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We worked hard together, my teacher and myself, to build that old run down temple into a fully equipped monastery. He committed so much energy and time to frame the practice structures and the local people supported him. He started lay practice sessions on Sundays, robe sewing groups and all those things so once again I had a big decision to make and once again I said yes! And that time I just gave up any ideas of establishing a practice community in the United States. The only time I returned to the United States was to see how the monks were doing - each year I would go back to the States to visit San Francisco, Minneapolis because Kitagiri Roshi's students kept coming, and Nebraska Zen Center where Nonin was. Aftercare service! That was actually my idea because they needed to keep the connection to the practice forms that they had received. Cultural differences are so great and if the practice forms are adapted to other cultures too quickly, without being properly digested then those adaptations won't work and practice doesn't shift in appropriate ways.

I was at Shogoji seven and half years - from that original six months! In the sixth year a change occurred. At the head temple, Eiheiji, the Abbot, Niwa Zenji, passed away and the advisory committee (of which my teacher was a member) nominated my teacher as vice-Abbot. The previous vice-Abbot, Miyazaki Zenji, automatically became Abbot. Instead of going to the meeting at Eiheiji, my teacher made his usual monthly visit to Shogoji and in his absence the committee unanimously decided that he, Ikko Narasaki Roshi, should become the next vice-Abbot of Eiheiji.

He didn't want to do this - he was really enjoying Shogoji, he could be relaxed there. Even at his own training monastery, Zuioji he had to be very stiff and formal but at Shogoji he was totally different, he enjoyed practicing calligraphy, greeting the visitors, the lay practitioners, laughing and working in a personal kind of way. I think that something he had wanted to do for a long time was beginning to happen at Shogoji and he was enjoying it.

The news from Eiheiji went to Zuioji first and they received it while he was travelling to Shogoji so I then received the call that a messenger from the Eiheiji advisory committee was at my master's monastery and was formally asking for him to accept the vice-Abbotship of Eiheiji. That was the message I had to give him. I picked him up from the station, drove him back to the monastery and as soon as we sat down together, I said that I had had a call from his other monastery and that the Eiheiji advisory committee had unanimously nominated him to be vice-Abbot He said "Komatta!!!" Which I suppose you could translate as "Oh my God!" I had never heard him say this before, three times he said this and he become so quiet and small. I understood what he was feeling very well and I asked, "What do you want to do Roshi?" "Ummph" he answered "Ummph."

We both knew that he couldn't say no, it's part of the training, the discipline in a way. Monastic practice was the most important thing to him, it was really where his heart was and he wanted to help in any way that he could, so he dropped his personal dreams and accepted the vice-Abbotship of Eiheiji. He went against all his own kind of desires, wishes and intentions. The current, the wind of Dharma, you might say, shifted and turned his boat completely around.

Since I was also in his boat, when his boat shifted I had to shift too! [laughter] We were in relationship. So we can plan our journey but the journey sometimes overtakes us and it doesn't necessarily take into account personal preferences! It's only at the end that we discover what our journey is all about.

After my master went to Eiheiji he worked so hard, because the Abbot was very old, 96 years old, so a lot of responsibilities and duties fell on my master. Being Abbot of Eiheiji is an enormous amount of work- there are almost 15,000 local temples under the Japanese Soto Zen School's jurisdiction. So every month there were many functions that the Abbot (in this case the vice-Abbot) had to travel to and stay sometimes for up to a week, performing ceremonies, meeting people and so on.

This was very tiring work and after doing this for one year my teacher's health deteriorated and he developed leukemia. He passed away in 1996, on July 20th 1996 when I was at Eiheiji. (Actually, I, along with some of his other disciples, were with him at the time of his death).

At that time I knew he was dying and I felt kind of thrown off the boat! What could I do? - That's not the way I wanted to go! That was a crucial period to really meet with my teacher, to really understand his wishes for me. What did he want me to do? That was hard. I had to tell him that he was dying, others didn't have the courage to actually tell him - the doctors were trying hard and trying to be kind but nobody had actually told him that he was dying. My teacher didn't give up he was there until the last moment, he couldn't believe that he was dying he tried so hard to keep going. He was in the hospital for almost one year.

So I asked " After Eiheiji (because I was at Eiheiji) what do you want me to do?" He was very sensitive he knew what I was saying. I continued, "I've thought about it for a long time and these are the things I would like to do. I have to begin from scratch because all my connections are now broken". And that was such a hard thing for me to say. When I said "after Eiheiji" it was saying to him in an indirect way, you are dying and that was so hard. I saw a muscle twitch in his face almost like "How could you say such a thing? But he just took it in. And I slept right beside his bed in the hospital and talked to him like that.

He said, "My hope is that you don't leave the practice place. After Eiheiji, I hope to see you in a place where there is a practice structure, a zendo, and community practice is going on and I think that your idea is wonderful." My idea was to share zazen practice with as many people as possible and to try to develop something from that. My master said, "Practically it's very difficult to do this if you are out of the supportive monastic structure but it would be good if you could find some place."

It was very fortunate that at that time I had a friend, Togari Hojo, a disciple of the late Niwa Zenji, who could offer a practice place and a role as Tanto, a practice director. He had a beautiful sodo, a zendo, and although he didn't have a community he was still tied with the practice structure, the forms, and his zendo was noted for practice. So I told my master that there was an offer of a place and he said accept it but he told me, "I don't want you to become like Shoko Asahara, a cult leader, I don't want you to become like him!" He worried about those things like a father!

And then the focus of our discussion became a little clear and I could ask "Who among your disciples do you think (he had 11 disciples and I was the 6th one, the middle one) I could get advice from, go to from time to time?" Which of course means after you are gone and that was very hard for me to say. But I had to make sure that I was following his instructions and he thought and said softly "Who do you think?" I said "Hokan-san." He was a Dharma brother who was a Jisha for a long time so he had a good understanding of my master. "Yes," he answered, "I thought that too."

Then I clearly told him my plans more specifically "I'd like to formally exit from Eiheiji at the beginning of September" and his eyes opened wide, very quickly he gave a start "What are you going to do?" he asked "I'd like to do the pilgrimage in Japan again, henro, just like the way I did before I returned to Eiheiji for training." And he thought about it and said "You've done it once, once is enough" I didn't say it, but I thought "Well I did Eiheiji training twice!" He then said "Go to India and do a pilgrimage to the Buddhist sites. I have done this twice and it's a place that you should go to." India wasn't my idea at all! It didn't attract me at all! For some reason my mind was to the West to share zazen practice in the West, not to go to Bodh Gaya! But, once again, I had no choice and I followed my master's wishes and a whole new possibility of sharing zazen practice opened up for me.

You see, as a Zen monk, as a Zen practitioner, you are going into the wind. Your journey doesn't go straight it goes up and down and round and round. And the boat sways and tips as much as it can take without tipping over. Navigating that journey, is the bravery, the skill of a Zen monk. His journey is not a great epic with heroes and heroines but it is a journey that pushes one to the limit without inflating an idea of self, without inflating one's own personal kind of inquiry. My master's teaching and life example of going against the current of his own desire, of going against his own intentions was a great teaching. A teaching that I appreciate more and more.

Transcribed and edited by Leesa Davis.