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 by people like you. I'm Charlie. Some of you don't know me. I used to live here with my partner Sarah and Our daughter, Taya, who's four and a half. About a month ago, Sarah gave birth to a baby girl named Sati, and she didn't live. She lived for one day. Is that better?

[01:07]

The ancestor Dogen Zenji said when birth comes Face and actualize birth. When death comes, face and actualize death. So I want to try and talk about Sati's life and our lives and our practice in relation to that teaching. Sarah was, about a month ago, Sarah was seven months pregnant. And she started to go into labor, but we didn't think she was going into labor because she was, you know, there was two months from the due date.

[02:38]

But at some point, about at 3 o'clock in the morning, on August 23rd, we decided she really was going into labor, and we went to the hospital, and they were surprised, but then they... They realized she was in labor too. And we got ambulanced over to a hospital in Boston, which had a very good neonatal intensive care unit. They were trying to hold off the birth as long as possible. Because the organs, they can give the organs more time to develop. It's much better for them. It gives the baby a much better chance. And while we were at the hospital, they did an ultrasound in Boston. And they saw that in the baby's chest, there was a fluid.

[03:48]

And... And they could see that her lungs, the fluid had kept her lungs from developing normally. And they also knew from experience that this was going to be, her lungs would have, she'd have a really hard time breathing when she was born. Sarah, you know, the labor just went on. And despite the things they were trying to do to stop it, And when it got maybe pretty close, they brought in five doctors who were just waiting for the baby. And then there was about five or six doctors and nurses attending Sarah. And when the moment Sati was born, You could tell she wanted to breathe.

[04:57]

She was trying to breathe, and she couldn't. But they whisked her into the hands of these doctors. They were waiting, and using a hand respirator, they got her breathing. And we saw her for about a minute. And then they whisked her away to try and help her live. get the fluid out of her chest and help her lungs develop. So they worked really hard doing a whole bunch of procedures. And we finally saw her again about nine hours later. And she was stable at that point. And when she heard Sarah's voice, she opened her eyes She's kind of moving her hands and her feet. And we went to sleep with a lot of hope.

[06:05]

And then at about three o'clock in the morning we got a phone call and pretty much knew that this was bad because Sarah had just given birth. And they wouldn't be calling us then, unless there was something serious. I was sleeping in the hospital room with Sarah. And we went upstairs and the doctor explained to us that her lungs just weren't working well enough and there was nothing they could do. and she wasn't going to make it. The night before we couldn't hold her because they wanted to keep her attached to all these machines and tubes and things.

[07:17]

But now it was okay to hold her. So we held her in our laps. And we talked to the doctor, what do you think about our daughter coming in here? And he said he thought it would be good. So Kaya came and she also, she held Sati and spent some time with her. And Sarah spoke to Sati quite a bit in these few hours. She told her about her dream of what she would have done if she had lived.

[08:37]

And maybe it was about four hours, four or five hours later, she passed away. We asked the doctor if we could be with the body, if we could have her body down in the hospital room where Sarah was saying, And they were very supportive of this. And so they kind of made it happen. The people in the neonatal intensive care unit, I think we really appreciated that they're really devoted to taking care of these tiny babies. And I think they really loved her and their care felt very complete.

[10:01]

So we were with her body that day and that night in a, keep on calling a hotel, a hospital room. And then we were going to leave the hospital the next day and we couldn't, they were not allowed to bring a body in a private car or something. And we also felt we actually really couldn't take care of her body. The primary way that Sarah and I were kind of facing this was that her life was a gift. I think when we face birth and face death, I think gratitude is a really important part of that.

[11:21]

And I think we were also We felt very supported by each other. And we felt very supported by all of our friends and loved ones out here. And I think we just kept on, we felt supported to just keep facing this, to keep opening to it, to open with gratitude and love. To some extent, you know, Sarah and I were talking about this, but a lot of it was just, we were just together. And I think something about how we were together, we just kept holding each other up.

[12:25]

You know, like, do we need to wonder why this is happening? Or, you know, why Saati? Why us? You know, not really. we need to resist it. I think we felt supported by each other and then also by everyone's thoughts and prayers and also we received lots of cards and gifts and just think we thought supported to not minimize in a sense like this devastating loss we're really grateful for the

[13:45]

The doctors and Western medicine, in this case, Sarah's first birth was a home birth, and it was lovely, and there was no medical intervention. But this one, you know, they gave her life, and we're very grateful for that. and we got to hold her while she was still alive and meet her. I kind of felt like, I kind of had this feeling throughout the whole thing that there was just love all around this loss. Somebody knits tiny little hats and gives them to the hospital.

