Good morning. I feel very vulnerable. somehow it's comforting to have you here. Even though I thought it was you that was making me feel vulnerable. I could be wrong. One fine day, King Pasendi of Kosala paid a visit to the Buddha. Where are you coming from at midday, great king?

[01:07]

asked the Buddha. Very busy. Very busy indeed, said the king. Having stabilized the country and conquered a wide region of the earth, I'm greatly involved in the administration of those things done by warrior kings and all the while drunk with authority and obsessed with lust for sensual pleasures. I see, said the Buddha. Now suppose a trustworthy messenger arrived from the south and said, great king, a huge mountain as high as the heavens is advancing and crushing every living thing. Do as you will. And a second messenger arrived from the north and a third from the west and a fourth from the east. all with the same message, what would you do?

[02:09]

The king replied, at such a time as that, O Lord, what else could I do but walk in the law, in righteousness, and cultivate that which is of benefit to others? So the Buddha then said with gentle eyes, Dear king, Sickness, aging and death are closing in on you. What will you do? The king replied, my chariots, elephants, horses and infantry are of no use when sickness, aging and death are closing in on me. Magic spells and gold are of no use. At such a time as this, O Lord, what else can I do but to walk in the law, in righteousness, and cultivate that which is of benefit to others? Four months ago, a very lovely spring day,

[03:31]

a messenger called out to me in the parking lot here at Green Gulch Farm and said, a family member has called to tell you that your daughter, your partner, and your dog have been in an automobile accident and that you must go to the hospital right now. At that time I was the director of Green Gulch Farm and very busy indeed with the work of this place. I had just come from a staff meeting and I had gone down to the fields to look at a project that we were working on there. I was on my way home to wait for my family

[04:34]

And then to have dinner and help with the dishes, because we're on the Wednesday night dish crew. In four days, it was going to be my daughter's 15th birthday. And in 10 days, she was going to graduate from junior high school. But since that phone call, what I was expecting has been very different. my job has been also quite different than what I had planned. So friends took me to the emergency room at Marine General Hospital where I found my daughter Sabrina with a neck brace and there were lots of doctors and nurses around her and they were taking x-rays. She had a fat lip and

[05:36]

and a big bump on her head. And at the same time, I could hear that she was talking a mile a minute. And I was so relieved, even though my heart was pounding, just to see her there. And when she saw me, she said, Mom, Mom, I'm really hungry. Could you get me some French fries? So I started to cry, and she rolled her eyes, and then I really knew she was okay. But at the same time, I found out that my partner, my dearest friend in all the world, Grace Danman, was not okay. In fact, she was gravely injured. And a very tall highway patrolman, and an emergency room nurse came up to me, and the nurse put her hands on my shoulders.

[06:39]

I won't ever forget her, her feel of her hands on my shoulders. She said, you must go to John Neer Hospital now. I didn't even know where that was. And she said, we'll take care of Sabrina. And at that time, Sabrina's grandmother was there, and her best friend, Anna, was coming from San Francisco with her mom. So I got back in the car and was driven along miles to Walnut Creek. Grace had been taken there several hours earlier by helicopter. And she was still in the ICU surgery. So we all sat out there, a few of us who could come that night, and there was a big tank of fish, I remember that.

[07:46]

I remember watching the fish swimming in the water. So Grace had gone to pick Sabrina up that afternoon at school in San Francisco, And at 3.15, they were coming back across the Golden Gate Bridge when a car coming south crossed the center line and hit our Honda head-on. The man in the car, whose name was Brian, had a medical condition that caused him to black out. And he's a father of a newborn, three-month-old baby girl with red hair. And Brian and his family have written us some very lovely notes and letters and emails, and we have sent them back our greetings as well and our best wishes to all of them. They're very sorry. So there aren't any bad guys in this story, and that's what I want to talk about this morning.

[08:56]

There's no bad guys. In fact... I have had the extraordinary privilege of seeing the angels. And they are legion. They're everywhere. They're right here. Every one of us. And all we need is the slightest opportunity. And there we are. We are angels. So this accident on the bridge was an occasion for many angels to appear and to go to work. And me too. Me too. I'm an angel. And when I thought about talking to you about the angels, I had this other thought that came up that said, don't lie. Don't lie.

[10:01]

And I kind of wondered about that. And then I remembered, you know, about the devil. And I thought, you know, for all of my angelic endeavors, there's a resistance to living my life for other people. You know, I've got an angel and I've got a devil, and they mix it up. All the time, they're in discussion with one another. So I don't want to exaggerate and I don't want to underestimate. I don't want to tell you this story. It's very tempting to go both ways. But when the messengers come to your house, you have to choose. Like good King Basende of Kosala, what are you going to do?

