Leave me. My friend died, my mentor, my colleague, my Dharma mother, my Dharma sister, my teacher, my preceptor, my friend. It's NK, Total Joy, Blanche Hartman. And I'm not going to tell you the story of her life. I'm going to try to tell for about 20 minutes because I asked some senior people who knew her to also say something about her. So you can find out about her life. You probably could Google her these days. You could take a look at her book.

[01:01]

It has something about her life in it. But what I could do that's different from that is tell you some stories. Tell you who she was for me. We both received government transmission from Soja Mel Weissman. That's why she's my Dharma sister. And she was who she was, and that's why she's my Dharma mother. Her book is called Seeds for a Boundless Life, Zen Teaching from the Heart. And she certainly taught from the heart. And I just want to read you one passage from the beginning. The book was... edited and organized by her student Zenju Earthland's manual. And Zenju did it very fast because she wanted it to be out before Blanche died, and it was, and Blanche was very happy.

[02:12]

She actually left her nursing home and came to City Center for a big party for the book launch. And I think it was... videotaped, I'm not sure. So this is a passage that Andrew chose to open it. If we're open to embracing the surprises as they arise, then there will be inconceivable joy. If we function fume and say, this isn't what I expected, then there will be inconceivable misery. just to welcome your life as it arrives moment after moment, to meet it as fully as you can, being as ready for whatever arises as you can, and meeting it wholeheartedly, this is renunciation.

[03:15]

This is leaving behind all your preferences, all of your ideas and notions. and schemes. Just meaning life as it is. That's inconceivable joy. So what did I love about her? What do I still love about her? She liked to tell stories. If you doves on with her, She would tell you stories. And I think that was hard for some people, but I liked it, and I understood it. And what she said was she told you the stories she thought you could use. She didn't just tell you random stories to amuse herself. There are a couple about Suzuki Roshi.

[04:22]

Another thing I loved about her was her devotion. She was devotion practice incarnate. Early on, she started at the Berkeley Zen Center, but she was living at the San Francisco Zen Center. And I think maybe it was during a Sashin, a retreat, she went to see Suzuki Roshi. And she came in. She wasn't laughing, but I can't help but laugh. When she told the story, she left. She said, she walks in, she says, I think I'm really beginning to get this as I was in. I think I understand it. He took a look at her. And he took his stick and he smacked it down on the... It was all the time, the flat cushion, which it won't work for me to do that. And he smacked it down and he said, don't you ever think you do zazen.

[05:25]

Zazen does zazen. He sort of said, yes, sir. What? But that was a great teaching for her and a great teaching for me, and I actually tell that story often. So she lives in that story. And now you can tell that story if you want. Another time she went to see him and she was full of devotion and love and respect for gratitude to him and to the Dharma. And when you, I don't know exactly how it was set up then, but probably similar at city center, when you go to see the abbot, you bow to the abbot and the Buddha at the same time the abbot is sitting in front of the Buddha. But she wanted to express this to him. And so she got, instead of being kind of behind the cushion, she went right up to him. and she did a full prostration bow. And as she looked up, she realized that he was bowing right back to her, that his head was right against her head.

[06:30]

There was another story she told about coming here. She came to Tassajara after she'd been practicing for a few years, and She had all her time at first, and after a while it dawned on her. She said she realized that everybody else could see her stuff, so she might as well take a look. And that's very instructive because it's really true. You think you got it cool and nobody knows what a broad you are. But guess what? We're all frauds. So go ahead and look. So she was devoted to Suzuki Roshi. She was devoted to practice. One of the many things I admired about her was that she lived at city center and she stayed there.

[07:42]

She didn't live across the street. She didn't come on weekdays or something. She lived there. She was there on Saturday night for dinner. She was there Sunday morning. She was there Sunday night for dinner when you sort of kind of catch-as-catch-can, though people made dinner for her. It's just that being there. She was just there, Abbas or no, but she became Abbas in 96. And she said, you know, what an abbot means is somebody who abides. So she abided, abided at City Center. And she continued abiding at City Center long after she stopped being an abbot in 2006. And she and her husband, Lou, both were just...

[08:43]

You know, I started to say a fixture or part of the furniture, but they weren't because they were much too vital for that. But they were there, and it's tremendously encouraging when the teachers are there. And she was a sweet presence. I first met her when she lived at Green Gulch. That would have been in 1988, and I was scared of her. And that's common. I don't know if that's continued to be the case more recently, but in the 80s and early 90s, people were, until you got to know her, people were afraid of her. I think that changed, but I'm not sure. Because I'm not afraid. I've been afraid of her for a long time, so I don't know. Oh, one thing I remember, though, my parents both died in 1989, just a few months apart.

