Andrew's response to this post on Facebook by Two Arrows Zen. And more about Two Arrows Zen, deciding when to die, and the recent fire at Tassajara.
By chance Facebook alerted me this morning to your post about Robert Aitken and R.H. Blyth, whence I found my way to others about Aitken and Nyogen Zenzaki. Thank you for this fine memorial to Robert Aitken, who was my "Dharma Uncle", and responsible for my first hearing the word "Zen".
In 1955, age 12, I went for the first of three middle-school years to the Happy Valley School in Ojai, California. Founded in the 1940s by J. Krishnamurti, Aldous Huxley and several friends, it was quite an unusual institution for its (or any) time.
The school was run by a family of Theosophists; there were about 75 students and 15 teachers, whom we addressed by their first names (e.g. "Bob" Aitken). Every morning all would gather in the big room (where plays and folk dancing were frequent events) and sit quietly on the benches for a while – might have been 10 whole minutes, perhaps more, a considerable time for a restless teenager. At the end of what I realized years later was my introduction to meditation, someone would read a passage from some world scripture – usually from what I later learned was the Pali Canon.
Mostly preoccupied with my adolescent concerns, I'm afraid I didn't get as much value from those years as I might have, but two things made impressions I do remember: the morning reader (the son of the Theosophical family) would always pronounce the word "Buddha" correctly, with the double-"d" and following aspiration. I've always had an ear for languages, and that caught my attention.
And the other memory is that one day I overheard a conversation in which someone remarked that Bob Aitken was "into *Zen*" – with an emphasis on the word that caught my attention, though I had no idea what it meant. That was, of course, when he was practicing occasionally with Nyogen Senzaki in Los Angeles, about 80 miles to the southeast.
Very few Americans had heard of either the Buddha or Zen in 1955; I've always considered this experience an interesting evidence of the concept of rebirth, and "auspicious influences from previous lives". I left HVS in 1958, returning to high school in my nearby home town Santa Barbara. The same year Robert and his new wife Anne Hopkins (who had been headmistress of the school) left and went to Hawaii, his childhood home, where they founded the first Diamond Sangha the next year.
Some 14 years later, after a decade of youthful folly, I washed up like driftwood at the door of the San Francisco Zen Center in 1972, beginning 11 years of practice there. Sometime in 1973 I believe it was that I stood up from my zafu after one afternoon zazen period, turned around, and saw Robert and Anne on the other side of the zendo. We had a fine reunion. Thereafter I saw them occasionally when they visited the Zen Center; they always treated me like a son. (Robert signed a copy of "Taking the Path of Zen" for me in 1982: "Aloha from your lifetime friend, Bob Aitken".)
I took lay ordination at the Zen Center in 1982, in the Sōtō lineage of Eihei Dōgen, then left in 1983, and the following year relocated to Santa Fe, N.M. In 1992 I heard that the Aitkens were staying for a month in Amarillo, Texas (where Aitken's student Pat Hawk was then headquartered), so I drove down to see them, and had another wonderful reunion with my Dharma uncle and aunt – another uncannily timely occasion, as Anne (born 1911) departed this world the next year.
In 2008 I had some correspondence with Robert, wherein he reminded me that he too had come to HVS in 1955, and I was the first student he met; he said I told him all about Mad Magazine.
As I said, I left the SF Zen Center in 1983, along with many others, due to a crisis there you may have heard about, which was rather traumatic for me, as I've come to realize in later years. I wandered in the wilderness for some time, though found some refuge in the two Santa Fe Zen Centers, one of which was founded by Kapleau Roshi in the late 80s (saw him once there), and has gone through several reincarnations as a Sanbo Kyodan center, including some time under the direction of Father Patrick Hawk, headquartered in Tucson, one of Aitken's disciples.
Eventually I was drawn to learn about the Theravada tradition through the excellent Access to Insight website, which introduced me to the work of American Theravadin teacher Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Geoffrey DeGraff), which I've been following for about 20 years now, in my idiosyncratic way, somewhat limited by long-term chronic illness difficulties. Truly the Buddha's Dhamma is good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end!
But I think it's fair to say that, though I never actually practiced with him, it was Robert Aitken, my Dharma Uncle, who started me on the Buddha's Path. I talk to him now and then, as I do to my parents, and wish him an auspicious journey toward the Goal of Release, and Freedom.
𑀲𑀩𑁆𑀩𑁂 𑀲𑀢𑁆𑀢𑀸 𑀪𑀯𑀦𑁆𑀢𑀼 𑀲𑀼𑀔𑀺𑀢𑀢𑁆𑀢𑀸
Sabbe sattā bhavantu sukhitattā
May all beings be happy
I recently came across this little article about Trudy Dixon, who was instrumental in the creation of Suzuki's book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BXanmvVDM.
At their Profile page: https://www.facebook.com/twoarrowszen, I found a whole series of short articles about the history of Zen and Buddhism in America, which I've found good reading. Featuring Hermann Hesse, Thoreau, D.T. Suzuki, ZhaoZhou Congshen (great picture), HH Dalai Lama, Thomas Cleary (I once took a class with him at Zen Center), Suzuki Roshi, Robert Thurman (RIP), Nyogen Senzaki, Sōen Nakagawa Roshi, Allen Ginsburg, Gary Snyder, Ram Dass, Chögyam Trungpa, Joanne Kyger, Jack Kerouac… David Chadwick, et al. Good reads.
I often remember something Reb Anderson said, when someone died at Zen Center: "We all decide when to die, and then pick an excuse." I sure wish David hadn't decided to die, but seems he did. I'm collecting quite a list now of folks like that. I hope he is well, wherever he is, and making progress on the Path.
And: a post about the fire at Tassajara that destroyed the Zendo there, with a link to ZC's Donation page, which led to ZC's blog about the fire, where I learned that it looks like the fire was deliberately set, i.e. arson, for which someone in Napa has been arrested. Who may be involved in other fires at Zen centers? Wonder what was her beef? Yikes! Also mentioned is the fire in 1978, when the first Tassajara zendo was destroyed. I was at Tassajara for two training periods, 1977-78, then living at Jamesburg with friend Issan Dorsey that summer of the big forest fire. Like being in a war.