. He he he.

[02:27]

I love you. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.

[06:46]

I love you. [...] Holy Spirit. I love you.

[09:33]

I love you. See you Earth and death is the great matter.

[20:27]

Hard to understand and difficult to enact. From out of the empty sea of being, non-being, we emerge into this lifetime for the journey on. goal and our task is to understand this life and understanding to love. Imitating the compassionate bodhisattvas entering all Dharma gates, saving all beings. So we are born. So we die. So we are help others and so we help others leaving this world we leave behind those who loved us in their tears and broken hearts we find our place once again

[21:53]

in form and emptiness soaring through the deep blue and clear sky of nirvana endlessly appearing and disappearing together Carefully listen, everyone.

[23:36]

Our dear Eva, right as the morning sun has now entered nirvana, just as the circle of the wisdom moon is narrowed on the surface of 10,000 waters, so her life force was responded to by all the ding-dings in the ten directions. Now there is no place where we can look upon her face, yet we open our hearts and see her everywhere. Praising her name, we are here, family, friends, and sangha to help Open the path of awakening. Let us recite the ten names of Buddha.

[24:38]

Vairotana Buddha Vairotana Buddha Vairotana Buddha Thank you. Thank you. . [...]

[25:52]

I don't know. A big kindness meditation. This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wanting to seek so good as a thing previous. Let one be strenuous outright, this year without pride, simply consent to limit joy.

[26:58]

Let one run up to subversions by the things of the world. Let one take trouble and sell the burden of virtuos. Let one sense its deep natural, let one run wise, but not puffed up. and have that one not desire great possessions even for us around the day. But what we want has seen, I bet the wise would recruit. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, [...] no. of its existence, all of our great, indivisible, whoever is in the world, and given our fortune, and our hope, and our grace to be born, and the ground, we use the opportunity. Let no one to see another, nor society, and even in any state.

[27:59]

Let no one ever make a good one to another, and leave another, and the rest of our life. But it's a great reflex of ugly chocolate. So I've been dying with silence. I've done very strong living things. Just in the sick love of the entire world. I've been dying all around without living. So I've been trying to make a good world for the whole world. So I've been trying to make a good world for the whole world. So I've been trying to make a good world. When I was like, you know, I'm a burst. I let no unpractice the blame with brass. It's a tool. When I'm hoping to make mistakes, you know, success can happen with good and solidity. If you're going to stop the toilets, I do it. She needs to be able to be free from the duality of birth, dead and death. You are now in the presence.

[29:31]

And with the compassion of these Buddhas and the profound spirit of loving kindness, we offer you the great verse of confession to cleanse your heart for the children. All your ancient twisted karma From beginningless greed, hate and delusion Worn through body, speech and mind Now is fully resolved All your ancient twisted karma From beginningless greed, hate and delusion

[30:54]

Worn through body, speech and mind Now is full result All your ancient twisted karma From beginningless greed, hate and delusion Worn through body, speech and mind He's like... purify it now in body or in mind triple refuge pure precepts pretend clean mind precepts please take refuge in Buddha your own true nature

[35:18]

take refuge in Dharma the truth of all beings please take refuge in sound and the harmony of all beings please vow to avoid a label please vow to do all good please vow to journey on and on for the benefit of all beings not stealing Killing. Not misusing desire. Not lying. Not intoxicating self or other. Not slathering. Not praising self at the expense of others. Not being possessive in anything. Not harboring the will. Not demeaning the three treasures. offer these great vows vows of your own heart to support you on your journey as you now fully enter the inconceivable great mystery we are all facing there is no mystery to you now

[36:57]

To further support you, we now offer you a new Buddha name, your own inner names, to open up the worlds to come. Chosen for you. by your parents as the name Eva was chosen. Yes. Cho-ne-ko-shunla. Butterfly wisdom. Radiant spring. Your guru is named. your short lifetime.

[38:06]

you this rakasu Buddha's robe that you yourself made through the allowing activity of your lifetime a robe sewn for you by loving hands You shall accept this offering of water and sweet tea.

[39:56]

Let's give it. Hello, everyone.

