Richard Baker

Richard Baker was Shunryu Suzuki’s only direct American heir. He guided the San Francisco Zen Center through an expansion that was extraordinary. But then a combination of factors resulted in his dismissal from the center by the board of directors. Jan Chozen Bays remembers that after he left San Francisco, he stopped in Los Angeles.

“Right before everything fell apart, Baker Roshi came to ZCLA. And Maezumi Roshi and Genpo and Tetsugen and all the guys happened to be gone, and it was just us girls running the Zen Center. And I remember sitting down with him, with a couple of other women, and we had this very down to earth conversation in which he said the most interesting thing. Talking about the empire he had built and that we had built, he said something like, ‘You know, everything is impermanent, and it may all come crashing down one day.’ Well, in retrospect, he had left the San Francisco Zen Center and everything was coming crashing down. We didn’t know that, but he said it with such poignancy and emotional depth that I realized, ‘Something’s wrong here. He’s not happy.’”

Cypress Trees in the Garden: 16, 25-27, 31, 32, 33, 35, 59, 149, 242, 276, 277, 279, 410

The Story of Zen: 266-69, 271, 277, 301, 306-07, 309, 312-20, 345, 346, 351-53

Dainin Katagiri

Jack Kornfield tells this story: “Zen teacher Dainin Katagiri Roshi . . . lived with his family in Minneapolis at the center of a large Zen community. When he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, many students came to help, but they also were frightened and confused at the thought that their teacher was subject to ordinary human frailty. One day he called the students to his bedside. ‘I see you are watching me closely. You want to see how a Zen master dies. I’ll show you.’ He kicked his legs and flailed his arms with alarm, crying out, ‘I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die!’ Then he stopped and looked up at them. ‘I don’t know how I will die. Maybe I will die in fear or in pain. Remember, there is no right way.’”

[Dainin Katagiri portrait by Molly Macnaughton]

 The Third Step East: 215-30; 136, 212

The Story of Zen: 275-80, 319, 352, 413, 414