The first time Charlotte and Suzuki Roshi* taught together in North Beach in San Francisco in 1967. It was the first time Suzuki Roshi had met Charlotte. He was right there doing everything with her. He led part of the day, and she led part of the day, and he was completely a participant.

The following excerpt from conversations with Charlotte Selver came about because the Swiss “arbeitskreis heinrich jacoby / elsa gindler” asked for an article about the development of Charlotte’s work. I tried to explore this with Charlotte which turned out to be a very difficult task. It soon became clear that Charlotte has very little interest in tracing the development of her way of working. Instead, what fascinates her is our attitude toward life. Time and again she spoke about people who, in their way of being, embody what came to be her central interest: that life cannot be mastered by a method but needs to be met with an attitude of openness and discovery.

The most remarkable thing about these conversations may well be the persistence with which Charlotte kept coming back to speak about Elsa Gindler, how she hesitated to admit other influences (until the surprising end of these conversations). Gindler is the essence, everything else is at best a confirmation of Gindler’s discoveries. She often didn’t respond directly to my questions but remembered situations or people who embodied this quality of immediacy, which is so fundamental for her.