<Begin Segment 15>

SF: Seems to me that there's kinda this tension between this sort of kinda family, community, similarity of outlook, feeling among the Nikkei. And then you have like interesting, innovative, changing, sort of more, kind of worldview ideology -- more of the head stuff, the cognitive stuff, that say the white folks bring to the...

RI: Uh-huh.

SF: ...to the table or to the church. So is there, I mean what is the...? Both of those are sort of good things and, but they seem in some sense difficult to reconcile in real people. And how do you -- how would you make this new emergent form, say in this church, new church? How would that actually play out, since you've got this kind of tension I think? Is, is that a fair interpretation?

RI: Yeah. I think a good model would be my father back in the '50s, with the Berkeley Buddhist Temple. The membership was mostly small business owners. They were all Issei, Nisei gardeners who saw the temple as their home away from home where their children could play and all that. Yet it was in Berkeley. The intellectual environment was, was just so tremendous. And of course the period there was right after World War II and during the Korean War when this, all these servicemen and, after that businessmen and tourists going to Asia, and coming back saying, "There's this fascinating -- new way of -- new religion there, Buddhism." Not new there, but new here. And so my father, because of his vision of Buddhism being non, not tied to any population, even non-sectarian Buddhism. He always lamented that we stress our sect too much, that the broader view of Buddhism is much more beautiful and inclusive. And so he just openly invited, oh, these Beatniks -- people like Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder and Alan Ginsberg and all those people, Alan Watts -- he just invited them to come and join the Japanese. At first they were very uncomfortable. Then they began to realize they, they were there for a common purpose. And so it became kind of the seed for a lot of American Buddhism today. Just under my, my father was very quiet. He hardly said anything. People didn't know what he was thinking. But he always formed that, that welcome environment for people to come and interact. I think that's all that's needed really. Instead of the fear that's felt by a lot of the ministers and lay people today that we're gonna lose something rather than gain something by letting outsiders in. So it really takes a different kind of leadership. And I don't know if that potential exists within BCA as it's structured today because such a hierarchical seniority based system. And so again, you know, I say, oh, burn the temples down. Or, just move out of them. You don't need a building. All you need is a few chairs at the Greyhound Bus Station to get started, right?

SF: Uh-huh.

RI: And, because it's the people and their hearts and minds, it's not, it's not the building. But we get it all backwards. So that's the main drawback right now, is not enough people dedicated to just welcoming open minds and without being judgmental. That's why I so enjoy teaching here, and the freedom to flit in and out of BCA temples and say what I want. But if I do form my own temple here, certainly I don't think I could help but have a similar policy like my father which is encouraging this cross-fertilization of ideas.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.