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NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E, AUGTEMBER 2001
T-Fie RO/\D TO MAAJDA-LA
BY MICHAEL McCUSKER
His teacher said he should die in North America. North
America was a mandala; everything was there He had spent his
life in Japan He had been a nuclear engineer before he took the
vows of a Buddhist monk. His life was devoted to peace and a
belief that a new age was approaching, preceded by a time of
disaster that wuld clean away the rot of the old. The United
States was particularly important to the future, his teacher said
The shadows that would cross the Earth before the brightness
v\ould darken the United States first. Prophecies were not
guarantees but paradoxes, his teacher warned Only the hard
work and sacrifice of men and women who cherished peace and
harmony would light the darkness. Anything less and the Earth
would soon be as dead as its moon. He must be a candle, his
teacher urged. There was no other purpose for a priest.
His name was Suzuki Katsumi. He had been a monk
two years, and a year before that he had helped build a pagoda
dedicated to world peace in Ceylon, the island nation of Sri
Lanka. He left Japan with six other monks. He arrived in North
America on the anniversary of his youngest uncle's death
attempting to crash his warplane into an American warship.
For three months he walked across the continent with American
Indians who sought redress for broken promises and forsaken
treaties. He lived in Canada almost a year and spent a winter in
a cabin on an island in Puget Sound. After a month of nonviolent
protest against construction of a nuclear submarine base near
Seattle, he hitchhiked down the Oregon coast toward California
where he was to join the Indians once more, this time in an effort
to halt the building of nuclear power plants on treaty lands and to
prevent the ravaging of the Black Hills for uranium.
He wore his monk's robes wherever he went, even
standing alongside a road His vestments were startling: over
a gown white as bone was a robe more orange than a sunset.
At his sandaled feet was a small Boy Scout haversack that was
filled with rice wrapped in cellophane plastic, fresh tabi socks,
a toothbrush and a half-filled pouch of cigarette tobacco he had
found on the roadway He did not raise his thumb at passing
cars, only his eyes while he patiently beat on a small drum and
chanted
He stayed three days at an old motel near Arch Cape
as a guest of its owner Several times a day he walked across a
meadow that sloped above the beach and sat on a wood bench
surrounded by spruce trees and salal bushes on three sides. The
open side faced the ocean There he beat his drum and chanted
for hours. The chant was his single contribution, his weapon and
his prayer.
Suzuki the Monk hardly resembled his past incarnation,
Suzuki the Nuclear Engineer. When he spoke of his former self
it was briefly and only to make a point; the point was generally
that he had come so far around from what he had been so could
anyone else. The point was that he had been wrong, and now he
felt he was doing what needed to be done.
Briefly: the former Suzuki had been in love with money
and technology. He was ambitious and intensely competitive.
His vision of the future was dramatically opposite Monk Suzuki's
and he chanted in a more obscure and specialized idiom. He
helped design nuclear power plants and engineering systems.
He is not sure when he first noticed his own core was
suffering a meltdown. He thought he had lost his soul. He went
to India, the ancient holy land vtfiere the Buddha was bom,
to find himself. He visited temples and followed the travels of
Gautama He went to the holy land of Ceylon to climb a holy
mountain and there met a Japanese monk who told him that
a pagoda to peace was being built on the mountain. He thought
he would stay and help only a few days He was on the mountain
a year, and afterward he became a monk.
Almost a year later he received information from the
United States that American Indians were walking across the
country from San Francisco to Washington, D C His spiritual
master had told him many times that the United States was a
vital key to the future Peoples and religions from every part of
the world had immigrated to the United States Such diversity
thrown so closely together could erupt in explosion or cohabit
as a model of harmony That was where his work should be
Do not come back to Japan, the old monk told the younger
monk. Die in North America.
By the time Suzuki reached the United States the
Indians had already walked to Illinois. There he joined them,
and for three months he stayed with them, sleeping in prairies
and woods, walking 25 miles each day, chanting each mile
He went to Canada afterward He helped organize a
cultural exchange between Indians living in Canada and their
counterparts in Japan, the Ainou, who had been dispossessed
of their ancestral islands by the Japanese invaders more than
a thousand years ago
He lived in Vancouver, British Columbia, for six months,
then Entered on Quadra Island in Puget Sound He lived in a
cabin and spent the days watching eagles as they hunted in the
sky over the island
In the spring he came down to Ground Zero That was
the name of a group that had formed to nonviolently protest,
halt or otherwise confound construction of a Trident nuclear
submarine base outside Seattle Each day he spent with the
group he walked to a fence surrounding the project and chanted
After a month he started along the coast for California
Sitting on the bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean he
explained the importance of his chant It was not the words so
much as the repetition, he said The repetition emptied the mind
and opened the soul Na Mumyo Ho Ren Kyo Over and over,
and over again
"Inner happiness" was the result of chanting "And
happiness spread from one to many " To him it was that simple
Happy people do not make war upon one another They do not
despise, cheat, lie or do harm to each other Chanting, he said,
was the beginning of harmony and sharing
Suzuki is a monk of the sect known as Japan Buddha
Sanga, which studies only ancient Sansknt and has been
involved in nonviolent protest against war for more than half a
century During World War 2 most of its members were in jail
or exile After the war they built 40 peace pagodas throughout
Japan
Suzuki said that an international peace conference
was planned by several groups in Japan The conference was
HOKUSAI
to be held in either Tokyo or Hiroshima. He favored Hiroshima:
"Americans remember Pearl Harbor. Japanese remember
Hiroshima. Every year there is International Conference Against
Atomic War in Hiroshima. Every August 6, when bomb drop.