[09:52]

And then that summer, I did a residential practice period at Green Gulch. And she took me out to the Big Bell. It's called the Novancho. This is a Dencho. But the Novancho was, what, six, eight times bigger than the Big Bell out here? Does that sound about right to Green Gulch? Something like that. It's big. And she told me that I could ring it for my parents. And she gave me a little gata to say with each ring. And I remember the first line, which is, I send my heart with the sound of this bell. So I said that, that's what, much as I remember, so when I rang the bell for her. Was it yesterday? Yesterday. Yeah, I said that. There's more to it than that, but that's what I remember. But she, you know, she just, I just felt tremendously cared for in that.

[10:54]

And ringing that bell, sounding that bell is very powerful. I'm wondering, make ties, probably on a Sunday afternoon after everything quiets down, I don't remember. Her major... devotion was to sewing. She may very well have helped some of you sew your Raksus. This is a Raksu, for those of you who don't know, the short, smaller version of Buddha's robe. And I'm wearing it okay, so this one happens, I'm sorry to say, to be store-bought, because the one I made, my brown one, is falling apart. She helped many of us sew. And she loved it because she had inherited that nut from a sewing teacher, a woman named Yoshinsai.

[11:59]

And Suzuki Roshi invited her to come over and teach us how to sew our own robes. There was a movement in Japan at the time to go back to sewing your own instead of having store-bought robes. So we're part of that movement. And Blanche was a lousy seamstress. Another story. She was in high school, and they had home ec. You know, the girls back then took home ec. And you were supposed to learn cooking. You could make, like, white sauce or something. And sewing. And the first semester, they made an apron, say. And the second semester, they were going to make a suit. And her teacher took her aside and said, Blanche... this fabric is really expensive. So maybe you'd like to spend the semester refurbishing the sewing machines. And she was thrilled.

[13:00]

And that's what she did. So sewing was not her thing. But when she heard that there was a woman teacher coming, she wanted to work with that person. So therefore, if that meant sewing, fine, she did that. And she certainly did. And she learned about it. And actually sewing, putting together a rapsu was more of an engineering event than a sewing event. And she became very good at it. And she was tremendously, deeply touched by Jochen-san's devotion to sewing Buddha's robe. And she told about it. Joshin-san would stay up late at night here with the kerosene lamps finishing raksus that people had abandoned or helping people to finish them up in time for their ceremony and taking the precepts. And when she questioned Joshin-san about it, like, why are you doing this when somebody abandoned it?

[14:09]

They're gone. They're not going to ever wear that. And Joshin-san said, you don't leave Buddha's robe. And that really struck home to Blanche's heart, and she became very, very much Joshin-san's disciple. And when she went to visit Joshin-san's grave at Antaiji Temple in Japan, which is a temple that Uchiyama Roshi and Okamura Roshi come from, she went to visit the grave, and I... I can't remember which one, because I think which one was still alive then. This was in 92. At any rate, they said, we could see that she's really Joshin-san's disciple, which is beyond a student. She loved sewing. If you ever sewed with her, you knew that. The sewing room was a place of joy. A little too much talking, but great joy and great welcoming.

[15:13]

Anybody who was sewing could just drop in on a Tuesday night, and she'd help you. You could drop in any old time. You'd find her somewhere in the hallway if she would help you. People came from all over the world to sew with her. She'd often have somebody in the sewing room sewing an okesa in like a week or something, and she would just be pinning and cutting and pinning and cutting, and they would just be sewing. They'd have a sewing machine, and she would take care of them. And I have another story, which is I was, you know, the head of the meditation hall, ceremonies, whatever, at City Center. And during Sashin's, there's a work period, and Blanche would often have a bunch of people in the sewing room finishing up things that they needed to finish for some, either their Jukai, their taking the precepts, or for their priest ordination. And so she would...

[16:14]

tell the work leader, you know, I need this, this, this person, and they'd be over there sewing for the work period, and I needed to ask for something. So I went over to the sewing room, and I opened the door, and it was like, like a cocktail party. It was not functional talking. And I walked in a few steps, and I just stood there, looking at them and looking at her, and she finally noticed that I was there. She turned around and she saw me and she said, busted. She was a very tough teacher, which I didn't enjoy, but I very much appreciated. Well, I would go see her And I would start complaining about somebody, and she would just, not quite physically, but almost, she would take that finger and turn it around at me.

[17:29]

I see I have some company. It was just not okay to blame somebody else, I mean, no matter what, even if they had maybe done wrong or something. She wanted me to look at my part in it. And she did that time and again. I was not allowed to go in there and vent. And it was a great teaching. A great teaching. She used to sing at Green Belch when she lectured. She often sang that song in this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. And that was the one real criticism that I and others had of her was that sometimes she wouldn't let her own light shine well enough. She would give a Dharma talk and she would read Katagiri and she'd kind of get into it and she'd read and she wouldn't share blanks.

