Jane and Peter Schneider | Podcast - Jane and Peter Schneider are the founding teachers of the Beginner's Mind Zen Center in Northridge, a part of greater Los Angeles.They were students of Shunryu Suzuki. This is the third podcast with both of them and the third with Peter. In this podcast we focus on Jane's way-seeking mind story and then branch out to other reminiscences.
[This transcript was first created with AI software and then corrected and lightly edited by Dor Ben-Amotz. It is intended to accurately represent the original audio, but may not be entirely free of transcription errors. Time markers are included to locate the text in the original audio podcast. The time stamps start about 14 seconds after the beginning of the audio recording.]
David Chadwick: DC | Jane Schneider: JS | Peter Schneider: PS
00:00:00 - DC
May all beings be happy. May all beings be healthy. May all beings be free from harm. May all beings love life. May all beings awaken. Welcome to another Cuke Audio podcast. I'm DC, Poobah of Cuke Audio and Cuke Archives, doing our bit to help preserve the legacy of Shunryu Suzuki and those whose paths cross his, and anything else that comes to mind. I pray that you and yours are safe and comfortable, free from economic problems and able to get out and do whatever it is you want within the limitations of the universal precept of as little harm as possible. So today we have two guests, Jane Schneider and her husband, Peter Schneider. They're the teachers and the founders of the Beginner's Mind Zen Center in Northridge, part of L.A., in southern, sunny Southern California. Their website, which I will state right now so as not to forget it, is beginnersmindzencenter.org. All run together, beginnersmindzencenter.org. And, you know, as you will learn right as we start out, is that I called them up, not intending to make a podcast talk. I just called them up with my earplugs on downstairs and because I wanted to ask Jane about her, you know, how she got into Zen and all that. So that's how it starts, and that goes on for a while. And then she and Peter and I talk and, you know, about various things, mainly about Zen Center history and stuff, because that was the purpose of my call. This is maybe the third podcast with them. I'm not sure. I did one or two early on, very early on, like five years ago, where I just called Peter and asked him some questions, but then Jane later, so I'm not sure. But it will be listed, whatever there is with them, will be listed on the podcast page on Cuke.com and on each of their Cuke pages. They have separate Cuke pages. So the scope of this is very narrow, like if you listen to the other podcasts with them, our podcast material with them and what's on Cuke.com, you'll see, like they were in Japan for 20 years, you know. And, you know, they've got quite an interesting history. So when you hear the bell, if you're of such a mind, hit pause and meditate or whatever for as long as you wish. And when you're ready to come back, hit unpause, and we'll be here to hit the bell to end the meditation or whatever, and we'll give Jane and Peter Schneider a call.
PS
Okay, David, here we are.
DC
Here we are, here we are. Jane?
JS
Yeah.
DC
I'm just finishing up a book called Tassajara Stories. And, you know, you and Peter are in it. And I have a ton of background on him, but I don't know any background on you. All I know is that you and Bill Lane drove from Seattle to San Francisco. And you went and, you know, and you went and heard that Charlotte Selver, Suzuki Roshi thing. And Bill ended up at Tassajara within a couple of months, or two or three. But.
00:05:12 - JS
What happened was I was living in Seattle and I was looking for a teacher. And somebody, I used to go over to the free school and sit and talk to them in the evenings. And they said there's a teacher, there's a Zen master down in San Francisco. So then I heard about, I heard about a bus going down to join in the anti-war march through San Francisco. And so I signed up for it to go down there. And then I met Bill Lane sitting in the office and he said he was on his way to Japan because he wanted to study in a temple. So there's a master just down in San Francisco. If we go down there, you might get the same thing without having to go to Japan. So he changed his mind and came down on the bus. And we got to San Francisco and joined the march to the city, which was interesting. And when it was finished, I went over to Sokoji. And the door was open. And I walked up to the second floor because I didn't see anything. And then the office door of Suzuki Roshi was open and he was sitting at his desk. And I asked him, could I come in? He said, sure, come in. And I sat and talked to him about why I wanted to study Buddhism. And he was really sympathetic. And he said, let's try to sit right now. And I had no idea what he was talking about. But I went into the Zendo room and sat with him. He arranged my posture and all and then he sat next to me. And I didn't know how long we sat, but I was so self-conscious. I thought it was really long and I'm sure it was no more than five minutes. And afterwards, we got up and he went back to his office and I left. And when I got to the door, he said, I hope I'll see you again. And I thought, yeah, I do too. And I left and caught the bus to go back up to Seattle. And I didn't see Bill. So he may have been mixing with people still. Anyway, I went back up to Seattle and my job there was working in a preschool. And I gave my notice and then I made my plans to leave and go down to San Francisco. And I took a bus down there and that was such a long ride. So when we passed Mount Shasta, I was just amazed. It was so beautiful. And I got to San Francisco and went over to Sokoji and I saw Dick Baker. And he said, well, you know, nobody's here right now. Everybody's over at Charlotte Selver’s place. So I went over there, I think, with him. And there was this big crowd and I was kind of intimidated. I had no idea what to do. And I saw Bill Lane was there. So I sat down in the group where everybody was. And Charlotte Selver was talking about everybody just look at the things that are sitting in front of you. And I want you to see the power in each one. And I looked at things like a bowl or a broken bowl or I forget what it was there. I think that I got to a plastic red bowl. And no matter how much I tried, I couldn't see it as something powerful. And that was like a koan, you know.
00:09:10 - DC
Yeah.
JS
And they really stuck with my head. I'm going to see this red plastic thing as something wonderful. It stuck with me for years. And when I was up here and people were here, one of the men who was an artist in his own right, the poet, he said he noticed that in my paintings, every painting I had, there was a red ball in it, which I had never noticed. So then he went through every painting he showed me and every painting there was a red ball.
DC
That's interesting. Who was he? Who was he?
JS
I forget. He's a very interesting man married to a Mexican woman. What’s his name?
PS
He's a poet. Richard Weakley.
00:10:00 - JS
Richard Weakley. He wrote some beautiful poems.
PS
And he joined our group and then he published his own Zen poems.
DC
Oh.
JS
And they were quite good.
DC
Oh.
PS
Anyway, go back to this. You're back with Charlotte Selver.
JS
Yeah. So then I went back to the city center and Dick said I could live in the houses next door. I could join the people in the houses and pay the rent with them, split the rent. So I went over to the house. And the first one I went into, they said sure you can stay here, I think Sally Morton was there and Jim Morton. I don't know if Jim Morton was there or not. I think he was. Just Sally Morton.
PS
Sally Block.
JS
Sally Block, yeah. She was Sally Block then. And at some point, about a week later, Reb Anderson came.
