Partial transcript of Michael Komyo Melfi's video interview with Okumura Roshi, February 2019
Part 1 is here.

One of the reasons I decided to locate Sanshinji in Bloomington is that before I moved here I lived in California and worked for the Sotoshu International Center, established in 1997. One of the tasks of that center was to build a bridge between the Japanese Soto Zen tradition and American Soto Zen communities. At that time in American Soto Zen there was no sense of community. Different lineages like those of Suzuki Roshi, Katagiri Roshi, Maezumi Roshi and Kennett Roshi were independent and they didn’t have a sense of community. Another task of that center was to promote the sense of community with American Soto Zen centers, so I visited many Zen centers from all those lineages and met many American teachers and practitioners. When I had a clearer image of American Zen, I felt I didn’t want to establish my practice center on the West or East coast because there were already so many Zen centers there and I didn’t want to make another one to compete with American Zen teachers. It seemed that Indiana was a frontier, and Uchiyama Roshi always expected us to be pioneers. I knew there was no Soto Zen center in the state of Indiana, though there was a small Zen group in West Lafayette. I thought that if Buddhism or Zen can survive in Indiana, it can survive anywhere in the United States. That was one of the reasons I moved to Bloomington.

On the West coast there are many people who never went to a Christian church, so to practice Buddhism was very natural them. But here, Christianity is still alive and for many people, Buddhism is something strange -- at least, different from their spiritual tradition -- so they have more resistance. I think that it's a good thing for us to to have an exchange or relationship with traditional American spirituality. That is another reason I intentionally moved to the Midwest.

I think that because of the hippie spirit or generation, Buddhism or Zen on the West coast -- and probably East coast too -- became Americanized too rapidly. They transformed Zen practice into an expression of their idea. In the Midwest there is no such mentality, so Buddhist practice here can have a relation with more conservative traditional American spirituality. It might have been difficult if I had created my sangha or practice center in California. I might have had more people, but I thought when I considered the history of Zen Buddhism in this country that to have a dialogue or conversation or exchange with more traditional conservative American spirituality would be meaningful instead of too easily or rapidly creating an Americanized form of Buddhism. It takes more time, but Buddhism can learn from and be influenced by traditional American spirituality, I think.

Of course, American people cannot practice like Japanese people, so there must be some transformation. This transformation happened when Buddhism was transplanted from India to China and from China to Japan. Some changes happened, so likewise there’s no way Japanese Buddhism can be transplanted in America or other Western countries without changes or transformations. My hope is that change happens in a gradual, slow process. Buddhism was transported from China to Japan in the 6th century and it’s said that Buddhism really became Japanese and a part of Japanese culture in the time of Dogen in the 13th century, six or seven hundred years later. The same thing happened when Chinese Buddhism really became Chinese. Because of the development of transportation and communications, many things have been too rapidly transported to this country and some American people already think Zen is an American thing. I hope this transformation goes slowly and that making an American Buddhism that’s different from Japanese or Chinese or Indian Buddhism doesn’t happen too soon. Eventually that will happen, but I hope the process can be slow.

Partial transcript of Michael Komyo Melfi's video interview with Okumura Roshi, February 2019

The Antaiji style or Uchiyama style of practice is special or unique even within the Japanese Soto school. The Soto school has 15,000 temples and it's one of the largest Buddhist schools in Japan, with 800 years of history. However, the practice style that Uchiyama Roshi learned from his teacher Sawaki Roshi was unique in that up to that point, zazen was practiced only within the monastery by training monks as part of their practice to become good priests for their local temples. Not many laypeople practiced, although a small number were interested in Zen and visited the monasteries and practiced with the training monks. When those monks went to their temples, they didn't practice and they didn't encourage laypeople to practice.

Sawaki Kodo Roshi didn't have his own temple or monastery but traveled all over Japan. He was a professor at Komazawa University but he didn't have a monastery. He visited many places, including monasteries, temples and laypeople's houses. He practiced Zen with many laypeople and so he called his activities a "moving monastery" and he was called Homeless Kodo because he didn't have his own home temple. He was always traveling and teaching mainly laypeople, so thousands of laypeople started to practice zazen. That was the uniqueness of Sawaki Kodo Roshi's activities.

Uchiyama Roshi practiced only with Sawaki Roshi. He didn't practice at official Soto Zen monasteries, so he didn't practice any other part of Soto Zen training. Sawaki Roshi focused on sitting, so Uchiyama Roshi also focused on just sitting or zazen practice. Sawaki Roshi borrowed a temple called Antaiji which was very small and without any lay members, so there was no regular income. While Sawaki Roshi continued travelling all over Japan, Uchiyama Roshi lived at Antaiji, just sitting and studying Dogen's teachings and supporting his practice by begging or takuhatsu. At official Soto Zen monasteries, zazen is part of the training along with learning how to do different kinds of ceremonies for laypeople Formal practice is a major part of monastic life, but Uchiyama Roshi didn't practice that way; he really focused on sitting. We didn't have morning service or any kind of ceremonies except those for ordination. That was his unique style of practice even in Japan.

When we came to this country, we continued to do that style of practice. We sat four periods a day and we had no ceremonies or any services. What we did was just sitting and working. Suzuki Roshi, Katagiri Roshi and Maezumi Roshi established places in California and Minnesota and tried to transplant authentic traditional Soto Zen monastic practice and establish big Japanese monasteries like Tassajara, Hokyoji or Mountain Center. Uchiyama Roshi didn't ask us to establish such a big place but just to continue sitting. He also asked us not to try to collect money or people but just keep practicing zazen, and if some people came to sit with us we were to take care of those people and practice with them. I think our approach is a little different from those Japanese roshis who established big Zen centers.

Next: A Special Style, part 2: The Lure of the Midwest