This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. The 18th slogan is the Mahayan instruction for the ejection of consciousness at the time of death is the five strengths. how you conduct yourself is important. And my talk today is going to be about the second part of that slogan, which is how you conduct yourself is important. In 1937, my father's father died at home. His body was washed by his family. His body was laid out in the parlor. Announcements were put in the newspaper.

[01:02]

A black ribbon was affixed to the doorknob. And anybody who wanted to come pay respects to either Edward or the family was welcome in the home. And this went on for three days. That was very typical. Death was a family affair. It was part of the cycle of life. And it was also public. Private and public. I've read in architectural magazines that there was a move starting in the 20s to go away from this. You start seeing house plans that have living rooms, not parlors. And there is some thinking that this was... not only moved by architects, but also architects in conjunction with funeral home owners.

[02:03]

So they started thinking that it would be good for business, beneficial to move death out of the home into funeral parlors and hospitals. And you see this reflected in the kind of change from death being a family, a community, to more of a, let's take it out of the home, let's put it in a hospital, let's remove death from the family. And this played out. This has been very successful, actually. When I was a student chaplain in 2007 at the biggest teaching hospital in Calgary, Alberta, one of the jobs of the chaplains was to be on call. So one night I was on call, I was sleeping, and the phone rang, and there was a woman who had requested the presence of a chaplain on one of the units.

[03:05]

Her husband had just died. So I splashed some water on my face, dressed very quickly, and got to the room. And I walked into the room. She was standing at the end of the bed, looking at her elderly husband, who I think that the nurse had told me on the phone that he was 86 and that he had had a long illness, cancer, and that he had died. So this wasn't unexpected. He was, after all, 86, and he had had a terminal illness. So I walked into the room and she was standing at the end of the bed looking at her husband and she didn't look, she looked bewildered, completely bewildered.

[04:08]

And I walked in and stood beside her and I said, you asked for a chaplain. And she said, I didn't know what he wanted. And I stood there and she said, I don't know if he wanted a funeral. I don't know if he wanted to be cremated. I don't know if he wanted to be buried. I don't know if he had a will. I don't know what to do. And I said... is there anything that would help you right now? And she said, would you, could we do the Lord's Prayer together? So we did that. And then we sat beside the bed. And she spoke a little bit of their marriage and their three sons.

[05:17]

And again, it, It wasn't what one thinks of as grief as much as what now? And about 10 minutes or 15 minutes later, two of her sons walked in. There was kind of this big kerfuffle. They kind of got her out of the room, away from their father. And the nurses came in and I left shortly after. And they... That was the end of that. And I thought a lot about that, actually. And also within the same chaplaincy program, I had a meeting at one point with the emergency room charge nurse, and I asked her about this. I asked her about conversations around death. And she said that probably between 80 and 85% of the people that come into emergency, whether they're...

[06:23]

whether they've had a trauma or they're chronically ill or they have a terminal illness, 80-85% of people don't have a conversation with their family ever about death. So I have heard that one of the points of Buddhism is to prepare for death. And I think it might be possible that the way we live our lives is how we face our death. And I think today what I wanted to do mostly was to talk about Alan Steve's death. Because from the moment that he was diagnosed with terminal, well it wasn't terminal at that point, stage four pancreatic cancer, his death was, it was

[07:23]

because he was engaged with his wife and his family but it was also public because he was the central abbot of Zen Center and he felt that that was very important and I wanted to share some of my time with him and with them to honor his wish that it be that it would be in the public realm, let's say. And I've kind of had this thought for a while that I would like to talk a little bit about those 92 days from the day he was diagnosed to the day he died. And I, at that same time, was very involved with my mother who died at

[08:24]

in that same time period. So we'll see how far we get with this. I became Steve's assistant on September 5th, 2013. It was a very busy time, those first couple of weeks, because there was the Affiliate Sangha Branching Streams conference that was happening at City Centre between the 12th and the 15th of September. And in Just in that short period of time, one time we were doing a check-in, and Steve, who very, very infrequently complained of any sort of pain, was in agony sitting behind his desk. And I asked him about it. And he said, oh, I had a back injury. I think this is just kind of coming up. It's bothering me. And he complained that he was just getting over the flu. His appetite was terrible and I was trying to entice him to eat.