DC
Oh, wait a minute. Reb Anderson came in 1968.
00:11:04 - PS
Jim lived in the city then too, so maybe that's next door.
JS
I was living there for a while before he came.
DC
Yeah, like a year. Yeah.
JS
And I was cleaning apartments to make a living so that I could adjust my time any way I wanted. So I could sit, you know, sesshins when they came up over in Sokoji. Yeah. But then Reb came and he lived in the front apartment because it was the biggest and the most expensive one. I was in the city center. Yeah, I got there in 67.
PS
In a month. What month was that, that you entered?
JS
It was early spring because I remember it was hot in the day and freezing at night.
DC
Okay. Well, you know, Reb might have come six months later or something like that. I don't remember. I remember when he first arrived, I was in from Tassajara. Ooh.
00:12:14 - JS
I remember when he first arrived because when I first came home from work, Deborah Madison was in there sitting and he was lying in a bed covered and looking sickly. And she said he'd almost drowned in the ocean.
PS
Youve heard that story, haven’t you?
JS
Deb Madison said about Reb.
PS
Well, you have a story. Reb was swimming in the bay by himself. And he got caught in the current and was being pulled out to sea.
DC
Oh, man, that can sure happen. Boy, can that happen here. A lot of people get lost here from that.
00:13:01 - JS
He had a mild crisis when I first saw him.
DC
Wow!
PS
He was very funny.
DC
Wow.
JS
One night, we were all standing in the hall laughing about something and talking really loud. And Reb must have been trying to get to sleep because he got up and suddenly we turned around and this very grim looking person came down the hall looking at us. And finally he said, Jane, would you mind not talking so loud? Or Jane, would you mind turning off the vacuum cleaner? We were making thousands of noises and he picked one funny little inconspicuous noise.
DC
Oh, that's funny.
JS
Yeah, and we all ended up laughing really hard. We were all cleaning up our rooms. Anyway, I was having fun there. A lot of fun. And then Dick said, would you like to go down Tassajara.
00:14:12 - PS
No, no, no, no. Reb was not there yet. You were living on Bush. Yeah. And you'd been there a short time. When Tassajara had opened. And then Dick told you, oh, someone, I don't know if it was Dick or not, but how'd you get Tassajara? Not by car.
JS
Yeah, by car.
PS
But who was it?
JS
Dick did.
PS
Dick did, yeah.
00:14:39 - JS
He said, do you want to go down? We're all working for the opening of Tassajara. And I didn't really know what that meant, but I was happy to do it. So I said, sure. And so I drove down with people who were going down. And I was just amazed at the mountains. And then we got down there and I rode with Nancy Lay. And Noah. Yeah. Even Noah was really cute. He used to climb into the bag with Nancy. And just stick his nose out. He was really cute.
PS
Who was the first person you met at that time?
JS
Oh, I met Peter is the first person I met at Tassajara.
DC
Ta-da!
JS
When we got down there, everybody was standing around talking. So I just walked on down to the gate and Peter was at the gate. And I swear, when he looked at me, he got a flash in his face, like he was really happy to see me. And so I said, oh, I like him too. And then after that, you know, we all lived together and I froze at night. Dick said, don't worry. You just go to sleep at night here. You just need a light blanket. So I woke up and it was so cold. I didn't want to even get up and get another blanket. I needed a sleeping bag. And this was, it was very hot in the daytime, but at night it was surprising. Nancy was a very nice roommate to have.
DC
So you were there for the opening. Did you stay for the practice period?
JS
I did. I stayed for the next two practice periods.
DC
Oh, you mean you were there for the summer practice period and then you were there for the next spring?
PS
No, for the fall.
JS
For the fall practice period. And that was the one that ended up at New Year's. We had New Year's, Kobun Chino was there and he taught everyone how to make mochi and Paul made this big wooden pestle. And we started pounding with the hammers, you know, to make mochi.
PS
And I was tuning it. Yeah. I was the tuner.
JS
And we were having fun pounding it and then, but it was picking up. It was a type of wood that was so soft. It was picking up little splinters through the whole thing. Oh. So the rice came out full of tiny little red splinters.
DC
Oh, that's funny. Now, I've heard people say that at the New Year's Eve party that Suzuki Roshi was there.
JS
He was. He was. And I was his Jisha at that time. That was the next year. Cause I was his Jisha then.
PS
Well, it was next year.
JS
Yeah, the year after I was his Jisha when we had the party and I was sitting across from him at the table and he kept pouring my cup full Oh, that's funny. of sake. And so I kept drinking it. But every time I finished and put it down, he'd fill it up again. And so I kept drinking to the point where I was feeling really terrible. And Dick came over at one point and said, Jane, you really don't, you shouldn't drink that much. And I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to insult Suzuki Roshi. So I kept drinking whatever he poured. And later on, someone told me, well, you know, the Japanese custom is, if you don't want more, you just don't finish the drink. You leave it with sake in it.
DC
Right. I know.
JS
The next day, I woke up with a terrible hangover. In fact, it so happened that I got lost and I went back to the cabin and Dick came along and took me to my cabin. Cause I didn't know where it was.
00:19:14 - PS
This is that night. Explain?
JS
Yeah.
DC
At that night.
JS
Yeah. Not next morning. Yeah. At that night, yeah. That night, yeah. And then the next morning when I got up, I had a really terrible hangover.
DC
And I went to the door to get Suzuki Roshi and I looked off and he said, you look terrible.
JS
And I said, I have a hangover. And he said, maybe you shouldn't drink so much. Yeah. And I was kind of pissed about that.
DC
That's funny. Yeah.
JS
Well, that was my first lesson. Don't guide your conscience in life by what you do by what other people do.
DC
Yeah.
00:20:02 - JS
And at that point, I totally did. So, I’m begging to learn that stuff.
DC
Yeah. Wow. That's really good. That's really good. Yeah, I was in Texas for that party because I hadn't gone back the previous year. So, but I've heard about it. I heard Suzuki Roshi danced with a lampshade on his head.
JS
I missed that. I'm so sorry I missed that.
PS
Tim, Tim Buckley and myself, and I guess, Dan Welch. And I think it was that Danish guy.
JS
Yeah, I think it was too.
DC
Danish guy, wait a minute.
PS
Yeah, Niels.
DC
Oh no, he wasn't there. Oh, yeah. Yes, he was. Yes, he was.
PS
We had this band. And we had turned over, I was playing the bass and the bass would have one of these, there was a, we used to wash our clothes outside and one of the, somehow there was a hole in one of those containers. And so we put it, we had a drumstick and a rope and a string going down and I played that. And we did rock and roll songs together.
00:21:41 - JS
It really was good.
DC
That's terrific.
