Generous Illumination

 On the winter solstice, Saturday, December 21, 2024, Shannon O'Brien received jūkai at a ceremony at Boundless Way Zen Temple, which was held in person and on Zoom.  Many sangha members and friends and family of Shannon attended this joyous occasion.  

Jūkai is the recognition of a student's sincere commitment to the Way of Zen.  In the ceremony, the student takes on the practice of living the traditional sixteen Bodhisattva precepts.  Shannon had composed personal responses to each precept which she read during the ceremony, and had sewn her own rakusu, the abbreviated robe which Zen practitioners wear during formal meditation practice.  David Rynick, Rõshi, Dharma Holder Michael Herzog, Dharma Holder Rev. Paul Galvin and I presented the precepts to Shannon.

One of the lovely features of jūkai is that the teachers give the student a Japanese Dharma name.  Anyone who knows Shannon will know how appropriate the new name is for her:  Kanshõ, which means "generous illumination."

Congratulaitons Shannon Kanshõ!

Morning Stars Everywhere Rohatsu Sesshin

This past weekend we honored Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening, conventionally celebrated on December 8,  ("rohatsu" in Japanese.)   Many of the participants are pictured at the left, in a photo taken by Dharma Holder Michael Herzog.  The tanto (head seat), Lara Nordenson, gave the sesshin the name "Morning Stars Everywhere." This name was based on the teaching that the Buddha awakened when he saw the morning star after a long night of fighting off the forces of confusion and suffering in his own mind, through the powerful practice of being still and unmoving in the face of everything.   (Otherwise known as zazen!)

 The teachers of this Rohatsu sesshin, Dharma Holder Alan Richardson, David Roshi and myself talked about how this morning star appears everywhere, in all places and in all times.  And we chose the following koan to explore together., Case 32 in the Gateless Gate collection:

THE BUDDHA RESPONDS TO AN OUTSIDER

An outsider asked the World-Honored One, “I do not ask for the spoken; I do not ask for the unspoken.” The World-Honored One just sat still.

The outsider praised him, saying, “The World-Honored One with his great compassion and mercy has opened the clouds of my delusion and enabled me to enter the way.” He then made bows and took his leave.

Ananda asked, “What did that outsider realize to make him praise you?”

The World-Honored One said, “He is like the fine horse who runs even at the shadow of the whip.”

Wumen's commentary

Ananda is the Buddha's disciple, but his realization is less than the outsider's.  Now tell me, how do they differ -- the disciple and the outsider?

Wumen's Verse

Walking along the edge of a sword,

Running along the ridge of an iceberg,

No steps, no ladders,

Jumping from the cliff with hands open.

No Other World Sesshin

photo by Pierce Butler

 This past weekend, in the midst of our recovery from the US presidential election, we had a deep and community-building on-line sesshin.  Our tanto, Jenny Smith, assisted by Pierce Butler, Sabrina Mills and David Linshaw, named the sesshin "No Other World."  This was in honor of the text the teachers (Dharma Holder Michael Herzog, David Rynick, Rōshi and me) used as the theme of the retreat, and also a poem by Gary Snyder that I read and commented on called "Why Log Truck Drivers Rise Earlier than Students of Zen" which ends with the line "There is no other life."  Our text came from a dialogue in the Record of Xuansha:

A monk said, “I’ve just arrived here and I beg the master to point out a gate whereby I may enter.” Xuansha said, “Do you hear the sound of the water in the creek?” The monk siad, “I hear it.” Xuansha said, “Enter here.” 

In these wild times, Xuansha's teaching remains relevant and inspiring.  Whatever we may feel: grief, anger, fear, happiness, joy...and in whatever circumstances we find ourselves, the teaching of the Great Way invites us to enter into this life as it is.  Here we can find the way to being a bodhisattva in this burning world.  And, there is no other world.

