Naropa 25th Anniversary (1999)

In the room: Kobun Chino Otogawa · Shibata Kanjuro Sensei, with Cynthia interpreting · Fran Lewis · Martin Mosko ("Marty") · a host · members of the audience · the Hakubai podcast announcer.

HOST: Welcome to this wonderful evening in front of us. Usually at this point, John Cobb gives an introduction, because this is really something that he has longed to do as an offering to the founder of Naropa Institute, and to all the members of the community who never — especially those who never had a chance to meet the Vidyadhara. But for all of us who knew the Vidyadhara, it's a wonderful time to hear and see friends, and to feel their hearts as they share stories with us, and wisdom that they have.

Tonight we're very honored to have Kobun Chino Roshi, who has been a part of our community from its inception, I might say. Although he — he knows how to let go of all credentials. And last week he had a dream, and in the dream Shibata Sensei was in the dream with Fran Lewis, and he said, I must have him. And I feel as though it was just the right timing, because Shibata Sensei came to our community in terms of kyūdō, and we've related to him in terms of kyūdō, but there's a lot more to him than just the mastery of the bow.

So tonight these wonderful teachers are going to honor us with their presence. And the other two teachers here, who would not go by the name of teacher, are Martin Mosko¹ — who is, by the way, a wonderful understanding of space and rocks and woods and flowers, gardens, and also of the Zen tradition, but completely united with this community. And the final person, but not the least, is Fran Lewis, who, if anything gets slow, she's always there to perk us up. And I can remember many years ago when Naropa was just beginning, and Fran was integral part of it.

So I'm not giving many specific credentials, because I think they speak for themselves, and I feel very honored to request them to teach, and to talk to us, and to entertain us, and to confuse us, and to awaken us this evening.

KOBUN: Looks like I go first. Good evening, everyone. Shibata-san, say good evening. Thank you for coming to join us. We honor you very much. And thank you, Fran.

FRAN: Thank you.

KOBUN: And Martin, thank you. Thank you. In the midst of busy time, everyone, thank you coming.

Boulder. It's very wonderful to return. Especially in the middle of summer, and also cold winter. First visit of mine to Boulder was first year of summer program of Naropa Institute. Of course, invitation came from Vidyadhara, and I was very happy to be here. Stayed here a whole month and sat with you in the morning sitting. Right now it is a building of that Alpha Natural Food Store. That was a first sitting place of Naropa Institute.

Martin, and friend Granny Fran, has been my good assistant and friend for so many years. Since twenty-five years celebration of Naropa Institute — that was later's coming back to me to participate in this meeting. I'm very happy to be here with all of you, especially could join you with my new family and my daughter and many friends known for many, many years.

To begin with, the origin of — you say — the Dharma relationship. The monastery of Scotland to United States, with pregnant Lady Diana, and we had the small snack, sushi lunch together, and then went to Haiku Zendo, small meditation hall in the garage of the student. We prostrated in front of the Buddha statue, and came out from zendo, and walking back to the house where my family lived, we were talking how to — what are we going to do. And we promised to be a Dharma brother in this life, from that moment. That promise have kept me keeping visiting you here almost every year since nineteen seventy-four, I believe.

So here we are. After first year of Naropa program at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, I believe Rinpoche of the [unclear] called sake after sesshin. It was a one guru afternoon. He was asking me about Japanese art, especially Zen art, he said. And is there any teacher who could come and teach him, Vajradhatu and Naropa. So my immediate answer to him was, I have one — best one of all — several years of preparation, and Shibata Sensei was invited to join us.

SHIBATA: [Japanese — not reliably transcribed; no translation was given]²

KOBUN: Since son Nobu Hiroshama and his wife at the honeymoon trip to this country, and Bob Harprin, Dick Savroka³ was assistant to them to come to this country.

KOBUN: Oh, that's wonderful. Oh, that's wonderful. I was going to translate the sensei, but [unclear] is going to do it. That's great.

HOST: Next time should do it. This time we do it. Okay. Okay.

FRAN: Inside heart.

KOBUN: Inside heart — yes, heart. So since I was invited here to match his wish, the wish of the secret heart of the warrior of the medieval Japan, like Takeda Shingen and Nobunaga. So please go ahead.

Sorry. Sensei — Rinpoche wanted to introduce tea, and kyūdō, way of tea and way of [unclear]. Rinpoche wanted to introduce to Naropa mind practice. Mind practice.

Here we are, the very important person to introduce the connection and brotherhood with Vidyadhara has been this lady here, our Granny. You could start with first meeting with Vidyadhara, quick introduction how he arrived here. Please.