PS
And the next morning, Suzuki Roshi said to me, I had no idea you could do that. And of course, I'd never done it before and never did it again.
DC
That's funny.
JS
Suzuki Roshi said to me, everybody has to do something at this party. That's what Japanese do. So Lori and I did a Tai Chi Chuan together. I found out he did it too. So we went through the four movements. And I'm surprised now when I think back on it, we stayed together for the whole thing. Anyway, it was a wonderful party and it would have been even better if I hadn't drunk.
DC
Yeah, how did it, I mean, New Year's Eve things frequently go all night. Did it go all night?
PS
No. It wasn't New Year's party.
JS
I left before it was over.
PS
This wasn't the New Year's party.
DC
This is the end of sesshin party. Maybe it was in December, perhaps.
00:23:02 - DC
Well, I don't remember it, you know, and I was there for that sesshin.
JS
Well, then it's another sesshin now.
DC
No, no, no, no, no. There was only one in the fall of 1967. Ah, you know, and there's mochi. That's New Year's.
PS
That was that New Year's, yeah. But that was not with Jane. That was not the party when we had the band and Jane did Tai Chi. That was a different time. But it was the first party. It was the first party. But yes, we sat until close to midnight and then we made the mochi. And then I think we mostly sat up all night that first New Year's Eve.
JS
Not me, I folded up and went to bed early. I never heard the rest of it. Oh, sorry.
PS
And I lost all my fingernails. So fingernails were in the mochi as well.
JS
Oh my God.
DC
Huh, huh, huh. I don't think you sat all night because I've heard about mochi and sake and Suzuki Roshi dancing with a lampshade on his head.
JS
That was the one where I did the Tai Chi.
PS
Yeah, that was the party. That wasn't the New Year's Eve.
DC
Well, when was that?
00:24:49 - JS
The New Year's Eve was with Kobun Chino when we-
PS
Yeah, I'm not even sure if Suzuki Roshi was there actually for that. But anyway, Kobun led it. Kobun taught us how to do it. Yeah. And Paul had made the thing to do it with. And Kobun taught us how to do it. And we sat for a while and we made mochi and then we went on for quite several hours.
00:25:12 - JS
After the mochi came out, we'd sit on the side and make little cakes with it, which was funny because it had all these splinters in it there
PS
and we had it. We ate it.
JS
Yeah, we ate it all.
DC
Now, Jane, when you had mochi on that New Year's Eve, did you, was that when you drank too much sake?
JS
No, that was before the party, before this party, this mochi thing. I don't recall having sake at all.
PS
No, I don't think we did either. That wasn't a drink. They may have had it later, but at that party, I don't think we drank.
DC
Well, all right, Pete. Do you remember playing the kazoo with a band at a party with Suzuki Roshi there?
PS
Well, maybe that's what I did. I thought it was the bass, but it could be the kazoo.
JS
You were the bass. I remember you doing the bass.
00:26:11 - PS
Because it wasn't a, I said it was a base to wash your clothes. That was not correct. It was a garbage can. Because on the garbage can was written, unburnables.
DC
Yeah, that was Ed and Meg's wedding in 1970 in the summer.
PS
Yes, and so we called ourselves The Unburnables.
DC
Right, I was with you. I was with you on that.
PS
I thought you were one of the persons there.
DC
Yeah, well, that was Ed and Meg's wedding.
PS
Was it really?
DC
Yeah, and you were on the kazoo. Because, and I do remember that Suzuki Roshi said to you, I didn't know you could play that. And then you gave it to him and he played it.
PS
Oh, really?
00:27:01 - DC
So you probably did the bass and the kazoo. Because Craig was on drums and Lou Richmond had a keyboard there.
PS
I don’t remember than keyboard
DC
Yeah, Lou Richmond had a keyboard. Oh, that's interesting. And that is, Jane, that is when you drank too much. Because I already had that story. And that's 1970.
JS
Yeah, I was so wasted at that party, I had to leave.
PS
I’m thinkin’ it was before then.
JS
I had never drunk sake. All right. I think it was before then. All right. I had never drunk sake before.
PS
I think Jane went to the city, then she came back. And so it would have been either before she-
JS
In 1970, Peter and I got together.
PS
Yeah, we were, yeah, that was that when we were together.
00:28:01 - JS
I was in the women's dorm, and he just came in one night.
DC
Wait, wait, 19..., when did you all get together?
JS
I think 1970.
PS
Winter of 1970.
DC
Oh, you say winter of 1970.
JS
Yeah, because I was living in the women's dorm over the dining rooms.
DC
1970, yes, women were in the dorm, right. Okay, far out. All right.
JS
And that's how we got together. Peter just opened the door one night when I was asleep.
PS
And then I lived there for two weeks.
JS
And he came. And he came. And he said, can I come in? And I said, sure.
PS
After I was in there for, during that time, ?? came in looking for Jane, too.
DC
Far out, all right, all right.
00:29:04 - JS
He saw Peter, and threw his hands up in the air.
PS
And then, and then, so after a couple of weeks, someone, I don't know who, they came to us and said, you gotta move out of the dorm. And they gave us a cabin.
PS
Paul said that.
PS
Paul said that?
JS
Yeah. He said, that's not right for you to be staying here in the women's dorm. He was right, actually. So we went, we had a cabin, and that was the first time we were actually living together.
PS
No, we lived together in the dorm, not the cabin.
JS
I know, but the dorm was illegal.
00:30:00 - DC
I slept with Daya a lot and, you know, Suzuki Roshi told me that he, you know, since I was going to be ordained, he wanted me to be celibate for five years. And I said, are you kidding? I said, oh, no, he just said, I don't want you to have a girlfriend for five years, the way he said it. I said, I've got a girlfriend right now, Diane, and she and I are sleeping together here a lot. And he just said, don't tell me, just don't tell me. And he never brought that up again.
PS
Yeah, he read that book that Katagiri had given him by Hashimoto, I think.
JS
What’s so funny about it…
PS
That’s what prompted that whole thing. What was that book, David?
JS
I had asked Suzuki Roshi about having a boyfriend. What do you think about that? He said, well, you shouldn't have one until you practice more and then it's OK. But doing it when you're on practice is not a good idea. And then not long after that, Peter showed up in my room.
DC
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he couldn't he couldn't control that. He gave up on that. He didn’t know what to do about that.
PS
Yeah, he did. He gave up on it.
00:31:57 - DC
And it's more like that now. People now, nowadays, Zen Center. I just know from talking to people, it's I just did a podcast with a young woman that was with really, really had a very close relationship with this guy. But and I said and it became a thing that the officers were talking about. I said, well, what did you sleep together? Did you have sex? She said, oh, no, there's no place to do that. We can't do that there. I went, what, are you kidding? And but she had to leave just because they were getting too emotionally involved. And it was very disturbing to her. But anyway, I don't want to get into that. Well, that's very interesting. Jane,
JS
I think they're really wrong about that because Peter and I started a relationship in that place, you know, in Tassajara. And we've gone for 52 years now with it.
