This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So good morning, everyone, and welcome to Zen Center. I'd also like to welcome back the residents to the schedule It's like coming back from vacation. You're sort of glad to be back, but sort of, you know. So thank you for those of you who could be here. My name is Wendy Lewis. And today I wanted to address a topic that's been on my mind and one that we don't exactly avoid. But for many cultural and personal reasons, we often approach it either with complacency or discomfort or reluctance.

[01:00]

So generally, I'll call that the topic of death. And you could say dying would be in there as well. But I don't want to talk about it in a morbid way so much about worrying about it, though, of course, we do. I wanted to consider it as a topic from the Buddhist point of view. about death, dying, and the dead. Part of this was, my thinking is coming from a project I'm working on with one of my professors at USF. The working title we have is Iconic Images, Dying Buddha, Dying Christ. And the theme, or what we're working around, is... how these images address our attitudes about death and the amelioration of suffering. So one of my first thoughts as I started to do this research was that I hadn't heard all that much about Buddhist attitudes towards death in my practice or my study.

[02:13]

And certainly, you know, there's a... I don't know if you'd call it large, but a pretty significant engagement of Buddhists in hospice work, death and dying, social engagement. But there isn't so much of an explicit examination of what Buddhism thinks about death or what that process is about and how it informs how we live. and particularly the Buddhist doctrines around the afterlife and karma and rebirth and reincarnation. So I'm going to talk about that a little bit. And I realize that part of the reason for this is that the Buddhist iconic image is the Buddha's enlightenment.

[03:16]

It's not his death. which is different. In Christianity, it's the crucifixion and death of Jesus. That's the iconic image. So there's a different perspective. And interestingly, in Buddhism, the sort of preferred posture for death is the meditation posture. Little ironies. But there's also the posture of parinirvana, which is the Buddha lying on his right side with a particular way that he has his hands and so on. So usually that pari nirvana posture is more for someone who is ill or who is too ill to sit up or a lay person or that sort of thing. But the preferred posture is the meditation posture. And there are stories about that, though, There was one Zen master, and I'm sorry, I can't remember his name right now.

[04:18]

It just came to my mind. But at the time of his death, he had rickets from growing up undernourished, and he asked that his legs be broken so that he could die in meditation posture. So that's how important it was to him. So traditional Buddhist... writings and studies on death are concerned with karma and rebirth. And essentially, you know, what happens after death based on how one has lived this life and past lives? There are time of death rituals, there's confession of sins, and there's vows to be reborn in different types of heavens that are overseen by bodhisattvas, including Maitreya, the future Buddha. And that's one of the heavens you can vow to be reborn into.

[05:18]

Or you can vow to live your next life in renunciation and following the precepts towards enlightenment. And then there's also several types and levels of hell that you can be reborn into. And that doesn't mean that's the end of the story, though, in Buddhism. I often think... actually in any way I think about hell, is that it's a place of purification. I mean, even now we can feel that in our own lives. There's this sense of when you're going through difficulties that something is working sometimes. So in the introduction to one of my research sources, which was published in 2007, the editors write, Despite its centrality to Buddhist traditions, until recently, death has received surprisingly little attention in the field of Buddhist studies as a theme in its own right. And I was relieved, you know, that I hadn't just missed something.

[06:24]

But this was actually, you know, true. It was hard to find sources about this. So modern reluctance to address death, as they say, as a theme in its own right in Buddhism, was based in both Asian and Western preference to make Buddhism relevant to the modern world. So to emphasize... Its ethical discourse, its philosophical insights, and its social and political formations, while its approaches to so commonplace a matter as death, have failed for a long time to garner sustained interest. And I think all those things, ethical discourse, philosophical insights, we've got a lot to work with, social and political formations. But then, you know, this... thing about our lives and our meaning and that sort of thing.

[07:25]

So there's still not a lot of scholarly work being done on this topic, but the first time I did my research, I couldn't find very much periodical information, you know, sources, articles, contemporary, at the moment things. And then the last time, some months after I did my first research, I found a 2009, 2011, 2012, and the 2012 one is one of my favorites. So obviously, it seems to me anyway, just because I'm working on this, that more is being written. And it may have something to do with this book. It's called The Buddhist Dead, and it's... I don't know exactly how many. There may be about 20 articles on the topic in that book. And it's all... Buddhist scholars, both Asian and Euro-American and American and so on.