FRAN: Well, I used to be Auntie Franny before I was Granny Franny. And I met the Vidyadhara in Scotland at his center there. And I lived there for a year and was very magnetized by him. And while I was there, he was in an accident in northern England and was going to come to America for medical treatment, and I was to come along with him, and somewhere in there we — I'm not sure how — decided to start a center in America.

And I met with some of my Dharma sisters in New York, and we went up to — well, we went all over New England looking for a suitable place. One of the Dharma sisters was going to finance a farm for us. And we found the place in Vermont called — which we got out of the I Ching, we threw the I Ching and came up with Tail of the Tiger.⁴ And the Vidyadhara hadn't come yet, but once we got established, and he meanwhile got married in Scotland to Lady Diana, and somehow came over, came through Canada, and arrived in Vermont the beginning of May 1970. How do you like it so far?

KOBUN: Yeah, sounds good. And if among you, if you want to hear out of this history of the meeting, please.

FRAN: You had your first meeting with him.

KOBUN: Yes.

FRAN: And there is a photograph here that I gave you, that from that first meeting.

KOBUN: That was Rinpoche's came to explain his monastery inspiration. We met the Palo Alto and then went to Sonia Orgli's house in Sunny Bear⁵ after this. We were — so, you look at that. That's what I was thinking.

FRAN: I think you told me that that first time you were at Sonia's, that you did a calligraphy with him. You did one side and he did the other.

KOBUN: The character we did the together in one long seat. She was — liberation, self liberation. And I did the in Chinese style here. He did it decidedly in Tibetan language. That was the first entertainment with visit. It was good. Whenever I meet with him was always between us, and arranged to meet with us nicely.

FRAN: I — I don't think I was there that first year, though. I met you the second time in Palo Alto, I remember.

KOBUN: Yes, the David was with him at that time.

FRAN: David the mushroom — David Mushroom, David.

KOBUN: I hope I knew it.

FRAN: No, David Rome wasn't with him then. No, John Baker was with him. John Baker, and probably Marvin Casper.

KOBUN: Marvin was there, yeah. Because it's mighty subject he spoke to people.

FRAN: Yeah. And then the next year I came along with — yes, John and Marvin, and Duncan Campbell was around.

KOBUN: Yes.

FRAN: And many visits to Karmapa. Karmapa did the black hat ceremony, black crown ceremony, in San Francisco, and you sat on the stage also with himself and the monks.

KOBUN: Yeah.

FRAN: I think there were three thousand people there.

SHIBATA: [Japanese — not reliably transcribed]⁶

KOBUN: I cannot understand his Japanese.

SHIBATA: Sake also.

FRAN: We understand sake.

CYNTHIA: So when Sensei saw his Rinpoche's students serving him a lot of sake, Sensei thought by himself, well, it's not such a good thing — because the life, and he wanted him to live long, have a long life.

SHIBATA: [Japanese — not reliably transcribed; his translator's rendering follows]

KOBUN: Okay. Are you ready?

CYNTHIA: So the first story was about when Sensei came to RMDC, Rocky Mountain Dharma Center. His Western students were sitting in the tent, and very quietly, and it was supposed to begin around six or seven. But it became eight and nine, and he was wondering why nobody becomes angry. He would become angry, as you know, that from coming from Japan.

And that reminded him of the story of the Mikado opera that was performed. It was supposed to begin at 5 p.m. So the hall was packed and everybody was waiting and maybe drinking, and then it became seven and eight, and still Rinpoche didn't come, and nine and ten, and the students didn't say anything, they were just sitting in great Sun, Sun. And then eleven o'clock finally Rinpoche came, and the students were just happy.

And then — since he doesn't remember the story, but the opera, the actual plot — but then it ended at some point, and afterwards was a party till sunset — sunrise, sorry — so the eastern sun rose. And he was very surprised about the good communication between Rinpoche and his students, because in Japan they would just wait, become angry, and want their money back for the leave.

SHIBATA: [Japanese — not reliably transcribed; his translator's rendering follows]

CYNTHIA: So, talked about Naropa Institute, that the idea is not to study — an intellectual study — it's a study of the heart, in inner studies. It's an inner study. It's not only form, like to become a good archer, a shooter, shoot in a nice way. Rinpoche's idea — he talked a lot about dignity, and that's what kyūdō aims at, to become, to express dignity. The dignity.

