will briefly report on that and yesterday's Green Gulch event soon.

The text of today's program is posted on the ZC50 web site, with an embedded video player for the live stream:


8-12-12 - The SFZC at 50 events are happening. Yesterday's talk by Zentatsu Richard Baker was - well, I don't like to praise people too much here on cuke cause then I feel like I have to say something nice about everyone and thus my policy is to just link and let you decide so listen to and I think you can also watch Richard Baker's talk at the City Center yesterday. Today at Green Gulch Reb Anderson is speaking and there's alumni picnic. Last nights party at Greens was a trip - lot of us old codgers saying hi and the younger crowd drumming, dancing to DJ's picks. Monday, tomorrow, there's a ceremony at Sokoji temple on Laguna at Sutter, not the old original Sokoji on Bush at Laguna. Grahame Petchey who arranged for the incorporation of the SFZC in 1962 (GP on that) will be there with his ex Pauline. There will be a procession down Laguna to the City Center at Page and Laguna, a short ceremony, inauguration of the Peace Bell, some brief statements in the dining room (including 2 minutes from me), and a reception. Lot of good feeling yesterday and I bet it continues. I've got to go to Green Gulch now for the picnic (couldn't make Reb's lecture cause Katrinka is doing flowers for some event at the Panama Hotel here in San Rafael) so I don't have time to get the links to Richard Baker's talk and Reb's but they're there on SFZC dot org somewhere. Send me the link please - just one of you. - dc


8-11-12 - On shunryusuzuki.com, entered new modified audio files into the Shunryu Suzuki Lecture Index. (That link bypasses the username and password) The links to these audio are located directly under the original audio files and are marked AM-w or AMP-w, AM as in audio modified and the P for problem meaning this audio is not fully transcribed or checked. Most have a transcript in progress which will be entered or linked to there next and we'll be seeking help in getting them done as well as possible so please consider helping on that. Email me, DC, if you're interested. Here is a page for these transcripts in progress.

That site now undergoing major revision. Stay tuned.


Off to SFZC's City Center for Richard Baker's lecture as the SFZC celebrates its 50th year. - dc


8-10-12 - Shunryu Suzuki lecture excerpts on precepts -  93rd lecture excerpt - from 71-06-12 - part 5 - coming in on the home stretch. This excerpt project has been most revealing of the constant emphasis Shunryu Suzuki placed on precepts and how to understand and implement precepts in one's life and practice.

Want to repeat a comment from April: Amazing how much of the entire lecture archive is in these excerpts. I remember Niels Holm (RIP) saying once, "Suzuki Roshi taught precepts, his whole teaching can be seen that way."

And again, nine bows to Jenny Wunderly for compiling these excerpts. She's in her native Switzerland now visiting her mother. Check out Jenny's wonderful paintings. - dc


Inside California’s original Zen retreat - Sunset Magazine - which had articles on Tassajara, as I recall, even before the SFZC bought it in '66. - dc


8-09-12 - Buddhadharma magazine this month features Forum: San Francisco Zen Center at Fifty with Steve Stücky, Blanche Hartman, Norman Fischer, and Mary Morgan and an introduction by yours truly, DC.

Here's the intro on cuke.


8-04-12 - Golden Rule. Checking around on this subject this morning.
Religious historian Karen Armstrong TED Talk on the Golden Rule.
A cornball video on the Golden Rule with quotes from many traditions - from the Humanity Healing Network.
Ron Paul on applying the Golden Rule to foreign policy
Wikipedia on The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity

Shunryu Suzuki nuanced use of the term


7-31-12 - Greatly improved and expanded INDEX for Crooked Cucumber. Thanks to Ray Watkins (see his handsome photo at bottom of page with this note) for putting tons of time into doing this index which is still a work in progress. When it's finalized there will be a printable version that can be inserted into the book or not. Thanks Ray. - dc


7-29-12 - Haight Ashbury Museum - Watch the promotional video for this project. Narrated by Peter Coyote (cuke link). Sent by Brother Lor who writes: Suzuki Roshi appears in short shot of Be-In, about 1/3 through: always wondered what happened to the series of photos he appeared in from that memorable day. Tim Buckley brought him there over Okusans'' strenuous objections. Maybe this museum will find them.