[08:29]

So the editors and authors in this book also address the problem of how we often see Buddhist doctrine and teachings on karma and rebirth as superstitious and not really acceptable. in a sort of scientific frame of reference or reality. And another problem, or we can call it a problem, issue, is that modernist Western Euro-American, I'm trying to find the right term for all these things, interpretations of the Buddhist doctrine of anatta, or no-self, and the concept of non-attachment, sort of have led to this assumption that we don't have to worry about karma and all those sorts of things because there's no self to be attached to it. And what's going to be reborn?

[09:30]

And so seeing that no self as a negation of something. And I think that I've been developing a different understanding of karma. thinking about what knows self, how it functions rather than it being a definition. So it's more a functioning. How does karma function? Not whether it's true or real or something like you get rewarded and punished, but how does it function? Because my initial insights through Buddhist practice were ethical, not in terms of compassion, you know, as that term is usually used in the Buddhist sense, but more in this sense of the interrelatedness of past, present, and future in my life and in how I am affected and affect things around me.

[10:36]

And ethics is often kind of highlighted in spiritual and... religious practice because, partly, I think it has a tendency to make us feel bad about ourselves as part of it, and I certainly experience that as I'm studying it. But it also has this other potential that is just as difficult, a positive potential of change or something like that. It requires a great deal of dismantling. particularly of our preferences, and I've talked about this before, and our self-referencing projections, and our kind of inflated expectations about our efforts and spirituality in general and so on. And I think from an ethical perspective, every insight is a starting over. And that's how I understand beginner's mind. You're...

[11:40]

Every insight sort of pushes you down to the next level or takes you up to the next level or puts you sideways where you didn't see something. And the deeper and farther your practice can reach in those things, the more is revealed of the basis of your fears and your desires and how they're accompanied by wishful thinking. and claims of authority about what Buddhism is or what ethics is or what everything is. And that doesn't mean that effort is not enjoyable. There's a spaciousness about it that I think is... It's hard to grasp or explain or describe. But it does mean that... there's lots of times of uncertainty and disarray that are involved in it.

[12:44]

Now, the context for that type of practice, or any type of practice that you decide or are pulled to, is the community or the sangha that you happen to be practicing in or involved with. And in my experience, it seems that, at least at Zen Center, and I feel this from other associated Buddhist sanghas, that people in those groups, I think because part of a community and see, you know, in their friends and associates and members and everything, see the impermanence acting. old age, sickness, death, transitions of all kinds in positive and difficult ways. And we see that happening around us. We share it, whether we do it explicitly or not, with each other.

[13:49]

And there seems to be a kind of request or interest in developing some rituals about those kinds of things. And so in order to find rituals that have meaning and are appropriate, we need some sort of training or understanding. I think that's also something that seems to be requested, particularly as more and more people are ordained, either lay or priest ordained. Well, what do I do now? What do I offer? What have I been given or what have I taken on? So part of that training has to be self-understanding and some awareness about our issues, about religion, spirituality, and life and death.

[14:53]

And by religion, I mean doctrines, teachings that are sort of a basis, like karma. rebirth, those sort of things. How do we work with those things? And that's more the religious aspect. So many Buddhists, and I have done some chaplain training, and that included a lot of work with hospice, death and dying, and just illness and suffering in general. But I think a lot of Buddhists are participating in that kind of training and work. It's been awkward to find a way of expressing oneself as a Buddhist in a culture that's not Buddhist.

[16:00]

So being a chaplain requires some of this carefulness about how we see or judge what another person's spiritual needs are and what our own are in those situations. And one of the surprises of that type of work and that type of involvement is that it actually starts to deepen the sort of definition and experience of of what a Buddhist understanding can include and encompass. So, as I was saying, how does a Buddhist priest serve in the world and in their community? And however we serve as a spiritual whatever,

[17:06]

It has a wider effect than just the particular people or community in which we live and practice. So what does the world need, particularly from Buddhists, as we ask ourselves these questions? And I think sometimes we think, well, it could be love and compassion. patience and understanding, inclusion and respect, or all of those things. And I don't mean this as a claim of holding something, but this possibility of refreshing spirituality in a certain way. We have this opportunity. I don't know if that's good or what it is, but it's something to consider. And not surprisingly, these qualities are parts of many religious institutions and humanitarian institutions.

