Well, last night I went to the opening at the DeYoung Museum of the Beatnik show. So I thought that I would share my past with you. I realized that I had either met, knew, or associated intimately with almost everyone who had anything in the show in the 50s. So it was all very intimate for me, and it was like a deja vu. Anyway, So in the 50s, I was a painter and I remember my former wife was a poet, and she still is, and she has something in the exhibit.

[01:39]

I used to do the covers for her poetry books. So those, you can see my covers for her poetry books if you go to the show there. And I even made her first book on a mimeograph machine, and that's there too. But it was a wonderful time, the 50s. It was the time of the sexual revolution and free speech, and non-conformism, and people looking for a way. People were very dissatisfied with the spirituality in the country and in the world, and with the kind of materialistic society

[02:45]

And it was a kind of North Beach was the center of the beatnik movement in the West. And it was like a wonderful rich soup. And there was a lot of pain and a lot of suffering and a lot of optimism as well. And people took various ways out from that center. I think that today, I was wondering, well, what do you call the beatniks of today? And there have been the hippies, after the beatniks were the hippies, and then there were the, I don't know what else. But I don't know what you call the hippies, the beatniks of today. But I'm sure there's a name for it. And people are doing the same thing today as we were doing in the 50s.

[03:53]

It's really not different, just the circumstances are different. And some of the issues are different, but not really. Basically, they're the same. That's why I think that society will keep changing and at the same time will always stay the same. One place, I remember we lived in the Western Addition, before they tore it down, on Ellis Street near Goff. We had an entire attic for $30 a month, and then the landlord reduced it to $20. So if you were an artist in those days, or a musician, or a poet, or just working on something that you wanted to work on, you didn't have to spend all your money on rent.

[04:56]

Today, everybody has to have a job. Everybody has to have a full-time job just in order to pay the rent. It's terrible. $700 a month in rent. If you had told me that we would be paying $700 a month in rent today, at that time, I would have tossed you out on your ear. I wouldn't have believed that such a thing could happen. I would buy automobiles, the average price of which was $65. It's true. Then they'd wear out. They were old cars, but $65. They were good cars. Anyway. So I'm kind of a cheapskate.

[05:57]

It's true, I am a kind of a cheapskate. But, anyway, I won't talk about that. But this show at the De Young was epitomized by, there's this, I don't know if you saw it in yesterday's Chronicle, but there was a picture of a Jay DeFeo's painting of light, which is a wonderful, wonderful painting. And that kind of epitomized the spiritual seeking at that time. And on the other side of the show was despair and death and the dark, deep dark side. So the show had, you know, everything in between those two aspects was present there. And that was the science of the times.

[07:04]

Believe me, I knew so many people who had and succumbed to despair and died and became insane. But I always had this strong spiritual side which led me on my own path. So in the 60s, 1964, I came to this practice. But I was struggling very much. All my paintings expressed this kind of spiritual seeking. But I can tell you, I went through a lot of dark, very dark times in those days. and with a lot of people.

[08:06]

I was right in the middle of all that. So I have a pretty good understanding of, I think, of how suffering arises and a lot of experience in how people deal with it. And I chose to look for a way, a spiritual path that was a proven path. At the opening, I met a guy that I had known, a painter, who I didn't have a lot of... I didn't feel so good about him. I never did. But he said, Oh, you know, when I was in Golden Gate Park, I found this big rock, which I named the Shiva Lingam, and then I established a new religion on it. chose to practice Zen instead.

[09:16]

So I had a very deep feeling about helping people, helping the people that I had seen in so much suffering and finding a way that was a way out of their suffering, a way to help them out of their suffering. And so when I connected with Suzuki Roshi and his practice in 1964, I was very grateful for the practice. And I could see that this was a way that most people were looking for, whether they knew it or not. Not everyone wants to take this way or can take this way. But I think that people don't have to take this way. Also, during that time, I studied and practiced various spiritual practices.

