Zen Is Right Here

Anecdote Index

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10 - beans

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A student at Tassajara sat facing Suzuki Roshi on a tatami mat in his room. The student said he couldn't stop snacking in the kitchen and asked what he should do.

Suzuki reached under his table. "Here, have some jelly beans," he said.

p.12. David Chadwick, Tassajara, 1967. 

DC Note: While working on this book, I got an email from a reader of Crooked Cucumber who mentioned that he remembered me from the sixties, that I'd picked him up hitchhiking and told him this story.  He remembered it as something I'd said had happened to me. It could have been me but sounds more like something that would have happened to Bob Halpern. I didn't remember it but it sounds like Suzuki. So I attributed this story to myself but really it came from the hitchhiker or at least through him.