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. Good morning. My name is Kristina Lehnherr. I'm the current abiding abbess here at City Center. I have just returned before the new year, before Christmas, from three months at Tassajara, leading a practice period there. And so I'm happy to be back. It's been poignant three months in many ways. But first I would like to know who is here for the very first time. quite a few of you welcome.

[01:00]

And I hope you feel comfortable, change your position when you need to, and it's nice that you come to visit us. It has been a poignant three months because shortly after I left here, the central abbot at that time, me again, Steve Stuckey, whose picture is on the altar, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer stage four. So it has colored for all of us here and many people all over that knew him the last three months. The certainty of his death, the fastness, the amazing quickness of cancer spreading, and the incredible gift

[02:15]

of the teaching of his life, of his life's teaching in the middle of it, how he met that totally unpredicted event that changed his life and many lives irrevocably. So, you know, New Year is a time when we kind of notice a change. Culturally, we celebrate the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year. So we have forms for that. But most of the changes which are happening moment by moment, most of them we don't even notice because they happen unnoticeable to our perceptions. And a lot of others that we could notice, our culture has kind of decided to ignore. or to hide, or to fight against.

[03:20]

We have a huge industry of cosmetic surgeries to kind of hide the signs that we're aging, that our bodies are aging, that we too are going to die one day. So, So when something like that happens, like receiving a diagnosis, it's really a wake-up call, and it includes everything of life. So Miogain, Steve Stuckey, died on December 31st, which is the last day of the year, early in the morning. And I want to dedicate this talk to him and to also his family with deep gratitude and appreciation.

[04:24]

Also to his family, because without their boundless generosity, which has supported me again and allowed him to grow into the inspiring teacher, mentor, and spiritual friend that he has become for many people. Without their generosity, for him to be dedicated so wholeheartedly to this practice and to everything it asked of him, he would not have been who he became. And that's true for all of us. All of us become who we are ultimately through a combination of the circumstances and conditions of our very life with how we choose, how we meet those circumstances, which are given, our bodies are given to us the way they are.

[05:33]

We couldn't choose them, we couldn't check, like when we go online, we couldn't check, create our own car. No, it's not working like that. We just got what we have. And we inherit the circumstances of our life. Many of them are totally out of our control. But what we can do is we can actually, and we always do, meet them in particular ways. And how we meet them will co-create our life, and how those circumstances affect us and how they affect everybody around us. So I want to quote what Steve, after having received his diagnosis, he received his diagnosis on September 30th, and on October 2nd,

[06:39]

he gave a talk at Green Gulch, which turned out to be the last talk he was able to give. And he says, For some years, I have been doing a practice of waking up with gratitude. First thing, sitting up at the edge of the bed and putting my hands together and just saying the word gratitude. And then, it's an open question, for what? And whatever comes up in my experience is that for which I am, I would say, grateful to have this meeting. it is, is who I am, is supporting me.

[07:53]

And this life is completely beyond judgment or preference. And so lately, I have been grateful to have this practice. So right now, I am grateful for this moment and everyone here, each person. And so I want to begin with this. and not lose track of that. That's how he talked at Green Gulch, how he started his talk at Green Gulch. And he did not lose track through those three months, following three months, of that practice of understanding

[09:10]

whatever arises in this moment is who I am in this moment, is supporting me, and that this life that expresses itself through each one of us in a very particular way is completely beyond judgment or preference. I didn't know Steve very well. Or maybe I knew him completely, but I didn't know him for a long time. I knew him very peripherally from hearing and certain things, but I met him in person basically only when I became a biding abbess here. And we started to have a weekly meeting, which now went on for one and three quarters of a year.

[10:17]

What came back to me yesterday, we had an all-day meeting, a tri-temple meeting, all the three temples from Tassajara leadership people and from Green Gulch and from City Center met at Fort Mason for a whole day, and that's actually one of Steve's creations. When he became the central abbot, he felt we should just have time to be in the same room from... from these so distinct three places with distinct manifestations of the Dharma, with distinct conditions and circumstances that influence how Green Gulch is shaped and the practice at Green Gulch, Tassajara, is shaped and the practice in the wilderness at Tassajara, how city center practice is shaped. Right here is the city all around us. So he wanted us to be in one room and hear the same thing, hear each other, listen to each other.

[11:20]

We had a council circle where everybody shared something to the theme of the day, and yesterday the theme was change and transformation. So his practice... was very inclusive and trying to really be committed to being open to new feedback or new learning. So in that way he embodied the saying in the Heart Sutra, a bodhisattva has no abode. You know, and sometimes I had to, you know, and you might know that, you know, many people know him much better than I do. So I'm not trying to give a complete picture of Steve at all because I wouldn't be able to. But I felt I could actually rattle him.

[12:25]

I could go and say, no, I don't agree. And he might not... hear it first time but I could go back and say I don't agree or listen to this and what about this and he would he would finally sometimes immediately sometimes after a while would start to go oh what are you saying so I that was very encouraging for me to know I could you know I wouldn't wouldn't have to treat him with white gloves or something like And when I would call, when there was something, or I would return a call, and he would pick up his cell phone, and my call would drop into who knows what, driving on the road or in a meeting, and he would pick it up. He would say, Christina. Like I was this wonderful gift appearing in the middle of whatever he was doing.

[13:26]

Christina was his answer on the phone. Which... came to me yesterday. It kept coming back. That's how he greeted me when I called him. And it was so an example of how he greeted many things in his life. I want to read again what he said at the first talk. For some years I have been doing a practice of waking up with gratitude. First thing, sitting up at the edge of the bed and putting my hands together and just saying the word gratitude. And then it's an open question, for what? And whatever comes up in my experience is that for which I am, I would say, grateful to have this meeting, to have this meeting with whatever arises in my experience.

[14:50]

Whatever it is, is who I am, is supporting me, And this life is completely beyond judgment or preference. And so lately, I have been grateful to have this practice. So right now, I am grateful for this moment and everyone here, each person. So I want to begin with that and not lose track of that. He also wrote a death poem. Sojourn Mel Weizmann, who was his teacher, his transmission teacher, kind of, I heard, kept urging him to write a death poem.

[15:58]

So four days before he died, he wrote, this human body truly is the entire cosmos. Each breath of mine is equally one of yours, my darling. This tender abiding in my life is the fierce glowing fire of inner earth linking with all three phenomena flashing to the distant horizon from right here now to just this. Now the horizon itself drops away. Bodhisattva.

[17:01]

The translation of bodhi is to awaken to the nature of how things are, how this life is, to be enlightened to it. And svaha means hail or so be it, or maybe amen. This human body truly is the entire cosmos. Each breath of mine is equally one of yours, my darling. This tender abiding in my life is the fierce glowing fire of inner earth, linking with all pre-phenomena, flashing to the distant horizon, from right here now to just this. Now the horizon itself drops away. Bodhisattva.

[18:06]

So his turning toward the body and the needs of the body, which he asked us in the letter, he informed us about his illness, his diagnosis. He asked us to support him in taking care of this body and turning towards taking care of this body and all the relationships he has been involved in. And he really walked a very fine line of keeping in touch with his body and finding how much medication did he need to be able to not die from the pain, because twice his heart almost gave up from the stress of pain, and to stay awake, to be able to stay in touch and be able to walk this.

[19:14]

And that's what his body told him. His body kind of... enlightened him to the fact that this human body truly is the entire cosmos. And so we all have an opportunity. You know, we all have had people, probably all of us in this room have the experience of people that were close to us, having died, and how sometimes... when the outer body disappears, the essence of the being that had been inhabiting this body becomes a little bit more clarified because we're not distracted by appearance, not distracted by the maleness or the size of a body. So that's when now we can see

[20:21]

in some ways we can see or feel Steve much more in some ways than when he was around because we were distracted by appearances. And his capacity to be with and be with be grateful for meeting what is, understanding whatever the experience is, is the life right now of this moment, has been so inspiring for all of us. And it's a teaching that will continue. Two people said to me that it's very auspicious to die on the last day of the year. because it frees the teaching to continue for the new year, uninhibited, undiminished.