Aimless Wanderers Sesshin September 2024

 

photo by Pierce Butler

Almost a month ago we had our Distant Temple Bell sesshin on Zoom.  Pictured to the left are many of the attendees.  To celebrate David Rõshi's new book "Wandering Close to Home" we took as our theme a kõan about wandering, Case 20 from the Book of Serenity:  Dizang's Nearness.  In this kõan, Fayang tells Dizang that he is wandering aimlessly, but he doesn't know where he's going.  Dizang praises him, saying, "Not knowing is most intimate."

In these times, with war, politics and wild weather surrounding us, not knowing what will happen next feels realistic.  To allow ourselves the intimacy of being in good company in our lostness and confusion is the path that Zen shows us.  May we all wander into clarity and balance as we face these difficult times.

Just This Is It

 

I recently finished reading (after many years of perusing) the wonderful book by Taigen Dan Leighton pictured here.  Leighton published this in 2015, so I'm only 9 years late to the party.  I was happy to meet the author at a Dharma Teachers conference a number of years ago, and I found him to be warm and friendly, and with a deep Zen practice.  The book, which is about our Zen ancestor Dongshan, is a great way to understand the life and  teachings of this important lineage ancestor.

Leighton explains that Dongshan was always pointing to the suchness of things -- "just this is it."  I highly recommend the book as a way of understanding many of Dongshan's most important writings:  The Five Ranks (or Modes or Degrees), many koans which feature Dongshan, and The Jewel Mirror Samadhi, his beautiful poem about the Great Way.  

One small caveat, which has tripped up not a few people -- Leighton tells us that Dongshan's teacher Yunyan was the biological brother of Daowu, but most scholars understand them to be Dharma brothers -- students of the same teacher.  Beyond that small glitch, Leighton's insight and his own practice are trustworthy guides to these teachings.  Enjoy the book as a companion and inspiration to your own discovery of "just this is it!"

Hakuin's Song of Zazen paraphrased by Nyogen Senzaki

My dear friend Dosho Port, Rōshi found the following text in his garage -- an unpublished manuscript probably given to him by his first teacher Maezumi Rōshi -- a collection of translations of Hakuin Zenji's Song of Zazen, the first Zen text I fell in love with myself. It's from Nyogen Senzaki (1876-1958) a great Japanese Zen teacher who was one of the pioneers in bringing Zen to the United States in the last century.  Dosho Rōshi writes on his blog that it's not really a translation, but more of a paraphrase.  I find it inspiring and beautiful.   Here it is:

From the very beginning you are a Buddha. As there is no ice apart from water, so there is no Buddha outside our fellow-beings. People fail to perceive the truth, though it is within them, and they search afar for it. They suffer thirst, failing to see the fountain near at hand. They are in poverty, forgetting that they are heirs to boundless wealth.

You say that you are suffering. You only suffer because of your own ignorance. Light your prajna, the inner wisdom, and darkness will instantly vanish. That is what we call zazen, Mahayana Dhyana.

I can not tell you how zazen, Mahayana Dhyana, does its marvelous work for you. No other study, however sublime, surpasses it. It stands beyond comparison. You can experience it by yourself. The errors of the past will no longer harass you. Where is hell? You left it in yesterday's dream. Where is paradise? You are standing in it.

If you praise zazen, Mahayana Dhyana, you are drawing yourself next to the Buddha. If you practice zazen, Mahayana Dhyana, you are actually walking in the path of the Buddhas. When you realize that your true self is not-self then your mind will transcend all thoughts.

Thus the gate of true freedom will be opened, and you will enter the holy path rightfully. Your karma will be the emanations of Buddha's wisdom and grace. You can now come and go when ever and where ever you please, for the truth is yours, and you have nothing to do but to manifest it. Even your singing and dancing will actualize Buddha-Dharma. The whole world will be beautiful to your eyes.

In the infinite sky of Samadhi, the moon of the Tathagata's four wisdoms is shining, yet its rays of silvery light are the reflections of your true self. Now what else do you want in this world? The long sought Nirvana is yours. You live in Buddha's paradise of lotus flowers, and you are a Buddha yourself.

