Philip Kapleau

During an introductory workshop at Philip Kapleau’s Rochester Zen Center, one of the attendees stated with confidence, “All religions are one.”

“One what?” Kapleau inquired.

[Philip Kapleau portrait by Molly Macnaughton]

The Third Step East: 199-214; 9, 36, 39, 103, 117, 154-55, 158, 159, 161, 185, 224, 244

The Story of Zen: 6, 21, 92, 225, 244, 254, 292, 296-301, 302, 313, 314-17, 355, 359, 386, 424, 429, 431, 435

Walter Nowick

After serving in the US army during the occupation of Japan, Walter Nowick returned to take up the study of Zen at one of the most severe monasteries in the country, Daitokuji. When, years later, Sean Murphy asked if he had not found the conditions there daunting, Nowick told him: “If you want to play the piano in a certain style . . . you find the person who teaches that style best and do what they say. If you want to do something else, you do something else. But if you want to learn what they have to teach, you follow their directions.”

The Third Step East: 183-97; 9, 73, 84, 217, 229, 230]

The Story of Zen: 239, 247, 290-95, 355, 371

Taizan Maezumi

While reading the Buddha's biography, one of Taizan Maezumi’s female students learned that for a long while the Buddha had resisted allowing women to join the sangha. Finally, pressured by his attendant, Ananda, he conceded and permitted them to do so. “But,” he prophesied, “as a result, the Dharma will last 500 years less on this earth than it would have otherwise.”

The student was shaken by the story and asked Maezumi his opinion. He remained silent for a moment, then remarked, “It was worth it.”

[Taizan Maezumi portrait by Molly Macnaughton]

The Third Step East: 165-82; 9, 119, 161, 220, 231, 232

The Story of Zen: 5, 78, 269-76, 284, 286, 302, 304, 307-08, 309, 320-23, 336, 337, 343-49, 350, 353, 354, 356, 363, 414, 424

Eido Tai Shimano

Tai Shimano told his students that his introduction to Buddhism occurred while he was still a schoolboy in Japan during the war. A teacher copied out the words of the Heart Sutra on the blackboard and taught the students to recite them. It was enough to stir his interest. After the war, Shimano entered Empukuji in Chichibu, where his family had moved to escape the bombing raids on Tokyo. The teacher there was Kengan Goto, from whom Shimano received his Buddhist name, Eido; it was derived from the first syllable of the names of the two monks who brought Rinzai and Soto Zen to Japan— Eisai and Dogen.

The Third Step East: 155-61; 55, 56, 115, 117, 118, 119, 147, 152, 153, 181, 212, 230

The Story of Zen: 5, 6-7, 233, 240, 242-44, 283-84, 286, 299, 301, 306-07, 311-13, 330-35, 338, 350, 367, 371, 397

Soen Nakagawa

Before he began his formal Zen training, Philip Kapleau and a friend paid a visit to Soen Nakagawa at Ryutakuji in Japan. The friend was a professor of history then working in Japan, and he had read about the koan Mu. He wanted Nakagawa’s advice about the best way to approach the koan. “How can I expedite my understanding of Mu?” he asked.

Nakagawa was engaged in preparing tea for his visitors and, without looking up from what he was doing, he asked, “What was it that Jesus said on the cross?”

“Jesus? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“What did he say to God?”

“Do you mean, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” Kapleau suggested.

Nakagawa served the tea and said no more. Kapleau’s friend became irritated and remarked, “We have made considerable effort to come here to see you because we are very serious about learning something about Zen and had hoped that you could give us some direction.”

“What was it that Jesus said on the cross?” Nakagawa asked again.

“‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” the friend repeated impatiently.

“No,” Nakagawa said. “That was not it.”

“Well, then, what do you think he said?”

Nakagawa stretched his arms wide and screamed as if in agony, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!”

The Third Step East: 145-163; 51, 55, 56, 114, 115-16, 117, 118, 119, 181, 204-05, 207

The Story of Zen: 6, 21, 232-33, 240-44, 257, 282-84, 296-97, 306, 311-12, 350, 369

Shunryu Suzuki

 

Most of the early literature about Zen in the west focused on Rinzai Zen, which emphasized the importance of attaining awakening or kensho. Shunryu Suzuki, who established the San Francisco Zen Center, taught Soto Zen, where the emphasis is less on attainment than on practice. When one of the students at SFZC had a profound experience which he believed to be the kensho so assiduously sought by Rinzai students, he came to Suzuki and asked, “How can I maintain this insight?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Suzuki told him. “Just continue with your zazen; it will go away.”

[Shunryu Suzuki portrait by Molly Macnaughton]

The Third Step East: 125-44; 9, 20, 86, 90, 102, 105, 107, 152, 167, 168, 169, 201, 217, 220-22, 224, 225, 226, 229, 233

The Story of Zen: 5, 6, 263-69, 270, 276-77, 279, 280, 286, 299, 306, 313, 317-19, 337, 352-53, 354, 355, 378, 424

Robert Aitken

The first practice given to beginning Zen students is counting the breath. Robert Aitken explained how this exercise fulfilled Yamada Roshi’s statement that Zen “is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.” In focusing on the breath, Aitken wrote, one strives to become one with the breath and the count.

“—if you merely sit with a focus, you tend to close off your potential. You and your object remain two things. Become each point, each number, in the sequence of counting. You and the count and the breath are all of a piece in this moment. Invest yourself in each number. There is only ‘one’ in the whole universe, only ‘two’ in the whole universe, just that single point. Everything else is dark.

“At first, as a beginner, you will be conscious of each step in the procedure, but eventually you will become the procedure itself. The practice will do the practice.”

[Robert Aitken portrait by Molly Macnaughton]

The Third Step East: 109-12; 38, 47, 127, 135, 138, 147, 151, 152, 154, 156, 157,158,161, 163, 169, 181, 185, 222, 241]

The Story of Zen: 231, 243-44, 280-86, 302, 304, 307, 311-12, 330, 344, 350, 424, 427