[47:10]

Denise and I want to thank Norman for conducting this ceremony, Gringach for hosting it, the many volunteers for their efforts, Yogetsu for performing, the friends of Ibas who will be speaking, and all of you in the audience for attending. Your points of light and love for Denise and me darkness of our tragedy. So it's very special to be with you in this beautiful setting to honor Eva. Some of the earliest memories I have of Eva are seeing her as a baby gaze at me intently while I changed her diapers. She had a quiet intensity and I saw her personal agency in those moments. Denise had similar experiences which reinforced us raising Eva as an individual As she got older, Eva showed an independence about things like what narratives we'd use when making up games or what she'd draw, and then doing her homework without any nudging.

[48:19]

This self-sufficient nature always made her seem older than her actual age. When she was about 11, she started to call us by our names instead of Mama and Dad. At that time, she also said she was eager to live on her own. She was precocious from the start and driven to grow up quickly. She was also a strong-willed fire sign. Starting at around age six, when Denise and I asked her if she remembered a chore, she'd sometimes reply, I'm not an idiot. From about age eight, I saw in arguments how she'd get more articulate the more frustrated she became, which made me think carefully about my points before I challenged her. Honestly, she was usually right. She knew she was smart and capable, but she had a shy and vulnerable side too, which led to often being quiet in school and at times feeling isolated at home as an only child.

[49:34]

And up through her teenage years, she preferred having only one or two close friends rather than a group of friends. As she became an adult, she developed an appreciation for a wide range of people, which I think came from accepting these sides of herself. A pivotal experience for Eva was going to Tassajara for part of the summer when she was 19. The combination of the community of people with similar intentions, the meditation and teachings and the natural beauty of the remote mountain setting affected her deeply. And Denise and I picked her up. At the end of the summer, she was crying over leaving. And we saw that she had become more grounded and compassionate and clearer on how she wanted to live. Eva moved to her university campus in the fall of that year and eventually found her people at co-op the next year. She loved the energy and slight craziness of the co-op.

[50:36]

Her circle of friends expanded dramatically. and she experienced many courses that helped her grow intellectually, all while continuing to make drawings, watercolors, and videos. She also studied abroad in Barcelona for a semester and then began going to the Berkley Zen Center. It was amazing to see her life so full and the happiness it brought her. A joy of mine throughout Eva's life. seeing her relationship with Denise. Denise influenced Eva profoundly with an appreciation of friendships, nature, creativity and play, literature and art, humor and irony, and an examined life. But Eva came to things on her own terms, so she and Denise were similar but different. At times they seemed like sisters, arguing one moment and laughing the next.

[51:38]

And in recent years, Denise described Eva as also being a very close friend. They collaborated on videos and delighted in tricking me each April Fool's Day. I was always focused on my work, which made me gullible. The tricks involve such things as sending me a bill for a so-called earthquake recompensation fund, a letter asking me to fly an accompanying tiny flag to celebrate Home Owners Day. a package with a toilet seat cover and statistics promoting the use of it at home, etc. Denise and Eva. Denise and Eva were cut from the same cloth, a pair of vital people and lovable rascals. Eva and I shared an enjoyment of observing the world and of drawing.

[52:44]

On our outings, we'd look for anything beautiful, buildings, trees, clouds, styles of clothing, cute dogs, and all cats. She always noticed subtle things, such as when we were at a stoplight and she saw how two people far apart on a crowded crosswalk were wearing the same green shade of clothing, which delighted her. And this sensibility informed her art, all with Although we both drew, she took it further by being a skilled watercolorist and producing works with so much imagination. For example, at age 16, she gave Denise and me a holiday card. She made showing a watercolor drawing of a kitchen with three panels in a row that can be opened. The left panel is a cabinet door that reveals pots and pans. The one in the middle is the oven door revealing food cooking. And the panel on the right is a cabinet door that reveals Eva curled up inside looking out.

[53:46]

In the card, she wrote, though we are an odd family, we are also quite cute. She had such a great sense of humor. And in remembering her these days, I sometimes laugh and cry simultaneously, which I didn't know was even possible. I think the world was so alive to her because she was so present and perceptive in it. in recent years when we were together, I'd often quietly behold the remarkable person she had grown into. A few months before Eva died, a close friend of hers who is here today, Saskia, had her make a list of the things she was considering doing in the next five to ten years. In true Eva fashion, It's detail-oriented with 51 items and shows a gamut of interests from falling in love to opening a high-yield savings account.

