Nyozegamon

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Chrurches of America

For this week’s installment, I will share a somewhat funny experience I had. It happened to me over 45 years ago when I was working at the Betsuin in Los Angeles.

A friend and I had been out drinking. By the time I got home, it was about 2 in the morning. Unfortunately for me, the door to the temple office was locked from the inside and I couldn’t open it.

Since I was out of luck, I decided to climb the tree next to the building that extended up to my room, which was on the third floor.

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Churches of America

It was April 2, 1965, right after having taken up my post at the Oxnard Buddhist Church. I was awoken by the sound of a train passing by. The whole bedroom creaked and dust fell from the ceiling. I thought to myself, “It’s a good thing I’m not married.”

I got up to prepare for the morning service and went to open the front door. For some reason, it wouldn’t open and that was strange, so I took a look out the window next to it. A man was sleeping there, his body blocking the door.

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Churches of America

They threw a welcome party for me the third day after I had taken up my post at the Buddhist church. It was a dinner held at the biggest Chinese restaurant in town.

About 80 members from the church gathered and welcomed me warmly. The Japanese Americans there called the place “chaina-meshi resutoran” (literally Chinese meal restaurant). I got a kick out of that.

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Churches of America

My fresh start began at a town called Oxnard in California. It was April 1, 1965 and I was 25 years old.

Oxnard was a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Los Angeles and a bit over an hour from Santa Barbara. It was a town surrounded by farms, right in the middle of flower plantations on Highway 101 along the West Coast. If you drove six blocks from the heart of town, you would end up right in the middle of farmland. It was like that in all directions.

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Churches of America

On April 1, 1965, I was assigned as a young priest to serve at California’s Oxnard Buddhist Church. It was a fresh start for me after two some-odd years, after having been released from employment at the Betsuin in Los Angeles and living under the tutelage of Socho at the BCA headquarters in San Francisco.

I had first come to the States in October of 1962. I was now 25 years old.

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Churches of America

I had been diagnosed with a brain injury that had resulted from my car accident in Los Angeles. After spending about two months in the hospital in San Francisco, I was released.
I was still unsure about my English ability and my life in this foreign land but nevertheless, I was assigned to work at the Buddhist bookstore at the Buddhist Churches of America headquarters. That was right around the time that I started going to Zen meditation sessions.

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Churches of America

My encounter with hippies bore many pleasant talks and memories. I recall it was the summer of 1964. I headed to Berkeley to teach Buddhist zasen meditation with a young Zen priest who had come from Japan.

The way hippies greeted people back then was to hug, and they would hold on to you for a moment. It was their expression of friendship, a way of exchanging energy between two people. When they did this to the young Japanese priest, he blushed and was clearly at a loss.

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Churches of America

When I was working under the auspices of Socho after my car accident, my body went limp again and I collapsed. When I came to, I was in a ward of the neurology department in a San Francisco University Hospital.

It was a large room filled with patients who all had brain injuries of some sort. There were people with their heads strapped down, and others who let out painful groans. When I thought I was finally going to go insane, I was seized with fear and anxiety. I was 23 at the time.

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Churches of America

I was 23 years old when I thought to myself, I’d be better off dead.

Everything was going wrong. I had fought with my superior, I was thrown out of the temple in Los Angeles, I caused a car accident, and I had broken up with my girlfriend, who I left in Japan.

Even under the care of the Socho in San Francisco, I had to be hospitalized again due to the accident I had been in. And through it all, my English hadn’t improved a bit.

by BISHOP KOSHIN OGUI
Buddhist Churches of America

The zazen meditation session at the Sokoji temple in San Francisco was about to begin. Around 70 people had gathered for the event, so the limited space of the main hall was crowded.

In this crowd, a young white woman was sitting there practically naked. Shunryu Suzuki, a Zen master, handed me a small bath towel and told me to go tell her to cover her front.