Good evening. Good evening. Welcome to Beginners Mind Temple. Welcome to San Francisco Zen Center. Especially those of you who haven't been here before, which there might be one or two. My name is Greg Fang. I'm a resident priest here. And it's my privilege to talk to you, with you, tonight. And I'd like to begin, as I usually do, by acknowledging and thanking my teacher, Sojin Mel Weitzman, the avid of Berkeley Zen Center, the old Buddha. And to say that... In general, when I give a talk, my only intention is to encourage you in your practice one way or another.

[01:10]

I don't really have any other agenda outside that as a rule. So Sojin Roshi, he says, I should just talk about what I'm practicing with. Talk about what's in front of you. And so what I'm going to talk about tonight, what I've been practicing with, is so-called the great matter, death, birth and death, the great matter, as we call it in Zen. There's this instrument we use in Zen temples all over the world called the Han, this wooden block that we hit with the mallet. Pow! Pow! Call the monks to meditation. Pow!

[02:13]

Then you do this like a roll-down thing. Pow! [...] It's very dramatic. Very dramatic. The sound of the Han. Come to the Zendo. but the second roll down ends with two hits, right? That means you're late. You knew that, right? So on the Han, oh, I was going to say, when I lived in Tassajara, these hikers came through one day. It was about the middle of the day during the practice period. And sometimes, you know, people just walk through because it's in the wilderness. And this guy asked me, you know, what is this place?

[03:14]

And I said, well, it's a Buddhist temple. He said, oh, I remember. I'm hiking in the wilderness in Korea in these mountain canyons. I'm walking and hearing the sound of this thing, this... We were like 30 feet from the Han, and he was being nostalgic about something that was right in front of us. But I didn't say anything. But it was a funny moment. Anyway, on the Han, usually, usually, there's some kind of verse in Japanese or English. We translate it, you know, some version of, some version of, great is the matter of birth itself. and death. Impermanence surrounds us. Be awake in every moment. Do not waste this life. That's the admonition.

[04:17]

Come on. Let's go. Get with it. Practice. Because you're going to die. In Latin, it's tempus fugit. Memento mori. Time flies. Remember death. Time flies. Death approaches. And Buddhist practices concern this a lot. Buddhist practitioners throughout history have been advised to practice with charnel ground meditation. Go and meditate in the in the charnel grounds, in the graveyards, meditate on your own impermanence, the unreliability of this human body, the emptiness of what we call the self.

[05:18]

And in the spirit of practicing with what's in front of me, it's been a very present thing in this practice period. So for me personally, this story begins on Monday, October 12th. On that morning, I came back to the building for work circle, dressed in regular clothes. After the morning program, after I changed out of my robes, I put on this black armband I have, wearing this black armband that my wife Linda sewed for me after Friday, October 12th, 2007, which was when my mother died. So that was two years ago. So Monday morning, the 12th,

[06:22]

I was very aware of that. I was very aware of it being the second anniversary of my mother's death. I was with her at her deathbed. I was with her as she breathed her last. And I was feeling it, so I wore my black armband. I found it and put it on that morning. Just, yeah, because I was feeling it. And when I wear the armband, you know, I wore it for months after my mom died. People would ask me about it, and I liked people asking me about it. I wanted them to ask me about it. It was a way of saying, I'm not okay. See this black armband? I'm not okay. And it was on that Monday, that Monday morning, that I got a call from my dear friend and Dharma sister, Tova Green, who is a social worker for Hospice by the Bay and was a social worker for a man I've been working with, my student, Michael Steingraber.

