The Suzuki Roshi Audio Archive | San Francisco Zen Center

Awakening the Archive

The Awakening the Archive series is a year-long project that celebrates the release of the new Suzuki Roshi audio archive, and helps open the pathways for the sangha to engage with this great resource.

Every two weeks, a significant or newly-discovered Suzuki Roshi talk is featured here with an in-depth article giving context, history, and connections. Many of these featured talks will be drawn from the more than two-dozen newly discovered recordings, and several of these you might recognize as the basis for chapters of the books Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and Not Always So.

These articles are written by Shundo David Haye, a staff audio engineer and core team member of Engage Wisdom for many years, who is also a Zen priest and teacher in Suzuki Roshi's lineage. Shundo has selected and sequenced the bi-weekly release of these specific talks to highlight the most interesting and significant moments in the collection of Suzuki Roshi's recorded voice.

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Title	Date
Not Sticking to Enlightenment ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #26, by Shundo David Haye ===== It's not completely clear how this talk dropped off the radar, as the tape had been copied and transcribed previously – indeed, it features in Not Always So (p131), the third... Sesshin, Sixth Patriarch	Feb 12 1971 B City Center
Tokusan and The Old Lady ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #10, by Shundo David Haye ===== This is another track from the same problematic reel as the previous two talks in this series. Initially, it seemed to be a talk of Katagiri Roshi - the first twenty or so minutes are of... Sesshin, Diamond Sutra	Feb 19 1966 1:00pm Sokoji
Where There is Some Limitation, There is Universality ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #9, by Shundo David Haye ===== This talk is found on the same reel as the one previously discussed (https://suzukiroshi.engagewisdom.com/talks/tokusan-and-old-lady), along with two other tracks that are also basically... Sesshin, Dogen	Feb 18 1966 Sokoji
Zazen Practice and Listen to the Right Teacher ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #24, by Shundo David Haye ===== In the last years of Suzuki Roshi's life, very few talks were lost from the collections. The previously available recording for this date was incomplete - it seems it had... Sesshin, Dogen, Bodhidharma, Precepts	Aug 03 1970 City Center
Genjo Koan continued ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #11, by Shundo David Haye ===== In the spring of 1966, having previously spent a number of years primarily lecturing on the Blue Cliff Record, Suzuki Roshi gave a series of talks on Dogen's Genjo Koan (an edited... Dogen, Genjokoan	Mar 13 1966 Sokoji
We Are Always Helping Others ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #13, by Shundo David Haye ===== This tape is, happily, the last of the messed-up recordings from the first half of 1966. It is the first of two talks from the July one-day sitting, and it begins in a most unusual way,... Shushogi	Jul 23 1966 B Sokoji
Genjo Koan no 2 ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #16, by Shundo David Haye ===== This third talk from the historic inaugural sesshin at Tassajara in 1967, given the day after the first two, is divided into two parts, held together by the unspoken theme of the "dharma... Sesshin, Dogen	Aug 21 1967 Tassajara
To Polish A Tile Is Our Practice Actually ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #18, by Shundo David Haye ===== Further to the date confusion and missing talks discussed last time, it seems that even Suzuki Roshi lost track of time during the first seven-day sesshin at Tassajara: "We have one more... Sesshin, Prajna Paramita, Shobogenzo	Aug 23 1967 Tassajara
Shosan Ceremony ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #23, by Shundo David Haye ===== This was the last of the three 5" reels that appeared to be from the summer of 1968, but there were no visual clues beyond the note "sounds like ZMC" (Zen Mountain Center,... Shosan	Sep 10 1968 Tassajara
Pure Rules ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #6, by Shundo David Haye ===== The value of these sets of recordings during sesshins in the summer of 1965 at Sokoji is that not only were the formal dharma talks preserved, but also the chanting services, and various... Sesshin, Instruction	Jul 28 1965 9:00am Sokoji
Tokusan and The Old Lady ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #8, by Shundo David Haye ===== At Zen Center, responsibilities get passed on from person to person regularly. One part of traditional Zen training is that a monk should not expect to keep any one role, but to be able to... Genjokoan	Feb 19 1966 pm Sokoji