Comings and Goings

2005 sesshin photo at Senexet House in Connecticut

Someone sent me this photo recently.  He didn't know where or when it was taken, but I managed to identify it, from the people and the colors of the rakusus,  It was taken 18 years ago at the end of a sesshin at Senexet House, where Boundless Way folks used to meet to have our intensive meditation retreats.  Looking over the photo, I have mixed thoughts and feelings -- the first thought being: "we were all so young!"  A handful of people in the picture are still practicing with David and me in Boundless Way -- you may recognize some of those faces.  And a few more have died and many more have gone on their way to other Zen communities, or to another kind of non-Zen life.  So there is also nostalgia and some sadness.  The main teaching for me that comes from this photo is how fragile our connections are to each other, to life, and to the dharma.  Currently we have a dedicated and devoted group of practitioners in Boundless Way:  over one hundred members of the organization, and many more who come and practice together on Zoom and in person.  This morning there were nearly forty faces who showed up for dokusan, or just to practice zazen together.  How many will be with us in 20 years?  I myself, if I'm still alive, will be close to 90.  Because everything comes and goes in this delicate system of connection, I am moved to be even more grateful for who is in my life right now.  Thanks to all who are reading this, whether or not we've met or practiced together, for being here.  Many bows to you all!

Two Sesshins: April 2023 Crying and Laughing and May 2023 Ducky Down

April Sesshin

May Sesshin

On the weekend of April 20 -- 24, 2023, we had an online only Zoom sesshin at the Temple.  Our tanto, Rev. Paul Galvin, named it the "Crying and Laughing Sesshin" after an incident that followed our selected koan: Baizhang's Wild Duck, Case 53 from the Blue Cliff Record.  In the story, Baizhang and his teacher Mazu have a dialogue about a duck, and later, Baizhang expresses his new view of reality with a fellow student, first by crying and then by laughing.  (Or, depending on the translation source, in the reverse order.)

And then in May 19 -- 22 we had our hybrid Ducky Down sesshin, named by our residential tanto, Jenny Smith, and based on a comment in our Dharma dialogue quoting a Sesame Street song, attached here for your delight:  Put the Duckie Down

The Dharma as conveyed by ducks!

The Ineffable Sound of Raindrops Sesshin

 As we journey more deeply into the pandemic, our virtual sesshin grow ever more deep and illuminating.  Thanks to our tanto and registrar Jenny Smith, assistant tanto Rev. Paul Galvin, and the officer team of Rev. Corwyn Miyagishima, Michael Herzog and Pierce Butler, and the team of teachers:  Bob Waldinger, Sensei, David Rynick, Roshi and myself, we opened our hearts to the sound of the raindrops.  Deep gratitude to everyone who participated!

Ordination of Rev. Corwyn Ryūdõ Kinzan Miyagishima

 

Yesterday at 3 pm, through the magic of zoom, close to 90 people witnessed the ordination of Rev. Corwyn Ryūdõ Kinzan Miyagishima, my beloved student and a dharma light to the sangha of Boundless Way Temple, Boundless Way Zen and many other dharma friends.  Pictured here are Rev. Paul Galvin, who traveled to the Temple hermitage in Worcester from his home in Vermont,  Rev. Corwyn, me, and David Rynick, Rõshi.  Also supporting the ordination on the zoom screen were Bob Waldinger, Rõshi and Mike Fieleke, Rõshi, and technical support came from sangha members Jenny Smith and Chad Cook.  If you'd like to watch the ceremony, you can find it here on Youtube.  

Now that he is ordained, Corwyn can perform marriages and lead funerals and memorial services, like any clergy person.  As an "unsui" or "clouds and waters" priest, he has taken a vow to devote his life to being of service to the sangha, and to all beings.  He is not yet a Zen teacher, but functions in countless ways to support our community.  You can read more about what it means to be a Boundless Way priest, and the distinction between teacher and priest here.

Corwyn's ordination name, Ryūdõ, means "dragon hall", and is the family name I give to all those I have the privilege to ordain.  Kinzan, his first Zen name, means "joyful mountain."

As we say in our ordination ceremony:  "The way is perfect like vast space, where there’s no lack and no excess; the person who does not realize this wanders lost in a world of confusion and hurt, while the person who realizes the way is immediately at home."

