Good evening. Welcome to those of you who live in this temple and welcome to those of you who don't live in this temple. My name is Mary and I often forget to introduce myself so I thought I'd make a point of doing it tonight. I live in this temple and and have for a number of years. And it's my pleasure to be able to sit here and speak to you this evening. Last week we had a sashin, a five-day sashin. And while I was sitting, two things kept coming to me. One was the final... Two verses of the loving-kindness meditation.

[01:01]

Standing or walking, sitting or lying down during all our waking hours, let one practice the way with gratitude, not holding to fixed views, endowed with insights, free from sense appetites. One who achieves the way will be freed from the duality of birth and death. And although I wasn't doing... I wasn't trying to hold that in my mind as I was sitting zazen, that those phrases kept returning over and over again into my mind. And then the other thing that kept coming up for me last week was some family history. So 23 years ago next month, my sister took her own life. And last year, next month, my brother took his own life.

[02:04]

So this is a significant time for me this month, this month of March. And these deaths... The implications of these deaths and this loving-kindness meditation wove together in such a way last week and through the weekend that I thought I would speak about this tonight. Erin, my partner, said, it would be good if it's a happy talk. She often says that to me. And I appreciate the encouragement. I do. And... I'm not sure that this is a super unhappy talk. I don't think it has to be, but it feels like the talk that needs to happen tonight. So I hope that you won't go home and have horrible waking nightmares tonight about this subject.

[03:11]

So death, for me, is a lively topic. I've had many people close to me that have died. I've been with people who have died. I've heard about deaths from afar of people that I love who have died. And the last phrase of the loving kindness meditation regarding the duality of birth and death, to be free from the duality of birth and death. comes up for me over and over again, because I think for many of us, we have a very clear idea of what life is and what death is. And I wanted to share a couple of stories that relate specifically to this idea that we think we have a clear idea what life and death are, and yet...

[04:19]

through my experience, I can say that I'm not so sure that that boundary or that duality is so clear. So a number of years ago, I spent time with Steve Stuckey, who was an avid at Zen Center, and he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And from his diagnosis on September 28th to his death of on December 31st, he went from hearing about this, being completely surprised that this was what was happening for him, in a very short time, and moved from probably bewilderment, you know,

[05:20]

as it would hit most of us, to this significantly engaged behavior around death. And I lived in the house with he and his wife for those three months. And... I often did the morning shift and his wife, Lane, did the evening shift. And we worked with Steve and spent time with Steve while this was happening. And my story for this evening or what I feel is important and relevant to this subject is that Steve, he had a significant amount of pain. So he was in a lot of pain. He was taking a lot of medications for this.

[06:23]

Chemo didn't work very well, so he had two courses of chemo, but it wasn't effective, so that stopped. All of this happened very, very quickly. And I think because of the quickness of it, his practice kicked in very fast. So he had been a practitioner of Zen for many years. I think since the very early 80s. And he approached dying, acknowledging that he was in pain and there was not so much suffering, if that makes any sense. And I don't think to me, before I had been in this situation, that would have made a lot of sense to me. But as a result of that experience, it started making sense that we can experience incredible pain. And that pain we can acknowledge and feel and work with, and yet we don't have to add on the top of that the suffering that can come.

[07:39]

So for me, there was this difference, and for Steve, there was this difference between the pain he was in all the time and the suffering he was experiencing around this diagnosis and his trajectory towards death. So he was working with this all the time. And then about a month before his death, he started working with visual imagery around... his actual passing. So he had lived on a farm when he was young and he had ridden a lot of horses and he found that imagery very comforting and very powerful for him. So what he started doing was he started working with the imagery of at the time of death, he would in his mind think about being on a horse and riding towards death and And he practiced with this imagery over and over and over and over again.

[08:46]

And he and his wife talked about it. Steve and I talked about it. The image of this became very, he became very intimate with this imagery and excited about it, excited about the power, excited about the feelings he could relate to from his childhood around this imagery. And I would say that the work he did around this as preparation for his dying changed his experience of death because in those last few hours when he was no longer speaking and relating much to the world around him, he was very much engaged in this inner world and he was riding. He was experiencing himself on a horse, riding towards this liberation, I would say.

[09:49]

And his experience of death as a result of the cancer and how it had wracked his body, there weren't... any of us that were working with Steve that would be able to say definitively that he wasn't moving towards liberation. In fact, I saw Steve like 30 seconds after his death and then for the next number of hours and then for the next three days. And for me, the experience was that his body had been liberated and that his mind had been liberated. So this was an example for me of somebody that has taken the circumstance of their living and dying and moved it into something that was a choice for them. It was active. It wasn't happening to him as much as he was meeting the request and moving with that request.

[10:56]

And why I think about this, particularly in the context of my siblings, And their suicide is that I think for both my brother and sister, they felt that their lives were such that the choice of dying was a better choice for them. And they, both of them also moved towards a death. They were control of that death. And... I don't think the circumstances were similar at all in some respects because Steve was very... He included other people in his experience. He... He had it based in a confidence, whereas I think a lot of times for suicide, other people aren't included.

[11:59]

And there's a... There's an element of desperation and escape that is with that person as they're engaging in this activity that is ending their life. So I think to go back to the loving-kindness meditation in the last sentence, I think with Steve, there wasn't so much duality between life and death. There was an experience of moving through the events of his life and welcoming the events of his life. Whereas I think, again, with my siblings, there was a rejection of the experience of their lives and an inability to...

[13:01]

manage that experience, and so a choice was made. Steve's experience allowed his family to mourn and also to gather strength from his action and to move into the next thing that happened for them all and for Steve, I think. So there was a lot of forward momentum. I would say the experience of my family was that there was very little possibility of mourning. There was very little possibility of gathering together to have conversations about this. With my sister's suicide, my family kind of blew apart. And there was bewilderment.

[14:08]

Bewilderment. So I think this feels important to talk about, A, because in our culture, generally speaking, we don't talk about death so much. I remember when my sister killed herself, I made the choice. to never say that she had died because that felt like a denial of that experience and her choice. So I would announce when I was in groups or when I was going through something, Nancy, you remember, that I would say she'd killed herself. And what that often did was it allowed for an opportunity for other people to talk about their experience and to talk about the people in their lives who had lost somebody through suicide. So that started my healing process, actually. It wasn't something that happened as a result of my family. It was more being in sangha and feeling the permission to talk about this subject and to be honest about the mechanism and the lack of emotion and the bewilderment.

[15:29]

And I'm very grateful that I have been able to, over the years, work with the confusion and the bewilderment of my sister's death. And sadly, it allowed me to be better prepared for the the death of my brother last year, and to be able to reach out to Sangha and talk to Sangha about it more easily. So I think this is where the first part of the loving-kindness meditation, that phrase, standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all one's waking hours, let one practice the way with gratitude. So I think the events of our lives... Sometimes we can control these events and sometimes we can't control these events.

[16:34]

One of the things that I feel very confident about is as a result of the years of practice that I've done, the events of my life are more often embraced rather than pushed away. And this idea of practice... happening when we're standing or sitting, walking or lying down means that in every second of the day, practice is possible. It doesn't just happen when we're sitting on the cushion. It doesn't just happen when we come into this environment. It has the possibility of happening all the time. And this possibility is that we are awake to our own lives. We're awake to our own situation, awake to our own emotions and feelings. And we're trying to figure out ways to actually engage with how we feel in every moment, in every situation.

[17:46]

Not avoiding, not trying to only have the good stuff happen, but... being available to every single thing that happens, no matter what's happening. And that is terrifically hard. I think we like to think that we can set our lives up in a way where if we make the right choices, we'll only have good decisions to make or only great things will happen for us. And I think that life... Life is happening all the time. Great things are happening. Unpleasant things are happening. Difficult things are happening. Wonderful things are happening. And the loving-kindness meditation reminds us that all of these things are part of the experience of our lives and to be available to them and to accept these things with gratitude, to engage with them with gratitude, to work with these situations.

[18:56]

not because we're forced to, but in fact, because we welcome them because this is life, this is the experience of life, this is the beauty and challenge of life, is that things are changing all the time, things are happening all the time, and we can't really choose to have a perfect life, whatever that means, And in fact, every life is perfect the way it's happening. So this is a difficult thing for us to engage with, that our lives are perfect and that everything that is presented to us is worthy of experience. it's a wonderful thing for us to be able to experience what's happening.

[20:00]

So we've been endowed with these senses, and information comes in, and we, through practice and feeling grateful or gratitude, we start engaging with these things. So I think the experience for me of... So these suicides in my life of siblings and other people, you know, but particularly my siblings, have... They changed my life. I came to practice because of that. They are still changing my life because those situations don't go.

[21:06]

They're a reality. And I sometimes am resistant to that call, that call to continue to engage in the fact that I... I am from a family where two of my siblings killed themselves. And what does that mean? What is the impact of that? Can I deal with that? Can I face that? Do I want to face that? And I think that this idea that practice is happening all the time and I can take little bits and work with them and little bits and work with them allows me to... to face into that challenge. And it's... It doesn't go away, I don't think. I think we hope that we work through a situation and then we can move away from that situation and it stops affecting us.

[22:11]

And I think the teaching shows over and over again that we are... the sum total of every single one of our experiences, and they don't go away, and more it's opening up to the fact that this person is the sum total of all those experiences, and they don't go away. We can't force them out of our lives. What we can do, really, is... open to the fact that they are part of our lives, and then that allows for healing and change and transformation. So I think for new practitioners, sometimes there's this feeling like things will... I can start practicing in a couple of weeks or...