And he talked a lot about Great Eastern Sun, and he wished he would have lived longer and made Naropa during his lifetime, made Naropa bigger, or more. And so he gets that Rinpoche's life was so short. But as it turns out nowadays, Naropa has a lot of international contacts and lots of activities, and it's just the way it is now.

KOBUN: Thank you, Cynthia. Mata onegai shimasu. Marty, would you like to say something?

MARTY: Well, I should make it clear the reason I'm here was that Michelle called and said that she invited Fran Lewis to be on the panel, but Fran declined. So she suggested, why don't you call Martin instead? So as a roll do it, a friend does it, because I knew she wouldn't be here unless I came. So that's the only reason I'm here altogether.

But I was at one time part of a discussion of — when Vidyadhara asked for the introduction of ōryōki, and Kobun Roshi at that time was quite concerned about its proper introduction, and the meaning of ōryōki, and how this could be transmitted to the Vajradhatu community. I wondered if you would like to say something about that. Or tell the story of the introduction of ōryōki, let's put it there.

KOBUN: I forgot when it started, but first Vidyadhara told me he wants to have a ōryōki practice for the Vajradhatu, Rocky Mountain, and for the main useful seminary occasion. And Bob Harprin was the one who came back and forth to send his message and my opinion, and how to do it, how to do, whether I could be a good person to introduce, or somebody else. It took probably three months to settle down that I will take care of that. And finally Harprin went to Taniguji in Koromoyasan in Kyoto⁷ and arranged first batch of ōryōki.

It has been good. I'm very pleased how it is used, received, and put into practice. Ōryōki is Buddha's mirror bore, which has been handed down to each of us today as a far generation of the Buddha himself. The daily use of providing your necessity — designed, the bore itself is designed as the mound of wisdom. But the target as second Nikkei, the puffy mound of his head, designed. And you turn it over, and we come ōryōki. Okay, thank you.

FRAN: What does the word ōryōki mean, actually? Is it Buddha mount?

KOBUN: Yes. Ōryōki means another name to the Hori Arhat, Saint and Sages, Yogins, Shaman — those who are deserve to be served. Mirror materials, clothing. Ōryōki means one who respond to people with wisdom, and being supported by people.

FRAN: Thank you. Ōryōki.

KOBUN: Time is kind of short. I want to have a little open space here, and if you would like to speak about Vidyadhara — many of you have lived very closely to him, many of you have never met with him. So if you could help some part of filling some story somehow. Every time when I meet with him afterwards, you know, my heart is feeling good. Probably you have experienced the same thing. Maxan, could you speak something? You have thought him, being with him such a long time. Thank you.

SPEAKER: Oh, this is an unexpected request. I really don't know quite what to say, other than — what is there to say. One thing I can say is that the Vidyadhara's friendship with Shibata Sensei, and Vidyadhara's friendship with Kobun, and my own relationship with Kobun, made me leave Boulder and go to Japan and stay there for ten years. And I'm still not quite sure why I went, but Rinpoche always used to haunt me and say, You never went to Japan, did you? When I went there. He said, I went there, but you never went, did you? I said, no, I didn't. I'm too busy. He just gave me that kind of a look. So one day I decided, let's go. And we came back last year. And I was quite happy to go.

And somehow we've always had a heart connection, this community, with whatever is good in Japan — we wanted to bring back. And Rinpoche's always wanted to bring whatever's good from Japan here. Great Eastern Sun, the best of Ise Jingu, Amaterasu tradition, food tradition. He's always tried to bring it back. He always confused us that way.

We used to have this big midsummer festival out in the heat in the summer, and he would bring these Japanese dancers or musicians from Osaka, and they would dance, and we would be sitting there so bored, just frying, and sort of saying, why? Why does he love this Japanese tradition? And why can't we just be who we are — Western, you know, it's cool. But he brought this really stiff Japanese tradition that we just couldn't relate to. The dancing, bugaku, gagaku, Ise, Jingu, Shinto — what is this? So he always seemed to bend our minds with the Japanese tradition. We didn't quite — it didn't quite fit. It fits now, but it didn't fit then. It didn't fit. It really was a hard adjustment for the old students. We were more just like to be hip and cool, and this Japanese thing was really weird. And now it works. It works.

And Rinpoche even told us when he was young, when he was at Oxford, he used to get little zōri, those little Japanese shoes, and go into little Japanese shops, and his Tibetan friends would say, What do you want to do that for? You know, you're a Tibetan. What do you want to do Japanese stuff for? He always, always felt that.