DC
Yeah, yeah. Some of them lasted, some of them didn't. Well, Jane, now, when you first met Suzuki Roshi, you told him why you were interested in Buddhism, why you wanted to practice or whatever. What did you tell him? Why? What? Why did you?
JS
I told him that I was very much afraid of death. I couldn't stop thinking about it and, you know, about how we all live a life and do things and struggle. And then the only thing at the end is to just die. And I couldn't see any reason in it – did he have a? And then he said, let's just go sit. There is nothing to say. I just told him all my fears, you know, when I went down, why I was just struggling all the time with living.
00:34:20 - DC
Yeah. And he didn't. Did he? He didn't say anything.
JS
No, he said, let's go sit.
DC
Uh, yeah.
JS
I talked to him, I just ran out of words. And he just sat there and he said, let's go sit.
DC
That's good.
JS
That was the best way for me.
JS
Because if I'm ever pressed, I can always find words. I think he said that they were aren't going to help me. They were aren't going to help anything. Anyway, sitting planted seeds in me of practice in some way. So I went back up to Seattle and I immediately gave notice in the school where I was teaching that when the semester was over, I was going to leave. And I did. That was in April.
DC
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good timing. Hey, so, um, uh, well, uh, where were you born?
JS
In Camden, New Jersey.
DC
And, um, uh, what, how did you get to Seattle? What, what happened between those two things?
00:35:37 - JS
Well, I never lived in, uh, Camden. We lived most of my childhood in the South, in Virginia, North Carolina on the coast. So we, I had a lot of coastal living with the ocean and all, and a lot of swimming in the ocean. And one time we lived on the, uh, I probably traveled around. He didn't like staying in one place. And we, one time we were on the peninsula of Cape Hatteras. And that was like a great place because it was a mile wide piece of, of sand and all the houses on it were just windblown all the time. And the sound on one side was really fun to swim in and the ocean on the other was really fun also. And so we, we kids spent a lot of time in the sound with the king crabs and things like that. It was loaded, you know, this great big round king crabs.
PS
Yeah.
JS
We just look out for their tails.
PS
Horseshoe crabs.
JS
We swam with them.
PS
You know those horseshoe crabs?
JS
And they're, they're about a foot high.
PS
They aren't edible. You never eat them.
00:37:06 - JS
And they have a long tail back with spines on it.
DC
Whoa. Uh, hmm. Wow.
JS
Uh, occasionally we'd meet a moccasin, a cottonmouth.
PS
And Jane's father was the, was the principal in a two room schoolhouse.
JS
Yeah. They, uh, they asked him to come down and start a school for the kids, which he did.
DC
Ah.
JS
And, oh yeah. We had no electricity and the only thing that brought in anything fresh, like canned milk was a bus that would drive along the ocean, frequently got stuck and people had to go bring it out, push it out of the sand. That was fun.
DC
Huh?
JS
And, and the only fresh milk we have is like canned milk.
DC
Huh?
00:38:06 - JS
My poor mother though, you know, she had five, well, there was just four of us there, four kids and, you know, and laundry and stuff. And I was in a room with, what was it? Three, fourth and fifth grade. And my brothers were with sixth, seventh and eighth. And my father taught that one.
DC
Huh?
JS
And we were there for a year. And then we went to, not Elizabeth City. That was before. We went to another place where he's teaching school and it had beautiful poplar trees around the thing. And when the trees, when the wind blew, the trees made a wonderful sound. And my brother went back there and looked at the place again, and he said all the trees had been taken down.
00:39:09 - DC
Hmm.
JS
That's really sad. Anyway, it was, it was, uh, in North Carolina and it's a place where my brothers would go hunting in the woods.
DC
What year were you born?
JS
‘36.
DC
Uh-huh. Um, oh, like Dick.
JS
Yeah, he's about, uh, six months early. He’s an Aries. I was Scorpio[?]
DC
So, when did you get your first sort of, spiritual or, or where, where did your first inkling come that you wanted to understand life or maybe were thinking that there's more to it than this or that sort of thing, like what, where did, where's the root of your way seeking mind?
JS
I think I was pretty clueless most of the time about everything, but I really believed in the Catholic religion I was raised in. I really believed about Jesus and Mary and, you know, I really felt a reverence for that. And my parents really gave us a strong education because I was in Catholic schools up until junior high. No, up until after junior high. And the Catholics were really...
DC
At some, some point then you went from the two room schoolhouse to the Catholic school.
00:40:57 - JS
Yeah. And they were tough. I mean, their standards of study were really high. So when I was in a public school and then I go to a Catholic school, I was almost always behind. But anyway, mostly I was in Catholic schools up through junior high and then they moved to Virginia Beach and so I, Virginia, and so I went to Virginia, Mary Washington College, which was an all girls school part of Virginia, uh, where is it? Virginia University of Virginia. I was in a women's college for the first semester, which I liked very much, but then it was expensive. So, I switched over to, uh, University of Maryland. I think I got my first way thinking mind from reading. I stopped Christianity when I was about 20 and for about 10 years, I had no, I felt like I was drifting with nowhere to, you know, to a light, no sense of security or sense at all of the world. And I read some books by Camus that really impressed me. Especially The Plague, I liked it very much and I got so interested in reading about him that, that I started looking for a teacher and someone gave me a book by a French guy.
PS
Benoit.
DC
Oh, Herbert Benoit, The Supreme Doctrine.
JS
That's right. Someone gave me a book that was a book that was out of it and I started reading it and I couldn't put it down because it was like talking to someone who knew exactly what I was going through. He quoted D.T. Suzuki so much that I got volumes one and two, Zen Buddhism by him which he praised enormously. So I got them and read them. And when I was reading them, I really, really wanted to find a teacher and find out what he was talking about.
DC
Uh, but you're still in Maryl[?]... on the East coast at that point. Right?
JS
I was still on the East coast. But when I got the Benoit book, I was living in Seattle and I was married I had married this guy, rather abruptly.
PS
In New York City?
JS
Yeah, in New York City.
DC
Was his name Westberg?
JS
Yeah, and we drove with friends across the country to his hometown in Seattle. But there, we took Chinese. We thought we'd go to China. And so we took an exams course in Chinese with a teacher who was really, really tough. And so we didn't have any life at all for about three months.
00:44:28 - DC
Yeah, I remember that course, because I took an intense course in Japanese, but your course was more intense. It was unbelievable. You were learning, I swear, you told me you were having to learn 60 characters a day.