[18:34]

And we had a few conversations about that. And I think towards the end of her life, she was more willing to just be who she was and lecture. In the book that Zenju developed, it's mostly kind of excerpts from lectures. And then at the end, there are, I think, two or three complete lectures. And it's a wonderful, wonderful book. It's in the bookstore. She was my preceptor when I received Dharma transmission, and I'll never forget the look on her face, the love of me and the love of the Dharma and the love of the precepts all together. Also, when I became, when I did the mountain seat ceremony, became abbess at Clearwater, my temple at Malejo, she was the person that gave me

[19:37]

part of the ceremony is you receive a fancy okesa, lying okesa. And she was the person that gave it to me, and I have a picture of her handing me the okesa, again, that same look of devotion and sincerity, utter seriousness, but also utter love. And finally, these last couple of years after she fell, she'd been having a hard time. She'd been in assisted living and she was pretty unhappy. And she wasn't that interested in talking about much. So I would go every other week and give her a foot rub. And that gave her great pleasure. And I managed it. She was in the hospital with pneumonia already. On Tuesday I went to see her. and spend some time with her, and I'm not entirely sure she knew who I was, so I like to think she did. And the last thing I did was I gave her a foot rug, and I told her I loved her, and that is a wonderful memory that I had.

[20:46]

I couldn't be there when she died, and I haven't sat with her yet, but we had that time together, so that's very precious to me. I see Dale. You want to share some memories of her, Mr. Jisha? I got to meet Majesthesia in the late 90s. She led the practice period, and we took the practice period here with us, and to see them together was extraordinary. their love and devotion to each other. But Lou, Lou was in his 80s, probably, at that point. He signed out for every period of Zaza. He was just a completely devoted Zen student.

[21:47]

She was the first person I had to have sung with here my first summer. She came in and... sat down across from her and i just felt this total love and you knew she didn't know who i was at all i was just like one of a long line of zen students right but she just loved me so much really sweet and i i just have so many fond memories of her as a you know like i came to this practice thinking zen masters where some You know, ancient Chinese dudes. Or a lot of dudes. To me, Blanche is just like, oh, this is it. She was extraordinary. So down to earth. There are certain phrases that never anybody else says them. I hear Blanche saying, just this is it. Yeah.

[22:51]

Yeah. Yeah, he did get through to her, I think. And he reminded me, when I was going to do, you know, when you come here, you sit five days straight. It's called Tongariola. And so I asked her for advice when I was coming. I said, well, what do you have? Any, like, helpful hints or anything? And she said, she said, she wasn't laughing, but I can't help. She said, just get through it, honey. Oh. Is that what you wanted to say? I think that unconditional love thing, I think was a decision that she made. She talked about meeting Suzuki Roshi and feeling just that, feeling this unconditional love for me. And you felt that from her, and I understood that that was her transmission from her teacher.

[23:56]

So it's not just that, oh, how lovely she was a naturally loving person. It's she had an example of unconditional love, and she decided to do that. And then she did it. And I felt that. One of her favorite teaching stories was this, it's not what comes in through the gate is not the family treasure. Let it flow forth from within, covering heaven and earth. in the sense of that kind of boundless love. And the Zazen piece, the devotion to Zazen, she wrote the Antaichi phrase or this expression of to waste your life in Zazen. I told her about my aspirations to sit, you know, to become a priest and to waste your life in Zazen. Are you ready to waste your life in Zazen? And I remember her... wondering about these people who here at Tulsa RSA, they write down this note to the end of the hall that says, I can't go to Zazen today because I'm sick.

[24:58]

And she said, what do you mean sick have to do with doing Zazen? What better thing to do when you're sick with Zazen? Yeah, devotion to Zazen. You remind me of another story. She was here and she was... feeling, I don't know if she was sick, she just was feeling really grumpy one day and she just decided, the hell with it, I'm not getting up. And so the person, there's something, I don't know, I don't think it works quite this way anymore, but there was somebody called the Tenkin who went and knocked on your door to find out if you were okay. And of course, many people experienced the Tenkin as a Zendokot, not as somebody to encourage them. And so the Tekin knocks on her door, and she said something like, I'm not coming, and go away.