So when I first met him, I was asked by Sam Burkos⁸ to take care of his food tradition, because he didn't seem to eat very well at Sam's house. If you open up Sam's refrigerator — Sam is big, and his wife is thin — and if you open up Sam's refrigerator, it's a piece of Jewish rye bread. It somehow doesn't fit someone like Trungpa Rinpoche. This is what he should eat. So I was asked to take over his food diet. Mostly what I did is cook Chinese food for him, and we would hang out at sushi bars in San Francisco, which was actually quite nice. But Trungpa Rinpoche was very confusing. Sometimes he would go to Palo Alto and say, let's go eat Kentucky fried chicken, and we'd eat it in my car. And I said, ugh.

Other than that — he's always had a heart connection with Japanese traditions. He's always been almost psychic about it, without ever having been there. He's been drawn there, I think, ever since he was in England, or even before. As much as he's been drawn to the West, he's also been drawn to Japan and all its traditions, and wanted it to come here. Is all I can say.

KOBUN: Thank you very much. Great. The next — you have an innumerable story. One of them, please.

FRAN: Oh, I hardly know. Was so tricky.

MARTY: Yeah, but it's when he did interviews and you were the secretary in the other room. And there were buttons that he pushed for you.

FRAN: No. Well, I remember once, when that was a Tail of the Tiger. He was giving interviews, and there was someone in there, I think, that was very shy, not forthcoming, and Rinpoche called me in and said, Tickle him. And so I tickled him until he just collapsed with giggling, and was finally unself-conscious, you know, about the communication, and then I left. That was part of my job, I guess. One of the better parts. It wasn't so good when he asked anybody to tickle me. It wasn't always a tickle. You know.

SHIBATA: [Japanese — not reliably transcribed]⁹

SHIBATA: [Japanese — not reliably transcribed; his translator's rendering follows]

KOBUN: So inspiration of the creating the new world, received from those warrior spirit of it. Is that right? Looks right.

FRAN: And then there was a time when we were driving up to the front of Tail of the Tiger, and there were many people sitting on the porch. It was during a seminar. And many people were crowded onto the porch, and as we drove up, Rinpoche looked at them and he said, Look, they're all made out of people. For some reason I've always remembered — whatever that is.

KOBUN: Can you tell me the recent story? Then Taggie in Vermont.

FRAN: Oh, Taggie is — Taggie, which is who is Rinpoche's second son, Lady Diana's first son, and Kobun was very fond of him, is very fond of him, and considers himself his uncle. Yeah.

KOBUN: Since Rinpoche and I'm Dharma brother, I got many cousins, and thought of whole family of him is my guardian. Anybody come from Vermont? No. Maybe we should recall how he's doing.

FRAN: Yeah, come on, people. You're a storyteller. Yes.

SPEAKER: No, I just thought maybe you would want to know that Taggie's doing really well. And he's living at what used to be the Vidyadhara's house at Karmê Chöling. And he's been being taken care of by the same couple for — oh, very long time now. And he's really great source of joy and love for the whole community at Karmê Chöling. And I saw him the last time — well, whenever the last time I was at Karmê Chöling, which I think was maybe a year ago, a year and a half ago. Something like that. So he's doing really well.

KOBUN: Good. Thank you. I don't know how many years since he returned — more than ten years now — from Rumtek. I went to see him. I took a long journey to Sikkim and met with him ten years — a few years after Karmapa passed away. I thought I should go bring him back, and I went to meet with him, walk the beautiful hillside with him. Good he it back among us. Yeah.

You could feel free to speak up about the experience of Naropa those years, or meeting with spirit of Naropa. Barbara, could you say something?

SPEAKER: When you were talking about the three disciplines from Japan — kyūdō and tea and flower arranging — and his interest in Japanese experiences starting when he was England. I remembered the first time I'd come across the book of Stella Coe's Ikebana Flower Arranging,¹⁰ and she was his ikebana teacher in England, I believe. So it always amazed me that he had begun the study of this art form when he came to England, and I believe she was English, but she was a teacher of the ikebana style, and then he went on to develop these outrageous — I'm not even sure you can still say they're ikebana, but they were Tibetan ikebana.

And there were two extraordinary installations that he did that I was very privileged to be involved with. One was in San Francisco and one was in Los Angeles. And in particular, these were rooms. And in each room of this house — it was a human dwelling — there would be a flower arrangement. And in particular, there was a teno room,¹¹ which is the place where the master of the household would meet with guests and dignitaries.

And the very first installation that he created, they built a special tray. I don't know the Japanese word for these flat black trays that often you will see arrangements in. That must have been almost as big as this platform. And they built those kenzan — are they called? The things with the spikes that hold the — they built very special ones that were huge, like this.