JS
Every night I had to study 60 to 65 characters.
DC
Oh my God, that's impossible. I mean, that's incredible.
JS
It was, but I could do it because I really liked Chinese, and I really wanted to learn it. And so the next day we had to read something with those characters int. And he would talk to us using those new words. But, I really loved it. And my husband there, Russ, he didn't like it much at all. And anyway, we split up about the end of that time. He just up and left one day.
DC
One thing you and Bill Lane had in common before you met, I think, was astrology.
JS
Yeah, I think that's what we ended up talking about. But I didn't know what I was talking about. I just learned a little teeny bit of it.
DC
Really?
JS
Yeah, but I did like it. It's like it was like another new language.
00:46:10 - DC
Huh. That's interesting. Because one of your stories about you and Suzuki Roshi is that you went on for 10 minutes about it.
PS
Yeah, and he just sat looking at me, and I think he said, you look so serious.
DC
Right. Right. Well, yeah.
JS
His way of saying things like that made the point so well that he didn't have to say, what are you talking about? He didn't deride it or make fun of it or anything. He just said, you look so serious when you talk about it. I thought, oh, my God, he's right. Anyway, I loved Suzuki Roshi. I thought, he's like a perfect teacher.
00:47:02 - DC
Yeah. Yeah, indeed. I’ve stuck with him. Lou Richmond said he feels that way, too. But, wow, that really gives me a great picture of you that was lacking. I want to ask, I have a couple of questions.
PS
Let me prompt Jane to tell you a little more. After she left the university with a degree in art and education, and she lived in Philadelphia for a while after she went to master's at Temple University. And then she left and went to New York, and she studied with a great famous printer. She taught during the day in the poor areas of Brooklyn, the children. And then nighttime, she'd go and make prints until late in the evening.
JS
Usually three or four in the morning, then I'd walk home. I'd walk home and I'd stop at this little coffee house on the way, which I loved. Actually, that's where I met this guy and started a friendship with him. And the marriage didn't last for long.
DC
Peter, one thing I just don't remember well is how the, and you might not either, but you were more, you were involved with it, how the chants evolved, our service.
PS
Yeah, well, Jane and I know that together. You know, as you remember, David, very well, because you, of course, you know, as you remember, back in Sokoji, it was the Heart Sutra three times in Japanese, right?
00:49:29 - DC
Yeah, right. I loved it. I loved it.
PS
And you made a translation.
JS
Me too. The first time I heard the heart suture, the hair of my head stood up.
DC
It was wonderful. It was the most dynamic service, chanting I've ever been involved with, was chanting the heart suture three times in a row in the Sino-Japanese in Sokoji.
JS
Yeah, I agree.
PS
So I took your copy of the translation of the Heart Suture. And when I was a Jisha, I had a lot of free time, and I did the Wind Bell, and I also translated the Heart Sutra. But anyway, Tatsugami was there. I had this translation, but I hadn't shown anybody, and everything was, so far, had been in Japanese, you know, Chinese-Japanese. So when Tatsugami was setting up, you know, the Sandokai and the Daihishin Dharani, and such things like that, and the names of the Buddhas, and he set that up. I said, oh, Tatsugami Roshi, here's the Heart Sutura in English. He said, oh, we'll use that. And that was the first English that was used at Tatsugami.
00:51:01 - DC
Yeah, you not only put it in English, I remember talking to you about it when you did it. You put it into English that was chantable. You were very careful. I still think your translation back then was as good as anything. I don't know. I don't know exactly how you stated it, but you were careful to have a translation that could be chanted and that, you know, retain the sort of feeling that there was originally.
PS
Yeah, well, I've been a poet, lots of my life. So, translated like a poet.
DC
Yeah, and it chanted very well. You don't happen to have one of those old chant cards, do you?
PS
No, I don't. But, you know, Gary Snyder said to me once, well, I didn't know Gary very well, but at some point he said to me, when I first read your translation of the Heart Sutra, I didn't think it was very good, he said. But then, he said, but then I heard it being chanted, he said, and I said, oh, this is great. He had the same feeling you did.
DC
Yeah, But you did that consciously because I remember talking to you while you were doing it. And, you know, I wondered if, you know, I thought, wow, I wonder if it's going to work. But he's got mine. And it did. So you're saying we didn't have the Daihishin Dharani until Tatsugami came.
PS
Oh, nothing. We only had the Heart Suture. That was it.
DC
That's just hard to believe. I mean, it's just hard. So, he introduced all that. Wow.
JS
And, Suzuki Roshi, it was a kind of a fait accompli. He had nothing to do with it. He just did it.
00:53:05 - DC
Oh, yeah, I know. But he left it and, you know, people would say, oh, this isn't Suzuki Roshi's way and stuff like that. But then Suzuki would lecture, he lectured on that and the echoes, all the echoes Tatsugami put in.
PS
That's right. He said, well, now that we have it, we should do it.
DC
Yeah, we should do it. We should study it and understand it. That was great. All right.
PS
He said that he felt very sorry for us having to listen to all his talks on the Lotus Sutra. But we really needed them.
JS
I love them. I love them.
DC
They were very hard to listen to. But the sum total of them that has been, you know, like what Tim Buckley did with Wind Bell, it was good, you know. But it was sort of torture while he was giving it sometimes.
00:54:09 - PS
It was torture, yeah. The Sandokai in English had his own wandering history, too. Yeah. Because in the summer of ‘71, Jane and I wanted to take a vacation. And so we had, you know, the transcript that someone had made. And I forgot who it was. It may have been you, David. Anyway, we had the transcript. So we took the transcript and we listened to the tapes and we redid it. That came out with the first version of that book.
DC
I worked, I created a whole little study book on it with the English and the Kanji and all that. And on the Echoes, too. And then later on the Fukan Zazengi and the Genjo Koan, when Dick was there. Yeah, I remember when you went away there. So you did the English on that. But, hey, Peter, the first thing we chanted in English, and we did this pretty early, was the meal chant. That was translated. Do you know who did that?
00:55:46 - PS
No, I don't. I don't know the translation. I've often wondered about that, because we have it here. We use it here. ‘Seventy-two labors brought us this food. We should know how it comes to us,’ et cetera. And I have no idea who did that. I also have no idea, I think, I know at least one point, Gary Snyder re-translated a lot of things back then. Not a lot, but several things. We had a small Gata book, and I'd done that also. And, you know, the ?? Gata, you know, and the ?? Gatas and stuff like that. But as far as the ‘beings are numberless...’, I think Gary did that part of it.
DC
I had a study of that. And the one that ends with, ‘Beings are numberless...The Buddha way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.’ I think that was Dick, because
PS
No, that was me.