Welcome home, Ryūdõ Kinzan! 

Full of Gold Sesshin

 

Our April Distant Temple Bell online sesshin (Zen retreat) finished up yesterday and here is the screen shot of most of our participants taken by our tanto (head seat) Corwyn Miyagishima.  He was joined in running the sesshin by Senior Assistant Teacher Alan Richardson as assistant tanto, along with Jenny Smith and Adam Monty as officers.  David Dae An Rynick Roshi and I were the teachers, assisted by Senior Assistant Teacher Rev. Paul Galvin and Senior Assistant Teacher Michael Herzog.  Corwyn named the retreat after a story told in one of the talks about a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who, while scattering away a big pile of gold dust, said "All the world is gold to me!"  From the evidence of the bright faces in the photo, each shining with their own light, that's easy to see.  

Our next sesshin will be held online June 11 -- 13.  Stay tuned for information about this and other events by joining our mailing list at Boundless Way Temple.  Happy Spring everyone!

The Chirping Bird Sesshin.

 

Most of the participants from the recent joyous Distant Temple Bell sesshin (Zen retreat) held in our Boundless Way Temple zoom zendo are shown in the photo at the left.  Our co-tanto ("head seat" or retreat manager), who helped run the sesshin along with co-tanto Rev. Paul Galvin and practice leader and registrar Jenny Smith, was Corwyn Miyagishima.  It is the tanto's privilege to name the sesshin, and Corwyn called it the Chirping Bird Sesshin -- a harbinger of Spring during these cold times in New England and elsewhere in the world.   The teachers for the sesshin were Mike Fieleke, Sensei, David Rynick, Roshi and myself, and we were joined by folks from all over the United States and Europe, Our next zoom sesshin will be in April, from the 9th to the 12th.  Come join us!

Buddhas Everywhere

As Hakuin Zenji sings in his Song of Zazen:  "All beings by nature are Buddhas, as ice by nature is water." Training the perceptual mind to see everything as an example of the awakened heart takes some work:  we have to let many of our old rigidly held patterns around differentiation, especially our certainty about right and wrong, you and me, this and that,  life and death, Buddha and not-Buddha, become looser.   

While there are indeed different qualities to  everything we encounter, and it's vitally important not to ignore differentiation, there is another view which can provide some delight to the discouraged heart in difficult times.  A friend recently told me that she had realized, in mourning a beloved parent, that even though on one level her parent was definitely dead, on another level they weren't.  She said to me, "there is no life and death!"  Her parent is definitely gone from any ordinary way of perceiving a person, but she realized that everyone she meets, alive or dead, is like this.  Her parent was once a baby, once a child, ultimately old and ill.  All of these versions of her parent were true.  And this perception applies to living people, too.  She had discovered the truth of the teachings for herself.  In the Mahayana (Great Vehicle) teachings the historical Buddha, who died 2600 years ago, is still alive, and takes an infinite variety of forms, populating the Buddha fields, which can be perceived everywhere.  

My two-year-old grandson is learning about Buddhas -- he got a plushy toy version for his birthday.  This is a Buddha who needs kisses and also has to brush his teeth.  He needs to be greeted with a cheerful, "hi Buddha!"  For many months he has been seeing Buddha statues, as well as Christian statues like the one pictured above, as different versions of Buddha.  He sees Buddhas everywhere.  As his process of ego-development and learning about differentiation continues to develop, I wonder if he will retain this freshness, and say "hi Buddha" everywhere he goes, to every religious statue he encounters.  Whatever happens to him, and to my grieving friend, they inspire me to remember to see all beings as Buddha and to see Buddhas everywhere.   

Masked and Unmasked

Priest and friend, masked and unmasked

 It's been a long time since I posted anything beyond news of events at the Temple.  Something about the times we've been living through have left me "taking the backward step" as Dogen says, rather than reaching out to people through this blog.  But I've made a new commitment, and, in the way of all such plans, while I am fairly sure that this post will happen, I can only hope and trust that I'll continue to post more regularly.