[09:27]

I would bring hard boiled eggs and cut cheese and try to get him because he wasn't a sweet person. He didn't like sweets so much. And then at one point I actually looked at him and I said, when's the last time you weighed yourself? And he said, well, I don't know. And I said, you've lost a lot of weight. He said, well, I guess when I go home, I'll look into it. So the conference happened and the morning of the 15th, which was a Sunday, he left city center. He had planned a family holiday. The children were getting together, grandchildren, they were going to the beach for a week. And in that week, he talked to me a number of times, and he just did not feel very well.

[10:28]

He thought it was exhaustion. And in fact, one day he collapsed on the beach. And I think this, Lane was just, his wife, his name's Lane. Lane said, you know, you have to go to the doctor. You just have to go to the doctor. So on Monday the 22nd he went to a family doctor and he had some blood tests and the results were curious enough I guess that another bunch of tests started. And on Friday the 27th he had a CAT scan. On Sunday the 29th the doctor called Steve and said the results of the CAT scan are not good will you please come into the office tomorrow morning and he called me that day because he had originally planned to come to the city and he said I have to go to see the doctor tomorrow morning something's obviously wrong so he went to the doctor he and Lane went to the doctor

[11:49]

And the doctor said that they had picked up a number of lumps, tumors. I think they know their tumors. They probably think they're not sure if they're malignant or benign. And they wanted him to do a biopsy. I think he was scheduled to have a biopsy done the next day or something. And so he called me right, I think he was on the drive home. Lane was driving at that point. His pain was so bad that he was afraid to drive. And he said, I have stage 4 pancreatic cancer. And I'm scheduled to do a talk at Dharma High tonight and I'm going to go. So... He went to the group Dharma Eye and gave a talk about the events, these events.

[12:57]

And he also had a pre-arranged, this had been arranged months before that, to give a talk at Green Gulch that Wednesday night, which was the 2nd of September. And he decided to keep that engagement as well. So I went there to that talk, as did a number of people, both from City Center and people at Green Gulch. And Lane drove. He gave what is called now the gratitude talk. And... I remember watching him at the end of the talk. People were hugging him. And he could barely bear it because he was in so much pain.

[14:01]

He was white, shaking, and with his family. And after the talk, I went up to Lane and I had been introduced to her once before very briefly, but I introduced myself as Steve's assistant and I said, I'll do anything, I'm not afraid. And so the next day she called me and she said, I think we're going to need some help here. And I started, I got on the bus I think probably the next day, and they gave me Steve's car to use, so I started traveling back and forth. And in the beginning, Steve I think had two concerns. One was his students, and the second was to try to figure out how to get to a place where he could

[15:14]

have mental clarity and manage the pain. As some of the older people, Nisanga know the story about Steve. He didn't believe in taking any sort of pain medicine when he had dental work. So he would have cavities done and I think a root canal done. He would do that because he he didn't think painkillers were. I don't know if he thought they were for sissies, but he might have thought they were for sissies. So this idea of having to actually not himself be able to manage his own pain was kind of astounding for him, actually. And it took him a while to really come to terms with that. I remember the nurse... He just couldn't bring himself... admit I think initially that that something else outside of his own body was needed.

[16:24]

So he requested many files from the city because he was going to do a lot of work while he was at home. I became I think the gatekeeper so I He asked people to have all their Zen Center communications through me and actually family members started calling me. And he was amazingly determined and also careful about talking to people, about his energy, about... attending to the details that needed to be attended to. And I would say that kind of was this cord through the months of October and November and the first part of December.

[17:28]

It's okay, so what needs to be done today? What amount, what can I do? How can I manage this? He started... chemotherapy pretty quickly and he went to two rounds of chemotherapy and he developed a reaction to that and went into the hospital for a number of days as a result of the chemotherapy treatments and he was quite sick actually and that's where many people from Both his family, his siblings, and Zen Center saw him probably for the last time, was in the hospital. His family quickly realized that this was very serious. And it's kind of amazing. I think within a week or so of, or maybe even days of his diagnosis, they all got plane tickets and came down for a number of days.