[10:36]

When I was a taxi driver during that time, I felt that I was on the street as a kind of priest in a way, even though I didn't belong to any particular religion. But I felt that that was my spiritual practice, was to meet people and just treat them well. Or, you know, a taxi driver is somebody that people can fight in. And I can remember parking the cab, somebody's talking to me, and just for hours listening to them. So I kind of developed an ear for listening to people's story, and listening to their suffering, And that was my practice. And when I think about what is a priest, I'm very much influenced by that kind of practice.

[11:50]

There's several things I want to talk about, and so I'll just talk about it. So in thinking about being a priest, what is a priest? There's the side of formality, you know, doing the service and offering incense and wearing your nice robes and making the practice work. But then there's the other side of not being in your robes, just being an ordinary person out on the street. which is a side I think is very important for a priest. Because although the priest has a role and presents an obvious role model for practice, there's another side which should be developed, which is

[13:01]

to be not recognized, but to just be an ordinary person and listen to people and help people in various circumstances. This is actually a lay person's practice. A priest has to be a lay person and priest. at the same time. Or at least, it's like Avalokitesvara's practice. When a person, when whatever a person needs, Avalokitesvara takes on the characteristics to help that person. So one is not stuck in a certain role, but no matter what that person is doing, they're always a priest, even though it doesn't look like it.

[14:06]

There was a poem that appeared in the Nebraska Monkey, which is a Zen center. poem because the poem, I think, epitomizes a priest's practice or a Zen student's practice, I think, in a very idealistic way. The poem says, neither yielding to rain nor yielding to wind, yielding neither to snow nor to summer heat. With a stout body like that, without greed, never getting angry, always smiling quietly, eating one and a half pints of brown rice and bean paste and a bit of vegetables a day, in everything, not taking oneself into account, looking, listening, understanding well, and not forgetting

[15:27]

living in the shadow of pine trees in a field in a small hut thatched with miscanthus. If in the east there is a sick child, going and nursing that child. If in the west there's a tired mother going and, for her, carrying bundles of rice. If in the south there's someone dying, going and saying, you don't have to be afraid. If in the north there's a quarrel or a lawsuit saying, it's not worth it, stop it. In a drought, shedding tears. In a cold summer, packing back and forth, lost. Called a good for nothing by everyone. Neither praised, nor thought of pain. Someone like that is what I want to be. This is by a guy named Miyazawa Kenji. I don't know when it was written. Of course, it's very idealistic. We can't live in a hut on one bowl a day, but the spirit of this poem, I think, epitomizes the selflessness with which we do something.

[16:49]

being able to respond to whatever circumstances call for without worrying about yourself. I think we all need to be concerned about ourselves. We have to take care of our body, and we have to take care of our circumstances, and we have to take care of the people around us, and we have to take care of ourselves so that other people don't have to take care of us. I think one good reason to stay healthy is so that you don't become a burden for other people. But overly self-concerned, you know, worrying too much about yourself. you find that people who are very helpful are usually people who are not so self-concerned, not so self-absorbed.

[18:03]

I remember how self-absorbed I used to be when I was a beatnik. Totally self-absorbed. And I think through my practice, It helped me to just let go of myself. I think that's one of the most important things that practice has done for me, is to help me let go of myself. Not that I don't have some ego and some self-preoccupation, but it's nothing like what it used to be. But my feeling about the beat generation is that people were looking for that light and looking for a spiritual, true practice for their life.

[19:24]

And I think in some way, It stimulated the next generation to continue. In another way, I think it bogged down the next generation. I think the dope and the excessive freedom is actually detrimental. And so we have a big reaction against it. On the other hand, it did free up people to continue to find and search and find avenues of true spirituality and a way to go. And I think society is still doing that.

[20:26]

And sometimes I wonder, does everybody have to go through this in order to find their way? Society is kind of additive. It's an additive society. We add one thing to the next and we go through various stages. Like human beings go through various stages of evolution, like the fish. And then we go through various stages of evolution in the womb. before we are even born. And if we miss some stage in our societal evolution, I wonder if that's good or bad. Do we all have to smoke pot in order to know what our society is about? Or can we skip that part? It's interesting. Do we have to do that or can we skip? Do we have to be addictive and come out of it in order to have a good understanding?