[14:48]

So the babies, the little tiny babies all have little hats, hand-knit hats and little blankets. A few days later we did a cremation ceremony. Sarah sewed a little red rock suit for Santi and she wrote on the back of it, our love is complete and everlasting. And then also Sarah and I and our close family, we wrote letters or wishes, letters to Sati or a wish for Sati. And we put all those in the casket with her.

[15:54]

And then we did a ceremony of cremation and a traditional Zen ceremony, like incense offering, bowing, chanting. dedication and Sarah and I are really grateful for all that training in the forms we've had at Zen Center and we really felt like that you know we could just we felt them so so easy with these forms and they could just hold us with this with this thing that's happening There's also a tradition of doing a daily service for 49 days.

[17:04]

And so we were doing that also, and we're still doing that. And so I think everyone's invited after this talk. We'll have a ceremony tonight for her. and that's been very helpful every day to chant for her to feel like we could do something with our bodies and our voices for her and also for each other and just kind of once we start returning to routines to just have a way to really come back Peace. Peace. been a lot of stories around her death for us and it feels really good to just receive these stories and be upright with all these different stories happening around her and so there's a there's a medical story

[18:59]

which is that sometime in July, Sarah got a virus, and it's kind of probably a common virus, but a little unusual that if Sarah didn't get it when she was a kid, which apparently she didn't, it could cross the placenta. And so that's what caused, and the baby's reaction to this virus was, oh, it's a fluid in the body. And then that then precipitated eventually enough distress that Sarah went into labor. And this, you know, I think to them, to Western science, this is kind of a random event. And they said, you know, this is unusual and there's no reason to think it would happen again. Another story is that Sati needed to be born and needed to die in love.

[20:13]

And that's what she needed from this life. Sarah's aunt had a... vision after Sati died that Sarah's mother, who died 14 years ago, was holding Sati. And Kaya would say, you know, I can talk to Sati. And I see her, she's around us. And we say, well, how is Sati doing? And she talks to her like this. She's doing good. She loves us. In Ganjo Khan, there's this section about how firewood... we do not teach that firewood turns into ash.

[22:01]

So the way I understand that is... there's a firewood and maybe it's burning and then later on there's ash but to say that the firewood becomes ash it's just one tiny little part of what's actually happening because the firewood it's turning into heat and smoke and light and those things all go on and have other effects. And there's other stuff too. And so this is one way we can look at birth and death.

[23:20]

And so I feel like we have Sati's ashes, but her life goes on in many ways. I think her life goes on in our hearts. We were not going to have another kid. But now we are going to try. And we have this feeling like this, if we have another kid, their whole life will depend on Sati's life and death.

[24:24]

So Sati will, she'll always be a part of our family. and that our life will continue to unfold in our lives. So to face an actualized birth and to face an actualized death Understand this as being completely open to birth. Completely receiving death. To meet birth with our whole being. To meet death with love.

[25:33]

and gratitude. Death is... I think it's very... I think it's inseparable from life. It's intimate with life. I think there's a, you know, there's a... a way of thinking that death is not inseparable from life, that death is, you know, out there. But I think death is totally in our lives, and it's totally intimate with our whole life, and we can't, embrace our life without embracing death, actually.

[26:39]

And so I think in the middle of this there's a lot of grief and crying and just being open and letting the grief have its own life. Dogen also taught this birth and death is the life of Buddha.

[28:13]

And, you know, the term birth and death in Japanese, it's shoji. It's a translation of, it's one of the ways they translated samsara into Chinese. had a really long day to date and I was getting tired and then I got a flat tire in San Francisco and I was really helped by this teaching to face and actualize a flat tire.

[29:22]

I had to buy a new tire. Sati's life was very short, but the love was complete. I think all of our lives are actually pretty short. I guess I encourage all of us to meet that with love and gratitude to face and actualize birth and face and actualize death.

[30:44]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue the practice of giving offering your financial help for more information visit sfcc.org and click giving may all beings be happy

[31:09]

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