[18:14]

But they're often nuanced, as we have sometimes experienced, by politics and the failures of individuals in the institution and the institution's inability to deal with those failures. And that's another thing we have to keep in mind as we see ourselves serving. How do we do that? What do we embody? But a positive experience of an institution, for me, was my experience at USF. It's a Jesuit Catholic university. And I've said this to many people, but I still am so grateful I don't know all the words for it, but I'll just use grateful as one of them. I felt love there in a way that I've rarely felt in my life. Actually, one of my professors asked me, this professor I'm working on this paper with, well, how was your experience at USF?

[19:23]

And I thought, hmm, should I tell him that? And I did, and he said... Oh, you know, I'm really glad to hear that. Which was kind of an interesting response. And then a little bit later in our conversation, he said, you know, I feel it too. So it wasn't me. I wasn't making anything up, you know. There was an atmosphere, and I had some experience of it. So what I think that had to do with, and I don't know how this atmosphere was... or held, but it had the aspects of being heard and respected, being criticized without being dismissed, or corrected, I should say, without being dismissed. And at the same time, these attitudes had no sort of sense that I had a need to be loved or respected or

[20:28]

or anything like that. So it was very equal. And what was interesting is that attitude allowed me to work even harder and look even deeper at the material and at myself and at one of my intentions in being there was self-understanding. So what does this have to do with Buddhism and death? Well, I've been thinking about how our reluctance to address death is related to our focus on our satisfactions, our dissatisfactions, and the limitations of our life experience. I think for the most part, and these are for cultural reasons and our own fears and everything, we don't give a lot of conscious thought, creative thought, to the prospect of our death.

[21:32]

We can sometimes become morbid or worried or, I mean, I'm going to have surgery on my foot and I'm just like, oh, what if something happens? And I'm just, you know, these sort of round and round thinking. Or we can, you know, sort of think we're ready to die. And I think, you know, that's a possibility. But what is it like to just address death as a truth or a fact? So my mother died when she was 62, and I will be 62 in a few months. And for about the last five years or so, that's been in the back of my mind. And what has arisen is the sense of something like... reconciliation, forgiveness. And at the same time, how limited it is those things are or the limitations of them.

[22:39]

I don't mean this in a negative sense, but I think my life process is basically pretty irrelevant to most people. And... Theirs is irrelevant to me, not because of not caring, but how do you take that in? You're so self-absorbed, and how can you not be? There's so many things you deal with moment after moment. So where can this reconciliation and forgiveness come in? Because those things are all-encompassing. They don't just happen with one person or another person or inside yourself. They extend out. They finally sort of affect your whole worldview and your view and understanding of the universe. So this wide sense of reconciliation and forgiveness

[23:49]

is not sort of glorified. But it has a wonder to it. That's been part of my experience. And it kind of softens some edges for me, mostly around my longings and aversions and where they arise, what they come from. So I think, again, going back to this sense of community and how we experience each other's transitions and old age sickness and death, we can be more aware of the inevitability of death for us. The Japanese Zen master, Taisen Rishimaru, who some of you might know of, instructed his students... You should practice zazen as though you are entering your coffin.

[24:50]

I read that a long time ago, and I knew what he meant, but I didn't know how to do it, and I didn't really want to. But it's been coming into my mind, too, as I've been doing this research and thinking. So one of the articles I found... course, you know, when you look and look, somehow I find books and articles just kind of appear out of nowhere. So it's called The Evocation of Death Anxiety on a Meditation Retreat. What could be so more appropriate? So it's written by a Buddhist practitioner who is a psychologist and a professor of psychology, and it's based on the experience of one of her analyses, I can... spell that word, but I'm not sure how to pronounce it. But this person went to a meditation retreat and was instructed that the subject of the retreat was, make sure I get this right, aging and death.

[25:52]

So the aim of the teachings was to penetrate the usual defenses against awareness of one's own inevitable death and in so doing to deepen one's capacity to live more fully in the immediate present. That sounds very Buddhist, you know, our way of talking. But I think anyone who has tried to do this work and the last few years for me has had some of this to it, you know, with others or on your own, like in a meditation retreat or working in your daily practice. It's not really sort of a stroll, you know, through... you know, towards peace and acceptance. And in the article, the author describes the participant's experience. The process that unfolded for her involved not only an evocation of grief and terror in this confrontation with her mortality, but an eerily familiar revocation of experiences of psychic collapse or breakdown.