And he went out in — this was in, I believe, Los Angeles — he went out in the hills, and they cut down a small tree, beautifully shaped pine of some kind, with branches that, you know, maybe filled up a third of the tray in the teno room. And it had to be hammered into these spikes — this little, well, it was pretty big tree, I mean, about maybe as high as the stage.

And then when he started to put in — the basic tradition, the simplest way that I understood the flower arranging technique, was that there was the heaven principle and the earth principle and the man principle. And that was very integrated into the way he was teaching Dharma art, and was very fundamental to the instructions around the Shambhala tradition as well.

And watching him put this together, you wondered what he would put into this arrangement, and to make the flowers, which were called the man principle — I believe, please tell me if I'm doing this wrong, I don't want people to get the wrong idea — but it turned out to be a hundred beautiful purple irises were put in the kenzan, in this space, and this extraordinary little garden, human-sized garden. So it was really a remarkable demonstration of how to translate. And I always felt that he was such a powerful translator, and that he was always demonstrating how to bring the essence of power and goodness from cultures that he loved, and translating them into the Western world.

KOBUN: Awesome, another kidish member. I remember Sensei did the Shihobarayho, that the program. It was one is in San Francisco, the big building of the near the bay. Dharma, Dharma to the Dominican.

FRAN: Sensei did Shiho Baray,¹² visited them at that time.

SHIBATA: [Japanese — not reliably transcribed; his translator's rendering follows]

KOBUN: To meet, it's a beginning of to say goodbye, he said. Is that right?

CYNTHIA: Yeah. When you meet somebody for the first time, the end of the relationship begins. It's difficult to be together for a long, long time, for a long life together. It's a meeting point, when two things come together.

FRAN: It's the beginning of the separation, goodbye. Were you there when Rinpoche met Suzuki Roshi?

KOBUN: I haven't met with them together — separate times. I know there are many stories between Suzuki Roshi and Rinpoche.

FRAN: I remember hearing that when people were talking about Rinpoche drinking a lot, and his general behavior, and they asked Suzuki Roshi, who he was friends with, how to deal with that, what about that — and I think he told them that he was true blue. True blue. Do you know what that is? Oh, you can't get truer than blue. True blue. True blue. Yeah, that he was true through and true.

KOBUN: That I understand it. He really loved Suzuki Roshi. Suzuki Roshi was such a person to me — Suzuki Roshi is like my uncle. For Rinpoche, Suzuki Roshi was his uncle. I put him under the wing.

KOBUN: Looks like we close our meeting. So many memories come up, but next time we'll talk about all of them sometime. Thank you.

Notes

1. 1 The transcript gives "Martin Mosco". Martin Mosko is a Zen teacher and landscape designer in Boulder; the host's description — "space and rocks and woods and flowers, gardens, and also of the Zen tradition" — matches him, and Kobun addresses him as "Marty" later in the evening.
2. 2 Roughly two and a half minutes. Kobun offers to translate it immediately afterwards but the host moves the evening on, so no rendering of this passage exists on the recording. It is the only one of Shibata Sensei's turns that was never translated.
3. 3 Two Vajradhatu students. The recording gives "Bob Harprin" and "Bob Herpen" for the first, "Nick Sabroka" and "Dick Savroka" for the second; neither spelling is verified here.
4. 4 Tail of the Tiger, founded 1970 in Barnet, Vermont, was renamed Karmê Chöling — the place named later in this same conversation. Every engine heard "Tale"; the I Ching hexagram Fran describes is Treading (on the tail of the tiger).
5. 5 Possibly Sunnyvale. Not confident enough to correct.
6. 6 Kobun's reply — "I cannot understand his Japanese" — is the response to this passage. Word-level diarisation had placed it inside Fran Lewis's turn; it is Shibata Sensei's.
7. 7 A Kyoto supplier of ōryōki sets. Neither the shop name nor the district is verified.
8. 8 Probably Samuel Bercholz, founder of Shambhala Publications, who lived in the Bay Area in this period. Left as heard.
9. 9 Also mis-assigned to Fran Lewis by the diarisation. Restored to Shibata Sensei here.
10. 10 Stella Coe, Ikebana: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Japanese Flower Arrangement.
11. 11 The speaker's word. Probably the room containing the tokonoma, the alcove where a scroll and arrangement are displayed.
12. 12 A ceremony; the name is not recovered. Both Kobun and Fran say it, differently.