<Begin Segment 16>

SF: Maybe, sort of this openness to change, and in fact creating change that you're suggesting here has something to do with the kind of period you grew up and your, when you came of age so to speak. And -- as I understand it you were in Berkeley in the early...?

RI: '60's.

SF: ...to mid '60s, and 'course a lot was going on in the American society in general then. So how did all of that impact you, and your views, and what you did later? Maybe you can give us some examples of the things that you got involved in, in that time.

RI: Well, I don't think I did anything extraordinary. I think, back then the times create the people. And certainly to be a college student in the '60s in Berkeley -- unless you were totally out of touch with what was going on right around you... I guess there were students who just looked at their books and were intent on going to med school or something. But because of my -- lot had to do with my upbringing -- of the influence of my father and mother and all these people, like who came to their study center in Berkeley. Always asking, questioning authority and wondering if there's more all the time. So here it's again very fortunate for me to be in Berkeley rather than -- why, I shouldn't name another institution, but... and to have parents like that, and the times. So I was involved in my share of, you know student activist things, both in Berkeley, and also later in Hawaii where the Vietnam War was still going on. And more and more -- especially with the self-immolation of the Buddhist monks and nuns in Vietnam, you know where they burned themselves. I think that changed the whole war and the consciousness of the world, just to see people selflessly giving their lives for others. And that really struck me. And up 'til that point I had rejected Buddhism because of what I saw as shortcomings or corruptions of the institution. When you're a preacher's kid, you get a very negative view of the dynamics of the church, or... and so I had no intention at all of ever becoming a minister myself. That's why I graduated from Berkeley in mathematics, and then went to medical studies, and got into med school, and was a math teacher, all these things. But at the same time I was more and more troubled by the suffering in the world, focusing on Vietnam of course. I would go to all these peace rallies and marches and participate in -- and there seemed to be a lack of vision there. Even the peace groups would be competing and fighting against each other as to who would be in the front of the march, and criticizing each other. And somehow the Buddhist, it kept coming back to me. I feel it's like a rubber band; you stretch and stretch, and at some point it just won't take that tension. You snap back. I think I was snapped back into Buddhism after I got over being a preacher's kid and that kind of complex. Began to see it in terms of my values, not only for myself, but in the context of the world and what was going on. And so that really... I was in, just starting med school at the time. I was involved in all these demonstrations. The med school called me in -- the dean -- he said, "Look, you're going to these demonstrations and participating. This is conduct unbecoming of a doctor. So you're gonna have to make a choice right now, because we have spies at these rallies taking down your names." And Hawaii's a military complex. I think maybe 70 percent of the people in Hawaii are somehow military related through their work. And so it's understandable that that kind of politics would be in place. But, of course, being quite rebellious, that was instant -- my decision was instant. No. Well, I'm gonna become a priest then. Of course my father was totally shocked. At first he wouldn't allow me to be. He thought I had no business being one because of my rebelliousness and ego and all that. But sometime I look back and think maybe he was using expert reverse psychology by saying, "Don't become one," right? He knew I would -- I would do it. So that's kind of how I got into it, and how in both direct and indirect ways my being raised during that period and in those places influenced my decisions.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.