Would love to get that photo of Suzuki out of there. - dc


7-24-12 - Interview with Jack Fishman


7-22-12 - Sunday - Beverly remembers crying and Suzuki Roshi after the killings in Aurora.


7-21-12 - Take a look at the new Japanese translation of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind with wrap-around promotion over the cover sent by alert scholar Richard Jaffe. Then read his accompanying note. At first I thought it was the cover and so posted but no, it's the cover plus what they call an obi which is what they call the sashes that are used with kimono. - dc


7-20-12 - Loly Rosset passed away this morning.

Interviews with Loly Rosset


7-19-12 - Interview with Brit Pyland


7-14-12 - Yesterday's communiqué had a reference to Shunryu Suzuki now corrected to Dainin Katagiri by JW who included another mouse reference, this one definitively to Shunryu Suzuki. Another example of rigorous cuke scholarship. - dc


7-12-12 - Rob Lee with some memories of Sokoji, the Soto Zen temple on Bush St. in San Francisco where the SFZC started. Rob wrote Collaborating With Angels about Issan and Maitri hospice.

I've got a whole folder on Sokoji that I photocopied from the SF Public Library file. If I ever get time or interns or a grant I'll get it up on cuke. Anyway, it would be neat to have a Sokoji section. That reminds me - there was an interesting couple of emails from a man here in the Forth Worth area about Sokoji not long ago. Here they are. Here - just made a new Sokoji Section for cuke. - dc


7-11-12 - Index for Crooked Cucumber (in progress) - We really should have included an index with the book when it came out. An index makes a biography more appealing to libraries and reviewers I gather. A number of people have bemoaned the lack of an index in CC. Well, now, thanks to the noble efforts of tireless cuke volunteer Ray Watkins, we have one - in progress. Take a look and make any comments you wish. Send them to DC. I see the index being presented in three ways: here on cuke to refer to, a printable version on cuke that can be used with the book or even attached to the back end of it (that was Ray's excellent idea), and, ideally, included with a later edition of Crooked Cucumber along with some maps and a few errors corrected (such as getting Phillip Wilson's first name spelled right).


7-10-12 - Got a request for the username and password to shunryusuzuki.com with the note: I really enjoyed your interview on the Expanding Mind podcast!!!. I'd forgotten about that. So here is a link to it which I'm adding to Audio of DC that should probably be erased - dc


7-09-12 - Rick Wicks - What is my (Zen) practice now?  - which follows his How I came to Zen practice.


Can't start a page for Issan Tommy Dorsey without featuring

Schneider, David. Street Zen: the Life and Work of Issan Dorsey. Marlowe and Company, (2nd Edition, June 2000) originally Shambhala, 1993.  Here's the Amazon.com link.


7-05-12 - A million thanks, nine bows - to those who've donated to keep this work going.

Donors to the Crooked Cucumber Archives are now listed on the contributors page. Please inform of any omissions. Have enough now to get by through October. See Donate page, Do it page, Suggestion: on the Donate page, make a $2 monthly donation through Paypal. Thanks. - dc


7-03-12 - Katherine Thanas obituary in Monterey Herald (PDF)

Katherine's cuke page


Keith Martin Smith has an interesting site which features a book he wrote on Denis Kelly, Heart Blown Open: Of Saints and Sinners - that's a link to a page with excerpts. Lots about Alan Marlowe in the book and some about Shunryu Suzuki. Alan introduced me to Denis in 1972. More to say, but later. He's a Zen teacher now, Jun Po Denis Kelly. Here's his site, Mondo Zen. - thanks bro Lor


6-30-12 - Nityanjali and the beginnings of a practice center in the Shunryu Suzuki lineage in Tiruvanamalai, Tamil Nadu, India where I was last year. This is a project of Shindo Gita Gayatri who was very helpful to me there last year and with work on the Suzuki archives at the City Center in past years. Gita was ordained as a priest in the SFZC by Paul Haller who is to be involved in this project. - DC


A Response (my favorite) to the April 2012 appeal for funds for the Cucumber Project and comment on Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind from the Curmudgeon Buddhist. Sent in May. Also posted in Notes on ZMBM - DC


Update on Katharine Cook on the new Katherine Cook Main Page


6-28-12 - A question about Shunryu Suzuki's college thesis.


