Video Page

All known film from the Suzuki era

Cuke Video on Youtube (It's all there too)

Source material

All source films include stills at the bottom of page

Zen Mountain Center - KQED 16 mm film - Sokoji to Tassajara - summer 1968 (45:24) presented in full and in segments with slide show.

Zen in America - from the film Sunseed - Shunryu Suzuki and Tassajara (1970) section from a feature 35 mm documentary for theaters featuring gurus presented in full and in segments plus outtakes.

Sandokai - black and white 16 mm no sound in original - of Suzuki giving talk in Tassajara zendo 1970 (15:56) - now in this section is Branches of the Sandokai, the O'Connor and Wenger production with Suzuki's voice from the June 3, 1970 lecture synched with excerpts from the film.

Tassajara Spring 68 - A 4.5 minute film made by a guest in the spring of 1968 at Tassajara.

Nona Ransom films from c.1935 with Suzuki in several scenes.

Shoganji - the temple where Shunryu Suzuki was born - 1998 video by Mark Petchey.

Video made using Source material

Mitsu Suzuki video excerpts and slide show with other photos and music added. Put together after her death in 2016.

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Five Shorts made by students at San Francisco State University Cinema Department in 1998 using the source film plus new footage.

A Pearl Rolling Across a Table (6:59) - featuring Jakusho Bill Kwong

An Ordinary Stone (6:10) - featuring Shinko Laura Kwong

Beginner's Mind (4:27) - Suzuki on "Why I became a priest" - from a lecture he gave on September 16, 1969. Read lecture

How Do You Like Zazen (5:17) - How do you like brown rice? Read lecture given on Feb. 1, 1970.

What You're Left With (6:27) - featuring Yvonne Rand

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2006 video of Tassajara (10:01) excerpted from Mel Van Dusen's Present! - Talks of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (26:18) is at Mel Van Dusen's Youtube channel here. It's a composite of old and new footage. The old footage is all available here already but his Tassajara video is unique so that's what's presented here.

You can also see an interview he did with me at his channel, Present! Zen Failure. - dc

One Particle of Dust (1:14:11) - 2005 - This was a DVD made available by the SFZC under Michael Wenger's supervision. He and Timothy O'Connor Fraser produced it. It included the entire Zen in America, Zen Mt. Center, and Beginner's Mind films and contained much from the Sandokai black and white film with Suzuki's voice from that lecture synched with his image plus stills. This unique material from this film is the excellent Branches of the Sandokai which is now presented as a whole in the Sandokai section above. The entire contents of that DVD are available from links on this page. It's no longer practical or necessary to view it all together though for years it was the only way for most to view these films outside of a SFZC presentation and those were rare.

Had these films professionally copied on high quality VHS and Beta back in 2000 or so and around 2008 had it all transferred to high resolution standard US DVD digital both at Fiske Video in Mill Valley, CA. Richard Baker had the Nona Ransom Japan film transferred to video in Colorado. In 2013 had the original film digitized. There had been such deterioration that the older digitizing from hi def video was better in almost every case. As a result of the 2013 digital transfer, new footage from Sunseed's Zen in America, the outtakes, was added to this collection plus the 1968 short film made at Tassajara (which was serendipitously sent to me by the maker a half year later. It's his version with further work we're using here. - DC