DC
That was you?
PS
That was me.
DC
Oh, I remember giving the English to that, I guess to you then. And I was against using ’become’
PS
Well, anyway, of course, before that, it had been ‘attain it’. And also, Gary Snyder's version was ‘delusions are inexhaustible.’ We vow or ‘I vow to put an end to them’. Put an end to them.
JS
‘The Buddhist way is unsurpassable. I vow to reclaim it.’
DC
Well, you know, the Kanji in it, Peter, is to cut.
00:57:52 - PS
Yes, and that's why—but I didn't know I was doing it from, you know, dictionaries only at that point. And, of course, the Heart Sutra was also with Yoshimura, the other teacher.
DC
Yoshimura.
PS
Yoshimura. Yeah. Yoshimura is the one who set it to the drum. So he and I did that together, actually.
DC
Oh, that's wonderful. That's so good to know. What do you remember about him?
PS
And so we had that drum beat to do it with. It was really great. It wasn't just the mokugyo. We used the big drum for it. And he did some beat with it. And we did it to that beat also.
DC
That is cool. That is cool.
PS
And for a while, it was done that way during the service. I have no idea when it got changed, but.
DC
It was done with the taiko.
00:59:04 - PS
Yes, that's exactly the big one that got sent from Japan.
DC
Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay, here's another question. At the ashes ceremony, was Silas there?
PS
That I don't know.
DC
He'd already left. And I don't remember him being there. And I don't see him in the very few pictures I've got. And I don't expect you to remember. I just thought I'd ask.
PS
No, no, no. I don't know. But I do have a story that would be—I probably told you before, but it was a very nice story. You know, Jane and I were—well, we were off doing the Sandokai, but we were off living with friends of ours. Who had a very, very nice place on the Martha’s Vineyard. There's a famous bridge where the Kennedy accident happened. And we lived across that bridge. And across the bridge, there's only like one cottage and two houses. And they invited us, cause I knew them from the university, to live with them for the summer, which we did. But then when we were there, we got a phone call saying about, you know, that we should, we were to go up to Vermont because of the death of Marge Bragdon. Right. So we went up there and we helped Susuki Roshi and we did, helped him do the chanting. And he was there just a couple of days. And then he said, you should stay with this lady, which we did.
DC
You mean June McKnight.
PS
Yeah, we stayed there for two or three months. She gave us a house and she actually wanted us to settle there. But of course we were students, not teachers. And so we didn't do that, but we could have had a house in Vermont. But anyway, so then we got a phone call, you know, from San Francisco that Suzuki Roshi was dying. So we dropped everything. It was early October, I think. The first frost in Vermont in the mountains, kind of like mountains, not true mountains, but in a forest area. So we left immediately and we came back. And then I saw Suzuki Roshi only one time actually during that time. And so I'm the only one. But during that time, the first thing he, you know, Silas was supposed to be president when Dick went. And then Dick changed his mind. He decided to make me president. And Silas got kind of burned by it.
DC
I thought Silas was president when Dick left.
PS
Well, he was, but then it got changed over anyway. I don't remember. I was not involved in the changing. But yeah, he was president for a short time, but not very long at all. Anyway, so by that, by ‘71 in the fall, he'd left.
DC
No, no, no, no, no. He did not leave in ‘71.
PS
Okay, I'll have more about that. But he wasn't around the Center.
DC
Yeah, he went up to, toward the end, before Suzuki Roshi died, he went up to Quadra Island, but he didn't leave till ‘72 when Dick just, you know, he and Dick just were on opposite poles.
01:03:28 - PS
Yeah, that's exactly it, exactly. But anyway, that was very hard to him, actually. Yeah. But anyway, the first thing Suzuki Roshi said to me was, how was Silas? And I was very impressed with that.
DC
It's one of the last things he said before he died. He said to Mitsu that night, he said, well, it couldn't have been right then. He wanted to, oh no, I know. He said, I want to talk to Silas. He was very concerned about it, but he put everything off too much. And then he learned that Silas had gone to Quadra Island. And Silas had gone to visit him, but Suzuki was asleep. So Silas just sat with him and left. He told Jerry Fuller, don't worry when I'm gone, you have Dick and Silas. And he, you know, he really should have, I mean, he wanted to, he wanted to give a bunch of you transmission, but he just didn't realize he was going to die so quick. But yeah, Tim Buckley and Emma got together. Where did they, they were married by Harry Roberts. Was that?
JS
Yeah, I remember that wedding, yeah.
DC
I was there. Do you remember when that was?
PS
Well, of course we left in ‘73, spring of ‘73. And it was, so I don't remember.
JS
I have a feeling it was like in ‘70 or ‘71. He took a picture of me sitting there and I had his head on my head. And it said what, something that was really funny. And I was wearing fall clothing.
PS
It's before we were married for certain. Because I got the idea, because we, when we got married, we asked Dick and Virginia and who was the president after me, Yvonne, Yvonne came out to our wedding.
JS
Yeah.
01:06:17 - PS
In Vermont. We went back to Vermont to get married because the place we lived in the year prior to that. And so we could have the wedding for free and we could get, you know. And so anyway, we had the, but they came out and they brought with them salmon, which we asked them to do because having salmon back then was a big deal. So they brought a couple of California salmon, Yvonne brought with her a couple of salmon on the airplane. And then we had that for our wedding meal.
DC
So you got married in Vermont?
PS
Yeah.
JS
We got married in Vermont because Peter's grandmother is 95 just about. And my mother had just had a serious operation and she was still recuperating and they could come up to Vermont, but I don't think they could have made it to California.
PS
And Jim McKnight had an airplane. And so I flew up to his parents. Yeah. And my parents were already in New England.
JS
And she flew back.
DC
Yeah. So Suzuki Roshi flew out to marry you in Vermont?
PS
No, no, no. Dick Baker. Suzuki Roshi had died. Dick and Virginia and Yvonne came out.
DC
So after Suzuki Roshi died, you all went back to Vermont?
DC
No, no, we went back just to get married.
JS
To get married, yeah.
DC
Oh, you just went to get married. Oh, okay, okay.
PS
And then Bragdon's son. What's his name again?
DC
Jay
PS
Jay, gave a van to us to Zen Center so that we could drive it from Vermont to San Francisco.
JS
Oh, I remember that. I had forgotten all about that.
JS
We drove up to Canada with a tent. Yeah. And all kinds of stuff.