[21:30]

And that's a very good thing. And they're both from Asian cultures. It's really interesting. I think that's much more alive in those cultures. You're nodding, so you know about this. Yes. And I want to read you something from a book that's called Touching Enlightenment. To be awake, to be enlightened, is to be fully and completely embodied. To be fully embodied means to be at one with who we are, in every respect, including our physical being, our emotions, and the totality of our karmic situation. It is to be entirely present to who we are and to the journey of our own becoming.

[22:40]

It is to inhabit completely our relative... with no speck of ourselves left over. No external observer waiting for something else or something better. To be fully embodied and to be an enlightened or completely realized being are one and the same. So for me, what I heard, sensed from Steve's passing, his life from the diagnosis through his passing, was an example of this, of full embodiment, full inhabiting, full

[23:48]

realization of that becoming, continuous becoming, until the becoming was the passing from this existence. Buddha says, when Buddha woke up, when Shakyamuni Buddha, when Siddhartha Gautama woke up and turned into the Buddha, He said, he exclaimed, wonder of wonders, all living beings are truly enlightened, are shining with wisdom and virtue. Because their minds have turned inward towards the ego, they don't understand it. But they are truly enlightened. So we all have that capacity. Buddha was a human being like you and I and all of us.

[24:52]

And so how we meet, with what intention, with what practice, with what efforts do we meet what happens to us in our lives? What is given to us without us asking for it, without us wanting it or not wanting it, how do we meet that? That is in our hands, much more than what actually happens. And it will continue to influence how things that happen to us affect us. Buddha also said, in his last words, he said, be a lamp unto yourselves.

[26:07]

Look for no other refuge. Work out your own salvation. This means your life is the material... which supports you to wake up, to be fully alive, fully awake, fully human. It's the particular of each of our individual life. Nobody can wake up for you or do it for you. And nobody can... It's an activity. It's an engagement of the being. It's an engagement of... being responsive to what happens, what appears in your experience. That's the guide. That's your truth. That's your map.

[27:10]

Let the truth be your map and your refuge, is what Buddha said. So, you know, we've been talking here many times, Blanche has been talking about this many times, the practice of appreciation, of gratitude. And I think Steve's description of it, waking up, the first thing when you wake up, sit on the edge of your bed and say gratitude with that question mark. For what? And then just look what arises and then let that be grateful for that.

[28:17]

Be grateful that something actually comes up and meets you when you say gratitude. It comes and says, here I am, Christina. With that particular inflection. which I never noticed when he was alive, but was kind of in my body and came back yesterday over and over. And he also says somewhere, you know, it slaps me in the face sometimes. I mean, this cancer and the pain and all of that was just, you know, it wasn't each time an easy meeting, but having for years practiced that enabled him... to then meet this ultimate challenge. And each one of us can do something like that. It's a very simple practice. If you keep practicing it, or another practice that speaks to you over years, it will come to your help when you need it.

[29:25]

And it will co-shape you. It will help you embody the... life that wants to express itself through you. Being is a verb. It's not a noun. We are being, being from moment to moment. So... I think that's enough for today. I would like to read his death poem one more time to end this talk. And I really want to also say again, none of us, not one single human being, is who we are by themselves.

[30:31]

Everybody and everything is helping us to be who we are. And his family, his children, his wife, his friends, his students, everybody supported Steve to become who he was. Your family, your friends, your students, your co-workers support Steve. you to become who you are combined with how you choose, how I choose, you choose, we each choose to meet what is happening in our lives. This human body truly is the entire cosmos. Each breath of mind is equally one of yours, my darling. This tender abiding in my life is the fierce glowing fire of inner earth linking with all pre-phenomena flashing to the distant horizon.

[31:49]

From right here now to just this. Now the horizon itself drops away. Vodhi Swaha Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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