[07:43]

I've been working with him for some time. I got to know him a year and a half ago when I was the... abiding practice leader briefly at Hartford Street Zen Center. When their teacher, Mio, went to Tassahara, Hartford Street cut a deal with Zen Center, with City Center. We were going to send them practice leaders as long as Mio was gone. So I was there, and I met Michael and his dog, Coco. Whenever people would ask me about Michael, All I had to ever say was, well, you know, he's the guy who comes to Dharma Talks on Saturday mornings and brings the little black service dog, Coco. Oh, that guy! Oh, yeah, him! Of course. So, yeah, I got to know Michael and Coco and we got into a practice relationship and the practice relationship stepped up

[08:48]

quite a bit a few months ago when Michael got his diagnosis of liver cancer. And from the very first, when he had his diagnosis, he said, it's no secret. It's fine to talk about. He was fine talking about it. His family is fine with me talking about Michael tonight. He was like that. very open, very present, very grounded, very grounded around the news of his death, his imminent death. Quite a teaching. The phone call from Tova was to inform me that Michael had taken a very sudden turn for the worse, unexpectedly.

[09:51]

We thought that he was going to have more time than that. We were studying the precepts together. We were studying the precepts and Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. This is actually Michael's copy of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. It was at his bedside. So, yeah, I had actually been sick, quite sick, for over a week off and on, and I certainly didn't want to see Michael while I was sick. He had enough going on without bringing my virus into his house. I was quite surprised and grateful that my health had returned and hustled over there that Monday.

[10:58]

He was already unfortunately non-responsive. He was in hospice care, so he was at home. Home is where he stayed. spent a long time with Michael and his friends and family. People were coming and going, keeping watch at the bedside, constant presence, a constant presence of people being with him, taking care of him, taking care of his comfort, taking care of his pain meds, doing what the hospice nurses had said to do. He had very good care and attention. And Coco, was constant presence on the bed, at his bedside, nuzzled up against him. It was amazing. I understand that, I was told that Coco was distressed, I guess, on Sunday, right?

[12:03]

And kind of whimpered and whined a little bit. But then, you know, Coco became like as okay as Michael always had been and was just a presence there. just with him. When Coco had to go out to go to the bathroom, the instant he came back in the house was like, boom, boom, boom, right there, nuzzled up against Michael. It was amazing. Eventually, I went home Monday night, and I didn't have any idea of how long Michael might hang on, but I certainly came back the next morning, and it so happened that Tuesday morning, the day of the big storm, Michael breathed his last around 11 o'clock, and he was with

[13:16]

The three of us and Coco, his cousin Barbara and his friend Peter and myself, were lucky enough to be in the presence of this great mystery. Our abbot, Paul Haller, has often said he thinks every Every priest, every Zen trainee should do hospice work, should volunteer in hospice care because it is a very profound teaching to care for and be in the presence of someone who is making this transition, who is passing into this great mystery, this great mystery, this unknowable. At the very last, I guess his last voluntary movement on Tuesday morning was to try to pet Coco.

[14:30]

His arm moved a little bit, just sort of reaching. Coco was right there at his side. And I took his arm and put his hand on Coco and helped him pet Coco. And then... As the three of us, the three humans in the room with Michael were around him, we saw his eyes get big. His eyes opened up wider and his pupils dilated. His eyes became very bright and was suddenly responsive again in that he wasn't speaking, but he made direct eye contact with each one of us. He looked me right in the eyes, and I'm here, you're there, I see you, acknowledging us, and then was looking at something else, you know, was looking at something else, looking at something, something we couldn't see.

[15:39]

And it wasn't a, it wasn't a, dramatic passing. It reminded me of my mother's death in that respect. It was very peaceful. It was very peaceful. I had this book I got from the library, Graceful Exits, How Great Beings Die. There's all these remarkable stories about Tibetan Hindu and Zen masters. how they died. Death stories of Tibetan, Hindu, and Zen masters. Really something. But, you know, Michaels was a graceful exit. Most definitely. He was at peace. He was completely at peace with his karma, his conditions.

[16:40]

And then, This last Monday, this week, day before yesterday, darn if it didn't rain again. That's interesting. Michael loved the rain. We had a wonderful cremation ceremony at Pacific Interment in Emeryville. This was... planned with Michael. He was a very organized person, so he and I got together and we planned these three ceremonies. The first to be the cremation ceremony. The next will be his funeral, which will occur here in this Buddha Hall on Sunday, November 8th at 10 a.m. And everyone here is invited. And then that afternoon, the afternoon of November 8th, 3 p.m., we'll have an ashes ceremony at the AIDS, the National Memorial Grove.