[18:38]

and spent time with him. And then some of them came later. So I would say that through this early part he was very demanding and he didn't really, he didn't, he stopped sort of having superfluous conversation And he stopped, he started, he kind of started pushing things away. He said, I'm not going to watch any more movies that don't have something worthwhile in them. I'm not going to listen to information that doesn't, isn't really, really vital. He was very curious about his illness, I would say. He had a lot of conversations with people about cancer. I think he was very aware that the chemotherapy was a long shot.

[19:45]

He really did try to meet what was coming at every moment, I would say. He started saying I love you to people a lot. Started feeling grateful for the things he had done. And through that whole time, I often noticed how much pain he was in. And he said, mostly if I just breathe, if I just find my breath and breathe, I can stand it. So conversation was not easy. because there was just so much going on in his own body I think. So he had two treatments of chemo and then landed in the hospital and that put chemo off for a few weeks because he was too weak and then he started

[21:01]

He did one more chemo treatment, I think, or a few. And the question became, what is my quality of life right now? Is this helping my life? Is it hindering what I need to do? And he and Lane had a number of conversations about that. And I can't remember the date, but at a certain point, the decision was made that he would stop chemotherapy. And I remember him saying, you know, I've been to a number of deaths before. I know what hospice is, but I always thought it would be for somebody else. So calling in hospice to come to the house and start working with him That was a significant thing, but it was a conversation.

[22:04]

It was talked about. It was considered the pros and cons. Do I continue with chemo? Do I stop chemo? How can I best attend to the things that I need to do? And the decision was made that chemo was too hard on his system at that point. It kind of evolved in the house that Lane... would be with him in the evenings and they had they kind of just spent time together quietly and I would get up in the morning and and spend time with him in the morning while Lane was sleeping and and he had a bell so It was something that their family had had. When the kids were small, they had the same bell, and when they were sick in bed, they would ring the bell rather than yelling down the hallway.

[23:09]

And so Steve would carry this little bell with him in the house, and if he needed something, he'd ring the bell. And it's funny, you know, there are times when that bell just, I hated it. I hated the sound of that bell. And I would have hated him yelling, you know, through the house too, but... It was like, wow, this person really needs a lot. And am I prepared to do that? And I guess I was. So his sleeping was terrible. I think the pain and the drugs and... just maybe the cancer that was alive in him and growing made sleeping really difficult and eating was kind of this idea it became an idea he would in the morning often wake up thinking oh I'd like this and so I'd make whatever he wanted and then he would be able to take a bite maybe two bites and then he couldn't manage it anymore smells were hard

[24:26]

Yeah, it's just amazing. You know, everything just becomes hard, I think. And he started losing a lot of weight. So the last time he was, you know, Steve was a big guy. And the last time he was weighed, he was 151 pounds. And then they just decided to stop weighing him because it was just too discouraging. There was this idea, you know, that, oh, I should eat something. I should eat something. I need to eat something. And then at a certain point, I think he was just like, that's just too hard. It's just hard to feel like you have to eat. You have to keep yourself strong. You have to do these things. So I think that sort of dropped away at a certain point. And I, because I have this wonderful sister who's a nurse practitioner and has spent a lot of time

[25:28]

with dying people I was in contact with her often and one of the things that we she and I talked about and I then talked to Steve and Lane about was the idea of death and death not being an emergency I think this is kind of something that isn't talked about so often so if If you have somebody at home and you call 911, the fire truck comes, an ambulance usually comes, often police officers come. The system is called activating the system. The system gets activated and all of a sudden you don't have any control over what's happening in your home or with your body. And that happened once. Steve was having a bout of pain that the hospice nurse couldn't control and Lane called 911 or the nurse actually did because she didn't know what to do and the fire truck came and firemen were walking through the house and Steve ended up in the hospital for the second time where he didn't want to be and

[26:57]