[11:02]

At such a time as this, Will you walk in the law? Will you be righteous? Will you cultivate what is of benefit to others? So Grace remained fully conscious until the rescue workers had gotten Sabrina into an ambulance. And then she passed out. And she woke up again at the hospital long enough to tell them my name and phone number. That's how I got the call. And then they sedated her and kept her that way for a long time, many weeks. And after that, she was in a vegetative coma for about a month and a half. A coma that none of us knew whether she would emerge from or not. There are a lot of very startling details about what happened to Grace's body in this accident.

[12:10]

She was removed from the car by what are called the jaws of life. I think it's enough to say that her arms and legs had multiple fractures, as did her pelvis and her ribs, and her diaphragm was ruptured and her internal organs were in her left lung. And I had a hard time listening to that the night... after the surgeon was finished with his work of saving her life, this amazing man sat down. He was wearing green clothes. And he had a little piece of yellow paper. And all I could do was watch his hand. He was holding a pencil. And his name was Dr. Skarek. He was a trauma surgeon. And he went down the list of repairs that he'd made to grace his body. I just kept looking at his hand, his miraculous hand.

[13:11]

I think he must be the greatest surgeon on the planet. So I had already gone into shock when I got the call back here at Green Gulch, so I had nowhere else to go. And I felt as though I was in a bubble of water. And even though I could hear and see everything that was happening, My emotions must have been in another bubble somewhere else. Because I wasn't feeling the depth of what was going on. I was kind of looking at the fish and at the hands and the pencils. I think it's a great blessing in shock. I certainly felt that way. I do now. I probably still am in shock. It's hard to tell. So it was during this very long time that we spent in the ICU waiting room that I started to see the light from the angels. And it came in the form of people's actions and words and letters and gifts of flowers and chocolate.

[14:23]

You know, our refrigerator was bursting with food. I had no room for any more emails or telephone calls. I have a big bag of notes and letters, good wishes from people, many who I knew and most who I did not. And I knew right away that this light was a tremendous, unbounded and unconditional love. In Buddhism we call this love personification of this love, kuan yin, kano, bodhisattva, of compassion. And she appears in response to the cries of the world, to the suffering of the world. Someone had said to me, it seems as though the devil is in the neighborhood.

[15:27]

Seemed that way for a while. Lots of things were being broken, lots of people hurt, friends were dying. My friend was hurt. Tassajara was burning. The devil is in the neighborhood. And what happens when the devil is in the neighborhood is the angels come and overwhelm the devil. I've seen it. It's true. There's more light than there is darkness by far. The light's much more powerful. So for the Christians, you know, this is Mary, the one who's there at the birth and at the death, at the suffering, at the foot of her son. You know, for us, Kuan Yin, and for everybody, it's mom. Mom and dad, full of love, no matter what, unconditional.

[16:31]

So I also got some amazing phone calls from communities that I have made contact with over the years, local communities of people who all live here together in this little... I don't know if you've all Googled Earth, looked at where we are. Well, it's pretty wonderful where we are, this little spot on the coast. I got a call from Sister Marion. the Dominican sisters, to say that the old nuns were on their knees. And Rabbi Stacy Freeman called and said, the Jews of Marin are praying for grace. And Carol Hovis from the Interfaith Council and Father Rossi with the Catholics at St. Raphael's and, you know, it's like the Brahma Kumaris. Even the Dalai Lama included grace in his daily prayers. She can't get out of here. We got her surrounded.

[17:36]

And then I got a call from the Sufis. And my friend, my dear friend, Dr. Kianfar, said, we are praying for you. And I said, thank you for thinking of grace. He said, oh no, we're praying for you. He said, suffering like this happens all the time on the earth. All the time people are suffering. But you are the one who needs our prayers because you are going to need great strength and great patience. So I felt very grateful to remember that I need to take care of myself. That the angels do not stay angelic very long if they aren't caring for themselves. Someone else said to me, Fu, this is a great test. You're going to need to be very strong.

[18:38]

And I thought to myself, I am very strong. And this is a great test. This is the greatest test of my life. And it goes into the depth of our existence. It's the test of being born and dying. And we all are taking this test, and we all take it. until the last moment of our own life. And all of us, we need to be patient and we need to be strong. And if we can't be, then others will be that for us. And those are the angels. And this is my faith, but it's also what I know. I would have said before this accident that I was, I lacked a devotional gene. I didn't have a devotional bone in my body.