New entry in the Crooked Cucumber Errata section: Katrina Boni in the acknowledgments should be Catrina Boni. She's Italian. Discovered this because this photo of Shunryu Suzuki standing in front of the SFZC's City Center, probably by her late husband, Robert S. Boni, is being used by Shambhala Sun. I was helping out and in searching for her name noticed the erring spelling in the book. My apologies Catrina. Here's her cuke interview.

Here's another photo of Suzuki with Pat Herreshoff I think. Had it by accident because its file name was almost same as the photo above. - dc

Do you know who took these photos? The one mentioned above I believe to be by Robert S. Boni. Let me know if you think otherwise.  This one was taken in Los Altos I'm pretty sure. Anyone know who took it? Maybe Will Stocker? Shambhala Sun is using these two photos in an upcoming article on the SFZC's 50th anniversary and would like to credit them. They're crediting Boni with the first one. But I just sent them an email saying it seems a little funny to use a photo from Los Altos in such an article and suggested I could send them any photo from this site's photo page or this Shunryu Suzuki photos archive. - dc


6-27-12 - Santa Cruz ZC Abbot Sobun Katherine Thanas' remains were moved from her home this morning at 9:00 a.m. - main page for Katherine Thanas. Her funeral still isn't set because Reb Anderson is in Europe and they're looking for a good date. - dc


Eijun Linda Cutts SFZC page ---  Wikipedia page  

with a brief memory of Shunryu Suzuki

She used to be Jiko Linda Cutts but now I see the SFZC site has Eijun


Suzuki student now ordained Tim Buckley's Great River Zendo in West Bath, Maine. Here's their listing on the SZBA site. Here's their Facebook link.  ---------- Tim Buckley's cuke page.


6-25-12 - Karin Sobun Daiosho, Rev. Katherine Thanas, entered Great Peace at 10am yesterday, June 26, surrounded by loving students and friends at her home. MORE

DC on Katherine's passing

6-24-12 - Karin Sobun Daiosho, Rev. Katherine Thanas, entered Great Peace at 10am today, June 24, surrounded by loving students and friends at her home. MORE


6-20-12 - How I came to Zen practice - Rick Wicks


6-18-12 - Peter Schneider comments on the May 2012 Crestone Mt. Seat Ceremony for Dan Welch


6-16-12 - From yesterday's Who Is Meditating? : There is a Burmese saying, "You are not meditating, meditation is meditating."

Reminds me of:

"Don't ever think that you can sit zazen! That's a big mistake! Zazen sits zazen!"

from ZEN IS RIGHT HERE: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki


6-12-12 - DC remembers something Shunryu Suzuki said once about astrology.


6-10-12 - 7 Practices That Restored My Buddhist Faith - Lew Richmond in Huff Post. Also am saving this in Reflections in case it disappears from Huff Post. Reflections is a section for material on or relating to Shunryu Suzuki originally published elsewhere, whole or excerpts. Lew Richmond main page


6-08-12 - Taking Suzuki Roshi to see 2001, a Space Odyssey


6-06-12 - Collaborating With Angels, Rob Lee's memoir about Issan Tommy Dorsey and Maitri Hospice is being serialized in an online magazine -  www.subtopian.com.  The first installment is now up.  Rob writes to DC:

To say it's been a long time coming is a ridiculous understatement, but I don't regret it as the topic has such weight that time and contemplation have been helpful.  It begins with Issan but he died pretty quickly and the project took on a life of its own.  It's an attempt at something beautiful and true and helpful.  Not so easy. In editing this book I'm revisiting all kinds of fond memories, and with the hospice, complicated memories. Speaking of which, I hope you enjoyed seeing the look on Issan's face reading your card shortly before he died. He didn't have many good times in those months and that was as happy as I saw him that summer.