[54:50]

She also intended to stay at Tassajara for a longer time, possibly do a baking or gardening apprenticeship here at Green Gulch, be layordained, and even become a Zen priest. The final item on the list is be a beacon of peace and love for those around me!" with an exclamation mark. Eva had a love of life and had found her confidence and tools to navigate her inner world and relate to others with a kind heart. It was unclear which of the 51 items on the list she'd actually do, but her deep intention for the future was in place. At age 12, Eva participated in the coming of age program here at Green Gulch and was given the name Creative Flame. Seven weeks after her death, Denise wrote this to me on Valentine's Day.

[55:55]

Holding hands, we enter this new landscape where love runs alongside sorrow, two rivers in one. I now envision Eva's flame in a beautiful paper lantern floating down that river with our love, always with her. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Skylar. I'm honored to be able to talk about Eva today. Eva and I were best friends for the last four years of her life, and I would like to share some things about Eva and our friendship and her death. Eva was like a sister to me.

[57:01]

We spent a lot of time living in different places, but we would talk on the phone every single day without fail. This distance made the time that we spent together very special and very memorable. Eva had fantastic abilities in observation. Observing people and nature was more than enough to occupy her mind. Together we would spend entire days walking wherever and observing things and making jokes about anything. My friendship with Eva taught me how to be present. My friendship with Eva introduced to me a truer form of friendship, unlike anything that I had previously experienced. Free of judgment and predicated on having so much fun with each other, always. We had our own language, not necessarily with different words, but with sounds and impressions that only we would understand. Eva always referred to herself as my historian. She had an encyclopedic knowledge of the lives of her friends, including me.

[58:06]

And I believe that this is representative of her passion for her relationships and for understanding the people around her. Eva is now an angel who only exists in our minds. She gives me confidence and she can tell me what I want to hear. I do not necessarily believe in an afterlife, but every time that I think about Eva being gone, I tell myself, Eva is an angel. This is my mantra. It helps me remind myself that Eva and her memory represent what we mean when we say angel. She's delicate, she's sweet, she can make you happy and she can make you cry. She can guide you and she is gone. Recently, I was visited by the closest thing that there is to a ghost, by Eva's ghost. Two weeks after she died, I met her in a dream. I hugged her and I told her how much I missed her. I put my face in her hair and I could smell her.

[59:09]

She was wearing her clogs and a floral dress and her green cardigan. She told me that she was taken by an angel in a flash of light and that she did not feel a thing. The last time I saw Eva, I told her, I love you, as I left her at the subway station near my apartment. Two months later, she died, but not before she was able to write me a Christmas card. which I'm going to read to you. It says, Dear Skyler, written on December 21st, 2024. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I'm so glad that things aligned so that we could spend time with each other in Los Angeles. You are my most special friend and I treasure our time together so much. I've never felt so seen and loved before. Thank you for spending time with me, exchanging music and great stories. I really hope we'll live closer to each other one day, but I still feel close as ever to you, texting every day. I'm so excited to know you for life and see what kind of adventures you get up to.

[60:12]

Your friend, Eva. To those of you, like me, whose day began and concluded with Eva, there is a life after Eva. Eva is the lessons that we try to teach ourselves. Eva is the childlike wonder that you should nourish. Eva is choosing your friends over anything else. Eva is choosing love over anything else. Eva is enjoying music that has no words. Eva is documenting your life with brief but important video diaries. Eva is learning how to attract all sorts of different people. Eva is learning how to communicate with animals. Eva is deciding to be present all the time. Dear Eva, Thank you for showing me all of my favorite music. Thank you for going on so many adventures with me. Thank you for always listening to me and laughing with me. Thank you for calling me all the time.

[61:12]

Thank you for saying mean things so kindly. Thank you for teaching me how to be a good friend. I will honor your memory by trying to be more like you every day. I love you, and I will always love you. Your brother, Skylar. My name is Saskia, and I'm honored to share a little bit about Eva and our friendship. I met Eva when we were teenagers, both of us searching for a companion and a hand to hold as we navigated the uncertain and sometimes frightening transition into adulthood. She made the unknowns of the future feel beautiful. As Eva approached her graduation from Berkeley, we spoke on the phone about what her life might look like in this next chapter. and she admitted to feeling daunted by the sheer openness of time stretching out ahead of her.

