Good evening. I wonder if there's anyone who's here for the first time. If so, welcome. In case you don't know who I am, my name is Tova Green and I'm a resident here at City Center. And since about March, I've been working at Zen Hospice Project as volunteer coordinator. And some of the stories I'll share with you tonight come from that experience. I work at Laguna Honda Hospital. There's a hospice ward with 24 beds and a staff, including a doctor, social worker, activities therapist, volunteer coordinators.

[01:10]

There are two of us. And then about 80 volunteers who come for five hour shifts once a week. So I'll start with something that happened last night as I was leaving. I was walking. down the ward on my way out. And I noticed that there was a woman sitting near the bed of a resident named Herman, who has been at hospice for quite a while. And I had never seen anyone visiting him. Lots of volunteers spent time with him, but I hadn't seen any family members or friends. So I stopped and introduced myself to this woman whose name was Carol. And asked her if she was a family member. And she said no, that she was a friend of Herman's. But she hadn't been to see him in about a year. And for her, it had been a year of catastrophes.

[02:12]

And she started telling me about them. Her house had caught on fire. Her son had been in an accident. She herself had fallen. And she said. She hadn't come to see Herman because she was waiting for things to get back to normal. And then one day she realized that things were never going to be the way they were before. And that her idea of what was normal had to change. And and then she said she was very glad she had learned that, even though it was a hard lesson to learn. And because I was thinking about impermanence. That story just struck home as, you know, often what we think of as normal can change very quickly and unexpectedly. I was also struck by that when I heard, and many of you may have been too, and the bridge in Minneapolis collapsed just at rush hour.

[03:22]

But there are many things, large and small, that happen every day that can remind us that things are always changing. So I thought tonight I would talk more about impermanence and how we practice, how we can practice with impermanence. So Carol actually learned about a fundamental teaching of the Buddha when she... realized that her idea of normal had to change. And this concept of impermanence is one way of looking at the first noble truth, which is that there is suffering. And we can interpret suffering in many ways, including impermanence and insubstantiality of things. a broader meaning of impermanence.

[04:25]

And when we start to look at it, it's everywhere. We don't have to look very far. And sometimes it's very dramatic, but sometimes very subtle is when we watch our breath and see the breath arise and leave our body breath after breath. Or when we're sitting in zazen and feel a pain in our knees or back and then notice how it can change and sometimes shift and sometimes recede. So I'd like you just to take a moment to think of a time in the last day or two when you became aware of impermanence, when something that you thought was normal maybe didn't seem normal. and to think of a particular instance and what and how you responded to it.

[05:30]

So I'd like to talk about some of the ways we practice with impermanence, and maybe these will resonate with your own experience. One of the best ways is very simple. It's just getting to know it. And another is through being open to or not turning away from our experiences of sickness, old age and death, our own and others. And then a third is practicing There are many ways. I'm just going to talk about three. And a third could be practicing with our experiences of joy and and also realizing that those two are passing. So. We recently had a three week intensive practice period.

[06:44]

Here many of you participated. And for those of you who didn't, at the end of each week, there's a ceremony we do called Nenju, which marks the end of a week of practice. And part of it, at the beginning of it, there's a chant, which I came to love. We did this practice at Tassahara, the monastery connected with Zen Center, at the end of every week of practice period also. And a couple of lines in the chant are, we are to practice constantly as if to save our heads from fire. Mindful of transiency, pursue the path with diligence and care. So that line, practice, we are to practice constantly as if to save our heads from fire. So we never know what, what, what. is ahead and that we can't take for granted that we're going to be here in the same way tomorrow as we are today, although we tend to act as if we are going to be.

[08:12]

So practicing with diligence and care this awareness of transiency, one very simple way is to, through zazen, as we sit, to watch our breath and notice the rise and fall of our bellies and the sensation of the air as it touches our nostrils and enters our bodies and then leaves. And then also noticing how our thoughts come and go, how sensations and emotions arise and change. And through that, Suzuki Roshi said in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, in the Zazen posture, your mind and body have great power to accept things as they are, whether they're agreeable or disagreeable, because you're just noticing what arises. I had an experience of this day before yesterday in the hospice garden.