So after he got home, we had a conversation about that. About, okay, so if something like that happens again, what do you want to happen? What shall we do? And I think at that point, he decided that no more hospital. So then the hospice people became increasingly involved. And one of the... The main nurse, Cynthia, had a conversation one day with Lane and I. And she said, you know, this is something that's not really ever talked about, but a lot of people at the time of death have experiences of... Like, they start talking to people that aren't really in the room. They start... acting in different ways they they they change somehow she said it just you know like it's not it's it's not uncommon and if if she didn't really warn us exactly she just said you know see what happens and Lane and I talked about it some what to expect what not to expect I guess and

[28:27]

that information away. So, on the 24th of September, Steve decided that he was going to stop eating altogether. He was getting... Not September. I mean, sorry. On the 24th of December, Steve decided to stop eating. And about that same time, he had a couple conversations on the phone which he realized something was not right. And we were listening, and it's like he couldn't really follow along anymore. He couldn't be present for the call. Too much was happening. So again, there was a conversation about Do you think it's wise to continue talking to students?

[29:30]

Do you think it's wise to continue talking? Do you think it's wise? And again, around that time, the 24th of December, he stopped having conversations with students and with most of the members of his family. then he decided I think around the 28th to stop drinking fluids and we had a signal so when he put his tongue in between his lips he wanted just his mouth moistened and he was speaking less before this he and Lane had many conversations about horses horses and riders and Steve decided that that was the imagery he was going to use as he was dying. He... I mean, I remember sitting in Masendo and he talked about being a child riding horses and about his grandmother and he was the manager of the horses at Greenbelt for a while and horses played a big part in his childhood riding horses.

[30:46]

And so he had this very clear idea of being a rider on a horse and he really worked with that image a lot he talked about it when he was still talking and it was very interesting that he was planning this was a plan and then on the 29th of December Lane and I were sitting with him and he looked at Lane, and he said, tomorrow. She was like, tomorrow? And he said, tomorrow. And she said, okay, tomorrow. And that was just Steve, you know? It's like, okay, so tomorrow's the day. And he, from that point on, he really

[31:51]

He almost completely stopped talking, I would say. But something else started going on. And I think he was working towards this thing, this thing, this riding, riding a horse, getting somewhere far away. On the morning of the 30th, there was a gentleman, a home care worker that came. Lane hired him. Christine Palmer had had associations with this fellow. His name was Patrick. And we could no longer manage Steve when he tried to get out of bed. So he would try to get out of bed to use the loo.

[32:54]

And he was quite determined to do this for himself, but he was tall and lanky and very, very thin, and we couldn't manage it anymore. So Lane hired a gentleman named Patrick who came to the house on the 30th and started spending time in Steve's room. And that night on the 30th, James, Steve's son, came to the house. And so for the evening part, Lane and James spent the evening with Steve. And then at one o'clock, Patrick and Christine spent time with Steve in his room. And then I was to be on at five, as was normal. So I went to sleep, and all through that evening, early evening, when we were spending some time with Steve, he was becoming more and more animated, actually.

[34:07]

He wasn't talking, but it was like he was engaging in something. He was smiling a lot. He was gesturing with his hands. And Lane and I commented about the energy in the house that it seemed to be quite heightened. And this continued through the evening. I would almost describe it as delight. Steve's delight. I was awakened at four o'clock Christine came into my room and she said, Steve's breathing has changed a lot. I think it's time. And so I got out of bed. And at the same, just before she had come into my room, she had gone into Lane's room to wake her up. And Patrick was in the room with Steve.

[35:12]

And at a certain point, Steve... I guess had this huge smile on his face and reached out his hand and Patrick grabbed it and they held hands and then Steve slumped down and died. And I have a feeling that Steve picked that moment because it was better for no student to be in the room, better for not his wife to be in the room, better to just have this hand helping him. He died at 4.04 on December 31st. And shortly thereafter, we made a call to a couple of other senior students and friends and we washed his body.

[36:15]

And I imagine many of you have seen pictures of people who have starved to death for various reasons. I think often at that moment, the image I had in my mind was somebody who had lived through the concentration camps. Steve was emaciated. And we washed his body and moved his body to what used to be the shrine room in the house, I mean the zendo in the house. And people started coming later that day. And the imagery that I worked with through there was that somehow for me the line was very blurred between the idea of birth and death, or death and birth.