In Japan spintual conference not propaganda. Not technique.
Very spiritual. We hope to make religious nonviolence against
all kinds of war. Peace movement in Japan and the world split
so many times like cells in body. But body is whole. We want
to make peace whole again."
California was more immediate. He was going to help
the American Indian Movement in a three-prong demonstration
that started with a marathon. The tribes had run from San Fran­
cisco to Los Angeles. Each day runners from several tribes —
including, Suzuki said, a tribe from Japan — ran 10-mile relays
for a daily total of 100 miles. He wjuld join them in Los Angeles
where the Indians and their supporters would split up into three
caravans.
The first caravan would go to Diablo Canyon for a large
demonstration against a nuclear power station the utilities would
like to build on Indian land.
The second group planned a longer journey. It was
going to the Black Hills in South Dakota. "Businessmen want
uranium like ancestor wants gold 100 years ago," Suzuki said.
"Government say land belong to Sioux but under ground belong
to government."
The final caravan would go up the Kalamis River near
Crescent City. "Last year FBI kill two Indians for salmon fishing.
This year become more excitement."
He would join the third group. "One monk go to Diablo
Canyon. Another monk go Black Hills. If I choose I go to Diablo
as former nuclear engineer But it make no difference. Anyplace
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I go it is the same. Canada, Oregon, Washington, California; it
make no difference."
He said that he and the other monks who worked for
peace followed the Lotus Flower Sutra. Written as a proclam­
ation of the Buddha, this part was Suzuki's guide and his goal:
"Those who are not saved, I will save Those who are not free,
I will set free Those who are not comforted, I will comfort."
He told the story of another monk, who was his spiritual
example "Long time ago one monk not very smart. He is poor
in the head. He always do same action. He meet people and
he bow and he say, '1 am reverence and respect to you. I never
look down on you because someday you practice Buddha's
dharma and become Buddha I am respect to you.' Some people
think he crazy monk. Some people throw rocks to him and he
run away. But he all the time turn around and bow and he say,
'1 am respect to you.' More rocks come and he run, stop, bow
and say, '1 am respect to you.’ All the time, everywhere he go,
he always do same action. This dumb monk, he smarter than
all the rest of the people. He is Buddha before reincarnation. We
are following same action Chanting and beating drum. This how
we meet businessman and soldier. We bow and make respect to
them. Sometimes they throw rocks to us. But no matter. Some­
body already punched at me. I was very glad."
He even seemed pleased that some Americans called
him a "Jap."
"Jappa in Sanskrit mean Chant," he said. Jappa Mara is
holy necklace for chanting So they call to me 'Jap', is what I am
and what I do. I am laughing when I am called Jap."
Like many others Suzuki felt the immediate future would
be one of catastrophe Almost everything was coming to crisis at
once: overpopulation and worldwide food shortages; pollution of
the skies, the oceans, rivers and lakes that sickened and killed
natural life as well as increasing numbers of humans; energy
shortages that, combined with the rest, might conceivably drive
desperate nations into series of wars that culminate in a war
more horrible than any the world had experienced. He also
believed that natural disasters would increase and add millions
to the casualty lists But unlike other doom prophets, Suzuki
believed that the disasters were only a prologue to a new age
greater than any other The human race would come to full fruit;
the brain and the soul would finally be united. Already he saw
glimmerings. The political uprisings throughout the world were
not radical, he said. They were simple demands that humanity
reverse its headlong rush to oblivion.
Although he accused the industrial nations of over
consumption and waste, within his own country and the United
States he saw examples of lifestyles based on conservation and
sharing and the use of natural energy sources. These he called
New Age They were New Age ideas, New Age people — his
eyes were fixed past the rubble of the past century He said that
everywhere he went he looked for the New Age And because
he believed so strongly in the New Age, he did not fear the time
of troubles just ahead
Suzuki's life was the mirror of his beliefs. It might be
said that he walked his talk. His ministry was the road..
"I am hippie monk," he said. "No home. No temple. No
money Just walking Sometimes hungry. Sometimes cold.
Sometimes doubt. Sometimes jail. Jesus say, 'Don't keep food,
money, clothes Keep walking and believe in God.’ New Age
people don't need heroes We already have Jesus, Mary and
Buddha The Jones Family, Charles Manson, Sun Moon and
Billy Graham all imitation"
Before he went back on the road he said that the United
States was a mandala, that every ingredient for the future was
within its borders, the people, the ideas and the strength to
endure and ultimately prevail over the hard times ahead But
he said that all the hateful isms' that cripple humanity must
be ruthlessly exorcised; racism, sexism — these had to be
eliminated if the human race is to pull together and create
the New Age
Until then "Each moment is a miracle," he said.