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. Believe me. My friend died. My mentor, my colleague. my Dharma mother, my Dharma sister, my teacher, my preceptor, my friend. Zen K, total joy, Blanche Hartman. And I'm not going to tell you the story of her life. I'm going to try to... talk for about 20 minutes, because I asked some senior people who knew her to also say something about her.

[01:08]

So you can find out about her life. You probably could Google her these days. You could take a look at her book. 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 Dharma transmission from Soja Nell Weissman. That's why she's my Dharma sister. And she was who she was, and that's why she's my Dharma mother. 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 it was the book was edited and organized by her student Zenju Earthland Manual and Zenju did it very fast because she wanted it to be out before Blanche died and it was and Blanche was very

[02:27]

happy that 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 fuss and 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.

[03:32]

This is leaving behind all your preferences, all of your ideas and notions and schemes. Just meeting life as it is. That's inconceivable joy. So what an I love about her. do I still love about her? She liked to tell stories. If you did doks 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.

[04:39]

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 in Dobson, and she came in. She wasn't laughing, but I can't help but laugh. When she told the story, she left. She walks in and says, I think I'm really beginning to get this as I said, and I think I understand it. He took a look at her. He took his stick and he smacked it down on the zazen, 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.

[05:42]

Zazen does zazen. He said, Yes, sir. 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 could 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.

[06:47]

There's 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 fraud you are. 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.

[07:58]

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. So people make dinner for her. But just that being there, she was just there, Abbot said no, but she became Abbot 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 Abbot in 2006. And she and her husband, Lou, both were just... 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.

[09:07]

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 had been afraid of her for a long time, so I don't know. One thing I remember, though, my parents both died in 1989, just a few months apart, and then that summer I did a residential practice period at Green Gulch, and she took me out to the big bell there, so it's called an Ovancho.

[10:19]

This is a Densho, but the Ovancho was, what, six, eight times? bigger than the big bell out here. Does that sound about right to Green Gulchus? 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? 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. And ringing that bell, sounding that bell is very powerful. 108 times, probably on a Sunday afternoon after everything quiets down.

[11:24]

I don't remember. Her major devotion was to sewing. She may very well have helped some of you sew your rock suits. This is a rock suit. For those of you who don't know, the short smaller version of Buddha's robe, and I'm wearing an okesa. 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 note from a sewing teacher of a woman named Joshinsan. 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.

[12:30]

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. And 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. And that's what she did. So she was, you know, 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.

[13:33]

And she certainly did. And she learned about it and actually sewing, putting together a raksu was more of an engineering event than a sewing event. And she became very good at it. And she was tremendously, deeply touched by Joshin-san's devotion to sewing Buddha's robe. And she told about, Joshin-san would stay up late at night, with the kerosene lamps, finishing raksus that people had abandoned, or helping people to finish them up in time for their ceremony of taking the precepts. And when she questioned Joshin San about it, like, why are you doing this when somebody abandoned it? They're gone. They're not going to ever wear that. And Joshin San said, you don't leave Buddha's rope. And that really struck home to Blanche's heart, and she became very, very much Joshin-san's disciple.

[14:44]

And when she went to visit Joshin-san's grave at Antaiji Temple in Japan, which is the 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 student. She loved sewing. If you ever slept with her, you knew that. The sewing room was a place of joy. A little too much talking, but great joy and great welcoming. Anybody who was sewing could just drop in on a Tuesday night, and she'd help you. You could drop in any old hobby, find her somewhere in the hallway, 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.

[15:56]

Then it was sewing, so 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 was 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... tell the work leader, 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,

[16:59]

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. I see I have some company. It was just not okay to blame somebody else, no matter what, even if they had maybe done wrong or something. She wanted me to look at my part in it.

[18:01]

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 just read and she wouldn't share blanks. 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.

[19:07]

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 Malta Sikh ceremony and became abbess at Clearwater, my temple at Vallejo, she was the person that gave me 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, and again that same look of devotion and sincerity, utter seriousness, but also utter love.

[20:16]

And finally, these last couple of years after she fell, she'd been having a hard time. She'd been an assistant 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. Tuesday I went to see her. and spend some time with her. And I'm not entirely sure she knew who I was. 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. 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. So I see Dale. Do you want to share some memories of her, Mr. Jisha?

[21:24]

I got to meet Blanche's Jisha in the late 90s. She led the practice period and moved to 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 like a completely devoted Zen student. She was the first person I had to have sung with here my first summer. She came in and I sat down across from her and I just felt this total love and I knew she didn't know who I was at all. I was just like one of a long line of Zen students, right? She just loved me so much.

[22:26]

Really sweet. And 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 meet Blanche, you're just like, oh, this is it. She was extraordinary. So down to earth. There's certain phrases that never anybody else says them. I have to hear Blanche saying, just this is it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he did get through to her, I think. And you remind me, when I was going to leave, when you come here, you sit five days straight. It's called tangario. And so I asked her for advice when I was coming. I said, well, when do you have any, like, helpful hints or anything? And she said, she said, she wasn't laughing, but I can't help.

[23:29]

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 from him. And you felt that from her, and I understood that that was her transmission from her teacher. 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, it's not the family treasure.

[24:35]

Let it flow forth from within, covering how it is there. in the sense of that kind of boundless little love. And the Zazen piece, the devotion to Zazen. She loved the Anjaji 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, 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. And she said, what does being sick have to do with doing Zazen? What better thing to do when you're sick than to Zazen? You remind me of another story. She was here and she was...

[25:35]

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 Zendo cop, not as somebody to encourage them. And so the Taken knocks on her door, and she says something like, I'm not coming, and go away. And the Taken said, don't you want some encouragement? And that just got right to her heart. So she, I think she got up and went to Zaza. But that... I mean, that she took in, the point is to encourage people, you know, not to smack them around.

[26:41]

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... San Francisco 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 as a practice. You could get her to sing the Internationale if you started that. But she also said that she thought Marx didn't quite account for greed, hate, and delusion. One, two.

[27:45]

I was sent, San Francisco was then sent her from Texas by way of Kosho, and I was very new about five years ago, and I was waiting in the foyer for Kosho, 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 Kosho's 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, previous abbess, would do something like that. And, yeah, I immediately felt like her grandson. And you are her grandson. The greeting was just like that. So I was Kosho's student and Kosho's student. And so Kosho's Blanche's student. And I was living at City Center, and Kosho was down here.

[28:45]

So Blanche was kind of keeping an eye on me while I was at 60. And I was 22, and I think it was the wildest point in my life was when I was living at City Center. The most I partied was when I lived at City Center. 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 to the bottom of the stairs one day. Like literally, like she caught, she grabbed my forearm and like kind of squeezed. 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 Tassahara or anywhere. And then apparently she told Lou that this happened.

[29:49]

And Lou said, you can't 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 letters 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? But I remember when we got, you know, there's that moment in the morning after breakfast when you get in the Suburbans out in Lily Alley when everybody's going down the 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...

[30:55]

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. You put the alarm clock on the other side of your mic. When I was Chisseau, I had two alarm clocks because 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. 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.

[32:04]

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 the slide 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 a Statue of Liberty. And there are pictures of this somewhere. I know, because I wasn't here, but I seen it. But she was famous or is, 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.

[33:06]

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? I'm going to miss her terribly. She was 90 years old.

[34:08]

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 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.

[35:08]

And I'll miss her. 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.

[35:36]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_89.96