[21:47]

I don't know. I really don't know. If you have children, you wonder about this. So, do we have to go through numerous love affairs and all that pain before we have some understanding of what love is? Maybe so. Anyway, we all have to go through what we have to go through. And so we should be very sympathetic with each other, not too critical. I think that's very important. I was talking with Raul, who said, well, the priest model is to be moralistic, and the psychiatric model is to not be moralistic, but to set that aside and just look at what's happening.

[23:04]

But I don't think that the priest model is to be moralistic. I think that the priest model has taken on that moralistic tone. But that's not necessary. And I don't see myself as being moralistic. It's important to have the precepts there as a beacon and a guide. But when you're actually dealing with people suffering, you have to see behind the suffering, what the cause of the suffering is, and set the moralistic precepts aside and just look at what's happening. So I totally agree with that. Otherwise, you just push people away. As soon as you say, you should, then people will not be open with you.

[24:10]

So we have to be very careful with each other and realize that we all have problems and if we're open We don't need to have somebody solve our problems for us, but we will know how to work on our own problems. So, this is a little bit about what I had to say. Maybe you have some questions? I've often wondered what your painting was like. Were you an abstract expressionist? I was an abstract expressionist.

[25:18]

Are you still an abstract expressionist? I'm still an abstract expressionist. Well, that's good. That's what? That's good. I'm in favor of that. The covers I did for the poetry books are abstract, but not abstract expressionists. They're very interesting. I was reading an analysis of Zen practice and the author was talking about waking up comes out of doubt. more than faith, that it's good to have faith, but actually the waking up process comes out of doubt. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about waking up, coming out of doubt, and this other side that you saw to show that the other part of the community that was not doubting maybe so much, but more just despair.

[26:31]

Well, I think that this painting, came out of suffering. I don't know about doubt, but I think realization comes out of suffering. I don't know about doubt. I never had doubt. I had a lot of suffering, but I never had any doubt. So I don't, I can't speak to that. So through my whole life, although I had a lot of suffering, I always felt that there was a way. And I was, you know, always knocking on the door to find a way. And sometimes it totally closed. And then sometimes it would open.

[27:32]

and then it would close, and then it would open and close. So you have insight, you know. One insight, and then the clouds come again, and then you have insight again, the clouds. That's my experience. So those people who awaken through doubt will see that you have to have doubt in order to awaken, you know. Faith is not enough. That's just their opinion, because of their experience. My experience is you can awaken through faith because you're already awake. If you have faith, you're already awake. And the stronger your faith, the more awake you can be. Awakenness strengthens faith, and faith brings about awakening. And suffering is the soup which allows that to happen.

[28:38]

seen as something that's balancing, to be seen as something that's rocking somebody, to be seen in self-concern, to be self-absorption, to be non-understanding of what the ego is, and who the person is in order to be centered. Now, his point of view is that if you're really an egotist, You know what your limits are, therefore you don't take from somebody else. You're not greedy because you understand who you are, what your hunger is. And you respect the ego of other people, so therefore you're not vile, you're not interrupting them. It comes to the same point, whether you're egotistical in a certain sense and centered and altruistic.

[30:11]

I mean, the two terms, being egotistically altruistic and being altruistically egotistic, it comes to the same point. Just like Marxism, utopian Marxism and libertarianism comes to the idea what your understanding of the ego is. And another point I wanted to say about this idea of doubt and faith, I look at it as having sort of a hypothetical sympathy. In other words, you want to have faith in something, but you don't want to be too sentimental and carried away So I call it having hypothetical sympathy.

[31:19]

In other words, you're having an open heart and at the same time having a critical acumen. Having some doubt within yourself so you don't need to divide up faith and doubt. Let's leave it there. Faith and doubt balance each other. I agree. I totally agree. But her poetry, I mean, if I go to the exhibit, will I see, will it be obvious? Ruthwise. And was it, was it the beat? Actually, there's a calligraphy, Beginner's Mind, is in the exhibition.