[62:17]

I suggested that she make a list, as you've heard, of anything that five years from now she could look back on and feel happy to have done. That way, if she ever felt adrift, she could return to the list and work towards one of her goals, be it big or small. We began writing together, and the next morning she sent me her completed list with 51 ideas. I want to share some more of the things that she valued, the dream she had, and the pursuit she found meaningful with all of you. Eva moved the world with intention, slowly, joyfully, and with deep appreciation. She found the seemingly mundane to be special and viewed the world as intricately, achingly beautiful. She was an artist and wished to create with both her hands and mind. On this list, she included her desire to learn bookmaking, how to weave on a loom and sustainable farming. She wished to make more YouTube videos and a real movie. And of course, she dreamed to write.

[63:19]

She hoped to live in Vermont, New York City, and Berlin. She wanted a pet of her own, but added in parentheses, only a cat or a bird. She wished to be really good at bike riding and dedicated two separate bullet points to learning how to DJ and then becoming one. Eva had a truly singular mind. She was witty, sharp, and had an incredible ability to observe and discuss the world around her. She planned to read voraciously, take psychology classes, become a therapist, and pursue a PhD. To cover her bases, she also included that she wished to learn psychic abilities. Her list made room for everything, the profound and the practical. She wrote, get wisdom teeth removed, and then with two exclamation points, fall madly in love. Eva loved love in all its forms. She cared deeply for her community and had a rare gift for forming profound personal connections with those she met.

[64:27]

She thrived in stillness and silence and also in joyful wild chaos. Beyond this list of her dreams that I think illustrate who she was and who she was becoming as a person, I want to share who she was as a friend, even as I know my words cannot do her justice. To me, she was the most incredible friend and companion. She was kind, compassionate, and made me feel special when we talked. In those moments, we discussed the world like I had never before. Her depth of connection was only increased by her humor and joy. We performed our jokes together and lived in a world that was deeply silly. She had the oddest collection of acquaintances and friends, and I think that was because she approached everyone without judgment, but with genuine interest. Eva was a gift and a joy to love. And although she never checked off her list living on an island or trying contact lenses, I do believe she accomplished her final goal to be a beacon of peace and love for those around her.

[65:33]

Thank you. Hello. My name is Sebastian, and yeah, I just wanted to say a few things. Well, I met Eva when I was in high school, and very quickly we were finding ourselves in all sorts of odd circumstances. One of the first things that we did together was we had found this abandoned complex over in San Francisco that was full of cats, and she had her camera, and I had my camera, and we just, you know, I guess I had never really met someone that I could spend my day doing something so, I think my parents would probably have said it very impractical,

[66:43]

but it was actually very deeply satisfying, and it was great to have someone to do that with, and that developed into, from there, developed into a romantic, a very strong romantic relationship, but also a very deeply creative one, and I found myself lucky enough to spend dinners with Stephen, Denise, and Eva, and this was just when I was you know, maybe 16 or something. And I just can't explain how formative all of this was to how I see myself. And I think one thing that I've been thinking about a lot is these ideas about self-definition, being a young person and going out into the world whether you're in school or not. But Eva was always someone who had these notions of, I think, of how to operate in the world.

[67:47]

And it was seen in every little thing that she was always making. She was constantly making stuff, constantly wanting to talk about stuff. And I could see through spending time with Steven and Denise where that came from and how that was. And for me, coming from a different background, where I didn't particularly feel like that was encouraged, It meant, and it still means, the world to me. So I wrote down some other memories or things that I just wanted to share that I think about all the time. Well, one, that the course of my life was very much changed from the way that we were together. I made a new friend. We met to work on a short film. when we broke up, it was because kind of, because we had both, we're going to different schools. Um, and that I remember she could be very, she was so preoccupied with all these deep concepts. Um, and my grandfather would often drive me to see her during COVID, uh, probably against everyone's wishes besides her and I. Um, she loved, she loved Rambo.

[68:58]

Um, and there was one poem that she would read over and over. And it was the one that started that no one's ever, no one's ever serious when they're 17. really great poem, called Romain, I think. And I remember I was with her walking around when she was accepted into Berkeley. She joined me to visit my grandmother very frequently when I needed to take a break, escape from being in the city. She was effortlessly thoughtful. That's how I see it. We spent most of our time out in the city. This was also during COVID. So it was like, you know, basically felt like your own city if you were young and could walk around. We spent most of our time going from bookstore to bookstore, movie to movie, show to show. And I think it's her way of moving, like I think other people have said too, through the world, which is something that wouldn't be lost or couldn't be lost on anyone who knew her. So everyone here, her way of moving through the world and dealing with people was particularly

[70:03]

warming and affirming. She was a remarkably empathetic creator, making cards, films. She was a really one-person production house. She really loved nature, which is something I was just thinking about walking here. Really felt more comfortable in nature than anyone I knew. And I wanted to reflect, Skyler I think hinted at this too, but right after the commotion of the tragedy of what happened, a lot of us I think were rushed off back to school or back to these other things and taken away from the immediate sense of being together. But I was able to see how changed I was and in reflecting and talking with everyone, I think I've become a lot more careful about how I spend my time, who I spend my time with.