[19:40]

You know, it's more like, I like the logic of the Dharma. It's so smart, so wise. But I'm converted. I've become a sucker for love. And I... feel very tenderized and truly a devotee of the goddess of compassion. So in the meanwhile, Grace spent many, many weeks swaddled like a baby in the ICU. I had to wait to operate on her bones until her organs were strong enough. And those days came, you know, long weeks of one surgery after another. And in between massive doses of morphine, she would grimace.

[20:42]

And it was hard to watch. And then my friend, Alan Steinbach, who's a physician, and Sala, for those of you who know Sala and Alan, Sala's husband, came in with me to the ICU, and Grace looked extremely uncomfortable. And he said to her in this mantric voice, Grace, you must go to the pain. Come to the pain. Come to the pain, Grace. Over and over again. He said, Grace, if you don't come to the pain, you will not come back to your body and you are going to die. I think she heard him. Because that was her only connection to consciousness. for many, many weeks was the pain. So I think the rest of us were hoping she could avoid it.

[21:45]

I think we're all hoping to avoid the pain, aren't we? But if we avoid it, we're going to die. So on July 4th, Grace emerged from her coma. And she whispered to me, I understand pain. And I wasn't sure I heard her right, because she was speaking through a valve on her trach. And I leaned over and I said, did you say pain? And she looked at me, kind of like Sabrina had. She rolled her eyes. And then she said, P-A-I-N. I was so happy. I knew she was back, too. Gracie's back. It's my girl. It was amazing. Milton Estes and I were together.

[22:47]

We'd gone to see her. She'd been kind of like there, but not really very active. No response to command, as they say. And we couldn't believe it. Milton was just weeping and I was laughing and the nurses were just another room on the hall. But anyway, we were, don't you see? She's awake, she's awake. So Grace then said, I've been in the bardo. And for those of you who are new to Buddhism, the bardo is an intermediary state between birth and death. You don't have that old body you had before. You're kind of looking for the next incarnation. It's recommended when you're in the bardo that you follow the clear light, the one that looks like water, like a crystal of water. And there are other lights in the bardo that are bright colors and flashing.

[23:47]

And guess where those take you? To delusional states and to unwholesome incarnations like mean dogs or... Greedy stockbrokers. Which reminds me, another thing that Grace said was, how's the dog? And I was trying again to be helpful, and I said, honey, do you want to see the dog? And she said, no. And that was the end of our conversation. Since then, our conversations have gotten more complex. Little by little, she emerged from her coma. We don't know how or, you know, it was against all odds. I asked her physiatrist, Dr. Doherty, you know, how is this possible? And we'd seen the bleeds in her brain.

[24:51]

There were three of them, rather large. And Dr. Doherty said, it's a miracle. So much for science. So the angels have kept coming. They've been coming ever since. They come by plane and in cars and her old friends and her colleagues and my old friends. And it turns out we have lots of friends. And we're so lucky. It's such a wonderful thing, having so many friends. It's also lucky for them because it's totally mutual. We all really love each other. And I count all of you in that as well. We really do. We just need an opportunity. So for a very long time I had the sweetest experience of being completely enlightened by love.

[25:53]

It was amazing. Every day I'd wake up and I was still enlightened by love. And people were saying to me, you're a saint. And I thought, yes, I am. And it's so lucky for the world. They need me. I'm here. And I'm pure. And I'm clean and I love everybody and no one makes mistakes. Whatever they do is just their best effort. I can see that. I could see so well. how sweet and dear everybody is. So it was really disappointing when I went into the hospital one day and found one of Grace's friends to be irritating. And I think it's because Grace was getting better. So I had this luxury of

[26:57]

resuming my independence, my selfishness. What about me? And so my therapist reassures me that this is a good thing, this self of mine. In fact, he even said I should have a T-shirt made with that saying on it, what about me? We'll sell them in the office over here. So as I said, it's really true. If angels don't take care of themselves, they don't stay angelic for long. So the other night I was having a fight with my daughter, and I could tell that I was escalating the conflict. She wasn't doing anything unusual that she doesn't do all the time. Irritating things.

[27:58]

And sassy, you know, all that. It was the same stuff, but I started building on it. You know, I was really being mean. And finally, after we'd gotten to the point of yelling, she said, you better stop taking your anger out on me. And I was like, oh, damn. But I lied. I said, I'm not angry. I'm irritated at you for what you've been doing this evening. And I said, you know what this is about? And she said, yes, I do. It's about grace. So at that, I capitulated. I said, you're right. She had said some things that weren't nice, actually. But she is a teenager, and I have no such excuse. So...