01:08:22 - PS
And then, of course, we went to meet that the shaman in South Dakota and had a nice time with him, [Leonard?] Crow Dog and camped with them, camped in the [Rosebud Sioux Reservation?] village or area, there's no village actually, but where they lived and spent three days with them. And they went to, you know, Yosemite and et cetera, et cetera, Devil's Tower and all the sites on the way across the top of the country. Then after three and a half weeks, Yvonne telephoned us. She was still the president. And she said, we need you back here. And we said, okay. And we ended our honeymoon and came back, but they didn't need us at all. That didn't matter. We'd actually gotten to the final thing that we were supposed to see, actually. We were at the Grand Tetons, that's what she called.
DC
Oh, yeah. Oh, you were at the Grand Tetons, wow, wow.
JS
Yeah, in fact, we put up our tent at the base of Devil's Tower.
PS
Devil's Tower too, yeah. That was great too.
DC
Oh, the famous place from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
PS
Yeah, it's before that. We didn't even know that it was there. We just went across the country.
DC
Wow. Now, men and women, I'm not clear on, I mean, sometimes it seems like men and women were separated in the Zendo, but mainly not. Do you remember how that evolved?
PS
I think in the first two or three years, they were, at least. The women were sitting in the center and men were on the sides. At one point. Or just, another way too was men on one side and then women on the other side.
01:10:50 - JS
What changed was when in between the practice periods, very few people were there. So the women started sitting on the outside with the men.
PS
I was sitting on the altar. And, although somehow I didn't lose my job facing the ??, I don't know how that worked out. I guess I was sitting on the altar, again, because of being Suzuki Roshi’s Jisha. Anyway, I was sitting on the altar and I was looking at Jane, who was way down the line, but on the same line. Not when I was sitting with Tatsugami, but before that. Remember my foot hanging out there?
DC
Yeah. What happened to your foot? I remember you hurt yourself.
PS
Yeah, well, it was a really silly story, but anyway, you know, there was a time when people would go down to the narrows and they'd sit in full lotus and then they'd be thrown into the narrows.
DC
Yeah
JS
I didn't want to do it, but Dan talked me into it. And I did it and I hurt my knee.
DC
Oh.
01:12:04 - PS
So I feel the cartilage. And so my knee, I couldn't straighten it. I mean, I couldn't squat in it, you know?
DC
Yeah, you couldn't cross your legs.
PS
With my left leg out, hanging over the, almost over the tan.
DC
No, it was over the tan.
PS
And for a while anyway, certainly several months.
PS
Yeah.
PS
And then in the summer, maybe the summer of ‘69, I had surgery, or ‘71 of the two. Tatsugami said, you can't sit that way anymore. Something like that.
DC
Yeah.
PS
Which was right. So I got, so I had surgery twice, but that was the first one. Before Tatsugami.
JS
He said you couldn't sit that way with your leg out? Well, I remember a talk where Suzuki Roshi talked about being sincere in practice so much so that you would sit any way you could. And he gave you as the example.
PS
I sat that way, yeah.
JS
And you still said that, you still always sat that way.
DC
Yeah, I sat the way I got, that's all, yeah.
JS
And he thought that was very admirable.
PS
That’s the first time I heard that story.
JS
Even when you were hurt, you still sat. With your leg out, he said that's, he thought that was very nice.
01:13:38 - PS
I just couldn't bend my knee, that's all. So I had to, so I had the cartilage taken out. That's what they did back then.
DC
And what was the effect or the result of that?
PS
It worked very well for a long time. I was able to sit full lotus, you know, right? But then when I was the, the Shuso, I was sitting next to Tatsugami on the other side of the altar. Suzuki Roshi was on the north side.
DC
But Suzuki Roshi didn't sit with Tatsugami.
PS
He came down for ceremonies.
DC
Well, for, yeah, maybe for your Shuso ceremony.
PS
I said, Tatsugami was on the other side. And I had to sit next to him. And he would give those long hour and a half lectures because of the translation. And I couldn't move. And that shot my other leg. Oh. Well, then I had that operated on too.
DC
Gee Peter.
PS
So I lost one to the narrows and one to Tatsugami. And now I use a cane, but I sat all through Japan full lotus. And then ultimately it began to bother me. And then I had some illnesses. And so I was about to have an operation on my, on that second leg. But then I couldn't, so my operation got postponed and now I'm living with a cane, like all old people.
DC
Yeah, I should use a cane, but I don't yet. There's one doctor I see here, and when I walk into her office, she says, do you use a cane? I mean, she's just watching me walk, right? I say, no. And she said, well, I think you should use a cane. Uh-huh.
PS
Well, you're just about 80, are you 80 now, Dave?
DC
79. And how old are you?
PS
Well, now I'm 86. 86. Yeah.
DC
You don't happen to remember when the walk-in cooler was built down below, do you? I mean, I'll ask Paul about that.
PS
No, I don't. No, I don't. I know it's true. It got built, yeah. I loved working on the kitchen, though. You were probably one of the guys who did it then.
DC
Me? No. No, I didn't work on building the kitchen.
PS
The foundry, the foundation and the wall.
DC
No, I never worked on that.
PS
A bunch of us did. They still segregated men and women. Dan, I probably, Dan did, and Niels did, and Paul, I don't know if Paul was doing a lot of stuff.
DC
Well, Niels and Paul were, Niels was very involved with it.
JS
He designed it, yeah. So probably the fall of 1967.
01:17:03 – DC
Yeah, yeah. That's when Niels came in, fall of 67. And then, you know, Paul discovered Niels had studied Danish joinery. I didn't know that. Yeah. And they got a book, though, a Japanese joinery book, and worked it all out with that.
PS
Oh, my goodness. I didn't know that.
DC
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Niels and Paul were very involved together with it. But I never was involved with building a kitchen. Yeah. You know, I was in the dining room, I don't know, and other things.
PS
You were probably in the dining room, yeah. You were in dining room during guest season, that's for sure.
DC
Oh, yeah.
PS
You were the head there.
DC
Yeah. Well, that...
01:18:08 - PS
But this was outside of guest season. So you must have been, were you there in the fall of ‘67?
DC
Yeah.
PS
Well, I didn't know how you didn't work the kitchen. But you probably worked in the dining room. I mean, in the kitchen itself.
DC
Well, I came in like March of ‘67. I was living there. Actually, the first time I came was in February. And I was living there, you know, when there was only... When I first came, I don't know, a dozen people. And then just, I watched everybody arrive. And I was working in the kitchen. Until Ed came, I was really doing most of the cooking.
PS
Oh, really? Yeah. I didn't know that.
01:19:01 - DC
A lot of it. I really loved it. And it was fun. I didn't have any experience, except I'd lived with Laurie. But I made crazy casseroles and different things. Then when Ed came, you know, he clearly was in charge. I helped him some. But then right away, Dick asked me to get the... He wanted me to run the dining room.
PS
This would have happened in May and June, yeah.