Real Calmness Is In A Noisy Place ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #12, by Shundo David Haye ===== This talk is another example of a track that was somehow overlooked for many years, while the two... Sesshin, Shobogenzo, Beginner’s Mind	Mar 26 1966 Sokoji
Lunch Instruction ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #7, by Shundo David Haye ===== This is a second short instruction from the same day of sesshin as the Pure Rules talk (https://suzukiroshi.engagewisdom.com/talks/pure-rules900am); again the beginning of what Suzuki... Sesshin, Oryoki, Instruction	Jul 28 1965 12:00 Sokoji
Calmness ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #3, by Shundo David Haye ===== In this talk, which became the Calmness chapter of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (p121), Suzuki Roshi starts with a Japanese Zen poem, offering a pair of analogies to illuminate the point... Dogen, Zazen	Aug 26 1965 Los Altos
Study Yourself ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #4, by Shundo David Haye ===== "I always felt his best Zen talks were the ones he gave on Thursday mornings in my home. They were spontaneous, succinct and spoken from a relaxed and contented heart and mind." - Marian... Dogen, Genjokoan, Rinzai	Sep 09 1965 Los Altos
Beginner's Mind ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #1, by Shundo David Haye ===== When this particular, otherwise unremarkable, reel was photographed as part of Engage Wisdom’s archiving process, unlike many other tapes stored at Zen Center, there were no complete... Beginner’s Mind, Dogen, Precepts	Nov 11 1965 Los Altos
When You Have A New Experience ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #15, by Shundo David Haye ===== This talk was given later on the same day of the first Tassajara sesshin as the last one discussed (https://suzukiroshi.engagewisdom.com/talks/genjo-koanmorning). The beginning of the... Sesshin	Aug 20 1967 Evening Tassajara
Bodhidharma ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #22, by Shundo David Haye ===== In this second tape made by Dan Gourley at Tassajara in the summer of 1968, Suzuki Roshi starts by answering a question about a scroll of Bodhidharma. In the... Beginner’s Mind, First Principle, Time	Jul 29 1968 Tassajara
Lay Ordination Ceremony ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #25, by Shundo David Haye ===== This tape, which is unfortunately very poorly recorded, gives us a sense of the lay ordination ceremony that took place at City Center in August 1970. During the re-mastering of the... Precepts, Ceremony	Aug 23 1970 City Center
Wisdom Seeks For Wisdom ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #2, by Shundo David Haye ===== Among the tapes previously known to exist in the Zen Center archives, the earliest were from a sesshin held at the end of July 1965, which contain recordings of the afternoon service, and... Precepts, Genjokoan, Instruction	Jul 22 1965 Los Altos
Buddhism Is Not a Special Teaching; Enlightenment Is Not a Particular Stage ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #17, by Shundo David Haye ===== About half way through this sesshin talk, you can start to hear crickets in the background, getting louder over the remaining twenty minutes. They are a typical backdrop to a summer... Sesshin, Dogen, Genjokoan	Aug 23 1967 Tassajara
Reflections on the Prajna Paramita Sutra ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #19, by Shundo David Haye ===== This is the talk that was chosen by the Wind Bell (p69) to represent the first sesshin at Tassajara; some... Sesshin, Sengai, Time	Aug 24 1967 Tassajara
Forgotten the Value of Religion ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #5, by Shundo David Haye ===== The oldest recordings of Suzuki Roshi made at Sokoji, the home of the San Francisco Zen Center at the time, come from a week-long sesshin that took place at the end of July 1965 - this is... Sesshin, Dogen, Shobogenzo, Inmost Nature	Jul 27 1965 1:00pm Sokoji
Genjo Koan ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #14, by Shundo David Haye ===== The acquisition of Tassajara in 1967 was a huge leap for Zen Center. Suzuki Roshi had long been interested in finding a suitable location for a monastery; an early Wind Bell mentions a... Genjokoan, Dogen, Sesshin	Aug 20 1967 Morning Tassajara
Think the Unthinkable ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #20, by Shundo David Haye ===== This talk comes from the middle of the second sesshin at Tassajara, in December 1967. Unlike the extreme heat of the summer sesshin, students would have been grappling... Sesshin, Fukanzazengi	Dec 04 1967 Afternoon Tassajara
Bring Me The Rhinoceros Fan ===== Awakening the Archive - Tape #21, by Shundo David Haye ===== For whatever reason, there are few talks existing from the summer of 1968. At Tassajara, in the spring and the fall training periods, Suzuki Roshi gave two series... Koan	Jul 28 1968 Tassajara