Genpo Roshi & Andrew Cohen at the EnlightenNext World Center

hello Gimpo thank you for coming thank you um I do have a question along the lines I I I'm have the privilege of working with Andrew on the on the magazine and so we've thought talked about these issues a lot and I'd be curious in terms of how how you see your own because you're you're part of the first generation of American Buddhist teachers Amer you know teacher teachers who were trained by Eastern Masters and the first generation of American spiritual teachers and and in this case American Buddhist spiritual teachers I I'm curious how you see your own role as an authority figure how it's similar and different from how what you experienced in your own teacher in my Zumi roshi and and so you know the the difference in how you're understanding hierarchy with your own students and how he understood it with you excellent question well thought out um no very good question um obviously there are differences that's for sure and they're probably similar ities also okay uh for my teacher uh the role of teacher was always teacher and uh once in a while because I was very close to myumi roshi over a period of 24 years once in a while that dropped and we had a a more or less very intimate connection usually relaxed very often traveling most of the time in here in Europe not here in Europe but over in Europe I think I'm in Europe right now so far from so Lake um you know and it was a very intimate experience but most of the time there was always the vertical hierarchical relationship and it rarely deviated at all okay uh his big complaint about me back in the late 70s when I began teaching 78 uh was he felt that I was too friendly with my students too close yeah and I didn't adhere enough to that vertical and I was I was telling Andrew actually just today that um I had moved to Amsterdam with my wife and young child of two years in 1984 and in 19 um 80 I I think it was 84 he came and he had me move to England and it was because the Dutch were too horizontal with me right and too friendly and there wasn't enough respect be good if you tell them the story of what happened all right so I'll tell the story so we just finished a big Retreat right 7-Day Retreat and there was a party and the party was at Niko Tan's house uh and Niko tman is a successor of mine now but this was back in in 1984 he became a sucessor 20 years later and he' already been studying with Suzuki roshi since the 60s and Baker roosi and so forth and he was a teacher there and in his own right and so there was this party in his apartment and they had a gift for myumi roshi and so he came up to myumi roshi and he slaps him on the back and he says myumi we've got a gift for you and myumi said you move that that evening he told me I had to move I had to leave Holland and move to England yeah um for me and I it may be very different than how Andrew does it but for me I I see the vertical as extremely important I see the horizontal as also important and uh I also see that it's really Dynamic when I can have a relationship with a student that me on top and them here and we can reverse it sometimes and also here so I like that Dynamic but that's been his complaint myir Roshi's complaint about me I love that Dynamic so I don't like always being in that role uh for me personally and I like moving it around and I you know in Zen there's a it's the swasa but it's reverse right it's in some of the secret documents and the rotation of swastika is that movement of vertical and horizontal and when you spin that that's the Dynamics so I like that kind of relationship and I feel it keeps the relationship very alive and very real but don't you think that um don't you think that for us for for those of us who are trying to maintain this whole notion of hierarchy and verticality in a in a postmodern context and hopefully in a post postmodern context that what you described is exactly what we have to negotiate so in other words in in a traditional in AA you know in a traditional hierarchy the hierarchy is rigid it's and it's ever unchanging but be but because we're now in a postmodern context it's inevitable that we're going to have relationships with students right in which that in which the hierarchy and the relationship is going to have to become flexible and so one of the things that you know that I've been trying to Pioneer work with is the context where hierarchy is the foundation it's always respected but also there's there's a flexibility because I mean I think that's the key word we were just having a conversation done I said well I know what I know and also know what I don't know right and also we also know more about what it means to be a human being and so naturally because of our background we we want to share more of our Humanity with people that we're close to in the context of a of a hierarchical relationship but we don't want the hierarchical relationship to to to suppress or inhibit anybody else's autonomy we want to also also know how to be friends but that's new territory it's this is this is new well I think that was the basis of the question definitely yeah this and what I'm saying I think is exactly what you're saying that uh that that's kind of where we're at right now and it's it's what we're exploring what we're developing uh what we're pioneering and it's a whole new thing