[71:07]

And every time I sit down to work on something that I care about, as opposed to something that you just have to do, I always keep her, Eva, in mind. She remains in my mind as a real guiding light and one of the important people to think about, and also in terms of thinking about silence and the importance of being alone, as Stephen was also discussing. And the value in being meticulous about what you're doing, because she was shy, but she was also because she was always holding something. In my experience, she always had something that she was turning and working on, and often the things that she would show people, it would take a second for her to really be able to show it, but then they were so often perfectly done, and very, very funny, always. Yeah, and the last time that we, the first times we saw each other, we were going around to the movies, and the last time I saw her was in Berkeley, and we went to the Pacific Film Archive, and we saw a film, and at that moment, I was feeling really depressed, and she was really just there to

[72:23]

to listen and help me, and I think it's just a testament to, for people, you know, when you, if you fall away, there's always this way to come back into people's lives, and I think about her every day, and every time I do something that I like doing, I think of her because she was very good at keeping herself doing what she liked, and that's mostly what I think about. Thank you. My name is Hannah. My friendship with Eva was a series of small miracles in my life. When I first met her, I was very much afraid of her, but the head of the creative writing department, Heather Woodward, I suspect thinking I needed a friend who was more

[73:31]

self-actualized, more comfortable in her tastes and her being than I made us writing buddies, sort of partners in crime my second year of high school. But as I said before this, I had been nervous around Eva, who was witty and sharp like her nose and her fingernails, and who could write rhyming couplets that weren't only not stuffy, they were unpretentious and inventive, and not trying to get away from the claustrophobia and freedom of being a teenager. The next year was rather a bad one for me, and going to school was saved primarily by sitting next to Eva in two of my classes. She taught me the sky wouldn't fall if you wore a short skirt and someone saw your underwear and... that you could muck around in the city or on the beach and find weird things and write poems about them. And she taught me how to turn a class project into interesting performance art, or at least to amuse yourself.

[74:35]

But the thing I will be forever grateful to Eva for is carrying on an epistolary correspondence with me on and off for nearly four years. I left for college to a place without much internet or cell service, and Eva, beginning that first summer, sent me regular letters. The envelopes came. almost every two weeks or so, covered in puff stickers and drawings. She drew borders and colored marker around the edges of the paper, and in that perfect angular handwriting, which was sharp like her wit and her nose, she spelled out reflections on starting college or staying home through COVID, later on breakups and falling in love and parties and sneaking around even when there was no one to hide from. Perhaps in a way that... could only be between two people whose whole worlds were utterly separate. We were irreverent and confessional. It was like having a diary that talked back, but smarter and less sentimental.

[75:39]

I think you should tell him X, Y, or Z, or I think you're being unreasonable, or this is what it feels like when I work all day and then cook dinner for people I am coming to love, or isn't this the most beautiful poem? Perhaps because the material conditions of our lives were so separate, she was at Berkeley or Tassajara or Barcelona, I was on a cattle ranch or in Boston. The letters felt like comparing notes on growing out of teenage life and into young womanhood. In May, Stephen said one of the most beautiful definitions of love I've ever heard and I hope it's okay if I share it and I hope I get it right. But he said, to love someone is like having an architecture of time, a shared architecture of time around them. You can see the shape of the future and the shape of your life in common. And I loved Eva as my fellow traveler, as someone to think about the urge to move to our respective monasteries and intentional communities and

[76:50]

the movements between indulgement and asceticism and traveling abroad. She was someone to live alongside with even as we were often not together. In the months since Eva died, I have often been speechless, and when I went back home in January, I stared at the frozen over river near my house and felt cliche and stupid, and I missed Eva, and everything was frozen like the river. And I took to reading the poem Auden wrote in memory of W.B. Yeats, which ends like this. Follow poet, follow right to the bottom of the night. With your unconstraining voice, still persuade us to rejoice. With the farming of a verse, make a vineyard of the curse. Sing of human unsuccess in a rapture of distress. In the deserts of the heart, let the healing fountain start.

