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 evening. I'm curious, is anyone here for the first time tonight? Welcome. My name is Tova Green. I live in the building as a resident, and I'm also the director of Zen Center, city center, this part of Zen Center. And what some of you may not know about me is that I am also a congregation, Shahr Zahav, which is a synagogue in the neighborhood. It's about a 15-minute walk from here. And a couple of weekends ago, the rabbi of that synagogue, who's a musician, the Shira Angel, and I co-led a retreat at Tassajara.

[01:09]

It was called Listening to Silence. And it was a weekend of renewal and personal renewal and also tapping into both Jewish and Buddhist practices. that are helpful in our everyday lives. And I'm mentioning that because I would be referring to one of those practices in my talk. Although my talk, the focus of my talk tonight is about grief and how we heal through grief. And I decided to talk about this for a couple of reasons. One is a letter I just got from Rabbi Angel, which I'll share with you, some of it. And also, for those of you who are new to our community, five weeks ago tomorrow, one of the members of our community took his own life.

[02:11]

His name was David. And many of us are still grieving for him. Grief goes on for some people. for a very long time and it comes to those can pick us by surprise. So some of you hearing that the topic of my talk tonight may be feeling, well, we've already heard a lot about that and worked with that and maybe I'm ready to let go of that or don't want to think about it anymore. And if that's true for you, I apologize and I hope you'll still find something in this talk that might be helpful to you. And for those who are feeling acutely the absence of David, I hope this talk will offer some comfort. So this week I received a letter from Rabbi Angel that reminded me, it says, Dear Tova, the Yartzeit anniversary of your mother, Martha Schwartz, is Monday, August 29, 2011.

[03:17]

So this is the third anniversary of my mother's death, and each year after the first, well, each year I have gotten a similar letter from my synagogue. And yard site is a Yiddish word. It means anniversary. And there are a couple of practices that we do, one at the synagogue and one that's done at home. there's a special candle that you buy that burns for 24 hours, and you can light that candle on the all-Jewish holidays or days begin on the evening of the day. So you light it the night before, and it burns for 24 hours. But since I have been living it since this whole time, I don't light a candle for my mother because we don't light candles in our rooms. But I think about... lighting a candle. So that might help. I mean, might be my way of offering a candle.

[04:18]

And then I'm invited to come to synagogue on Friday night, the Friday night closest to her yard site. And there's a part of the service where there's a prayer called the Kaddish that is recited. And first, the names of all of those of us in the synagogue members who've lost somebody either very recently or are having a yard site, and the names of our loved ones are read, and we stand up. And then we recite a blessing, and then the whole congregation stands with us and recites the Kaddish. And I find that very meaningful when I'm there on a Friday night, whether it's a yard site for someone I love or a yard site for someone else, that there's that sense of solidarity in standing with someone who's lost a loved one.

[05:26]

And Rabbi Angel put a note at the bottom of this letter saying, I hope your mother's spirit feels like a blessing to you at this time. And that resonated with me very much, and I do feel my mother's spirit as a blessing. And I find it now that it's three years since she died that I very much appreciate some of the things that she gave me, first and foremost, the gift of my own life. But there were other things as well. And... Just in terms of yard site and as a way, we also often do memorial services on the one year or five year or any year anniversary of the death of someone in the sangha.

[06:29]

We do those evening service sometimes. And we... Every year there's a special Suzuki Roshi memorial service in December. And one of the things I love about that service is it's an opportunity for people to talk directly to Suzuki Roshi. And there are many people here who studied with him who remember him. And those of us who only know him through our teachers and through the words that he wrote. But that practice of remembering someone on earth certain anniversaries is one that we observe here as well as practice observed in the synagogue. And, you know, sometimes we, you know, I think actually not sometimes, we remember our loved ones who've died on certain dates, their birthday, the day they died, special holidays.

[07:34]

And Last night I had dinner with a member of my synagogue who's a very good friend who is almost 89. And she told me when I talked about this letter from the synagogue that in January it will be the 80th yard site of her father's death. Her father died when she was only nine years old. And that date is one that she will not forget. So how long do we grieve, you know? our whole lives sometimes. But it comes and goes. It's not like we're always grieving every minute. There's much more to life. But I just wanted to mention that because sometimes people have a sense that when they're grieving that it's hard to talk about it because other people aren't grieving and they think that, and I've often heard this, you've grieved long enough, or why are you still grieving?

[08:37]

And each person has their own way and their own time of dealing with grief, so there isn't any one way that's right. But in terms of David's death, which will be five weeks ago tomorrow, we've done many things to remember him, to purify the room he lived in, to create altars. Some people have altars with his photo in his room, in their own rooms. And I think those things were helpful. But to me, it was very helpful two weeks ago when we had, was it, Manu, Patrick Arbor, who has started a suicide prevention hotline at the Institute of Regent.