[27:04]

an anguish, despairing loss of self, of continuity, and ultimately of all meaning. Now, I know that sounds kind of horrible and dramatic, but it even describes feelings that we sometimes feel subtly when we're in a transition in our life or we'll make a positive transition. That means changing a job or ending a relationship. There's lots of feelings that go with that that have this kind of... They twist us in a way and make us, in a way, we have to look at our reality differently because of things changing. So, you know, if we are going to do something like a... meditation retreat, or we address this topic in a meditation retreat or in our daily practices, I said, it reminds me of some of my experiences when I was a chaplain, when someone was very ill or dying.

[28:13]

They would feel not comfortable speaking to all their friends and relatives that were around them, but they could speak to me. I was the chaplain and a complete stranger. And what often, so often happened in those circumstances was that this container arose that included what I call prayer, and it often was prayer. And it couldn't be evoked on purpose, like it couldn't go in and say, oh, I'm going to talk to this person and we're going to do this and then we're going to create this situation. But it... But it arose, you know, and then it had this quality of no apology and no embarrassment. It was just the atmosphere of prayer. So I think inclusiveness is often expressed in negative terms.

[29:22]

So that emptiness is the interdependence of all things. So it's including all things, but it's described in the sense of emptiness and nothingness. And this container of spaciousness I think of as a useless form of love. And what I mean by that is that it doesn't have an object or a purpose. There's no, you know, not trying to create comfort or hope or dissolution even, you know, So it's been described often as a form of listening, and my experience of that form of listening is that it's not listening to anything or for anything, but to the turning of that moment, and you're there too, and you're not making it, and you're...

[30:26]

You're turning with it. And I think when you listen in that way, you include yourself. And it's spiritual, but it's not weird. And I think the more we can do that, have that... kind of listening and inclusion of ourself and that listening, the spaciousness widens. And you can include more and more. But it can't be controlled. So we don't become like perfect beings who always know what to do. And we still become overinflated and have our bad moments. Because if we didn't, we wouldn't be a part of things, of how things are unfolding. So in the article, this is described.

[31:34]

Buddhism and meditation inspire this very staying with the living through, with all the presence we can muster, a surrender to the agonizing experiences we wish to transcend. So to some extent, Western Euro-American Buddhism has inherited a kind of packaged form of Buddhism, reinterpreted for middle class, educated, modernist, for that kind of perspective. And yet in between, its subtleties emerge and sometimes ask more of us than we expected. And there's no need to respond to these sort of subtleties or to the request. But I am glad to know that they're hovering.

[32:36]

Just waiting, just in case. And I often think of Siddhartha, you know, wandering through the forest years and years and years of this ascetic practice and meditation and solitude and moment after moment doing that. Often we say, six years, he did this. Oh yeah. But when you think of it as moment after moment and insight after insight or whatever was happening for him and he's applying everything he's been taught and trying to take that to a level where he can understand it. And the moment of his enlightenment was preceded by the realization that he had taken things to such an extreme extent that he was on the point of dying. So the teachings are the path.

[33:40]

And I think they come to our aid... when we arrive at certain points or we are looking more carefully at anything, it doesn't have to be death, but I think death is one of those things where the teachings come to our aid. And, you know, we certainly may approach the topic with the wish, you know, to find transcendence and equanimity and freedom, and I think Those are possibilities. But there's also the possibility of kind of what the article calls leaving the baby behind prematurely. And I think of that as ignoring interdependence and karma. You know, how we got to be where we are, all the causes and conditions of ourself-ness. And at the same time, as the...

[34:47]

psychologist was describing, the very approach to the topic offers the possibility of our being open to what we can learn from it and how we can widen and deepen our experience and view of things. So in closing, I actually would like to apologize to anyone who found this topic boring, uncomfortable, or really not what you need to hear about right now. So I am sorry about that. But I also want to express my deep gratitude for the community of Zen Center. It's an extraordinary community. And I think in the midst of it, I and... others, you know, experience this, I don't know, opportunity, you know, to express, struggle with our hopes, our joys, our fears, our everything's anxieties, and sometimes with our missing the mark.

[36:06]

So thank you very much. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:37]

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