![\"\"](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_niPwTW3rBbU\/SCSeVegxUbI\/AAAAAAAAA7Q\/uG0WGmkZxgk\/s1600-h\/anandadhalenberg.jpg\")
<\/a>Why don\u2019t we get drunk
sit all night facing the moon
\u201copening our hearts\u201d<\/span>
as men did long ago?<\/span> <\/p>\n
last night was full moon, but one bottle of sake eight years: San Francisco, the Quiet talk and slow easy pace. ease of the world, the light as though we might<\/span> \u201cParting with Claude Dalenberg\u201d<\/span> In his autobiography, Alan Watts writes of <\/span>Claude Dalenberg<\/a> who \u201chad studied with me at Northwestern \u2013 a calm and mighty Swede with a relaxed, amused attitude to the world, who later traveled in Japan, and became a Zen priest working with the <\/span>roshi<\/span> Shunryu Suzuki.\u201d Watts went on to describe how, when he was at the American Academy for Asian Studies in San Francisco, \u201cStudents at the Academy would sometimes say, \u201cif you want to know what Zen is about, talk to the janitor, Claude.\u201d To which with that dry tone for which Watts was so well known, he added how they\u2019d add, \u201cDon\u2019t bother to see Alan Watts upstairs.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Ananda Claude Dalenberg was one of twenty-one people (thank you David<\/a> for correcting the number) Shunryu Suzuki ordained as Zen priests. He remained a senior figure at the San Francisco Zen Center for the whole of his life. He eventually received Dharma<\/a> transmission from Roshi Reb Anderson. But Claude\u2019s style was too idiosyncratic to fit comfortably into what would arguably become the major Zen institution in North America. A beat when that meant something, his friend Jack Kerouac dropped him into his novel <\/span>Dharma Bums<\/span> as \u201cBud Diefendorf.\u201d He was an admirer of Alan Watts when few in the \u201cestablished\u201d Zen community were comfortable with Watts\u2019 loose style and broad interpretation of what Zen meant.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Claude seemed endlessly to prefer the outsider role.<\/p>\n And he always loomed large on my path, popping up in the most unexpected places. Back in the late nineteen sixties when I made my way to the SFZC, Claude was the person who gave me my first instruction in the basics of Zen meditation.<\/span><\/p>\n Our paths would cross a number of times over the years.<\/span><\/p>\n He quietly helped Jiyu Kennett\u2019s fledgling Zen Mission Society acquire the property in far Northern California that would become Shasta Abbey, securing the loan with his personal stock portfolio. In the early days Claude was a regular visitor and as an early inmate of that institution, I always looked forward to his visits. It meant some rule would probably be broken\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n I still recall a conversation we had at Issan Dorsey\u2019s Mountain Seat ceremony. He gently poked fun at my robes\u2026 During breaks we talked a little about old times. Claude mentioned how he had visited the local Unitarian Universalist church a few times. He had a penchant for dressing in what I assume were thrift store clothes and usually looking rather like an unmade bed. He said he felt there was some discomfort among the congregation\u2019s well-to-do rank and file with his appearance. Might have been true about the church, might not.<\/span><\/p>\n But, that was pure Claude.<\/span><\/p>\n I just learned Ananda Claude Dalenberg died on the 18th of February, 2008. He was eighty years old.<\/span><\/p>\n As long as I live, he\u2019ll be part of who I am\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n Endless bows, old teacher.<\/span><\/p>\n Thank you\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why don\u2019t we get drunksit all night facing the moon\u201copening our hearts\u201das men did long ago? last night was full moon, but too cloudy. one bottle of sake soon gone.at lunchtime today you stopped byyour ship sails from Kobe at six. eight years: San Francisco, thebeaches, the mountains, Japan. Quiet talk and slow easy pace.with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
too cloudy.<\/span><\/p>\n
soon gone.
at lunchtime today you stopped by
your ship sails from Kobe at six.<\/span><\/p>\n
beaches, the mountains,
Japan.<\/span><\/p>\n
with your rucksack to India,
Europe, return<\/span><\/p>\n
rain<\/span><\/p>\n
somewhere be<\/span>
parting again.<\/span> <\/span> <\/p>\n
by Gary Snyder<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
The last time I saw him was when I was studying at the Pacific School of Religion. One of the high points of that experience for me was studying with Masao Abe, the great Zen philosopher, and arguably the last representative of the Kyoto School (I know that\u2019s an exaggeration. Indulge me\u2026) Sensei Abe was a visiting professor there for two of the three years I was studying at the school and I took several classes from the old venerable. During Sensei Abe\u2019s time there, he preferred to live at the San Francisco Zen Center. And Claude drove him back and forth and would stay for the lectures.<\/span><\/p>\n