[18:05]

The National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park, the Redwoods and the Boulders. You've never seen it. You should check it out. At the... Michael's suggestion, he said, go look, check out my boulder. I found his boulder. I found Michael's boulder. I guess he thought he was going to die and he bought his memorial. That was a long time ago. I don't know when that was, but it was a while ago. And he told me more than once, mine is the last boulder. I think I got the last one. I think he was kind of proud of that. But it's beautiful, and so we'll have that ceremony then. The cremation ceremony was just a wonderful way to mark, memorialize this transition.

[19:12]

And I thanked the Zen Center Sangha at the time, but I want to say again, thank you. There were about a dozen people from City Center who came and helped to chant, and just some pretty well-trained Zen students just put this ceremony together, you know, just like that, the way they're supposed to look like. And I felt good that it was what I promised Michael. And I said there would be chanting loud and long, and there was chanting loud and long. We chanted the , as we all circumambulated the, they don't call it a coffin at Pacific Intermittent. They say, no, it's not a coffin. It's made of cardboard. It's a container. Okay, whatever. The container. We circumambulated the container and offered incense and flowers. There were so many cut flowers, and we just piled up with flowers. It was so beautiful.

[20:13]

Really wish we had a picture, but... You're just going to have to imagine it if you weren't there. And, you know, people from Zen Center who came, they didn't come because they were curiosity seekers or they considered it part of their training. It's just what we do. That's just what we do. We take care of these things. That's what bodhisattvas do, I think. We take care of sentient beings in these difficult times. That's why Paul says, if you get the chance, you should do hospice work. I agree. I also want to mention that around this time, Elizabeth MacDonald, who was in this practice period, left because

[21:16]

Her son, James Sullivan, had become extremely ill with a swine flu up in Seattle. And when she left, she left the practice period on October 2nd, and James was already on a respirator in intensive care. And he was a week in intensive care, and she was with him. when he died at the age of 28. A great master, Dogen Zenji, said, the fortunes of life are like a dart of lightning, emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. We don't know when our time may come. He was 28. He, as they say, had his whole life ahead of him. Only he didn't.

[22:18]

And I've spoken to Elizabeth about her experience, and she was very happy about me talking about her experience and James tonight. Elizabeth said that James was a big part of the hip-hop community in Seattle. And that being at his deathbed and at his memorial was like the United Nations. He worked really hard to erase racial differences and practice unity and diversity. And that she received so much love from all of his friends. In his memorial, they covered all the funeral expenses that she might have had to deal with. People raised money and covered it all.

[23:23]

And she said she had just lost a grandson, age 17, two years ago. And now this happens. No mother should ever have to bury her child. It's so tragic. She told me that at his deathbed, she was telling him, you can't go before me. That's not allowed. Nonetheless, he did. You know, Seattle's a big city, and it's a port city, just like San Francisco.

[24:41]

And there's been a lot of illness in this community. There have been a lot of people getting sick, myself included. I got quite sick. So, take care of each other. Take care of yourselves. I think that as a residential community, We're extremely aware of this, and we're trying to practice every precaution to not spread our germs. You know, it's tough living so closely like this. You know, in Tassajara, in the monastery, one person gets sick, and that zendo, they just fall like tiles. But we have to do what we can. You do get sick. Take care of yourself. Isolate yourself. Please. This is the four sights that Shakyamuni Buddha saw as a young prince, Prince Siddhartha.

[25:55]

Before he started his spiritual journey, he led a very protected life and he left, he snuck out of his whatever, the castle, you know, where his father, the king, didn't want him to see the realities of life. And then he arranged to sneak out so he could see a little bit more of the world. And this is what he saw. The first thing he saw was a very old person. Then he saw a very sick person. Then he saw a corpse. And then he saw a mendicant, a seeker, someone who was endeavoring to practice the way. So these things are ever-present in our practice, and I feel them in this practice period very much. We're going to be having a ceremony here on October 30th called Sijiki.