6-04-12 - Write a grant proposal for the Crooked Cucumber Archives.

People are always telling me I should get a grant, often suggesting an NEH grant, for the work we do here, for the Crooked Cucumber Archives. I've looked into it, spent time on it, and it's possible yes. But it's not possible for me to do it. It's just too much. However, if you or someone you know, likes to write grant proposals, wants to write one for us, oh please let it be so. You or they could write the salary into the proposal. Need a job? Here it is. Thanks. - dc [Posted in Posts of the Do-it section]


6-03-12 - Going to the Back Porch Zendo for an afternoon sit and pot luck just outside of Occidental, CA.


6-01-12 - DC remembers Shunryu Suzuki and a bucket of crayfish.


5-31-12 - Mt. Root Sangha in Larkspur/Corte Madera, CA. Gonna go there to sit with Layla Smith tomorrow morning. - dc


5-30-12 - Dennis Samson remembers Shunryu Suzuki lecture comment on suffering.


5-29-12 - On shunryusuzuki.com - Begin to include improved audio - not sure what to call it. 66-01-21B lecture now has a second version marked AA - worked on by AW to improve audio quality. This is the first of about twenty problem audios Angus has worked on that will be put up here. He's also worked on another 70 or so that will be going up there as well. He's intending to do this work on all Shunryu Suzuki lectures to bring Suzuki's voice out as clearly and speed correctly as possible, easier to hear and understand. Including in both on the page with all lectures and in the smaller quicker loading pages by year. This problem set of lectures are now being transcribed, almost all for the first time. See the results in progress.

Feel free to comment on any of this work.

Please DONATE to help buy better software for this work and to give Angus some much deserved compensation. Just note "audio" and your donation will go entirely to this work. Or note "transcribe" and your donation will go entirely for transcription. Go to DONATE to do so and for more details. Eventually the whole Suzuki lecture archive will be in much better shape. It's going to take a lot of work by a number of people and some time, but the results will be appreciated.


5-28-12 - Great photo of Zentatsu Richard Baker and Koyo Dan Welch at Dan's recent Mt. Seat Ceremony - and more.


5-26-12 - Just noticed this story was incomplete - Suzuki's advice to me upon my first trip home - in DC Brief Memories of Shunryu Suzuki - so it's finished now. - thanks Mark Bitner for pointing this out.


5-24-12 - Consolidated my personal brief memories of Shunryu Suzuki onto one page. Noticed the one on him dissing the moon landing was unfinished, more like unstarted - just the title and no story. Here it is - dc


5-23-12 - On this day in 1959 Shunryu Suzuki arrived in America - at the San Francisco Airport. Read about it in Crooked Cucumber - Chapter Ten - A New Leaf.


5-22-12 - Correspondence with Nona Ransom's Godchild and the Pouffe.


5-21-12 - Another key day in the Suzuki saga noticed from putting the photos from Crooked Cucumber up on cuke. On this date in Japan in 1959, 53 years ago, Shunryu Suzuki flew to the US for the first time. There are four photos in the book from that day - seven on the Crooked Cucumber photo page. Find them if you wish. He is so excited.

Also, from the Chronology of Suzuki's life: May 21: Leaves for San Francisco, via Honolulu, on Flight 610. [Per diary.] Age 55.


5-20-12 - Today is the 50th anniversary of Shunryu Suzuki's Mountain Seat Ceremony, May 20, 1962 to officially become the abbot of Sokoji, Soto Zen Mission in San Francisco. Just happened to notice this yesterday while preparing the photos from Crooked Cucumber to go on cuke, while writing the caption for this photo and the one below it taken on the day of the ceremony. Checked SFZC.org and didn't see anything which surprised me cause they're  doing so much for the 50th anniversary of the ZC. Checked the Chronology of Suzuki's life and there it was.

At this point kept writing - about things to be done in these Crooked Cucumber Archives. Posting it on the Goals page in the Do-it section.