[32:19]

But that's not why he came. He just came. He just came and met the beatniks. He was very open to people. And the beatniks are the ones that came. By that time it was the hippies, beatniks and hippies. The end of the beatniks and the beginning of the hippies. And that formed the core of Zen Center. And the word, I just want to say the word beatnik. People say various things about how it came about, but I know how it came about. There was a woman, a Russian woman, who had a gallery on Lower Fillmore Street.

[33:28]

And I can't remember her name exactly, but something Russian. And her daughter was a painter. And I exhibited in her gallery. And we started talking about the Beats, called the Beats, the Beat Generation, the Beats. And she says, Beatniks. In Russia, we would call them the Beatniks. The optimism came, I think that, I wouldn't say the beatniks were nihilistic, but there was a dark side, and the hippies took out the light side.

[34:36]

They extracted the spiritual side out. I think that's true, yeah. That was the legacy of the beatniks, was They said, well, you carry the ball to the hippies. That's right. When I was much younger, I thought I knew what faith was. I don't have a definition for it now. I don't know that I do. Would you define it? It's undefinable. She wanted to know. She said when she was younger, she thought she knew what faith was. Would I please define faith? I won't define it, but I can talk about it. I think faith is knowing, just the intuitive feeling, knowing that

[35:42]

are faith in light. But faith also means confidence. Confidence in knowing that you're not abandoned by the universe, even though you may be abandoned by your lover. That there's something beyond. Underneath all of this stuff, there's reality. And underneath your individuality, there's reality. I think when I used to make my paintings, one theme that I had in my paintings was black with light, you know, some light within the darkness.

[37:17]

And that was an expression of faith. So I just have always felt that way. So even when things were very tough, very difficult, I never blamed it on the universe, or felt that the universe was cutting out on me. And even when I could never see any, had no way out, I still There's just something inside of us that keeps going. What is this inside of us that keeps moving even through all the adversity? This is why Sashin is so wonderful. You can see it's there. You should recognize it. That through all this adversity, difficulty, there's this strong spirit that will not be dominated by anything.

[38:27]

You can't lose it. You cannot lose it. And you just let that be. Let that be what's leading you. So, when you let that happen, then faith is not a matter of belief. Not a matter of belief. Not believe in something. It's just you recognize reality. Well, I wanted to say something about that and the kind of lineage of movements that succeed one another, composed of people who just, their faith has to be a manifestation of some socially alternative style.

[39:30]

And I think that we can be very grateful for that, and our Zen community is a manifestation And so it's really important to us to have these alternative models. And I've been so moved recently being connected with the Headwaters protests, which is so much an expression of faith. That just because a tree can be sold for $100,000, one's faith is not in that money. And people who've been living 180 feet up these trees and had to come down two or three days ago because the trees were being ramrodded by bulldozers. And there's one, these young, agile tree-livers take names like Air and River.

[40:36]

And there's a young man who was living in a tree whose name was Air. And when he came down from the tree, he was very expert at taking food into the people who lived in trees. And he could find his way in the forest, and he could evade the police, who come in with radar detectors that feel people's heat. And air has spent its air. And so when the police, with their heat detectors, would come to find the the protestors, the tree lovers, air would just sit at the base of a tree and he could sit zazen very still for hours. And he's never detected. So it's a kind of 90s air. Air is hair. Air. And continuing to lift that up in a wonderful way.