[09:40]

And he talked with us about the ways in which loss from suicide is similar to and different from other losses. And I felt after his talk and the discussion we had, a greater sense of peace myself with the loss of David, And it was the very next day that I went to Tassahara to do this workshop with Rabbi Angel. And one of the practices we did, I had never done before, and I want to tell you a little about it. It is called hit bodedut. And that's a Hebrew word, and the root of it is the verb bodat, which is to be alone. And hit bodedut is a practice that was first... talked about by Reb Nachman Braslav, who lived in the 18th century, and he wrote about it in a very beautiful way.

[10:43]

Basically, it's a practice of going out alone, preferably in nature, and he recommended doing it at night. We did it in the workshop during the day. But you go out in nature and you start talking out loud It could be God. It could be to the source of life, just to the trees. It doesn't matter really who you're directing your speech to, but it's speaking from the heart and really expressing what is in your heart. I'd like to just read a few words that Reb Nachman wrote to describe this. And it's, he said, Grant me the ability to be alone. May it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass, among all growing things.

[11:48]

And there may I be alone and enter into prayer to talk with the one to whom I belong. Now you could interpret that any way you like. It could be to yourself, to nature, to a spirit, whatever you think is appropriate. May I express there everything in my heart and may all the foliage of the field, all grasses, trees and plants, awake at my coming to send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of all growing things. So it's that taking in the spirit of all growing things and expressing what's true for you at that moment. So I went for a little walk and sat by Tassajara Creek, which is one of my favorite places.

[12:52]

And as I was sitting on a rock, at the edge of the creek and talking, I was aware of the sound of the running water, and across the creek there was a reflection on the trees, the light of the creek reflecting on the trees, and it was moving. It was very beautiful. And down the creek I saw a few rocks and some squirrels were crossing the creek on the rocks, and I was just talking about what I was seeing and how beautiful it was. And then, just by surprise, I said, David will never see this again. And I got in touch with great sadness about David that he was not going to be able to appreciate this beauty. And he had been at Tassajara. He had lived there, so I know he knew how beautiful the creek was. And suddenly this grief just came up for me.

[13:55]

So I recognized it and talked a little bit more. And then partway through this practice of hit bodhidut, you stop talking and then you listen. And so I listened. And what I... I don't know if I really heard it or imagined it, but a sense that... What I felt was okay, that David was in a place where he was not able to appreciate all the love that was around him, the love of the Sangha, the love of his family. He was just in a very difficult and different place and that I would miss him and that I did, and we all did what we could while he was alive to let him know that we cared.

[14:58]

Anyway, that experience, I went back to the group after that. I think it was another piece of my own moving through my grief and just having a sense of gratitude also for the beauty of this world and for what can be revealed both through silence and through speech and then through connection with other people and nature. So thinking about grief and how individual I'd like to share a poem by Jane Hirshfield.

[16:01]

It's called In a Room with Five People, Six Griefs. In a room with five people, six griefs. Some you will hear of, some not. Let the room hold them, their fears, their anger. Let there be walls and window, a ceiling. a door through which time, changer of everything, can enter. I'll read that again. In a room with five people, six griefs, some you will hear of, some not. Let the room hold them, their fears, their anger. Let there be walls and a window, a ceiling, a door, through which time, changer of everything, can enter. So that, you know, in this room, we don't know how many griefs there are.

[17:07]

Each of us probably carries more than one. And we may have different feelings that we're also holding. And yet, in this room, there are many windows and doors and a beautiful ceiling. But the door, I think this image of the door through which time which changes everything can enter is really important because we know that everything changes, that we sit zaza and our thoughts come and go, our feelings come and go, and we become very aware of how impermanent everything is. And yet when you're in the midst of a painful experience or feeling, it can be hard to remember that. So I think that these doors are very important and to keep doors open can be very, very helpful. Just going to check the time.

[18:12]

So, you know, sometimes even though We know that everyone experiences grief, but still feels very personal when it's our own grief. There's a story about one of the first Buddhist nuns that I like very much, which I... Has anyone not heard about Kisa Gotami? No? Okay. Then I will tell the story. Kisa Gotami came from a poor family of a part of India near where the Buddha was born. And actually, I was puzzled about this because the story is her name, Kisa Gotami. Kisa meant thin. So she was thin Gotami.

[19:18]

And the story is that her family was very poor. But her... She was related to the Buddha. He was her cousin. And the Buddha's family was very wealthy, so I don't quite know how this happened. But anyway, Kisa Gotami grew up and she married into a banker's family. She married a banker's son. And she was not treated very well by his parents. Usually in India, the wife moves in. the father's family. So she wasn't treated very well by them until she gave birth to a son, and then things changed. There was some bias in that culture toward having male children, and I think that at the time, it was a...

