DURING HIS LIFE AS A ZEN MASTER, Maezumi Roshi gave more than fifteen hundred teisho. A teisho is a presentation to the disciples of a master’s direct realization. It is not a dharma talk or lecture, not an explanation of things-as-they-are, but a direct expression of it, a direct appeal to the true nature of the student. It was often a challenge to penetrate Maezumi Roshi’s teisho. I could point to a number of factors to explain why this was so, such as the fact that he was not a native English speaker, or the cultural gap between East and West, or his use of words and concepts unfamiliar to us. But none of these reasons is as important as the fact that our true nature is for each of us subtle and difficult to realize.
Maezumi Roshi was unshakeable in his faith in his students and their capacities to realize this truth, each in their own place and time. He did not adjust his teisho to our level of understanding. Rather, he kept unveiling this nature, insisting we stretch far beyond our self-imposed limitations and plunge into the vast universe of truth.
These teisho were delivered in a specific place and time, but are not limited to them. And yet as Maezumi Roshi unrelentingly points out, place and time are nothing but this universal truth, even as they exist right now for you holding this book. He implored us to realize and appreciate our life as this. He challenged us with questions and insisted that we confirm the Buddha Way for ourselves.
The way to read this book is to eat it one bite at a time. This sampling of his teisho are best heard with one’s whole being. Maezumi Roshi’s teisho were not delivered in a theoretical or linear style. Rather his style—spontaneous, organic, and flowing—appealed to the experience of his students. He moved freely from one theme to another, engaging us to realize ourselves as the Way.
These teisho are not ordinary lectures, but are intimate communications from master to student. They were invariably preceded by at least one or more periods of zazen and not infrequently, were given during the course of a three- to seven-day sesshin. Maezumi Roshi was speaking to an audience of people in an unusual state of mind, unusually focused and attentive. So also must we realize that these same qualities were at an even more heightened level in Maezumi Roshi himself. During a teisho, he would sometimes shout energetically the points he wished to emphasize, he frequently quoted Dogen Zenji’s writings from memory and freely translated them, and he was silent for periods of time. The effect on the listener was to merge with Maezumi Roshi’s presence and to open to the intimacy of dharma.
One of the many challenges of editing these teisho was Maezumi Roshi’s frequent and spontaneous recitation in Japanese of Dogen Zenji’s writings. Sometimes he would use a published English translation, sometimes he reinterpreted an existing translation, and sometimes he translated on the spot. We have noted where he used previously published translations, but for the most part the versions of Dogen are Maezumi Roshi’s translations. Because he was so saturated in Dogen Zenji’s thought and because of the frequent and spontaneous references to Dogen’s work, many of his references remain untraceable.
The project of transcribing and assembling these teisho was begun soon after Maezumi Roshi’s passing. I wish to acknowledge all those who transcribed his teisho over the years and the support of the project by the White Plum Sangha and especially by the sangha, or community, of the Zen Center of Los Angeles. While I was working on the manuscript, Roshi Bernie Glassman asked me to return to the Zen Center of Los Angeles to take on the task of caring for Maezumi Roshi’s home temple and sangha. At that point I gave the project over to Roshi Glassman and Sensei Eve Myonen Marko. In the end, she and I brought this book to completion. I express my deepest appreciation to Burt Wetanson and John Daishin Buksbazen for their careful reading of the manuscript and especially to Roshi Glassman and Sensei Eve Marko, whose collaboration made this book possible.
In reading this book, may Maezumi Roshi’s realization and love of dharma permeate your being.
Wendy Egyoku Nakao
ZEN CENTER OF LOS ANGELES
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA