Yeah. Thank you for joining us.

[18:51]

Thank you. Good evening. Before we begin, I'd like to invite us to hold a moment of silence for two friends of our community who recently passed, Coran Oberlin and Camille Taylor. So let's take a few breaths together, honoring their presence and their continued place in our hearts. Thank you.

[20:18]

And I would like to thank our Tanto, Tim Wicks, for inviting me to give this talk. Thank you, Tim. So about a week ago, I went to Tassahara to participate in a ceremony called the Shuso Ceremony and with a group of people. And that's when I heard the news of Koran's passing. inside a car. I was just so shocked because I knew him. I didn't know him very well. I worked with him at Tassahara last summer. I was there for just 12 days in August to be acting Tenzo. Tenzo is a kitchen manager. So Tenzo, at the time, at Tassahara was taking vacation, so I was fitting in. And then Koran was working in a bakery baking bread.

[21:20]

But then he was very much a beginner. He didn't know how to make bread very well. He didn't even know how to read the recipe. And so, you know, and I used to be a baker at Tassahara. So I gave him some guidance, instructions, and... But I didn't have much time because I was busy managing the kitchen. And he was a very creative person. He wouldn't always follow the recipe. He just uses his hunch. And he was like, all right, I'm going to just try adding this different flour, whole wheat flour, or cracked rye, whatever, 10%, 20%, and just experimenting it. And at that time, yeah, his bread would have come out flat often. But then a month later, I came back to Tassahara. And this time, I was becoming Tenzo for the rest of the year.

[22:25]

And he was still there. And yeah, he was like a professional baker at the time. And his bread was just amazing. You know, his sourdough was so popular in the valley. I was just astonished. Like, wow, in a month, you became this good. It's like, he was just baking bread every day, you know, in a very creative way. And I was really impressed. And so, you know, that was the end of the work period, right before the fall practice period. So I asked him to, you know, bake as many bread as possible for that practice period. because at the beginning of the practice period, everyone knew people would come in, and there was no one who knew how to bake bread. So he baked so many bread, and just to fill the entire freezer. So we didn't have any problem with the bread during the practice period.

[23:26]

So when I heard the news, you know, it's like... So shocking, because he looked healthy at that time. It just doesn't make sense to you. It's kind of like your brain freezes. It just makes no sense. Oh my god, I can't believe it. And same thing with Cameo. I didn't know how well either. A couple of years ago, I was a work leader here. And I had an opportunity to talk with her online because she applied for the apprentice program. And one of my responsibilities was receiving the applications and do interviews. And she gave me a very strong impression of a very focused practitioner, strong-minded practitioner.

[24:31]

And I believe she... used to practice at different Zen Center too, and I vividly remember, you know, and both of them were quite young. So when you hear news like that, it's a strong reminder that life is limited, right? Shunyu Suzuki Roshi said, Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink. Again, life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink. And this kind of captures the feeling for me when I heard the news, because I never expected that a person like Koran would pass away. Yeah, actually, yeah, a week ago, I was wondering what to talk about tonight, right?

[25:41]

And I was thinking, well, maybe in Zenkoan or Zen Kitchen Practice, since we just did a practice period, the theme was kitchen practice. So it's something I'm very much familiar with. But since I heard about this news, reminds me about my father, probably the most significant news of death I remember, because he had a very difficult life and ended up ending his own life by committing suicide. I was living at the time in East Coast, in Richmond, Virginia. I had a phone call from my brother telling me that he died.

[26:44]

And I couldn't quite believe it. But, you know, he was 75. But the thing is, I hear quite often on the news, you know, a lot of people are struggling out there, and it's so unbearable that they decide to end their life, right? And I found this text written by Koshio Uchiyama Roshi, who is quite famous in American Zen. a number of books, and some of them were translated into English. But this piece, I couldn't find it in English, but I found it in Japanese, so I kind of roughly translated it and modified it to make it more appropriate for tonight.

[27:46]

And as some of you may know, Uche Moroshi wrote a really wonderful book called Opening Hand of Thought. for Zen practitioners, and also how to cook your life for kitchen practice. Okay, the title of this piece is called To Those Who Are Thinking About Suicide Right Now. If you are in deep pain right now, I want to begin by saying, your suffering matters. Whatever you're feeling, hopelessness, exhaustion, despair, please know that you are not alone in experiencing it. Many people, even those who seem fine on the outside, have known moments when life felt too hard to go on. Sometimes these feelings become so overwhelming that the thought of disappearing seems like the only way to find the relief.

[28:52]

But before you take any irreversible step, I invite you to pause and not to judge yourself, not to fix anything, but simply to listen. There may still be a quiet voice inside you, however faint, that wants to keep going. The voice is not weak or foolish. It is the life within you, still trying to find its way. There is no shame in being tired. you have likely been caring more than most people can see. But even when it feels like your strength is gone, you may still be able to take one small step, to go outside, to breathe in the air, to notice a blade of grass growing by the road. That tiny living thing is just a being itself, and yet it survives.

[29:55]

Like that grass, there is a force within you that wants to live, to grow even if only a little at a time. You don't have to figure everything out right now. You don't have to be cheerful or strong or certain, but perhaps you can be curious about the life that is still moving within you, softly, patiently. And maybe in time, you can find others who also know sorrow and who choose to keep living with open hearts. This quiet courage to stay, to breathe, to reach out, is what in Buddhism we call compassion. It's not something you have to earn or create. It's already here between us, holding you up, even when you feel like falling. You are not burdened. You are not part of this

[30:58]

You are a part of this world, and your presence matters more than you may realize. Even if today feels unbearable, please consider waiting. Let tomorrow come. Let someone sit beside you. Let life speak to you again. You are still here, and that is enough. I remember the moment, I had this very strange moment when I came to San Francisco for the first time and this was back in 2014. So I was practicing in Tassajara and I took a vacation here and I was walking down the street on Market Street and I think it was like 4th or 5th Street shopping district.