The photo above is from a billboard in front of our local Roman Catholic church, about a national giving campaign.   I love the look on the face of our old friend white Jesus, happily unmasked and looking over the shoulder of one of his priests.  There's something about the two of them that points us all to finding a way to our common ground as human beings in the middle of a pandemic.  I've been practicing with my reactivity to people who don't wear masks, figuring that, on some level, they don't believe in the pandemic.  While the emotional-cognitive reaction I have is based on delusion, since I don't really know why people out in public aren't wearing masks (did they forget? are they having trouble breathing?  are they angels, bodhisattvas or saints appearing among us to show us the way?) it provides an opportunity to look deeply into my own tendency to create reality out of a partial understanding of what's happening at any time, anywhere.  

Zen teachings point us to the opportunity to meet everything as fully as we possibly can, to engage directly with the world we perceive and to be suspicious of the conclusions we draw.  The guideline is to be curious about everything.  I will probably never know why the people I meet during my daily walk are masked or unmasked, but I do know that they are probably human beings like me, struggling to figure out how to live in a challenging world.  This allows a more spacious internal experience, and I am then free to greet them sincerely, with a hidden, masked smile, as another companion on the path.  

The Distant Temple Bell Heard Through Beautiful Snow Rohatsu Sesshin

This past weekend we celebrated one of our Zen holidays, commemorating the morning that our ancestor Shakyamuni Buddha, after a long night of struggling with his inner and outer demons, saw in the darkness the morning star and realized the nature of reality, the Dharma, the way things really are.  It's traditional to hold a silent meditation retreat, called a sesshin, around the alleged date, usually celebrated on December 8 (Rohatsu in Japanese).  The smiling faces in the photo above belong to the people who participated in this sesshin via Zoom.  This was the fourth virtual sesshin hosted by the Temple since the pandemic began in March and we closed our building to keep us safe from the virus.  We quickly got going on Zoom, and haven't missed a beat since then, holding daily practice sessions, classes and retreats online, keeping the practice of our Zen Temple alive through the miracle and mystery of the internet.  (For more information on our offerings, and to join us, please visit our website:  Boundless Way Temple.)

People attended the sesshin from all over the country and the world.  In Worcester, MA, USA, where the Temple is located, we had a big snowstorm on Saturday, the second full day of the sesshin.  Our tanto (head seat) named the sesshin after a quote from one of our ancestors from the Tang Dynasty in China, Layman Pang, who talks about beautiful snowflakes not falling anywhere else.  This is our life of practice, one that we can only do right here.  Whether in person or on Zoom, we are a community sincerely dedicated to realizing the Great Way of the Buddha.  I'm grateful to everyone who makes this possible:  our many ancestors and our current community.  We are so lucky in these dark times to be able to see the small light shining in the darkness!

Another wonderful sesshin

 Last weekend we finished our third virtual zoom sesshin, and again, it was wide and deep.  To the left is a screen shot of many of our attendees.  Our tanto (head seat) Rev. Paul Galvin named it the "Nothing Lacking" Sesshin, based on the text we used by the Chinese teacher Linji Yixuan called "Nothing to Do."

Here is that text, translated by Burton Watson:

There is no Buddha, no Dharma, no practice, no realization.

What is it you seek in others? What is it you lack? It’s as though you

want to put another head on top of the one you already have. At this

very moment your own wonderful function is no different from the

wonderful function of the masters and the Buddhas. It’s only because

you lack confidence that you seek something outside of you.

Make no mistake: there’s no Dharma outside you to run after;

there’s no Dharma within to attain. Rather than seeking, it would be

better to hear these words, rest, and practice having nothing to do.

If something has arisen, don’t try to make it continue.

If something has not arisen, don’t try to make it arise.

This action is more valuable than ten years’ pilgrimage.

There is nothing you need to do. You just need to live as ordinary people.

Wear your robe, eat your food.

• As day follows day, • be a person who has nothing to do. 

Talks from the sesshin can be found here:  Sesshin talks.  Our next Zoom sesshin will celebrate Rohatsu, the day that the Buddha woke up from his dream and understood the reality of life.  It will be held Dec. 3 -- 6, and information can be found here:  Boundless Way Temple.  All are welcome -- see you there!