[41:44]

I recall as a little child, my father playing jazz, musicians, and I recall Coltrane and them coming to, going to different parties, And they would not eat certain food. And they lived this disciplined life. I believe a lot of them at the time were into Hinduism. And that was the first time I had seen people as a child not succumb to certain food, not use foul language. And I remember being very inspired by these people. And on that day, it turned my life around. And I recall them saying, like in the 40s, they called it, I'm not sure, in the 50s, I think they had a word called bohemians. Oh, bohemians, that's right. That is correct. Yeah. Well, that's right, you know, when someone finds some

[42:55]

clean way and they believe in it, then it's really very influential to everybody. I went through the 60s and I had a lot of really beautiful experiences. It seemed like A lot of people, maybe a little uptight, come into a group, and they just settle right in. It was like, it's a mindset. That's very true. It brought that out. And I think if we could find some way for the media to do that, we would really change things dramatically, because we have trust instead of all this mistrust about people, and it's just radiating throughout people. Oh, that's right.

[43:57]

people were in their little groups, you know, and that era, you know, brought everybody hugging each other, right? There was the being, you know, the loving, and it was like breaking up, you know, all this hard-nosed, you know, restrictive. Gentle people. Yeah. Everywhere you went, you hitchhiked and everything. This baby came 60 years old. Well, to indulge in reminiscing, I had a very different take on it. Because it wasn't California, it was New York.

[45:01]

And there was a lot of optimism. But we were very into the shadow. We were very into what was going on. We were very, very aware of, while everyone was affectionate, cooperative, there was a war going on that we were deeply troubled by our complicity in. And it was a different reality. And I think that these My point here is that I think if you look at any of these movements, the shadow and the light are interpenetrating, and it's just like some cut stone that you can hold up and look at any different facet. You have to be really careful not to make a quick characterization, because both those than is happening now, and I don't feel so in touch with that, and it's happening differently in different communities.

[46:23]

These days I spend quite a lot of time with, for lack of a better term, mainstream Americans. Well, one impression I have is how enormous their And also how... situation is a tremendous amount of

[48:35]

Sure. And I just don't quite know what to do with that.

[50:15]

It's hard for me to smile at that. And I wonder if you have any words to say about how you managed to deal with that. Everyone was born and everyone died. And in between they had a life. Whatever it was. And we have an idea about how it should be. And because of our idea of how it should be, We think some people were successful and other people were failures. But that's just our idea. We're human, which is a great idea.

[51:21]

And we actually have to operate on this idea. But from the point of view, or from the perspective of absolute reality, everything is just the way it is. So, we do our best to make things work in the best way we can for everybody. But that doesn't mean that everything will work the way we want it to. So, you know, We have great sympathy for ourselves and for everyone. And at the same time, we have great acceptance for ourselves and for everyone. At this very moment, there are 10 million people who you cannot affect, whose lives you cannot affect, other than being yourself.

[52:32]

Everything does affect everything else. But you cannot change what's happening with these people, with everyone. So my feeling is that each one of us has our individual challenge in this life. Basically, we have our individual challenge in this life to, as Kadagiri Roshi used to say, let the flower of your life bloom. Let the flower of your life for us bloom. That's the job of each one of us. And you have the power to deal with one person totally, and that's you. And on the other hand, get beyond that and take care of everyone.

[53:39]

But when you take care of yourself, you're taking care of everyone. And when you're taking care of everyone, you're taking care of yourself. So, an apple tree will produce hundreds of apples. But not all of them produce other apple trees. But the life of each apple is its own life. Birth, decay, and death, and blooming. The blooming is wonderful. It happens to everyone differently and the same. So it's up to each one of us to deal with how this is happening with us.

[54:42]

When you're talking, I'm thinking about But in doing that work, just because of the way it is, you don't think of any of those paths as being better or worse. It's just, this is what this person's doing. You just take care of what's in front of you. Yeah. That's right. That's all you can do. Just take care of what's in front of you. And the reality is, in that study, I don't know if that's true for life,

[56:03]

So, small success is to be treasured. But we don't know what success is. We don't know what success is and we don't know many things. We can just deal with what's in front of us the best way we can. Without too much guilt and without loading some impossible task onto ourselves and failing. Suzuki Roshi used to say, if you try to catch the tail of a comet, people will pity you. But if we really can take care of what's in front of us, Moment by moment.

[57:17]

That's it. That's pretty good. Pretty good. Let Buddha take care of the universe.

[57:37]

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