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TI: At what point did you retire from the civil service?

KY: I retired in 1982. So I was able to receive a pension annually, monthly they sent me a nice check, so anyway, I was set for a comfortable living. And this was in '82. I said, "Well, I'm going back to the U.S. to become a preacher in BCA. But hadn't been to a Buddhist seminar type thing, seminary type thing for a number of years, I'm gonna go to Kyoto and study." Some graduate school type courses, refresh my memory and so on and so forth, so I went to Kyoto. I did not attend Ryukoku University, had a choice for Ryukoku, oh, they have a special advanced Buddhism type thing in Takatsuki. They call it Gyoshin Kyoko, and Takatsuki is right near Osaka, between Osaka -- anyway, it's in that vicinity of Kyoto, special seminary there. I went there for close to two years and that became 1984. And at that point, then I got this offer to come to the U.S. not as a BCA minister but Mr. Numata for this translation thing. That's how I got involved.

TI: And how did you meet Mr. Numata?

KY: I met Mr. Numata in 1984, early in 1984. One day he called me, maybe it was in '82 that I first met... probably '82 is when I first met Mr., I think it was '82 when I quit the U.S. government service. At that time, yeah, I think it was '82, first time I met Mr. Numata. Mr. Numata is the president of Mitsutoyo precision measuring instruments operation, Mitsutoyo. And they manufactured precision measuring instruments, and the trade name is MTI, Mitsutoyo, MTI. And he says that, when I was going to Kyoto to study, right after I quit the U.S. government work, he called me to his office in downtown Tokyo. "Mr. Yamashita, I want to thank you." "Thank me?" "Yes, I want to thank you because you volunteered to set up this organization of civilian, for civilian workers and so on, and services at the Tsukiji Hongwanji, IBA. It's wonderful, and you did it on a volunteer basis, and I like that spirit. I want to congratulate you and I want to thank you," he said," for doing this job, spreading Buddhism." He seemed to like that, and he thanked me. Of all people that were that were important, and active person like that, he was the only one actually... of course, like the betsuin and the Hongwanji Kyoto, they thanked me for it, too. You know, those certificate type things and (citing things) that he did (...). (But Mr. Numata invited me) to personally come into his office and thank me. Anyway, that was that. And then in 1984, when I was through schooling over there, and about that time he appeared in Kyoto one day suddenly. And from his hotel, he called me at the dormitory where I was staying. You know the Honzan area in the International Center? (Narr. note: The name of the building was "Kokusai Senta.")

TI: Not very well. I've been there a few times, but I don't know that area that well.

KY: Anyway, international house type thing there. Anyway, he called me at the dormitory place where I was staying, and he said, "I want to come and see, talk to you," in the dorm area. I said, "No, no. I'll go to where you are at the hotel." He said, "Okay," he's staying right near the Kyoto station, so I went there, knocked on his door, he was there in one regular room, style room. And he didn't have any help, he was the president of, chairman of a firm that employed I think at the time about thousand people. It wasn't that large, nor was it too small. Anyway, he said, "I'm thinking of, and I'm going to, planning to set up this translation, publishing of the English Tripitaka," that's the Buddhist canon. "Gonna set up an office in Berkeley, and I want you to go over there and set it up." I said, "What, we go to Berkeley?" And set something up. So I've never had an experience like that, and I'm not really academically qualified, 'cause I have no PhD in Buddhism anyway. Said, "No, that doesn't matter. I want you to go over there and set it up." "I don't know what to do." "Nobody else done it, they don't know. Will you do it?" Said, "Well, I sure don't know if I can do it or not." But anyway, "Tanomu," meaning, "I request you," and he goes like this to me -- [bows head] -- and sticks out his hand. And before I could answer much or anything, we didn't discuss any contractual thing or how long, or any real responsibility other than, "Okay, go over there and set it up and publish these things and try to sell 'em." [Laughs] Nobody's done it before. He said, "Well, nobody's done it before, I can't tell you how to do it." Okay, so without a contract, nothing in writing, just all, "Will you do it?" like this. So here's the president go like... we shook hands. And that was that, agreed. Gentleman's agreement. So I said, "Well, since we agreed like that, I better do it." Shortly after that, I packed up and went to Berkeley.

And by that time, he had already bought a house, it's a two and a half story building, wooden structure, but it was a nice, big residential house, formerly owned by a very famous chef, I don't know what they call it, woman, what they call 'em. Anyway, the restaurant is called Chez Panisse, it's a famous restaurant in Berkeley. The owner of that, she owned it. But that thing had turned into a, she had sold it apparently to somebody, a group of people or something, investing it, probably. Anyway, it was up for sale. And you can tell that it was owned by this Chez Panisse woman, I forgot her name now. But it had a huge kitchen, and the table where they prepared the stuff was huge. The table was this, about this long, and it was about this wide where she did her cooking, I mean, dicing up stuff and stuff where you just, hole where you just put in the cuttings and extra things down the thing, and a huge range. Anyway, you can tell that it wasn't an ordinary house before it became a dormitory. Mr. Numata said, "It's walking distance to the university, it's about ten, fifteen minute walk to the university campus." So he said, "Good building, I'm going to buy it and set up this Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research. And in the summers I'd like to come here and spend maybe three months of the year and learn something new at the university." And can you imagine, this is a... he was born in 1897, and then he's talking now, in 1984.

TI: So he's eighty-seven years old?

KY: Yeah, and starting something brand new and he says, "I'm going to go over there and do summer studying. I like this school." That's where he got his M.A. degree. Tremendous man. He's an old Japanese national now, not an Issei type person or a Nisei. Anyway, tremendous man. He's the man that says, "Go over there and set it up and do it." So that's how I got to Numata Center. And still engaged in this project, translation and so on.

TI: And so how many years were you active at the Numata Center? So you started like '84, how long did you go?

KY: '84, and I was the president of that until 2002.

TI: Okay, so eighteen more years that you were working.

KY: Yeah, working.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.