[32:10]

And there were many, many people walking, and a lot of cars, and it was very vibrant energy. And all of a sudden, I had this flash of thought that said, in 100 years from now, all these people are gone, including myself. And it just felt real to me. You know, we all know that we die one day. Our life is limited. We all know that in the logical mind. But we don't really think about death every day, right? But for some reason, you know, this strange thought just came to me. And then I was almost shaken. And I think, yeah, Right before the thought came, I think it was triggered by this cameraman recording the street.

[33:16]

And I was just imagining the video footage, you know. And sometimes we see the video footage from a long time ago, right? Like 1920s or 30s and black and white films. And likely most of those people we see in the screen are gone. And I was thinking, oh wow, I'm going to be one of those people. A hundred years from now, those people see this video from today and they'll look at us like the way we look at those old videos or pictures. So, in Zen, often we hear the words like, do not waste your time. Do not waste your life. And there's a writing on Han, which is a wooden board that instead of Zen Temple, to call out the community to come to Zazen, like alarm clock.

[34:25]

On the board it says, do not waste your time, do not waste your life, because it's fleeting. So... for most of us who don't have to worry about death every day, you know, really to be healthy. So how do we think about death? If we can really consider that our time is limited, I believe it has the power to change the way we live. And often we want to run away from difficulties, right? And in a Zen temple, you know, we do practice in a very simple form, like a kitchen or cleaning.

[35:29]

And it's such a wonderful practice of being present. And when you are fully present, you forget yourself. There's one phrase, one of my favorite phrases from non-dual teaching. It goes, die before you die. It sounds dramatic, right? What does that mean? It means let go of your false sense of self. And then Dogen, the founder of the Soto Zen, says to study the Buddha way is to study the self. to study the self is to forget the self. So this self that they are referring to, that's not who you really are. You know, they say the finger that's pointing to the moon is not a moon.

[36:32]

And same thing, you know, the self that we call is just a label, right? Therefore, it can never be real. And often when we encounter difficulties in our lives, it has a power to transform ourselves. Just like a lotus growing out of mud, muddy water. If there's no mud, there's no lotus. Gringold's teacher, Linda Ruth, she was my first leading teacher at Tassara's practice period, and I really like the way she said suffering is like a compost, and the compost has a power to nurture plants, and it has a power to wake us up.

[37:40]

So all this pain and struggles that we experience in our daily life, if you could suffer consciously with awareness, you can see how it is helpful. And often great spiritual teachers, you know, experience hardships at some point in their life and that helped them to transform themselves. There was a time I struggled so much that I had a thought about suicide as well.

[38:42]

And yeah, I think it's pretty normal. I think many, many people have at least one time think about just ending this life. And that seems like a relief, right? But if you can just hang in there, Suffering has that power to wake you up because you just get tired of it. And for me, yeah, believing all these stories in the head, nothing was going well. Okay, my family is falling apart, and my father just scared himself.

[39:45]

and all these sad stories, you know, I identified with, just created this sorry self. Then I encountered something, some spiritual teaching, Zen, and this wonderful teaching of being present. And I realized that this self that I was identified with not real, right? We create a story based on our past and worried about future. And the moment I still remember to this day, the moment I really understood what it means to be present, that future and the past don't exist, right? Only exist in your head. And then I was able to kind of turn my life around.

[40:50]

Yeah, death is a mystery. So after my father died, I have to go back home, but I have to sort out my paperwork. You know, I was staying here with a work visa, but I still have to get a special permission. And then I rushed back home. And when I arrived, my father was already turning to ashes in the urn. Yeah, that's the... That is a shocking visual effect for you. You remember someone, and this person became a little pot inside a box. And then we drove, our family drove together to our temple. And my brother was driving. I was sitting in a passenger seat. I was holding my father's ash on my lap.

[42:14]

And then I remember there was a ceremony inside a temple, hearing and chanting, watching the smoke. And I was the sense that he's not really gone. You know, he keeps living inside me. Yeah, we had a difficult relationship. And then later I found out, so interesting. I thought he was never interested in religion, but actually the last seven, eight years of his life, he was going to Nepal, Tibet, and India every winter to go traveling and visiting temples. And I found a lot of Buddhist books, and he was studying Heart Sutra.

[43:26]

So I think he was sensing something, and then maybe he was getting ready. And maybe he was trying to find a meaning of life. And how do we embrace when someone close to you die? Right? We practice so that we can hopefully live a happy life. But when someone dies, I feel like they are reminding us that truly this life is limited. And also, death is not something that we need to fear. And after my father passed, I heard this wonderful poem.

[44:35]

And this became quite famous after the 9-11 incident happened back in 2001 in New York. And when they did a memorial service, Samoa read this poem. And this poem put, Do not stand by my grave and weep. And written by Claire Hunter. And she happened to be the San Francisco resident back in 1970s. And also, Mako, who is a Tassajara now, she read this poem at the... Caroline, Meister, who passed away last year in Tassara. Michael read this poem for her memorial service just a few weeks ago. So it goes like this. Do not stand by my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. I am the thousand winds that blow.

[45:38]

I am the diamond glint in snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. As you awake with the morning's hush, I am the swift upflinging rush. Of quiet birds in circling flight, I am the day transcending night. Do not stand by my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die. Thank you. Thank you.

[46:43]

... [...] God bless you. God bless you. God bless you. Thank you very much.

[49:01]

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