[37:25]

Steve's actions in the last maybe eight hours, it seemed like a birth was happening. That he was done with his body, and that he was ready to move on. And I felt that so clearly. I still feel that, that In that moment, liberation happened. So it was... It was an interesting... That's a crazy word. It was like a singular experience in my life. Writing the blog, that was also interesting because Steve, right after his diagnosis, I think David Zimmerman contacted Steve and Steve was like, yeah, we should have a blog.

[38:35]

I'll do it. I think it'll be great. And as it turned out, Steve never wrote anything for the blog. But he was very curious about the blog and very curious about I would write First I started writing as if I was him and he'd read it all and kind of make some changes and we would submit those things and then it started becoming very obvious that he wasn't writing it. But he really did want this to be an experience for the Sangha, not just his family. And he was very curious about it all. And of course he was sad. He was sad to leave his family. He was sad to leave his grandchildren.

[39:37]

He was sad to leave the sangha. But there was also this... clear acceptance that this was just what was happening now. And I think years of practice allowed him to get to that place where he wasn't angry. He didn't want to pretend that it wasn't happening. He didn't want to pretend And throughout it all, he had a lot of conversations with people about what was going on. So I think to bring this back to the slogan, you know, it's how we conduct ourselves is important.

[40:38]

And I think Steve was Attending to the moment by moment changes in his body and his mind. And he was with himself as he did that. So I think I want to say, I want to express my gratitude to Abbott Steve and Lane for inviting me into their home at a time when most times the doors are shut and the drawbridge is closed. That experience has certainly changed my life.

[41:44]

So I also want to thank my sister who, we had lots of conversations. And also of course Erin for hanging in there for all these times that I've been away. I just want to say, you know, I think a lot of people are ashamed of death. They think it means that they're weak or it should be hidden away. And I really hope that for each one of us it doesn't have to be that way. That it can be

[42:46]

Maybe as fine as liberation. So I think that's probably enough. But I'm certainly willing to answer questions. I feel Steve would be delighted by questions. Please. to die when there is love around them? May they not just prefer to be on their own? There were several indications of what you said. Yeah, I think everybody's different. And I think asking the person what they want is probably the most useful thing. I've heard that people pick the time of their death often.

[43:54]

And if somebody's in the room, that they want to be in the room, or if they're waiting for somebody, like a child, that they want to see, they'll wait. So I think there's a lot going on physiologically, emotionally, and that mostly, particularly if somebody is... not trying to avoid their death, not trying to pretend it's not happening, but is fully engaged in that process, I think that they or we have abilities that exceed our expectations. Thank you. Please, Les. Yeah, I want to confirm that actually took care of my father a few months before he died, and he knew he was going to die. And actually, there's a lot of people in the room, and he kind of waited for everybody else to run out of the room and separate. So I realized that he waited, you can tell, and he had control.

[44:57]

But also, I think for comfort, what I went through was that I read a passage from the Tibetan Book of the Dead that said, this person's death is not about you. And it helped me. Because it wasn't about my sorrow or everybody else's sorrow. It was this person's passing, which is everybody has a right to have. So I think it really helps without the lamenting and the sorrow. to make it not a sad passing, which is what's supposed to happen, and that helps. You don't make it about yourself. Thank you. Please, Gray. I used to work in skilled nursing facilities, and staff would always remark that the way people died was the way they lived. If someone was controlling and manipulative, Sometimes they'd want their whole family in the room with them so they could continue to control them and manipulate them up to the last second.

[46:02]

It was quite remarkable. Some people would smile just completely relaxed and let go. Very different styles depending on how they lived. Your karma plays out right up to the end. I, around Avid Steve, thank you, I know you've been thanked a lot, but anyway, take this opportunity to thank you. I think he was very upright about dying, about his, you know, we got this email, I was in 1B, Leslie heard me through the wall, just kind of gasp, shout in a way, I just sort of, when I read it, you know, and Leslie knew something was up right away. Just like you said, he was very upright about that. But the thing with the pain is so interesting to me because it seemed like there was a point he was stubborn.