5-19-12 - The photos from Crooked Cucumber. Bout time. Note from main cuke photo page: Here are a few photos I had on hand. Soon I'll get all the photos from the book and lots more from Japan and America up here. I'll put in folks from Crooked Cucumber so you can see what they look like and even some of me.--DC, December 1998. Thanks to Christopher Modec-Halverson for getting the inset photos ready and to Charlie Conrad at Broadway Books for sending the PDF of the photos since I couldn't find them all and to Dan Kaplan  - and to Wendy Lewis at the SFZC for help with this . - dc


5-16-12 - May 2012 Crestone Mt. Seat Ceremony for Dan Welch and related happenings. Moved posts on this event to this page.

Steve Allen took this great photo of the group that visited him and Angelique at Dragon Mt. Temple as reported on 5-14.


5-14-12 - On the road back to San Rafael from Crestone Mt. Zen Center. Dan Welch is now the abbot. Maybe we can get a guest list.

Sunday morning some of us went to Dragon Mt. Temple. ----- MORE

5-12-12 - Today Richard Baker steps down as abbot of Crestone Mt. Zen Center and Dan Welch steps up as the new abbot. ----- MORE


5-10-12 - Beginnings of a glossary for Shunryu Suzuki lectures. - thanks Ray


5-05-12 - Jeri Marlowe, Alan's sister-in-law, remembers Suzuki Roshi and a few of us. - in Brief Memories.


Getting ready to leave tonight for 11 day drive to Crestone Colorado for the changing of the abbots at Crestone Mt. Zen Center. Richard Baker steps down and Dan Welch steps up. Will keep up with cuke and fundraising drive for Crooked Cucumber Archives which has so far brought in enough kind donations to keep the lights on here through the summer. Thanks to all. See DONATE and Do-it (for goals etc).


5-01-12 - Shunryu Suzuki newly transcribed lectures in progress. Transcript #8  from 68-08-25. This one was transcribed but marked as being partial because of sound problems so it was redone from restored audio to make sure. The two versions are being compared. - dc


Comments on the SFZC Alumni Retreat at Tassajara.


4-25-12 - Another piece on Shunryu Suzuki by Stephen Gaskin from his book,

Monday Night Class - thanks to Mark Bittner


4-24-12 - Another piece on Shunryu Suzuki by Stephen Gaskin from his book Mind at Play in a chapter titled "A Visible Spark." - thanks to Mark Bittner


4-23-12 - First two excerpts from Stephen and Ina May Gaskins' books. Thanks to Mark Bittner for finding and transcribing two excerpts, one presented today. - dc


4-20-12 - New RIP designations for names of people in the Acknowledgments of Crooked Cucumber.


4-19-21 - Help needed for Diane di Prima - on Shambhala Sun Space

on the Poetry Foundation site

Donate here

Diane di Prima on Wikipedia

Diane was a student of Shunryu Suzuki and other Buddhist teachers and is Poet Laureate of San Francisco. Get well Diane. - dc


4-18-12 - Corresponding with Dana Gaskin Wenig, Stephen Gaskin's oldest daughter. He and she are going to come up with something for cuke to augment what we've got. Here's her note in Comments with a brief sentence in Brief Memories of Shunryu Suzuki.

There are many mentions of Gaskin on cuke such as this out-take from Zen Is Right Here (formerly To Shine One Corner of the World). Here's his Wikipedia page.

I know there are some other mentions of Suzuki in Stephen's books, at least one other. I've got it but it will take time to find it. I can think of one in Amazing Dope Tales that I can find the beginning of in Google Books:

I didn't know Suzuki Roshi, but I was slightly acquainted with him. I sat with him once or twice and went to hear him lecture a few more times. But I didn't have to go see him all the time, or spend a lot of time in his presence: He...

I'd like to complete this quote from that book. Thanks. - dc

[Thanks to Mark Bittner for finding and transcribing the full excerpt. - dc 4-23]


4-17-12 - On the SFZC's 50th anniversary, DC reflects on why the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki is thriving. (Posting this in Brief Memories and posting this link in the new cuke section featured below)

50th Anniversary of the Founding of the SFZC cuke section. Got some ideas for it like presenting a complete listing of groups and teachers in the Shunryu Suzuki lineage. - dc


4-14-12 - Visiting the grave site - Ned Hoke in Brief Memories (of Shunryu Suzuki)


Shunryu Suzuki on precepts -  48th lecture excerpt.  