[27:04]

where we honor the dead. It's no coincidence it's right next to Halloween. It's a big deal at City Center and it's a party too. People will show up in costume and it's a lot of fun, but it's also a serious ceremony. It's a ceremony where we acknowledge this mystery, acknowledge and pay homage to this great mystery. And in the ceremony, we invite restless spirits to come into the room and be nourished. And we acknowledge the departed and we read their names. So it's, Sajiki at City Center is a very interesting mix of solemn and a party. And It's kind of got a flavor of Day of the Dead, which is November 2nd, I believe.

[28:10]

But it's just a way of being in the presence of this mystery, acknowledging it. What is it? We think about this a lot. We think about death a lot. Bill Cosby, I believe it was the comedian Bill Cosby, said, you know, once you get past the age of 30, there's this little voice in the back of you, you know. It gets louder and louder the older you get. You're going to die. The little voice just gets louder and louder. You're going to die. If you live long enough, you get real old. You know, you'd be like, he said, my grandfather, sit there reading the obituaries. You know, I'm going to die pretty soon. Well, yeah, it's true. It's true. And we should think about it. We should think about it and practice with it.

[29:16]

We all want to know what happens when we die, I think, in the face of this mystery. What happens? What happens when we die? The best answer I ever heard to that question was when I was a teenager. In the 60s and 70s, there were a lot of gurus, very popular gurus, and high-profile media stars, a lot of them. And there was this teenage guru called Maharaji. You remember him? The 13-year-old teenage guru who was in the 70s. I don't know what ever happened to him. I think he was a couple of years younger than me, so he must still be kicking around. I don't know. But he was a big sensation. This teenage prophet, avatar, whatever. I think he had very good people. He had good PR. But he was something.

[30:19]

And I recall that he had this kind of darshan slash press opportunity. And somebody asked him, what happens when you die? And the guru said, the 13-year-old guru said, strictly speaking, nothing happens. And that was his answer. That was his sole answer. I thought that was a really good answer. Strictly speaking, for me, means coming from the view of the absolute, in the realm of the absolute. I think about this Joni Mitchell song, Woodstock. That dates me. Joni Mitchell sang, we are stardust. Billion-year-old carbon.

[31:21]

That's true. If science is your religion, that's something you can get a handle on. We are stardust. We are billion-year-old carbon. What happened to Michael? There's still this carbon. We'll have an ashes ceremony on the 8th. There's this carbon. Hmm. What happens? Strictly speaking, nothing happens. Michael highlighted all over here, page 92, Nirvana, the waterfall. Suzuki Roshi said, our life and death are the same thing.

[32:25]

Michael highlighted that. When we realize this fact, we have no fear of death anymore, nor actual difficulty in our life. We're studying Suzuki Roshi in this practice period, so I needed to bring him into the room. And this is many people's favorite chapter in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. I went to Yosemite National Park and I saw some huge waterfalls. The highest one there is 1,340 feet high. And from it, the water comes down like a curtain thrown from the top of the mountain. It does not seem to come down swiftly, as you might expect. It seems to come down very slowly. because of the distance. And the water does not come down as one stream, but is separated into many tiny streams. From a distance, it looks like a curtain. And I thought, it must be a very difficult experience for each drop of water to come down from the top of such a high mountain. It takes time, you know, a long time, for the water finally to reach the bottom of the waterfall.

[33:33]

And it seems to me that our human life may be like this. We have many difficult experiences in our life, but at the same time, I thought, the water was not originally separated, but was one whole river. Only when it is separated does it have some difficulty in falling. It is as if the water does not have any feeling when it is one whole river. And then Michael has highlighted this line, only when separated into many drops can it begin to have or to express some feeling. So, as usual, our founding teacher has very good understanding, and ultimately, we're not separate. He says, to talk about this is quite easy, but have...

