Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘At the end of the Spring 1978 practice period there was a disastrous fire at Tassajara that burned down the Zendo, library, food storage area, and office. After successfully keeping the huge August forest fire out of Tassajara, to lose the oldest, most central, and important building at Tassajara could have been very discouraging; but everyone met it with acceptance and hard work.

The fire occurred during the Mondo (question and answer) ceremony between the students and Baker-roshi on the last day of the practice period. From the back of the Zendo a student, waiting to ask the next question, said, “There seems to be a fire back here!” Roshi looked up and saw some vague evidence of a fire. He immediately looked down for a moment just to return everyone to his or her individual composure, and then he looked up again and – the very next moment- the whole back of the Zendo entry was orange with fire. Everyone moved calmly and directly out of the Zendo, but at the end of the twenty or thirty seconds it took for everyone to leave, a few of the last people out had their hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes singed by the heat.

It was immediately apparent that the fire could not be controlled at all with extinguishers. However, the flooding rains of the Winter and Spring had washed out all the water lines from the reservoir down to Tassajara, so hoses had been run through the trees from the reservoir to maintain a waterflow during the storms. This hookup, though, left no pressure in the standpipe system which we had specifically installed years before to meet such fire emergencies. Also, our main large fire engine had broken down a few weeks before and we had immediately ordered a new one which was delivered a few days after the fire. 

Lacking either of these systems, the fire crew, well trained from its experience of the forest fire in the previous August, was able to get the floating pump down into the stream and hooked up in less than five minutes with strong pressure for one hose, and pretty good pressure for two hoses. But in much less than five minutes the fire had spread in an enormous rush through the floor and ceiling of the library, then on into the older Zendo-office building. The 100-year-old wood burned like dry pine needles.

The fire seems to have started in a propane gas refrigerator that was in the basement storage area that was next to the Zendo. We had had some trouble with the pilot light of the refrigerator shortly before, but it had been repaired and a refrigeration expert had come in to check it. The pilot light for the gas refrigerator was the only flame inthe area. The fire burned very strongly from the draft created in the stone staircase coming up from the food storage area. The fire wall between the kitchen and library held long enough to give us time to save the kitchen.

The extreme heat prevented anyone from re-entering the Zendo to rescue anything. As a result we lost the large drum (taiko), the wooden drum (mokugyo), and large bowl bell (keisu), altogether worth about $40,000. The large bronze bowl bell melted away, leaving no trace. Saddest of all, the 1700-year-old stone Gandhara Buddha shattered and cracked in the heat, Unfortunately it is impossible to get insurance for fire in a remote mountain area like Tassajara.’ (from the Wind Bell)

I have been thinking of this story for the last few weeks…