Amazing how much of the entire lecture archive is in these excerpts. I remember Niels Holm (RIP) saying once, "Suzuki Roshi taught precepts, his whole teaching can be seen that way." - dc


Mary Quagliata Gallery

Mary on Vimeo  - 16 videos. Good going Mary.

Mary was an early student of Suzuki Roshi. I always thought of her as a potter, but there are wonderful paintings on her site. She lives in San Miguel de Allende and was at Genjoji for a year or so a few years back and I've got an interview with her in the backlog that I'm eager to get to. - dc


Friday the 13th - Don't forget Legendary Poets to Read at SF Zen Center tonight. Joko Dave Haselwood says Dianne Di Prima is not well and doesn't see how she can make it tonight. Get well, Dianne.

Dave's Cotati Zen group, the Empty Bowl Sangha, sits tonight.  Here's a link to his lectures. Cuke interview with Dave.


4-12-12 - An Appeal for Funding the Crooked Cucumber Archives Created and Sent out by Rachel Boughton of the Pacific Zen Institute on April 11, 2012


4-11-12 - 2012 Drive to Raise Funds for the Crooked Cucumber Archives

Do-it page with Goals - Support Statements - Budget - Contributors - Posts

DC April 2012 appeal for support.


4-09-12 - The Soy Milk Carton and Beginner's Mind - in DC Misc.


4-03-12 - Beverly Morris Armstrong (Horowitz) Suzuki Stories. Posted one at a time since early March.


On 3-29 posted the following but neglected to load the reworded appeal: Reworded the appeal from ten days ago for special gift for two software programs to work with Shunryu Suzuki audio. Go to donate software. My policy is to check every link after uploading but didn't notice the mistake. - dc


Q&A: Zen priest talks about launch of Marblehead center - Joan Amaral interviewed in the Wicked Local from the Marblehead Reporter. See post on Joan's Zen group there two days ago.


3-18-12 - Introduction to the Chinese Translation of Crooked Cucumber


3-16-12 - On the way to the City Center for Della Goertz memorial. - dc


3-15-12 - Happy Ides of March though beware might be a better interjection, and not because Julius got it that day, for it was a day for military parades and the glorification of war into which we easily slide and with great difficulty depart.


Shunryu Suzuki and others on Peace and War


One Pine Hall - Robby Pellet is a dharma heir of Shunryu Suzuki's son, Hoitsu, and is the teacher at this zendo in Seattle. Go to the site and find the newsletter link (March 11, 2012) which is obscure but the site is set up so that I don't see how to link to it, just to the site. Anyway, there's an interesting report on his visit to Japan and the tsunami disaster anniversary and Soto Zen. - dc


Jerry Bolick who's with the Buddhist Churches of America and appears numerous times on cuke (use search feature on home page to see them) writes on Kokoro, the present incarnation of the former Sokoji, in response to David Miller's email of a few days ago.


And now the Huffington Post has an article on the SFZC 50th. Guee I've got to start a cuke page on this. - dc - thanks Howie


3-13-12 - Two articles on the SFZC's 50th anniversary this year and a bit on a visit with Grahame Petchey who took care of the business necessary to make the SFZC an entity.

SFZC's 50 Years of Opening Hearts, Minds,
Julian Guthrie in the SF Chronicle - Monday, March 12, 2012
(only glitch - Green Gulch Farm was donated/purchased in '72 - dc)

Fifty years of the San Francisco Zen Center
By Adam Tebbe in Buddhadharma Online

A Visit with Grahame Petchey with a photo of a Suzuki Roshi calligraphy on the wall.

Zen Center 50 - SFZC's website for this year's events starting with

ANDERSON & ANDERSON IN CONVERSATION
An Evening with Laurie Anderson and Tenshin Reb Anderson

Benefiting the Restoration of Green Gulch Farm's Hope Cottage -
Thursday, March 15, 2012, 7:00pm


Two emails about Kokoro, the former Sokoji


3-06-12 - Della Goertz memorial coming up the 16th


2-26-12 - Ananda's widow, Vera Haile, comments after reading remembrance of Ananda posted here 2-18. Included at the end of that post.


2-24-12 - RIP Barney Rosset, Grove Press and Evergreen Review - Richard Baker's earliest ventures into publishing. Hannelore (Loly)Rosset, his 2nd wife, is whom he got to translate The Blue Cliff Record from the German case by case, until Cleary's book came out.

Interview with Loly Rosset

Interview with Don Allen who was an editor at or for Grove Press.


2-22-12 - Check out the video interview on their site with Suzuki then Trungpa student Henry Schaeffer - thanks Howie. Adding this to the links on Henry's interview page here on cuke.


2-18-12 - Remembering Ananda Claude Dalenberg, Buddhist pioneer, humanist, our friend and dharma brother  who died four years ago today,

See Sweeping Zen's memorial for Ananda today.

Diane Dalenberg poem today for her dad

James Ishmael Ford


2-13-12 - Mountain Seat Ceremony, Shin San Shiki

was good. Many old friends. Many priests in robes. So many brown robes. Once there were only Suzuki and Katagiri in that color indicating transmission, graduation, teacher. "Spreading like cockroaches," one whispered. Buddha hall had assigned seats. The rest to the dining room to share the live streaming with on-liners. Procession of robes, bells, ornaments walking down the sidewalk to the front door slowing traffic like an accident. Christina read her lines and entered. More processions, statements, questions and answers, congratulations, an intermission, Swiss family youngest sibling of six - a brother - read touching words. It was all touching. Christina was radiant, humorous, comfortable, acknowledging her teachers and prior abbots. Maybe SFZC will post what was said.

There was no down note, no obvious voids from those not there. There are many ways for alumni to relate. Of those absent I counted through the Suzuki disciples (in the strict sense). Four have died. Only Mel, Reb, and I were there. Eleven others were on the path on paths elsewhere, people move on, some don't like long ceremonies, aren't so social, have their own domains they tend not to stray from, are too tired, too old, conflicting schedules, drop by for more intimate visits or more meaty meetings, and there is always some resentment. But none of that mattered. Who else even thought about it? It's a generational shift, always shifting. It was Christina's day to step up and be welcomed and supported by a thriving and diverse sangha to be the Abiding City Center Abbot.

Suzuki disciples


2-12-12 - Mountain Seat Ceremony today
Installation of Kiku Christina Lehnherr as
City Center Abiding Abbess
Sunday, February 12 at 3:30pm

Watch it live streaming.

It's great being here at the City Center of the SFZC. Stayed overnight. Loved sitting with so many people in the zendo before Hoitsu's lecture and then late and early alone there at night. Should get a copy of his lecture here. He told about Shunryu Suzuki, his father, cooking up the scraps of sweet potatoes and sometimes borrowing money from him when he was a teenager (and never paying it back). And at Shunryu's stepping down ceremony (maybe in 1962) saying something like he's stepping down here and next will be stepping up - as he did at Sokoji in America. Want to listen to the Japanese, not just the simultaneous translation for that. Lots of old friends here so far and today's ceremony will bring many more.  - dc


2-8-12 - Shunryu Suzuki on precepts - 8th lecture excerpt. This one is from the famous Beginner's Mind lecture.


1-30-12 - Added Chapter Three - Higher Education --1924–1930 to the the Notes on Crooked Cucumber folder but no notes for a while. Probably will get the whole book down first.


1-28-12 - Added Chapter Two - Master and Disciple--1916–1923 to the the Notes on Crooked Cucumber folder but no notes for a while.


1-27-12 - Lots of good new stuff on Shunryu Suzuki Roshi Facebook Page.


1-26-12 - "I didn't say that." - A brief memory of Shunryu Suzuki by DC


1-25-12 - Shunryu Suzuki on WikiQuotes


1-23-12 - Nicolas Pierotti - running for president with a memory of Shunryu Suzuki - in Brief Memories.