[29:00]

I had to look deeply into my motives, into what was driving me. I am angry about what's happened. I'd like to yell at Grace, but I can't yet. She's still in rehab. So I did manage to say to her, do you notice I haven't asked you what you were doing in that lane? You know the one I meet on the bridge? The middle, the suicide lane, yes. That was my restraint. But I'm pretty mad. I'm pretty angry at what happened to her. I don't want her hurt. I don't want her so hurt, and she's very badly hurt. She has long rehabilitation ahead of her.

[30:01]

I want her to be safe. So I'm mad. Same reason I get mad at my daughter. I just want you to be safe and happy. So I'm mad at you. So when the messengers arrive at your house, what will you do? At such a time as this, O Lord, what else can I do but walk in the law and righteousness and cultivate what is of benefit to others? So next week, here in this room, I'm going to be offering the Bodhisattva precepts to four very, very fine human beings who, of course, like all of us, don't see themselves that way. You know, they have their doubts. But at the same time, they are going to commit themselves to the great vows of the Buddha, to do all good, to avoid all evil, and to save all beings.

[31:07]

The three pure precepts. And these are the core of the Buddha's teaching. There's a famous teacher named Bird Nesteroshi who said to his young disciple, it's very easy to say these words, do good, avoid evil, save all beings, but even an old man like me has a hard time doing them. is, I think, why he lived up in a tree. So we have these doubts, and for somewhat good reason, you know, we can see how often we fail as individuals, as a culture. You know, our stock markets are crashing, our banks are in distress, our nation is at war, our environment is in terrible condition. We have a frightening presidential election coming up ahead.

[32:10]

At least I'm frightened. And our own family members, our children, our loved ones, are in turn ill or dying, are frightened themselves. My therapist, too, himself is a devout Christian, says, When I speak of God, what I mean is that which turns evil into good. And I think I'm beginning to understand what he means by that. Because we also, in Buddhism, we have evil. We have an evil one, in fact. His name is Mara, the evil one. And he appears quite often in the sutras. And he often confronts the Buddha. And particularly famous... Confrontation takes place on the occasion of the Buddha's enlightenment. And Mara comes to where the Buddha is sitting.

[33:11]

So the young man has been there for many days, sitting with strength and with patience in the face of his own suffering and of the suffering of the world. And Mara arrives and says, you know, I want you to get off of that seat. I think Mara was feeling threatened. said, if you don't, I will destroy you. And then the Buddha remained seated. So Mara then sends an army of monsters to attack the Buddha. And they do frighten him. But he doesn't move. He stays at his seat. So then Mara sends a chorus of attractive men and women to seduce the Buddha, which may have been the greater challenge. But still he remained at his seat. And then Mara himself appears, kind of a fuzzy figure, a little hard to focus on Mara.

[34:13]

And he says, OK, now I'm going to destroy you. And the Buddha says, no, you're not, because I know who you are. And Mara hisses, no, you don't. Buddha says, oh, I do. You are myself. And with that, Mara vanishes. And the Buddha, from that day forward, lived at peace with the world. And he taught others how to find their way out of their delusions by his own example, his own wisdom and his virtue. So I have also been inspired in this lifetime by the example of of the Buddha and I have been deeply grateful for his teaching but as far as finding the way out of delusion is concerned I am pretty sure it's nothing more than staying seated continuing to breathe and continuing to listen carefully to the sounds of the world

[35:32]

And then like any good mother or good father, when the baby cries, do something. And if you can't figure out what to do, then move out of the way and let the angels come and help you. But watch them. Watch what they do. Watch their hands, their skillful hands. And learn from them. Brain surgeons, changing flat tires, changing bedpans. We have to learn all of these things because we need them. We need them to help each other, to fulfill our vows. The CNAs, they're the lovely angels at Kent Field. They're a certified nurse's assistant. They're kind of the Not quite the bottom of the pecking order, but I think the ladies with the mops are the bottom of the pecking order.

[36:40]

They're all very sweet. All very sweet. So the CNAs, I must say, the most integrated place in Marin County is Kent Field Rehab Hospital. And we feel blessed by that. There are people from every country, from Tibet, China, Korea, Thailand. It's amazing. Senegal. And they're trying to teach me how to take care of Grace, how to move her carefully so as not to hurt her, how to help feed her, get her into her chair, and that sort of thing. So they laugh at me. And they say, oh, a very good worker, fool, but no dinero. No dinero. They laugh. Because the angels don't work for pay. So thank you very much.

[37:41]

Muchas gracias, amigos.

[37:44]

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