[47:08]

He was really stubborn. It seemed like it took some bringing around by health professionals and family and, I don't know, you, to get him to acknowledge that actually he was doing himself and other people a disservice by trying to get it out, like he was enduring crazy pain and like hastening something that needed. Can you say anything about that? Sure. I think one of the, so he needed a convincing argument and after his, he was in the hospital the first time and there were a couple of nurses that would come in and he was having trouble with his heart And he couldn't figure out why he was having problems with his heart because his heart was fine. My heart's great. I have a good heart. And this nurse came in and said, the reason you're having heart trouble is because you have so much pain that your heart can't stand it.

[48:16]

So if you start taking some pain medication, then... you'll let your heart will just do what it can do rather than having to like freak out every time that your pain is skyrocketing. So it was kind of this bossy pressure from a nurse who kept on like telling them off. And also this logical like my heart is fine and if I, she said so if you can keep your pain at like a two to three, then your heart will be fine. You won't die of a heart attack. If what you're doing right now, you keep on doing what your pain skyrockets up to like a seven or eight, you will surely die of a heart attack. And even that, you know, it took him a while to kind of buy it. But he'd be sitting there and the nurse would say, where's your pain, Steve? And he'd be like, oh, eight, you know.

[49:18]

And she'd be like, Two, two, two, man. And I think Lane also is like, where's your pain, Steve? And he'd say where it was, you know, six, seven, she'd be like, she'd just get so frustrated with him, you know, so. I think he just, after a while, he started realizing that he could not, I mean, if the only thing he had on his list was to breathe, then he probably just would have stuck with no pain medication, I think. But because he wanted to talk to students, he wanted to do a Dharma transmission, he wanted to lay entrustments. He had this list of things he wanted to take care of. He was like, okay, so if I want to live for this a few months, I have to start dealing with this. But it was a constant conversation through those 92 days.

[50:20]

the least amount of pain medication and the most amount of mental clarity. That was the... This was this balance he was trying to reach. He was so insistent on mental clarity. And I think to a point where the pain was so high that often he didn't have mental clarity. Like, I think... I really actually believe that in that mix was delusion, you know? Like, he just... He wasn't... He just was stubborn. He just wanted his body to take care of itself. Can I share a quick story about someone else I was with who was dying very publicly, John King. He was managing his pain and he wanted to do stuff too. Because he had esophageal cancer, it got to the point where he could take nothing by mouth and he had a whatever, the G-tube, and taking liquid nourishment through a little stoma in his side.

[51:25]

And one of the things he wanted to do very much was to see the Sangha at San Quentin one last time. And Eileen Oba and I drove him to San Quentin, and he was pretty close to death. And just before we went in, we stopped in the town of San Quentin Village, pulled over, and he got this turkey baster thing out, and put a Starbucks double espresso shot in the turkey baster, and put that into himself, and mental clarity. That's what he did. It worked, so that's the tip for him. Go Starbucks. I want to keep teaching right up to the end. That works. He lied. a lot of us were here in Tassajara why this was all going on and I remember around that time I don't know if it was before or after stuff happened with Steve we did a memorial service for LMR and I just was wondering how those two experiences just if you had anything to say I left I left Tassajara in October of

[52:52]

2012 to take care of, to spend time with my parents. My mom had had a fall around that time and my mom was 90 and tired. She'd had six children. She talked about how tired she was and she was also super curious about what was going to happen next. We had lots of conversations about, so, what is reincarnation and what do you believe? And this is what I think I believe, but I... Anyway, it was so great. My mom had been a nurse for many years and the word that comes to mind through her, I think I would just call it winding down in a way, was graciousness. She was just... was just so sweet just sweet and while while I was home she she fell and broke her hip and it was really messy actually but but through that period and complications and things and

[54:21]

There was this, I was sitting on the bed with my mom, holding her in my arms, and she was vomiting blood. And I don't believe anything will ever be worse in my life in that moment. And I think that's why I could say to Elaine that I wasn't afraid. Because I'd already reached this point. Here I am, I can do this. So her, the experience of being with her prepared me for being with Stephen Lane. In the early part of October my mom had another fall and after many telephone calls with my sister she went to spend time with mom and dad in October.

