Norman Randolf in Minneapolis
over the phone with DC
9\16\95

The first time I saw Suzuki Roshi he was standing at the top of the stairs at the Bush Street zendo in 1969 and I'd never seen anybody who stood there in the way that he did. It was very impressive - there seemed to be a very powerful stillness that I'd never seen with anybody else before. I don't believe it my own projections that made me so impressed by him. I think the reason he was so impressive just standing there is that most people don't just stand there - when they stand they have so much busy mental activity that you don't get the feeling of powerful peacefulness that he had. I was very much impressed with that.

One thing I noticed about him that I really admired is that he seemed to do things 100% when he'd work in his rock garden or do the oryoki you'd sense him 100% in the activity - it was a very beautiful thing to see. I can't describe it beyond saying he was 100% there in a way that was completely appropriate to the situation.

I was so impressed by how he ate with oryoki. As you may remember I had somewhat of an eating problem in the zendo and elsewhere I might add like the time that I drank that five pound jar of honey in our room. Anyway, I had kind of a reputation for gluttony. And sometimes I'd modify the oryoki rules to fit around that desire - I developed my own style of oryoki to maximize the intake. I made attempts to follow the path of wakefulness and mindfulness but at mealtime I would abandonee that practice in order to indulge this gluttony which came from very deep in my psychic and karmic history.

One day when Peter Schneider was head monk, Tatsugami Roshi had seen me get thirds in the zendo a few times. There would be four servers for the four rows of the zendo and if the server on the other side got delayed I'd finish up my seconds real quick and put my hands in gasho and the server would think the one on my row had run out of food and I'd have an earnest expression on my face and I'd get thirds. Tatsugami sent Peter to admonish me in a very kind way but he also told a story about himself when he was at Eiheiji and how he'd really liked rice balls and how he'd load up on them till there was no room for more in the bowl and then he'd signal the server one more and then he'd take his chopstick and stab it before it would roll on the floor. It was a nice way of encouraging me to do a little better.

In the summer of 71 Suzuki Roshi was down there and giving lectures every night and one time I looked up at him during breakfast and he was doing oryoki and it looked like he was doing it for the first time - 100% there. The same way with working with him in his rock garden. Niels and I would work with him. He asked me to come help Niels, his jisha, to lift rocks because I was so big and strong and it was really wonderful working with him. I don't know why it would be so beautiful to see the way he would act. He'd be 100% percent into what he was doing and it seemed like exactly the right thing for the right time - you can't describe it, you have to see it. And it was very beautiful - his warm personality. Once Niels and I were horsing around trying to decide who was the strongest and I was saying Niels was the strongest and he was trying to say I was the strongest and Suzuki Roshi cracked up at that - he thought it was so ridiculous. He had a beautiful sense of humor - he'd see humor in all sorts of places.

I was sitting at Page Street in a sesshin, my knee was bad and I was using a chair and my chair was on the edge of the platform which was only about six inches at the time and he came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around and he pointed at the leg on the edge. He had a kind of twinkle in his eye and was kind of amused by it all.

You had a feeling that he saw you completely. Anything that you were trying to hide he saw - he saw you as you were but you also had a feeling that he totally accepted you and that he cared about you very much and that he didn't have an agenda for you. He wasn't trying to run something past you. He cared about you and saw you very clearly and sincerely wished the best for you whatever that was. I remember I went to see him one time and said I'd like to be ordained as a monk and the first thing he said right away was, "Layman or monk, there's no difference."

There was something very wonderful about him but it's hard to describe because you had to feel the vibrations of his situation and the situation that you're in with him so that you can feel the humor and the joy and his way of life.