Bayview Zendo

Bayview Zendo is dedicated to our TEACHER

Kobun Chino Otogawa

Our Most Important Koan

When we were studying koans in The Blue Cliff Record, Kobun said “These are important to work with, to learn from. And the most difficult koan, the most important koan, is your own life."

Crying Together

At the conclusion of sesshin we often had a Shosan ceremony, in which his students could ask Kobun a question. One time a student, tears flowing down her face, asked Kobun when her crying would finally end.

          Kobun was quiet for awhile. Then he said, “Don’t be concerned with when it will end. Just let the crying be, and we will all cry with you.”

Shaving My Head

Before my ordination I met Kobun at his home.  He had asked me to shave my head, except for a small, circular patch at the back of my head called a shura.

         As he prepared soap and a razor to shave off this last tuft of hair, we talked about it felt to have my head naked.

         Kobun asked me how I thought my life might be different after I was ordained.  I responded that I didn’t know, that I’d have to see.

         He said, “You will have a lot more suffering.”

  That was true.                                   

Kobun's Sword

One night during a sesshin I visited Kobun in the tent he was sleeping in that week. We talked quietly in the light of a lantern.  I asked, “OK, so you apparently love almost everyone. But Kobun, for real, there must be some people you just don’t like. How do you deal with that?”

Kobun reached under a blanket and pulled out a scabbard I hadn’t seen before. Then he pulled a sword, “swuup,” out of the scabbard. He certainly had my attention.

         He held the sword between us with one of its very sharp sides up. “You and I can walk together on this part of this sword,” he said, placing his finger just above the sharp edge of the blade. 

         “When I meet someone I’m not able to meet here,” he continued as he slowly turned the blade on its side, “I turn the sword until I find the place where we can walk together.”

Not A Story About Kobun:
            Rather, What Our Bodymind Knows That We Don’t

During one of my many journeys through the American Southwest I visited Canyon de Chelly in Arizona. I drove into the campground late in the evening, ate dinner, washed-up, set up my sleeping place, and settled onto my zafu to sit for awhile. The campground was fairly empty, and pretty quiet.
         A new car drove into the campground. As it turned, its headlights cast a shadow against the wall of the campground washhouse. I noticed the shadow and thought, “Oh. That’s Eric sitting zazen.”
         Eric and I had sat a good number of times near or beside each other at Haiku Zendo. I liked Eric, we did similar environmental education work, but we didn’t have a particularly close relationship. I didn’t think I’d noticed anything detailed about the posture he sat in. I certainly didn’t know he was in Arizona.
         How did I know, from such a brief, moving shadow, that it was he? I have no idea.
         I got up from my zafu and walked over to where the shadow had come from. “Eric?”
         “Trout?” 

My Butt 

One night, after an evening meeting at Mary Kate Spencer’s home in Menlo Park, Kobun and I took a walk down the asphalt street that ran by Mary Kate’s. I told Kobun that I had reached a transition point in both my work and in the place where I lived. I asked him if there was anything he’d like me to do, anywhere he’d like me to go.

“You think you are walking behind me,” he said, “but that’s not the way it actually is.”

         He stepped behind me, took my shoulders in his hands, and firmly pushed me forward ahead of him. “The truth is you are walking ahead of me.”

         I turned and looked at him. I remember the street lamp’s light on his face. “It’s good for you to occasionally look behind you to see if I’m doing OK,” Kobun said. “And if I see that you’re not paying attention to where you’re going, I promise I’ll kick you in your butt.”

That was many years ago. After I began my studies with shamanic drumming and plant medicine, my morning sitting became, for years, sitting with, listening to, Tatewari, the Huichol word for Grandfather Fire. In the midst of those years Kobun’s body drowned, and we found that his presence hadn’t diminished.

Today my shikan taza/zazen/just sitting, is always accompanied by Tatewari, who once told me to proceed any conversations with him by just sitting, so that I can truly listen. Kobun is always with us too. Yes, he has kicked my butt, more than once.

It all started when…

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