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From some event/ceremony at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco (right?). Just four people identified so far: Shunryu Suzuki short man front row middle, Hsuan Hua to his right, Grahame Petchey behind to the right and Neville Warwick (Dr. Ajari) behind to the left. Note from Andrew Main below who identified two of them plus comments. Larger size version of photo below that. That's Mershed Samuel Lewis on the right. This photo is SR0171 in the Shunryu Suzuki photo archive.


 

Note from Andrew Main, 12-12-14

 

In your December 10 photo, I believe that's Neville G. Pemchekov Warwick, aka "Dr. Ajari" behind Suzuki's right shoulder. He was quite a character but, it seemed, a sincere practitioner of his idiosyncratic Way.

Wikipedia on Warwick.

Only other presence on the Web seems to be this which I discovered a couple years ago when I thought of Dr Ajari and went looking. I trust he's experiencing a fortunate rebirth with a good opportunity to practice the Dharma.

 

[If one writes "warwick and ajari" in the site search box on Home or What's New page, a number of files from cuke will be listed. - dc]

 

To Suzuki's immediate left, that looks like the late Chinese Zen master Hsuan Hua, founder of the Gold Mountain Monastery ("Gold Mountain" 金山 is the Chinese name of San Francisco) which was not far from Zen Center (and very traditionally Chinese). Which later moved north and became the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in a repurposing of a former mental hospital at Talmadge outside of Ukiah. I attended the "grand opening" ceremony there some time in the mid-1970s, with planeloads of Chinese from Southeast Asia, and the biggest woks I've ever seen to feed the thousands. I believe they really did have 10,000 little Buddha statues in niches around the wall. Some really serious practitioners among his American disciples.

Wikipedia on Hsuan Hua

Wikipedia on City of Ten Thousand Buddhas

 

Some real characters in the second wave (?) of American Buddhism. Interesting how many Caucasians in robes. I wonder who's the guy with the waxed mustache?