[23:14]

in a couple of, in a little while, short amount of time, everything's going to be better. And I think what I feel is that it's not that everything's better, it's we're more, we come from a more stable place that allows us to actually work with the things that are happening more effectively, maybe. more patiently, with a little bit more love. When my sister killed herself, I didn't have any tools to deal with that situation. I would say my family didn't have any tools to deal with that situation. And the effect of that was very painful. And now... With tools, I would say that I'm able to kind of lean into that situation and see how it feels.

[24:28]

Whereas the first time, I couldn't bear to lean in. In fact, I didn't even know that that was something that would be a good idea. So I think for all of us as practitioners, this notion of difficult situations arising is a reality for us. Suffering is a reality for us. And so how do we start acknowledging that and being kind of curious about what's happening? that becomes more interesting, I think, more available even to us as we practice and as we take care of ourselves and start settling down.

[25:35]

standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all our waking hours. One must practice the way with gratitude, not holding to fixed views, endowed with insight, free from sense appetites. One who achieves the way will be freed from the duality of birth and death. It's comforting to me to know that I'm not so clear on the idea of birth and death. It allows me to have a relationship with my sister and brother, to write letters to them, because I'm not so clear about that relationship. I'm not so clear what that means anymore. So it puts up a possibility of a relationship for me with them, which has been interesting.

[26:58]

I hear that more families are being involved when people are dying. I hear that more people are dying at home. I hear that there's less pushing away death and having somebody else deal with it. I'm grateful that our culture or at least some people in this world are working towards death being a family event rather than it being an event that professionals are dealing with and not family. And I think that that's a healing thing for all of us, actually. And I hope that That's a movement that will continue.

[28:26]

And I know that many people who are practitioners are getting training as chaplains and getting hospice training. And I think that's a wonderful thing because it brings this into our lives and allows it to be not an unspeakable experience. And I also feel, for me, that suicide is something that needs to be talked about more. Families supported. Schoolmates supported. These... things, I think that change is also a hopeful change.

[29:33]

So it may be not a happy topic, but I think it's a hopeful topic. And I look forward to engaging with those of you who are interested in talking about this with me at any time. It's certainly on my mind this month. So we have a few minutes, and if anybody has a question or comment, I'd be delighted. Yeah. I don't, actually.

[30:50]

That's a good question. The experience of Steve's... I mean, Steve was so close to death when... when he started working with that, his death was imminent, and I think it was a tool for him to move towards that. It wasn't a theoretical thing for him at that point. It was an actual visualization practice that moved him into that space, if that makes any sense. It was incredibly powerful. And for him, it... It made the experience... I wouldn't... I don't know. I don't even know how to use the... Maybe it wasn't exciting. I wouldn't use the word exciting, but it had that energetic quality.

[31:52]

It was completely an energetic practice for him. So... I haven't had the experience where I've had the immediacy to think of some sort of visualization. But I think it's an interesting thing, an interesting question. To develop something in one's life when one's really healthy, that would have that same sort of power and energetic quality for you or me. So in that situation, that could be developed more and more and more. So that's an interesting idea. Thank you. Yes, please. Thank you, Mary, for your talk, and especially for talking about the suicide. I just feel like it's really helpful. I would like to talk about our first opportunities.

[32:58]

I lost someone last year into suicide, and there was a really shock. Yeah. Seems like there's just something about being a through public space that feels particularly helpful. So thank you. Yeah. Let's speak about some sort of possibility. in terms of a group thing. Dalip, I think you had your hand. After having experienced death of so many people that you have been impacted with, have you shifted your frame from people to everything? do you still distinguish between the death of people or death?

[34:02]

The death of everything. As in the cycle of impermanence? The death of everything? Is that what you... Perhaps, maybe if I was to take the question, in your mind does it feel that people dying is at the special? I believe that living in an environment like this is very good training for impermanence. So people are coming and going all the time. Jobs are changing all the time. It's a setup. So we're experiencing impermanence all the time. So I think of... becoming more acutely aware of impermanence all the time. And having said that, there is something so significant about a loved one dying or being in the room when somebody dies that it's... Yes, it is an example of impermanence.

[35:19]

And it's hard for me to lump it in with... all the other things that are impermanent. So there's a particular poignancy about many of these deaths that I've been involved with that give it more weight than the other things. So I see it as part of the cycle of impermanence, yes, and the emotional response is... much, much more significant. Thank you.

[36:25]

I'm not sure we actually experience things as they are. We have what catches our eyes and what catches our attention. It depends on where I am at that point in my life. It's not what I see. It's not what we do. It's not what I see. It's what took the time. Yes. So, and of that, what I think is different. I don't know if there's a question. This is just a very... even the experience of the experience is colorblind, obviously. Absolutely, yes. I agree. Well, thank you very much for the comment. May confusion open. Well, thank you very much for your attention, and... I'm grateful to have the luxury of to be able to say the things I've said tonight to this group, to reveal these things.

[37:33]

It's part of my healing process. So thank you very much.

[37:37]

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