An interview with Zen Master Kendo

So it was, then, that having first conceived a vague idea of becoming a priest when I was only twenty-two, I now actually became one after a long time, when I was two months into my forty-sixth year. Immediately after the ordination ceremony, I had an interview with Master Kendo, in the course of which I asked him what would be the most important thing in my life as a priest in the future. He thought a bit and then said: “The most important thing is to have as few desires as possible.” He also advised me for the present to continue to live at my home and carry on with my teaching as a professor. Accordingly, I took the train back to my wife and family at Kamakura, and I remember saying to myself seriously on the journey, contemplating my changed appearance with the black robe and shaven head: “You must be careful not to slip into becoming a hypocrite!”