[77:55]

In the prison of his days, teach the free man how to praise. And as I've thought about this poem... And about Eva, I think I started to understand something of what Auden meant because Eva was always pushing towards rejoicing and towards praise, even from the moments of despair, even from the deserts of our hearts. And her poems so often revealed the people around her, the family members from New Jersey and uncles and parents and friends, as wonderfully flawed and still wonderful, still so worthy of love. Earlier in the poem, Auden says, he became his admirers, and I hope this can be true of Eva, who was so loved and so admired. Eva, I miss you now, and if I might be so lucky in 10 years and in 50 years. And Stephen and Denise, thank you for giving us Eva.

[78:56]

Thank you for sitting with me as I miss her. I am again speechless at your generosity and forethought kindness. silly. I just keep thinking, I wish Eva were here. Eva loved this room. I first met Eva during the summer of 2021 when we were both guest students together at Tassajara. We were both somewhat new to formal Zen practice, even though Eva was a little more familiar than I was because of her parents' practice. I think Eva was my first and favorite Zen teacher. She taught me that Zen practice, with all its seriousness and stillness, is actually at its core a practice of love.

[79:58]

Eva loved this practice, and she emanated this reverence with her whole being, and she taught me how to love this practice and how to love this world and the people in it better too. When we were at Tassajara, Eva helped turn a group of Zen students who ranged from teenagers to retirees into deep friends. A few days after I arrived, a group of students, including Eva, was about to leave for a hike. They asked if I'd like to come along, and I responded that I'd have to go all the way back to my cabin in the other direction to get my shoes, that they shouldn't wait for me because it would take too long. Eva looked me right in the eye, and she said, of course we'll wait for you. We care about you. Even as parts of me balked at the formality and precision of the different forms and rules of the Zen monastery, Eva embodied them with a lightness that made them seem beautiful rather than restrictive. The first few days at Tassajara, I really hated Kinhin, which is this excruciatingly slow form of walking meditation that we do in Zen.

[81:04]

About a week into my time there, I happened to be behind Eva during Kinhin. I noticed how present and gentle she was with each step, as if she loved the floorboards and wanted to take care of them with her feet. Her example taught me to be embodied in a way that's stuck with me ever since. I love Kin Hin now, and I've made it my permanent practice to think of Eva every time I do it. Her favorite work practice was to make flower arrangements for all the altars around Tassajara and Green Gulch. She especially loved the bright pink dahlias that are blooming down in the garden right now. She loved serving in the role of Chico, the priest's attendant who carries the incense used in offerings, and I particularly remember her first time doing it. She was nervous beforehand, yet she carried the incense around the altar with tentative yet sure reverence. Her earnestness was beautiful to watch. She especially loved Kika and was always excited to be Chika when Kika was the Doshi.

[82:08]

Eva knew how to hold deep respect for Zen practice while also making everyday fun. She started a heated two-week-long series of nonsensical debates at the Green Gulch lunch table about whether each person at the temple was a moon or a sun or a dog or a cat. Eva, for example, was a sun cat. Norman, total moon dog. Whenever we found a particularly large vegetable in the kitchen or weed in the garden, she would look at me, hold it up, raise her eyebrows, and say, that's a big papa. One day, Eva asked me if I thought I might like to ordain as a priest. I had only been practicing Zen for about two weeks at the time, so I replied that I hadn't really thought about it and asked her if she thought she would ordain. She responded calmly, I do. And listening to her, I felt sure in that moment that she would. Calm certainty and love and being truly herself came so easily to Eva.

[83:11]

I don't think this was a coincidence. It was so obvious through knowing her that Eva had been profoundly loved. I bow deeply to the people in this room, and particularly Denise and Steven, for that gift. The gift of love that you gave Eva her whole life emanated from her and spread to so many people. When I first found out about the accident, I felt a profound grief for all the lost goodness Eva would have spread in the world if she had lived longer. if she had published plays and novels, if she had ordained as a Buddhist priest, if she had gotten married and had children of her own. But over the past six months, this feeling of grief for what the world could have had has shifted. I believe strongly that to have known Eva is to have been anointed by goodness. This is a room full of people lucky enough to have been blessed by Eva's goodness. This kind of blessing doesn't fade. We are forever changed, and I feel certain that the ripples of Eva's goodness will emanate in widening circles through us and far beyond us forever.