[26:01]

And the Tekin said, don't you want some encouragement? And that just got right to her heart. So she looked back up, I think she got up and went to Zaza. I mean, that she took in, the point is to encourage people, you know, not to smack them around. Well, she smacked me around some. Do any of you have any questions or memories of Blanche that you want to share? I just have to add, I know we don't want to talk about her whole life, but she was, you know, a registered communist and a total radical and... St. Francisco's Zen Center was the way that she spent those last years for life devoted to making the world a better place. She was so devoted to us in this practice.

[27:04]

You could get her to sing the Internationale if you started there. But she also said that she thought Marx didn't quite account for greed, hate, and delusion. One, two. I was sent, San Francisco was then sent her from Texas by way of kosha, and I was very new about five years ago, and I was waiting in the foyer for kosha, and just looking around, and I looked up the stairs, I was waiting up the stairs, and Blanche was getting in the little cart, and she looked down, and she went, hey, and I looked up, and I was like, hi, and I thought, well, how could she know that I'm a Kosho student? I didn't know. But she came down and just gave me a hug and introduced herself and had no idea who I was. And I was just really touched that, you know, a senior teacher, a previous abbess would do something like that.

[28:07]

And yeah, I immediately felt like her grandson. And you are her grandson. The greeting was like that. So I was Kosho student in Kosho student. And, uh, so Kosho's Blanche's student. And, um, I was living at city center, and Kosho was down here. So Blanche was kind of keeping an eye on me while I was at city center. And, um, and I was 22, and I think the wildest point in my life was when I was living at city center. Like, the most I partied was when I lived at city center. And, um... And I mentioned something in public in like a work meeting or something or some kind of check-in thing about how sometimes I turn off my alarm and then I fall asleep and kind of forgot that I, you know, turned off my alarm. And then she caught me at the bottom of the stairs one day. Like literally, like she caught, she grabbed my forearm and like kind of squeezed.

[29:11]

I was like shocked how strong she was. She had like hurt. She squeezed my forearm and she leaned in and she said, Put your alarm clock on the other side of the room or you're not going to Tassajara or anywhere. Then apparently she told Lou that this happened. And Lou said, you can talk to people like that. And then two days later she came and apologized. And she said, I just want you to be your best. The matters are both useful. Because we need somebody sometimes to say, get it together, kiddo. I don't know. Do you think that or do you think she was? Looking back, it's easy for me to feel very warmly that that happened. I think immediately I was like, what's the matter with these people?

[30:15]

But I remember that. I remember when we got, you know, there's that moment in the morning after breakfast when you get to the Suburbans out in Lily Alley when everybody's going down to Tassajara. And I was leaving for my Tungara, my first practice period, my Tungara practice period. And she was standing in the alley and she said like, now go be a monk. I remember feeling like, wow, like she cares about me. And I just showed up. You know, she's been here for 40 years and I've been here for six months and it matters to her. And that is good advice, by the way, as you probably know. Put the alarm clock on the other side. When I was Chisot, I had two alarm clocks, and I was so afraid I wouldn't wake up to do the wake-up bell. And they were both different places across the room. Anybody else? Oh, yes, she was funny.

[31:27]

I was editing, right? She was very funny. One thing, I'm going to do it in the lesser point. On the 4th of July, it's been known to happen that there is a parade the length of Tazahara. When I was tenzo, it was led, it was mostly a kitchen event, I guess, and it was led by... Oh, Michael something, and he played this live trombone. And we went all the way down to the swimming pool, and he just walked right into the pool playing the trombone. They threw me in, which felt really good about the 4th of July. Great. One year, maybe more than once, they had like a little red wagon, and Blanche was the Statue of Liberty. And there are pictures of this somewhere.

[32:28]

I know, because I wasn't here, but I seen it. But she was famous, or probably she'll be famous forever for a skit about how cold it is down here and how to cope with it. So she gets a sleeping bag, and the first thing, of course, she puts in... A hot water bottle, maybe two hot water bottles. She puts in her pajamas. I know the last thing. Does anybody remember before the last thing what else she put in? But it's like the kitchen sink. She just kept putting things in there. And the last thing she puts in is a toilet seat. It's quite wonderful. I've seen it down here, and I've seen it at City Center. What?

[33:29]

I'm going to miss her terribly. She was 90 years old. She had a full life. She was tired. She was ready to go. She felt pretty low. She couldn't sew anymore. Lou died. They were married more than 60 years. So she was ready. I'm not. It hurts. It hurts when your friend dies. You know, and I've always found it. Forgive me, I found it irritating when people say, well, they had a full life. Yes, but I'm grieving. And that's part of... It's part of what I owe her. I don't think like that. But it's part of our relationship. And it's part of my process of letting go. Another thing I learned from her was about how to wash a body and how to apply a Yerba-Santa solution.

[34:51]

And I'll miss her. May our intention deeply extend to every being and place.

[35:13]

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