Dream

Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is but a dream.

-- Children's Song

The 17th century Zen Master Takuan Sōhō, as his last act before dying, wrote the kanji for "dream"  pictured above.  Since I first heard Takuan's story at the beginning of my Zen training, I have been inspired by his simple summation of a life of complexity and wildness.  This is certainly my experience, that life is like a dream.  Zen practice is about recognizing our dream life fully, and awakening into a more spacious life.  

In the past few days of these strange times, I've been having extremely realistic dreams.  Perhaps this is also happening for you.  And two blogs I follow, one from my husband, David Rynick http://davidrynick.com/blog/, and one from my teacher James Ford (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/monkeymind/), also mention their unusually vivid dreams.  As Zen teachers, we often hear about dreams becoming more intense during sesshin, our Zen meditation retreats.  It's been my contention that everyone on the planet, because of the pandemic, as well as the political, racial and gender unrest, is living life more intensively.  We may wish to turn away from all the suffering, but it's becoming more difficult to do this.  And the feeling of turning away can be numbing and exhausting.  At sesshin, we spend many hours turning again and again to what is right here, while sitting in stillness, and transitioning to other practice activities like walking, care-taking of our space, cooking and eating.  Life becomes extremely simple during these retreats.  And for many of us, because of the limitations on the lives we're used to living, what I have been calling the "before-times" everyday life has developed this quality of a silent meditation retreat.

So it makes sense that our dreams are following us as we move into the interior space of the heart.  My dreams have been full of imagery of meditation retreats, people from the past coming back into my life to ask forgiveness for various wrongs they did to me, all surrounded in an atmosphere of love and spaciousness.  I wake up from these dreams feeling alive and present.  My dream life is comforting.  Waking life can be challenging.  But I'm lucky -- I have the good fortune to have found Zen practice, in its many forms.

Attending and teaching sesshin, practicing Zen daily in formal practice periods on Zoom (and recently in person in the Temple garden) and doing my best to continue to wake up in every moment, this is how I stay awake in the dream of human life, right now, on this planet, in this country, with everything exactly how it is.  Our Temple provides many ways to join with others in practice, study and discussion, including sesshin.  (www.worcesterzen.org).  Maybe we'll find each other in one of these practice opportunities, and we can learn how to wake up together.

Darkness is Asking to Be Loved

 The other day I was in the grip of a difficult mood: politics, the pandemic, global warming and racism, sexism and anti-semitism were all mixed together into a toxic mess.  And I felt oppressed and beaten down.  I tried to find some solace in Buddhist writings from the magazine Lion's Roar, but all of the articles were either full of blame or cheerfully upbeat...well-written and I'm sure helpful for people, but there was nothing that even began to touch my own mood.  Until I came across the following prose poem by the Black Zen woman teacher Zenju Earthlyn Manuel.  "This is it!"  my heart shouted out... the Zen approach to suffering.  We must face what we experience directly -- learn to bear the unbearable.  This is why we sit still and upright in the midst of everything.  We can even face our anger and hopelessness, and the parts of us that are trying to be cheerful.  Here are the words of Zenju Sensei:

Darkness Is Asking To Be Loved

By now we have lost the tiny sense of peace we created for ourselves.  Our composure is an idea long gone, reflected in the grinding of our teeth and locked jaws.

If you are still holding up trying to meditate, I invite you to fall down.  Fall down on the earth.  Come down here and smell the sweat of terror on your skin, overpowering the scent of agarwood.  Come down on all fours and greet the darkness that reeks of death, reaches out its desperate hand, and asks to be loved as much as we love the light it gives.

Come down here on this earth and breathe for those gasping for air.  Hear each scream as a bell that never stops ringing.  Bury your face in the mud of this intimate place, in this shared disease and tragedy.  

If you have nothing to say, now is the time for the deeper silence that does not apologize or seek something kind to say.  And yet the deeper silence is not quiet.  It whispers in the dark and wakes you from the nightmare.

Come down here and be still on the earth.  Let loose shame, rage, guilt , grief, pain, and make a river of it.