[84:23]

May our lives reveal her compassion. you all. Together we're going to carry Eva, living Eva, around with us in our hearts, in our minds. This is for Eva. Eva, my precious child, it's mama calling into the dark forest.

[85:39]

Eva, now I'm lost, calling out the name we gave you, which means life, calling into the void with all my life. Driving along on Christmas Eve, you were behind me in the back seat. gone. I could not get up to chase your shadow. After six days of surgeries, nothing. Kneeling on gravel and glass, holding still for a white butterfly. I was dead. I woke up dead. You seemed alive. I asked you to stay behind me. The nurse finds me upstairs among my drains and tubes to say, your baby did not suffer. Say what you want. Eva will find her way home. She always does. She'll come in our front door, slamming it so it latches.

[86:40]

Oh, that darn door. She'll fling off her dirty sneakers, one here, one there, calling out, hey, I'm home. When they left me alone, I whispered, shouted, Eva, where are you? Wailing over the edge of the hospital bed, oh, love, don't abandon me here. You were the one terrified of death. We were your shelter, your rest. I'd nudge you from behind. It's okay, go. I'll be here when you return. We'll talk about your day over tapioca pudding. Well before you could read, you read the end of this fairy tale, chirping it into the air. Mama old, mama fall, mama die. as I pushed you in the stroller past an old woman being lifted into an ambulance. Come, get in my pouch. Clever girl, you noticed pouches age.

[87:44]

Heading for the checkout, we saw an old woman and you asked, are you going to leave me and become a grandmother? Oh, Eva, I was terrified of losing you too. Maybe you sensed that from the start as you drank my anxious milk. I loved being your mother. You were magical. You asked dizzying questions like, what was the first word? Love, I said without thinking as we ran upstairs. Really? Yep. You named your pink bunny Power Goldie and you said you'd marry her. It was a season of marrying your fourth spring. God, you'd love life. Your short, silky dresses and long, silky hair. You'd brush over your shoulder, then fling back like a horse's tail. You loved sugar, the offbeat, all kinds of music.

[88:47]

You loved to dance and crack up over odd words like nudibranch. Most of all, you loved being in love, your ultimate wager. The chance to break out of the box of your being and create a meadow with your beloved, to whom you'd fully attune. Anna said you'd say he's the one about each of them. Lucky boys. Eva, they're coming to the house now. Friends, too. We sit under the sun umbrella, speaking softly of you, as if not to wake the sleeping baby. Tender, tender friends, sharing the gifts you gave them. like believing in their goodness. She changed me, they often say. Many have thanked us for making you, and it's true, no parents, no Eva. But you were born under your own fiery star with a bag of blessings and riddles to solve.

[89:53]

When you were 10, you asked for a totem, and a stellar jay appeared. telling you to use your power wisely. That's it, that's your challenge, I said. You were not pleased and told me to calm down. Powerful girl, it offended you to be told what to do, how to act, to curb a desire. You're not the boss of me, you'd often say then. You complain that we didn't give you an identity. No, we gave you room to discover all your beautiful contradictions, and you did. A few days ago, I came across a poem you wrote in the fifth grade. I am the girl that doesn't kill ants. The one who's invisible when looked at. I am the one that's scared of ink smudging. The one who feels like a bird when she dances.

[90:56]

I'm the one who took the longer trail by mistake. The one who found nothing but dirt. I am the one who thinks like a whale. The one who pulls her mom to school. Shy and fierce. Sensitive and honest. Perhaps your greatest fortune, Eva, was finding your own way to Buddhism. You call from Tassajara your 19th summer to ask why you felt so light after meditating. A sunbeam had burst open your heart and you realized you needn't fear life's stunning fragility. But it still hurt to leave home for college. We cried packing your things. We cried moving you in. Standing by the car, you tried to cheer me up. You'll have so much extra free time now. I've been your project.

[91:59]

Yes, you're my multi-volume book. Now I'm going to write my own book, you said, drying your eyes. Eva, you were poised to do so much good in the world, all your plans, your 51-item list, everything I want to do at 22. The penultimate item was to find contentment no matter the circumstances of my life. That you held this key to happiness at your age blows me away. When you were young, Natalie said, you have the perfect child. You need only one. We fit perfectly. Our holy trinity. Now shattered. By whose hand? By what? Fate? Gone. Our blue-eyed chunky monkey. Gone. Our long-legged spunky girl. Gone. Our grown-up radiant friend. Oh, Eva, if you must be dead, I'm going to master your new language to keep on talking with you.