[55:22]

And it was clear that mom was very close to death. So I had been with mom for months and she kind of lived beyond anybody's expectation of her living. And Steve's trajectory, although we didn't know a date seemed very final. And my mom was in really good hands where she was. And a part of me felt that it wasn't time to go back to be with my mom and my sister agreed. And then on the 7th of December, my sister called and she said, I think you need to go home.

[56:30]

So I got on a plane. I left, I told Stephen Lane that I needed to go home. I hadn't been talking to them about my mom at all. And when I drove to the city and Sagan actually took me. the airport and on the way to the airport I got a call saying my mom had died. The thing about mom was she had been married to my father for 60 years and that day she was in bed and dad decided he was going to take a nap so he curled up behind her. fell asleep which was something they had done for many years and when he woke up she was dead.

[57:43]

not sure she would have I think she picked her time I think she wanted to just be with him and she was and so I sometimes I think about that decision you know not being around but I just did what I did. And when I was there, a number of the nurses from the place where they were living came to talk to me and my mom was often cold and it was a habit for the, they weren't nurses exactly, the attendants, the caregivers.

[58:55]

they would get into bed with mom and hold her and have conversations with her. And one woman said that that morning she had had a little bit of time, so she went and climbed into bed with mom. And she said, Eleanor, are you in any pain? And my mom had this big smile on her face, I guess. And she said, no, dear, are you? So I am, yeah. I just think as far as dying goes, I have these two shining examples. I think to be upright and to be gracious are pretty good things to aspire to. It was a big fall. Lots going on. kind of coming off of what Greg was asking about in terms of the pain the experiences of death that I've had in my life the death itself has always been like the relief it's always been kind of like the positive side of it the dying and the pain and the

[60:27]

You know, there's a few members in my family, especially, that fought a lot, that really, really fought their death, and they suffered greatly. In one case for months, it was very, very difficult. And then finally, the death itself just seemed like such a blessing. And I feel like I don't have any fear of death at a near-death experience in 2011. I should have died. and I didn't, because I'm stupid reasoned. My luck. Yeah. But, yeah, just the cruelty of life and that dying, it's rather terrifying for me, and just the idea of that struggle. And I don't understand. I guess I just don't understand why it happens like that for so many people that death has to be, the dying part has to be so painful.

[61:37]

Yeah. You know, I think that Steve had pain. That was, I mean, pancreatic cancer. One of the doctors said, ooh, that's the nasty one. You know, it's painful, but I don't think he... this exactly he didn't suffer does that make sense because it was just like he just headed into this situation and every day he just kept heading into it and he carried us along with him and so I think it's the fighting against that that causes so much suffering in people rather than okay today this is what's going on You know, I want to believe that and the experiences that I've had in my life lead me to believe that that's true.

[62:39]

And that training for that moment is the most worthwhile thing that each of us can do. Please, Annie. Thank you for... for sharing this so candidly. And I feel like just for this hour or so, we two got a glimpse. The drawbridge was lowered for us by witnessing your story. And I really want to ask this question, and it may seem like it I was being like, should I ask this? I think it will sound stupid or something, but I really want to, so I'm going to. And I could have asked you later, just you and me, but I don't want to do that either, so I'm going to. What did you learn about love through this?

[63:39]

What did you learn through these two things? This concentrated year of loss and witnessing someone else's suffering in such an intimate way. I think it's possible that I used to hoard love more than I do now. I think that's a good word. Hoard it. I think I'm less inclined to do that now. I think I did start taking up Steve's practice, you know, of telling people I love them more, acknowledging that that's... It's more common than one thinks, you know.

[64:47]

I have this feeling that in my world anyway, there's... it's only really appropriate to love one person and that's the person that you you live with and have sex with and have children with and have a mortgage with and that loving beyond that is it's not it's not you don't really talk about it so much or something and I don't buy that anymore I think that love is way bigger than anything I can imagine and um It's not uncommon. In fact, love is an everyday thing that happens when a server serves you beautifully. When you get out of the plunge and you don't have to pull hair out of the drain. It's just like it's in the air. It's everywhere. Thanks for asking.

