Discours d’Yvon Myoken Bec

During these 25 years of teaching, while preserving the style and Dharma of my lineage, I have kept an interest in the way other western masters taught the Dharma they had received. As a result I have practiced a lot with master Taiten Guareschi and Zentatsu Baker Rôshi, the only western successor of Shunryu Suzuki, constantly refining the forms practiced in the dojo, liberating myself from the taboo concerning koans, wondering at the practice of oryoki which led me to understand that, what had appeared to me until then as formalism, was in reality the expression of mushotoku. I regularly send my best disciples to practice with these other two masters.

How could we neglect the Japanese tradition? Transmission implies recognise. But bearing in mind the distinction to be kept between spiritual transmission and the organisation of initiation I make a fundamental distinction between the tradition of our Soto family and forms and rules of the Japanese Shumucho, which we do not recognise.

In particular we do not consider Taisen Deshimaru as a sokan of the school, be it the first, but as the founding Patriarch of European Zen on a level with Bodhidharma in China, Dogen and Keizan in Japan and Suzuki and Maezumi in America. Nevertheless when I wish to inquire into Japanese practice I turn to reverend Taiten who is in my eyes the authentic repository.

Two years ago, during the Mokusho 25, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his death the extended Sangha conferred on Mokusho Zeisler the posthumous honorific title ofSobo, treasure of the Sangha. Today, in his temple la Gendronnière and on the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival in Europe I ask, with the utmost respect, that the posthumous title of founding Patriarch be conferred on master Taisen Deshimaru, that the walls that have separated us be broken down and that the doors to the holy place La Gendronnière be reopened to those who have for too long been excluded.»