[20:24]

To some extent, still, there's a patriarchal bent in some Indian families. I don't want to generalize, but I think it has been part of the culture. So anyway, Kisogotami gave birth to a son and was very happy. And then when this child was two years old, he died. And she was totally stricken with grief and went around her town with her dead baby on her hip, knocking on every door, asking for medicine. And of course, nobody could give her the medicine that this baby needed because the baby was beyond that. But someone said to her, go and see the Buddha. So she went to see the Buddha in her disheveled and upset state.

[21:31]

And the Buddha said, go and bring me a white mustard seed from a house where no one has died. So Kisugotami went from house to house, knocking on doors again, and this time asking for whether anyone in the household had died. And in every house, someone had died. So she could not get a white mustard seed. And then she went back to the Buddha. But by the time she got back, she realized that everyone that she had talked to had lost a loved one. And so... The story is that her sanity returned, that she kind of... This was very helpful to her in putting her own loss in some perspective.

[22:36]

And she said, Little son, I thought that death had happened to you alone, but it is not to you alone. It is common to all people. And... Then still holding the body of her child, the story goes, she carried him to the forest and left him there. And then she returned to the Buddha and asked to be ordained as a nun. So that's the story of her turning towards the Dharma. And some of us may have also turned toward practice at a time when we're having... difficulties in our lives or have experienced a loss. And I think for many of us, practice can be a wonderful way of just being very close to our experience, whether it's sadness, anger,

[23:49]

or pain, and also joy, and being aware of how our feelings come and go and change. I thought it might be good to just talk about a few things that are comforting at times when we're experiencing loss. And loss is not only about a person that we love. We can feel loss around so many things. Losing a job or some possessions that are dear to us or a friend who has moved away. There are many, many... many things that... Loss of health, whether it's temporary or more long-standing.

[24:57]

Loss of the ability to do something that we used to be able to do easily. Loss of memory. So many things that as we grow and change, loss is a frequent visitor. So some of the things that I find... comforting, and I've seen them be comforting here in our community, our rituals and ceremonies, whether we do them privately or together. After David died, there were altars that sprang up in at least two places in the building, but I imagine that many people also put special flowers on their altars and maybe a picture of David or something that reminded us of him. The ceremonies we did together, chanting and offering incense, sharing memories of him, and then talking with others, whether one other person or in small groups or...

[26:17]

as a community, experiencing the presence of friends and sharing memories. These are all things that are comforting, can be comforting, and can help us really grieve, let go, and connect with each other. I think that's one of the things that's most helpful when we lose someone or something that we hold dear. Time in nature, touching the earth, can also be very healing, whether it's walking in the park or on a beach or even up the street noticing the trees and the sky and what's growing. in people's gardens. And for some people, music, listening to music, reading poetry.

[27:25]

There are many things that are comforting at times of loss. And I think for each of us, it helps to know what those things are to learn and to find ways of bringing them into our lives. So I think I... mentioned it I think earlier when I was sitting by Tassajara Creek that feeling of gratitude arose for me and often grief and gratitude go hand in hand. There can be gratitude for our own for our life for our ability to see and hear and taste and touch. what is nourishing for us, and gratitude for friends, for family, for sangha, for our practice, and recognizing the wonder of life that is accessible to us.

[28:43]

So... One of the practices that I've started, this I do at the end of the year. My teacher, Linda Cutts, has invited each of us who study with her to write a death poem at New Year's. And I think this is a practice. There's a really interesting book of death poems written by Buddhist monks and teachers and poets. But writing your own death poem is kind of thinking about, well, what is most important in my own life? And what is the message I would like to leave behind? So I thought I would... end by reading this year's death poem that I wrote January 2nd.

[29:47]

In 70 years, I've seen 900 new moons. The moon waxes and wanes, but is always full. Remember, live each day as if it were your last. So I'll read that one more time. In 70 years... I've seen 900 new moons. The moon waxes and wanes but is always full. Remember, live each day as if it were your last. So I think for me that helps me remember how precious life is and trying to really appreciate each day what it brings, whether it's difficult or pleasant or delightful, and to be as present with all of it as I can.

[30:57]

So I hope that these words may be of some help and support to you. So I think I'm going to end with a few words that are on the Han, on the Han right upstairs. Great is the matter of birth and death, quickly passing, gone, gone, awake each one, awake and death. So I hope we can all wake up every moment, except pretty soon when we're going to go to sleep. Thank you very much for your attention tonight. 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.

[31:58]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[32:06]

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