[09:20]

I was sitting outside and I got stung by a wasp. And I was amazed at how a tiny insect like that could have such an effect on my body because I got stung on the forehead. And within a few minutes, the entire... left side of my face turned red, and I started having tingling sensations all over my body and a lot of pain, which lasted for almost 24 hours. And the next morning in Zazen, I was just sitting there aware of this heat on the side of my face and just... I think because I was sitting, I was able to just notice it and be interested in these unusual sensations. And I've had that experience of sitting also with sadness or a sense of loss or sadness.

[10:37]

Recently, I I was looking forward to I was invited to visit a friend who was spending some time in the country, not that far from here. And just before it was time to go, my friend called and said, for various reasons, it was not going to work out for me to visit. And can I. I experienced a disappointment. And in Zazen, I was able to sit with it and feel it and then let it go. And, you know, on the scale of things, that was a minor disappointment. But I think whether it's small or large, it's really possible to sit with feelings, whether they're agreeable or disagreeable, and allow them to just be there and notice where they are in the body.

[11:48]

And it creates a kind of spaciousness for me with these feelings. And then I'm able to move on So another way of practicing with impermanence is not turning away from suffering. There are many kinds of suffering. There's a wonderful book called Not Turning Away. It was edited by Susan Moon and its essay is from Turning Wheel, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship Journal. And it has examples of not turning away from a range of experiences of suffering, including war and childhood abuse. Some of them are more personal. Some of them are more societal. But not turning away from old age, sickness and death is one of the gifts, actually, of doing hospice work and being able to sit by the bedside of someone,

[13:04]

week after week or sometimes now I'm there every day. So I sit with people day after day and watching their bodies change. There's one resident now who had or has throat cancer and he has a tracheostomy, so he can't speak. And when he first came to hospice, Maybe six weeks ago, he enjoyed sitting outside and sitting in the garden. He was still smoking and he would go out and have a cigarette. And he has a partner who would visit him quite frequently. And then a couple of weeks ago, he could no longer get out of bed. And he's been getting thinner and thinner. And the other day, his partner was sitting.

[14:06]

His partner comes every afternoon and sits with him and noticed that there was a new lesion. The cancer had spread through a place in his neck. And he was a it's his partner. I don't think his partner is Buddhist, but was able to sit there and talk about it. And, you know, just. stay with what he was experiencing. And and the hospice volunteers have also been sitting with this man. His name is Gary. And I think it's both important for Gary not to be alone as he experiences the changes in his own body, But for us, as we sit there to just notice what is happening and one of the ways in which a person's a person's life comes to an end.

[15:16]

I have a friend who called me yesterday. She's diabetic and she has neuropathy and. She was planning to go to a family reunion in Idaho at the end of this week. And a few days ago, she has a nurse who comes to visit periodically, and the nurse noticed a sore on my friend's foot and was very concerned about the possibility of an infection. And this friend has had some systemic infections before, almost died. from from the infection. So she called me to say she was going to the doctors tomorrow and she could she would either be going to the hospital after that if the doctor thought the infection was serious or she would be getting on a plane for Idaho. And I was really amazed that she was so calm about it.

[16:21]

And, you know, this was her situation. She wasn't turning away from the possibility that this could be as serious, uh, and, um, would need hospitalization. Of course, her hope was that she would be able to go to her family reunion, but, um, she was not, you know, turning away from or denying that, that this was, um, something that she has to work with and, um, and take care of. I think, um, It's possible sometimes to just not pay attention to what's happening in our bodies or with stress we may be feeling until something extreme happens. One of my friends was recently hospitalized with high blood pressure, and this person has a very stressful job and I think just wasn't realizing how stressful it was until...

[17:27]

His blood pressure was so, so high that it was actually very dangerous. So one of the, I think, again, a benefit of practice is that we do notice what's happening in our bodies moment to moment and little changes that can tell us, well, it's time to get some extra rest or take some vitamin C. really pay attention to this, to a pain in my back or something like that before it gets to be an emergency. Today there was a staff meeting on the hospice unit, and one of the nurses was saying that when she takes care of a resident on the ward, She imagines herself in that bed and that at some point in her life she will be in that bed.

[18:38]

And that enables her to treat that resident with kindness and with a sense of real care, because that's how she would like to be treated. And. Just that awareness that, you know, any one of us could be in the hospital bed or the hospice bed. I think for one thing for me, it increases my appreciation for the health and the life that I do have, but also my realization that my life will come to an end as well. I'm not nearly as worried about it as I used to be. So Joanna Macy, who's been one of my teachers, says that our full presence with suffering is the greatest gift we can give to the world and to ourselves.