Come down here.  Catch the love poems hidden in the shouting, watch the unfolding of the seasons from the ground, look up at the sky.  And when it hurts from being down here so long, roll over and see what you couldn't see from the other side.

Breathe out loud.  No particular posture needed.

Fall down onto the earth.  Fall off your soft cushions.  Come down here.  Come down here, where the only lullaby tonight will be the sound of your heart drumming the songs you were born with.

Sangha Treasure Sesshin

Here at Boundless Way Temple we just completed our three day online "Distant Temple Bell  Sesshin"  -- a time for intensive Zen practice.  This was our second online sesshin, and our tanto, or head of practice, Senior Assistant Teacher Alan Richardson, named it the Sangha Treasure Sesshin.  Alternating periods of formal Zen meditation and at-home informal Zen practice, we discovered how to blend all the elements of our lives into one seamless fabric.  Grateful bows to my fellow teachers, David Rynick, Roshi, Michael Fieleke, Sensei, and Bob Waldinger, Sensei, as well as to the "sesshin officers" who ran the practice periods and enabled the teachers to offer individual meetings (dokusan) and dharma talks (teisho):  Corwyn Miyagishima, Jenny Smith and Adam Monty.  And thanks to Senior Assistant Teacher Michael Herzog, who along with Alan, gave beautiful and inspiring evening encouragement talks.  And of course the sangha treasure itself:  41 dynamic people of the Way practicing together in our Zoom zendo.

The Courage to Live

In 1994, Rwanda experienced a civil war in which close to a million people, many of them ethnic Tutsi,  were slaughtered.  Statistics vary, but whatever the exact number, of victims, the human mind can barely comprehend violent death on such a scale.  As we know, human beings continue to perpetrate murder upon each other.  This happens regularly, and it hasn't stopped.  All of us will die, but not everyone has to die through hatred.  And yet...

That year I was finishing up my career as a homicide bereavement counselor, working with loved ones of people who had been murdered.  It was a challenging job, and I found my heart breaking regularly.  I continued as a grief counselor in private practice, and had begun teaching mindfulness under the training of Jon Kabat-Zinn at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  So I was able to experience some relief from the impossible grief of the people I worked with.  And yet...

In the grief training I had received in graduate school and at the Connecticut Hospice where I did my internship, we were taught to listen, and listen more, and then listen more, as our clients poured out their stories.  Ultimately, healing began when people began to find some ease in the love that remained, and some renewed purpose in their lives -- almost like the people who had died had found their way into the crack in our broken hearts.  And yet...

I still miss my parents and other loved ones who died decades ago.  They visit in my dreams, and especially these days, with the deaths spreading throughout the world from the two pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism, I feel a renewed grief for them, and for this world of love and hatred intertwined. 

This morning I read a short story in the June 22 issue of the New Yorker magazine.  It's about a woman who fled Rwanda just before the genocide.  Most of her family,  all of those who remained in her native country, were murdered.  She returns home seeking healing.  The story, called "Grief" is by Scholastique Mukasonga, a Rwandan author who lives in Paris, and it's translated into English by Jordan Stump.  Towards the end of the story, overwhelmed by horror and heartbreak, she receives the following counsel from an old man who guards a church where many people had been massacred.  He says:

"...You won't find your dead in the graves or the bones.. That's not where they're waiting for you.  They're inside you.  They survive only in you and you survive only through them.  But from now on you'll find all your strength in them -- there's no other choice, and no one can take that strength away from you.  With that strength, you can do things you might not even imagine today.  Like it or not, the death of our loved ones has fueled us -- not with hate, not with vengefulness, with an energy that nothing can ever defeat.  That strength lives in you,  Don't let anyone try to tell you to get over your loss, not if that means saying goodbye to your dead.  You can't:  they'll never leave you, they'll stay by your side to give you the courage to live, to triumph over obstacles...They're always beside you, and you can always depend on them... "

In these times, as in all times in human history, we must cultivate the courage to live, the strength to persist.  May we never forget our dead, and may we stay in close touch with their example, finding the power to go forward and fight for justice in this wild world.