[65:51]

Please. I had a chance to sit with my best friend's mother because he was an only child. We shared her passing as if I were his sister. And she waited until he was out of the room. towards the end and the hospice nurse had told us that she died at home and the hospice nurse had told us that her reaching out with her arm on a regular basis and looking into the distance was a sign that she had maybe a couple of days and she continued to do that But she waited until her son was out of the room and then she took my hand and pulled me close to her and she said, I'm getting scared because I don't remember anything about my life or my name.

[66:59]

And it was just spontaneous for me to say to her, it's all right, you don't need that anymore. And she, thank God, she believed me. And she just said, all right, dear, and rolled over and took a nap. And she died like a day and a half later. And I remember holding her beautiful hand for a couple of days and just being completely mesmerized by this hand. She was 100, exactly 100 years old. And this 100-year-old hand was like, The bones were buttery yellow and the veins and the blood vessels were like red and blue. The skin was so thin you could see everything. It was the softest thing I ever touched except a baby. It was just one of the most beautiful experiences I can remember in my life.

[68:08]

She was so soft and so relaxed. after she let go of that fear and it was such a huge gift to me to be able to be there for her. And every time I think about the whole thing about death and the thing that you read at the very beginning before you started talking is that spontaneously saying to her she doesn't need to know anymore, she doesn't need this idea of an I. this idea of a self or an identity anymore. The question that I keep living with is we practice or chant or read all these things that are addressing another life beyond like being reborn as a fox or

[69:10]

you know, being reborn in some pure land or something. And if there's no actual I, how can that be? So I just live with that contradiction all the time. It's like a koan. Do you have any response? Please keep living the contradiction. While you were talking, I think one of the reasons I was moved so much is just because it helped me remember that I'm also going to die and that my family is. And I was thinking about the Buddha's five daily reflections, one of which is on our own death. And you had talked about the importance of preparing for our death.

[70:13]

And I was wondering, what that means to you? Is that actually reflecting on your own death? Is that your zazen? Could you talk about that a little bit? I think I, I mean, currently I think about death a lot. I think that's pretty logical given the deaths that have been close to me. in the last while. And I'm not, I don't think I think, oh, I have to prepare for my own death as much as, like right now when I wake up in the morning, I think I have the wish that in each moment I'll just show up. And before this talk, asked to be able to give a talk that Steve would like and if and if I didn't that I would accept that it didn't go the way I wanted and I and I actually think that that kind of attitude I'm looking to shape my mind in a certain way over time that allows me to to be there when I'm dying

[71:44]

no matter the circumstances and if I can do that I think then I can be there when other people are dying too which is my wish so it's not a specific like when I die it's like in this moment can I live and can I die and how is that Please tell me. Steve loved the blues and Dogen. Do you remember noticing anything that he read or listened to that was particularly important towards the end of there? He didn't sleep very much as I said and so often he would listen to music early on in October.

[72:50]

He listened to music on headphones in the evening. He had lots of music around him, lots of possibilities. His iPhone was loaded with a ton of music. And then, at a certain point, he couldn't manage the music anymore. It was just too much information. And he just said, I can't listen anymore. And he also had a request. He said... when I get close to dying, I would like it if you would read Dogen to me. I was like, great. And so we started reading Dogen. It was probably when he really slowed down from working actually, so like the latter part of December. You know, around the same time he stopped eating. And we were reading Doga and at first he really, he was very happy about it.

[73:56]

And then I remember him probably on the, like the day before he died or two days before he died, he leaned over and he said, too much. So really things, things just become extra. Just become extra. And he was good at identifying when that was happening and just not mourning it exactly. But it's like, okay, so too much coming in, not enough settling or something. So yeah, he did. He did love music. And also early on his family was around. The weekend his family was around and I think somebody brought out a guitar and everybody was totally amazed when he said, I can't do that. So there were significant events of just letting go of things that were important.

[75:01]

Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, Visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[75:24]

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