A Straight Road with 99 Curves
COMING OF AGE ON THE PATH OF ZEN
A Memoir by Gregory Shepherd
with a Foreword by Ruben L. F. Habito
Stone Bridge Press • Berkeley, California
Published by
Stone Bridge Press
P. O. Box 8208, Berkeley, CA 94707
TEL 510-524-8732 • [email protected] • www.stonebridge.com
Text © 2013 Gregory Shepherd, [email protected].
Cover design by Linda Ronan incorporating a photograph taken during a 1972 sesshin at Jigan-ji-temple, Osaka. Courtesy of author.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Shepherd, Gregory.
A straight road with 99 curves : coming of age on the path of Zen / Gregory Shepherd, with a foreword by Ruben L. F. Habito.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-61172-011-2
1. Shepherd, Gregory. 2. Zen Buddhists—United States—Biography. I. Title.
BQ986.E59A3 2013
294.3'927092—dc23
[B]
2012047157
foreword
Greg Shepherd was in Zen retreats between 1972 and 1973 at the Three Cloud Zen Center (San Un Zendo) in Kamakura, Japan, that I also attended when we were both in our early twenties. We would line up in single file seated on cushions on a walkway just outside the Zen hall, waiting for our turn for a one-on-one interview (dokusan) with the Master. Often he would be seated right in front of me, clutching a book covered in dark cloth but which I knew for sure from its size and shape was the Mumonkan (Gateless Gate), a collection of koans used in Zen practice. After those retreats, a number of us gaijin (non-Japanese) participants would gather in someone’s apartment for beer and munchies. Greg was easily the life of the party with his contagious sense of humor and his guitar-accompanied renditions of Cat Stevens and the Beatles.
I had always wondered what happened to him through all these years, as he bade farewell and disappeared from the Zen scene in Japan soon after that. We had exchanged greetings indirectly and sporadically through his brother Paul, who arrived in Kamakura shortly after Greg left and with whom I continued in Zen practice under the guidance of Yamada Koun Roshi, until the latter died in 1989. So for me it was a great surprise and joy to receive the draft of this book out of the blue from Greg himself. As I began poring through its opening pages, I could not put it down and read through to the end in one sitting. It filled in the picture of what had gone on during those intervening thirty-something years. I am deeply moved at this candid and unabashed account of the twists and turns of Greg Shepherd’s spiritual journey, not only because it evokes familiar scenes in a place that is still close to my heart, and recalls people I continue to cherish, but also as it resonates deeply with what I have learned in taking this path of Zen.
And what have I learned through all these years in this path? As Greg himself writes toward the end of this book, Zen is not a religion, nor a set of doctrines to adhere to (or not). It is an invitation to a simple practice of sitting in stillness and calming the mind, which thereby allows us to open our eyes and see things as they are. One may go through ups and downs in a journey with ninety-nine curves, but at the end of the day, Zen practice enables us to see through the deceptions and idealizations of this little “I-me-mine,” and allows us to accept ourselves just as we are, warts and all. In doing so, we find ourselves at peace, at home in the world, and with a heart able to embrace all beings in lovingkindness and compassion. Try it and see for yourself!
RUBEN L. F. HABITO
Maria Kannon Zen Center
Dallas, Texas
in gratitude
I would like to express deep appreciation to all of the people who have guided me on my Zen journey, especially the late Yamada Koun Roshi and Robert Aitken Roshi, and the very much alive (in all ways) Michael Kieran, my current teacher. The selfless and unstinting devotion of these teachers to all of their students will always be a source of amazement and gratitude to me. I would also like to thank Mrs. Kazue Yamada and Mrs. Anne Aitken, spouses of my first teachers, who played far more than auxiliary roles in the teaching lives of their husbands.
Thank you as well to the many students with whom I have had the privilege to practice over the past four decades, especially my brother Paul who has always been one of my best friends and a true dharma brother since the earliest days of our practice that we began together in New York City.
My parents, William and Jessie, always encouraged Paul and me and our siblings to go our way in life with forthrightness, independence, and the courage to say what we think, and for this I’m forever grateful.
Many thanks to Peter Goodman, my publisher and editor at Stone Bridge Press, for having faith in this first-time author. Sincere appreciation to Mitch Horowitz, Executive Editor of Tarcher/Penguin in New York City, for his kind words of encouragement after reading an earlier, sprawling version of this book. Without that encouragement, I doubt I would have continued working on it. My thanks as well to Tom Haar for permission to use his father Francis’s photos from the early days of the Diamond Sangha.
Thanks also to the people who read earlier drafts of the book and offered incisive comments and suggestions, including Brian Baron, Michael Kieran, Nelson Foster, John Tarrant, Stephan Bodian, David Weinstein, Michael Katz, Dale Hall, John McElligott, Elizabeth Kieszkowski, Linda Shimoda, Todd Shimoda, Bob Goldberg, Steve Shepherd, and Paul Shepherd.
My ever-patient wife, Virginia, has stood by me steadfastly for over thirty years, and for this (and for her very being) I dedicate this book to her.
G.S.
A Straight Road with 99 Curves
one
Life is a challenge. Meet it.
—Mother Teresa
KAMAKURA, JAPAN—
It took me a while to find it again after so many years, especially since there were no street signs, and my sense of direction had never been any good. That very morning I had had a dream of trying to drive my car up a steep hill with the gearshift stuck in reverse, not a good omen for the day ahead. Now I felt as though I had been walking around in circles for over an hour.
Finally, I came upon a narrow lane that looked vaguely familiar. I entered it and stopped in front of a two-story building half hidden by a cinderblock wall. This was it, I was sure of it. For the fourth or fifth time that morning I riffled through my old, expired passport from years before until I reached the photo inside, a nervous habit I had developed in the days leading up to this short trip to Japan. My signature was scrawled across the bottom of the photo, but the glowering and intense face that stared back at me from across the years seemed almost like a previous incarnation. A faded red stamp on one of the inner pages, once the color of the rising sun, now the color of rust, read “Port of Entry: Haneda Airport, August 16, 1972.” How could it possibly be that long ago, I wondered. But there was no denying the fact that over three decades had passed since I first stood, as I did now, in front of this small temple where my life had changed, for better and worse, in so many ways. And it was over eighteen years, a generation by some definitions, since I had taken my last bittersweet steps