[19:54]

This is the first noble truth, and this is the boundless heart of the bodhisattva, not to be afraid of the suffering, but to let it be known and touched. And then she adds, this takes courage in a society addicted to comfort, but until that happens, there is no healing. So I'll say one of the surprises for me of working at hospice is that I have become a lot more grateful for my life and for moments of beauty or connection or wonder that I experience joy. every day, um, like seeing a hummingbird in the garden or the fluffy scrambled eggs we had for breakfast this morning that were made with a lot of care or, um, running into a friend on the street or actually in the lobby this evening, I was just standing there and, uh, someone I haven't seen in a long time who just arrived from North Carolina came to stay at Sun Center for a day or two.

[21:00]

And, you know, this, Surprises and unexpected pleasures. And so I think it's it's impermanence is also about being present for the joys of our life, which are also fleeting. And I'd like to. I was very interested when that bridge just collapsed in Minnesota and what it was like for people who survived that event. And in the New York Times, there were a couple of stories, interviews with people who had survived.

[22:01]

And there was one woman whose story I'd like to tell briefly. It's a story of a woman named Mrs. Bo, who was 26, and she was stopped in traffic on the bridge when it collapsed. And she was in her white Mazda minivan when she heard a loud crack and saw the bridge in front of her collapsing like a wave. And instead of letting the van skid down the slope to the fallen part of the bridge below, she slammed on her brakes. And when the brakes couldn't hold her, she turned the steering wheel to the right and went over the side of the bridge and into the water. And she was able to get out of her car, but she realized she couldn't swim. So she was able to sit on the roof of the car and began to scream for help and saying, help, help, I don't know how to swim.

[23:13]

Then she took off her shoes because she was afraid she might be pulled under water and she knew they would weigh her down. And she kicked and paddled and she was able to reach safety on a part of the bridge that had that was in the water. And and then what she did, she said, she said to herself, pray Buddha, pray Buddha. I asked myself to stay calm. So. In the midst of this very terrifying experience, she was able to calm herself by praying to Buddha. And but she said later after she got to a hospital, when I look back, I am so lucky and thankful to be alive. She realized that there were some people who didn't survive that experience. So. I think, you know, such an encounter is is extreme.

[24:32]

But these things happen to to us or to some of us every day and. Can really make us help us to appreciate our lives and. The lives of those. we love and those around us. So I'd like to end with a poem by Mary Oliver, which I think expresses some of the gratitude for life and the small wonders that we encounter every day. It's called The Summer Day. Who made the world? Who made the swan and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean. The one who has flung herself out of the grass.

[25:32]

The one who is eating sugar out of my hand. Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down. Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wing open. and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

[26:37]

So I love that poem because it just reminds me of practicing as if our heads were on fire. mindful of trenchancy, which is all around us. Our lives are wild and precious and to be appreciated while we have them. So I'd like to see if there are any questions. I think we have a little bit of time. Yes. I was wondering what things about the euthanasia. I don't know what the Buddha thinks. What do you think? Could you say a little more about what you mean by euthanasia? A person reaches a point in their life where they're old and they're not feeling too good, and the doctors say it's just a matter of a short, unpleasant time left.

[27:41]

And that person decides, well, I'd rather just... in my life and sort of skip the last act here. Well, I think the last act needn't be unpleasant. I think the last act is really important. So you don't think that's up to the individual to make that decision? Yes, I think it is up to the individual to make that decision. I don't think I would make that decision, but, you know, I think a person could choose that. And there might be circumstances in which that would be a good decision for someone. But, you know, I think, you know, I really don't know what the Buddha would say, but I think that...

[28:44]

Being present for everything that happens until your last breath has something to be said for it. And I have seen people at hospice in a lot of pain. One of the things that the doctor there tries to do is to treat pain in such a way that people can be comfortable. in their last days and hours, but not everybody is. And some people have a lot of psychic pain, which can make their last hours very, very difficult. There was a man who died on Monday morning all weekend. He was very restless and shouting and in a lot of it looked like in a lot of emotional pain. And then just before he died, His face became very peaceful, and he took his last breaths in what looked like some kind of, let's say, resolution.

[30:07]

There was something that happened at the very end, and you never know what those last moments can be like. I think that's my best response to that question. Anyone else who has a question or comment? OK, thank you very much. 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 to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[31:09]

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