DC
He asked in May and June to run it. But he asked me like in April, right? And Ed came... Ed might have come in like mid-April.
PS
I thought Ed had come before that. I didn't realize that.
DC
Oh, well, he lived there the year before with the Becks.
PS
That's what I thought.
DC
Yeah, but he didn't come back after... He left with the Becks in like October, you know, when the guests left. And then he didn't come to Tassajara until, you know, a couple of weeks before the first guest season, like mid-April.
PS
I see. That’s when Jenny, like mid-April, May. April and May.
01:20:28 - DC
Yeah, And then I was just on getting the dining room stuff ready. And I was going out and doing research. And I went to L.A. a couple of times and to San Francisco. And Jenny chose everything, like the plates, the tablecloths and everything. Jenny did all that. Jenny was the aesthetics. Paul redid the room. Jenny was the aesthetics. And I figured out a lot about where to get food and where to get things we needed. I got the napkin rings. I got, you know, bamboo from the docks in San Francisco and soaked them for two weeks in linseed oil and stuff like that. But, yeah, and then that guest season started and then the practice period and then another guest season. That was cool. I liked it. And you said people were complaining about you and didn't want you to be director. I don't remember any complaints about you.
PS
I never asked about why. I just said, all right. I was not attached to being director. I came down on Suzuki Roshi’s request. But it was, of course, just trying to catch me again to be business manager for the guest season. That's why I came.
DC
Yeah, you were office manager.
PS
Yeah, that's the right term for it. Yeah, office manager. And I was in the office with Tim Burkett's wife.
DC
Hey, it's been great talking to you guys. Is there anything else? I'm sure I'll think of something else right away.
PS
I hope your book comes out before we're gone.
01:22:41 - DC
Yeah, that's the way I feel, too. I've thought about saying I want to publish the audiobook right away. I'm really happy you're still plugging away and everything and so active. It's terrific.
PS
Yeah, we're still teaching. We still have our group. Hattie, one of our members, there was a problem because we are getting old, obviously. And we also didn't have enough savings to just keep staying in the house. We would have to sell it. So it was a big quandary. But then one of the people that we had made a priest, and I talked about it. He was living in Minneapolis. And he's good at making money. Not like he's rich at all, but he's good at it. And we decided that some way that he would move out here. And that's when he puts a trailer here. So we have a trailer. And then we'll have an apartment. And then we're leaving. And you know, of course, about Enso Village.
DC
Oh, yes.
01:24:04 - JS
Okay, well, we're involved. Well, not really involved. But we were around at the beginning of Enso Verde. Which is just 25 minutes from us. Not in this county, but very, very close.
DC
You mean the Southern California Enso Village?
JS
That's right, yeah. It's called Enso Verde. So they've accepted that Jane and I can be our graduate teachers there.
DC
Cool, that is great. You know, you've been involved with Susan O'Connell probably. I did a podcast with her recently. I first learned about Southern California Enso Village. And the Zen Center is a part owner of it.
01:25:03 - PS
Yes, they are, yeah. So anyway, that worked out very nicely. So we can, with the help of our student who will be helping, he'll get the, the group will get the house. But he'll get the use of the house for as long as he wants it. Our house is not, is pretty, is about 3,000 square feet. And the middle of the house is the Zendo. You've never been here, I don't think. But Paul Discoe had tans made for us.
DC
Oh, is that right?
PS
Yeah. So it looks like a Zen Center. Wow. And the door, we have doors, we have tours, doors made by Paul also. And we have a Han made by Paul. And we have an altar made by Paul.
01:26:05 - DC
Wow. I didn't know, and it's Northridge Zen Center?
PS
Yeah, well, no. One of our members got us to change. Now we actually call ourselves Beginner's Mind Zen Center.
DC
Oh, yeah, of course. I know that, it was Northridge a long time ago.
PS
Yeah, we started out as Northridge.
DC
Yeah, Beginner's Mind. I remember you got permission from Zen Center to use that. I thought that was awfully polite of you.
PS
Yeah, well, I didn't really, I was not quite that foolish. I got permission with a couple of board members. That's all I needed was that. And no one's ever complained. When we started, I didn't know that they were calling, the Zendo had become the Beginner's, you know, it was the same name, but that's called Temple. So they're the Temple and we're the Zen Center. Beginner's Mind Zen Center.
DC
Yeah, nobody owns that. Beginner's Mind. You're welcome to use it. It's ancient.
01:27:17 - PS
And we were there with you, so that counts. Yeah, yeah.
DC
Yeah, yes, exactly.
PS
Where's it come from?
DC
Well, I know it comes from Dogen, and I have a vague memory that it comes from before Dogen. You know who would know? I could just send an email to Taigen Dan Leighton. So, is there actual in-person sitting there?
PS
So, we used to have, you know, up to 20 people, but then the pandemic hit. So now, now we're slowly rebuilding. That's the idea, is to kind of rebuild. So we have an active membership, but mostly online. Like, for example, Minneapolis, for example. People have just started coming back. So I think it'll be going again by the time we leave in two or three years.
DC
So, are you giving the house to the group, or what? How are you doing that?
01:28:45 - PS
We're giving the house to the group with a contract being made that, for our support. That the member who will take our place will have the use of the house as long as he wants it. And we haven't had a board meeting about that, but we're going to have it soon.
DC
Do you attend Zazen there?
PS
Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
JS
He's the same guy who me and his wife
DC
Wait a minute. You're still living there, right?
PS
Yes, we are, yeah.
DC
Yeah, pardon me. My mind was in two different time zones.
JS
Yeah. So he and his wife are the couple that helped us change our kitchen around. They smashed up the old kitchen for us and then they helped us put in all the new things.
DC
But when will you be moving to Enso?
01:30:00 - PS
When it opens. And right now that plan is through late 2027.
DC
It's a way down the road.
PS
It's a way down the road. So who knows?
DC
I have rent paid here till 2031. It's such a nice place and it's so extremely cheap and yet everything's going up. You know. Well, all right. Well, that's all good to hear. That's all very interesting to hear. I'm glad you added that. I'd forgotten to ask you about the group or anything. That's terrific. Ah, okay. Well, it's been good.
PS
It's been great, David.
JS
Thank you for calling.
01:30:57 - DC
Thanks a lot, Jane and Peter Schneider. Really appreciate it. Wow. Yeah, you all. I've been following your path, your stories for a long time and pretty impressive. Thanks a lot. This has been a Cuke Audio podcast. I'm DC, Poobah of Cuke Audio and Cuke Archives, coming to you from Sleepy Sanur with Doggette Bandita, Feline Manisita and dear lovely Katrinka and we're wishing you and yours and all of us a grand awakening.