[34:37]

To have the actual feeling is not so easy. But by your practice of zazen, you can cultivate this feeling. By your practice of zazen, you can cultivate this feeling. Just staying present for whatever happens. Birth and death. Staying present. Not too long ago, you know, I'm the Eno. I sort of, whatever you want to call it. proctor or rector of the meditation hall that kind of makes sure things go okay in the zendo, the meditation hall. And somebody came in who obviously was their very first time in Zen Center, quite obvious, and didn't know what to do or where to go, and zazen had begun. So what do I tell this person? So... This is my zazen instruction in five words.

[35:37]

Stay present for whatever happens. Zazen instruction in ten words. Face the wall. Don't move. Stay present for whatever happens. That's what I told her. That was my advice. When you sit When you can sit with your whole body and mind and with the oneness of your mind and body under the control of the universal mind, you can easily attain this kind of right understanding. Your everyday life will be renewed without being attached to an old erroneous interpretation of life. When you realize this fact, you will discover how meaningless your old interpretation was and how much useless effort you have been making. I think at the time of death, this gets thrown into high relief and is a unique opportunity to study.

[36:53]

All these stories in this book, some of them quite remarkable, some of them quite amazing, and some of them quite bizarre. The one I liked the best Very simple. When the 10th century Chinese Zen master named Dasui Fajun was asked, how are you at the time when life-death arrives? He answered promptly, when served tea, I take tea. When served a meal, I take a meal. That actually reminds me a lot of Michael. He was... Very equanimous that way. He was completely grounded, completely present. It so happens, again, by funny coincidence, yesterday, Linda and I were studying with our teacher, Sojan Roshi.

[38:00]

And what did we study but this Dogen fascicle, shoji, birth and death? And what Suzuki Roshi is teaching in this chapter, Nirvana, the Waterfall, is his helpful... Anyway, Dogenzenji says, just understand that birth and death is itself nirvana. There is nothing such as birth and death to be avoided. There is nothing such as nirvana to be sought. Only when you realize this are you free from birth and death. You become free from birth and death when you're completely, radically present with okayness in the midst of birth and death. He says also those who want to be free from birth and death, he says if you search for a Buddha outside birth and death,

[39:04]

It will be like, I don't know what, it will be like trying to go to the southern country of Hue with your spear headed towards the north, whatever that means. But you're mixed up. You're mixed up. You're going the wrong direction, basically. And later on, he says this about, I think these are some of Sojin's favorite words of Dogen's. Dogen says, however, do not analyze or speak about it. Just set aside your body and mind, forget about them, and throw them into the house of Buddha. Then all is done by Buddha. When you follow this, you are free from birth and death and become a Buddha without effort or calculation. Who then continues to think? This morning during service, I was just bowing.

[40:15]

And when we bow in morning service, to begin, we bow nine times. Do you know why that is? It brings Suzuki Roshi into the room a little more. The reason we bow nine times is because way back in the day, I guess in the old Sokoji Temple, Somebody, one of his American students said, why do we bow three times every morning? And Suzuki Roshi's answer was, you should bow nine times. That's the reason why we do it. And so when I bow, I take refuge. I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha. I take refuge in Buddha as the perfect teacher. I take refuge in Dharma as the perfect teaching. I take refuge in Sangha as the perfect life.

[41:20]

Now I have completely taken refuge in Buddha. It is done. Now I have completely taken refuge in Dharma. It is done. Now I have completely taken refuge in sangha. It is done. And those are my nine boughs. And that's how I know if the dawn has hit the bell too many times. Just bowing. When you get to the bottom of your bow, raise your hands. and you're just throwing it all into the house of Buddha. When you get to the bottom of your bow, just die. Just die. If I would ever be in a story like this, this kind of nutty book, I think that's what I'd like to do.

[42:25]

I'd like to just bow, get to the bottom, and not come up again. It's my fantasy. Whoops. Oh dear. Well, I always want to leave time for questions and I haven't left time for questions because it's a school night in Zen Center. So folks, That's all the time we got. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for your sincere practice. Please take care of each other. Please take care of your health. Go for refuge. Whatever form that takes.

[43:28]

And continue your practice. Thank you. May I...

[43:41]

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