1-16-12 - Stream of Consciousness site has two pages of Suzuki Roshi quotes.


1-15-12 - Here's a list of Japanese and Buddhist terms from Crooked Cucumber (almost 500) just sent to Wei Qun in Beijing. She's going to take out the ones she doesn't need help with. Then the list goes to Tozen Akiyama (Hopeless Tozen) for kanji, Japanese characters, then back to Wei Qun.


1-14-12 - Shunryu Suzuki comments on the importance of practice periods and on If you are truly involved in the development of our way - from a Fall, 1967 Wind Bell now as text. - thanks to Edgar Arnold for transcribing this onto disc.

And in the former of these, we have another  phrase “most important” as found in Shunryu Suzuki lectures #135

Also, a misspelled word was corrected from the Wind Bell version.

Thanks to JR III for the use of his scanner to get this and other Wind Bell Suzuki lectures and quotes entered here and elsewhere on the online collections so that they are widely available.

And thanks to JR IV for figuring how to get the audio files of Suzuki lectures off the hard drive AW sent and thanks to him for his work to improve the audio quality of the lectures, a large ongoing project.

And thanks to Ray Watkins for proofing the recently included Suzuki lecture.67-08-24CU. - dc


1-13-12 - Added Chapter One--Childhood to the the Notes on Crooked Cucumber folder but no notes for a while.


1-11-12 - Got the Introduction for Crooked Cucumber up to add notes to but it will be a while before any notes are added.


1-10-12 - The Shunryu Suzuki lecture 67-08-24CU mentioned below on 1-08-12, a new addition to the on disc/online archive. This lecture needs to be proofed again against the Wind Bell or a scan of the Wind Bell from which it came. - volunteer sought. Thanks again Edgar Arnold for entering it onto disc. - dc


1-09-12 - Save the Date!

In honor of its 50th anniversary, the San Francisco Zen Center is pleased to announce two very special offerings to be held at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (Zenshinji)

Alumni Celebration Weekend Retreat
April 26 – 29, 2012

50th Anniversary Sesshin
April 29 – May 4, 2012

DC note: Shunryu Suzuki arrived in the US in May of 1959 and people started sitting with him right away, but he wasn't officially installed as the abbot until May of 1962 and the SFZC wasn't officially named and incorporated until August of that year. See Shunryu Suzuki chronology.


Made a little progress on the Notes on Crooked Cucumber - got up the Front Matter - but not many notes, mainly gotta concentrate on the index and words the Chinese translators need the characters for. More


1-08-12 - The phrase “most important” as found in Shunryu Suzuki lectures #134. Two new "most important" uses uncovered in a lecture and discussion recently scanned by DC from the fall, 1967 Wind Bell, and entered onto disc by Edgar Arnold in Munich. This lecture is being entered into the cuke archive of Suzuki lectures along with two other small Suzuki statements from that same Wind Bell which Edgar also just entered onto disc. Right now I'm naming this 67-08-24C (the date attributed by the Wind Bell) with another lecture and a shosan ceremony for that date already. That's possible - it was at the end of a sesshin. The lecture will be posted soon and I'm scanning another group of lectures for Edgar. Thanks Edgar! - dc


1-07-12 - Al Tribe with a brief memory of Shunryu Suzuki - and a poem.


1-06-12 - First day of Notes on Crooked Cucumber and the first note on Notes on Notes on Crooked Cucumber.


Kazuaki Tanahashi cuke link page


1-05-12 - Introduction to The Teacup and the Skullcup: Chögyam Trungpa on Zen and Tantra by David Schneider - which draws on Trungpa's relationship with Shunryu Suzuki, Kobun Chino, Edo Tai Shimano, and Bill Kwong.

 

Chögyam Trungpa cuke link page


1-04-12 - The phrase “most important” as found in Shunryu Suzuki lectures #133 - from one of his last lectures at Tassajara. - that's the last one.


1-01-12 - A very happy New Year from all of us at cuke.com.

A Shunryu Suzuki New Year's story