[93:07]

Like that language we made up of plant names only. Speaking it into each other's foot, lying on the couch. Ivy, Ivy, Agapanthus. Ivy, Daisy. I'll straddle the world, Eva. I'll get in your no time. as we did in our play. I'll sit in the tall grass with the sun, you, on my back, and you'll make a stellar jay fly by. We'll call it Boundless Love, this new game you're teaching us, living as though all that matters is intimacy. Dear child, it's the beginning of our ultimate adventure, and we're making it up together. Oh [...]

[94:44]

Oh. [...] Thank you.

[95:49]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[96:50]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[98:15]

. [...] Oh, my God. Thank you.

[99:30]

Thank you. [...]

[101:13]

Thank you for all those words and that music. Birth and death is the great matter. No one understands it. No one can ever fathom its depth. To live and to die is a great mystery, a great miracle, a great privilege. And it is the supreme act of generosity. But when life is cut short and when the great beauty and wonder of a young life like yours is gone all of a sudden, like a dream, like a magic show, a lantern, a bubble of foam on the ocean waves, we stagger back with awe. and sorrow, and love, and gratitude.

[104:23]

And we don't know what to do. Everything we thought we knew, we don't now know. Everything we thought we were, we're no longer that. Everything arises and passes away, so they say. But now we understand that nothing arises and nothing passes away. That the great ocean of birth and death, rolls on endlessly. Dear, dear Eva, joe, kosha, butterfly wisdom, radiant spring, we cannot believe how lucky we were to have you, and how awesome was your living, loving presence. Now you enter nirvana, the whole of the truth, body is nothing but hands and eyes having gone far beyond utterly totally beyond you surround us wherever we are and all things take on your radiant aspect you bless us with your presence and your surprising loving wisdom at every turn you will never

[105:50]

Go away. With deep gratitude, we now commend you to the care and support of the Buddhas, your close friends. With this torch of fire, according to tradition, we bring to final rest this one transcendent shining stream of life. We commend this life to space and time, everywhere and forever. Thank you.

[110:43]

... ... ... Thank you. Thank you.

[112:05]

ORCHESTRA PLAYS Thank you. . .

[113:18]

. [...]

[114:46]

We have offered to light the water, incense, and flower. the meditation on loving kindness and the great compassionate mind, Arani. We have offered the great flame mudra to bring peace and completion. We now commend the merit of this ceremony to over and peaceful rest of Eva Newman Whitney Choleko Shun Butterfly Wisdom Radiant Spring She now enters Nirvana showing the truth of the way things come and go

[116:13]

and bodhisattvas, uphiding in all directions, endowed with great compassion, with omniscience, with love, giving protection to all beings. Please come forth and accept these offerings through the power of your wisdom and compassion. Amen. Eva at this time of transition as she takes the great Guli. The light of this world is extinguished in her eyes. She enters past presence born by her pure karma into the ocean of all existence. Compassionate ones, protect your daughter Eva Newman Whitney, show a gold-shoon butterfly with dumb radiant spring with the endless merit of your great vows.

[117:36]

Vows. [...] ... [...] . . . Thank you.

[121:11]

Thank you. We bow.

[123:33]

We bow to you. Weep. The lowly, the lovely, the missing

[124:48]

The music of your life Your life will keep in store. Fill me deep.

[127:05]

Thank you. Lovely, the holy, the lovely, the lovely, the music of your life. Lovely, the holy, the lovely, the lovely, the music of your life. Help me, dear.

[128:43]

star. Let me taste. Let me taste. to you.

[130:15]

Thank you. of your life. Too lovely, too lovely, too lovely, too lovely, the music of your life. Too lovely, too lovely, too lovely, too lovely, the music of your

[132:02]

of your life music of your life music of your We'll meet you. You are this boy.

[133:24]

We'll be deep. Your light. Beyond the floor. With the whole, with the low, with the love, with the music of...

[136:13]

Thank you. Thank you. We used to.

[138:28]

Weep. The music of your life. The lonely, the lonely, the lonely, the lovely. music of your light music of your

[143:14]

stars limiting stillness limiting the lowly the lovely the music of your life the lowly the lowly the lovely the music of your

[147:51]

Music of your life Music of your And.

[150:45]

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

[152:35]

Yeah. Yeah. you know.

[153:25]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_84.59