This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. You have no more than that. I'm going to save time for your beautiful work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you, everyone, for showing up. I wouldn't be here if you didn't show up. Thank you for walking me through this. It's been a long time since I've done it. Thank you, Jay. Friends of mine gave me this cover that's used traditionally here when we do a talk. Oh, isn't that perfect? It came out perfect. And I've got my little clock.

[01:00]

I want to leave time for there to be question-answer time. And I also prepared some things. And I will probably look at my notes more than I usually do, because along with the cancer diagnosis that was given to me last August, came short-term memory loss, long-term memory loss. Memory loss. And when I say to my two oncologists, I'm just the luckiest person in the world, one is never enough for me. Just like cookies, I always want more. So I'm probably going to wander about and won't get to say a lot of the things that I prepared, but I want to make sure that you have a chance to talk to me about your relationship with to what the medical field calls catastrophic diagnoses.

[02:06]

I call it a diagnosis. So when I got this cancer diagnosis, it was just about at the end of the time I was completing an online course that San Francisco Center asked me to offer. And... So I was about in the middle of that that I already knew that something was going on. I have breast cancer and I have lung cancer, and they're not associated. They're different masses. I knew something was going on, and our personality habits, I tell you, they're just going to be such a pain in the ass. I just want to be completely myself when I'm with you. I'll relax. Because I was determined that I was going to complete that course before I went to the doctor. Even though one of my teachers said, what are you, crazy? Promise me you're calling the doctor. So I called the doctor.

[03:07]

And I said, but I can until. So I have this little part of my habit pattern of I'm going to do things my way. Except cancer does things its way. And so it's been very helpful to me in letting go. of my regular personality habits, because I can't hold on to them. It isn't that I don't want those, but it's just not possible. Actually, my body tells me everything I need to do about now. Sometimes, as a memory loss, I ask the oncologist if this is dementia, and he kind of looks at me with this straight, actually deadpan face, and he says, You have cancer. These are the consequences of chemotherapy. Thank you very much. But I tell you, it doesn't feel much different than that sometimes when I can't remember from the beginning of a sentence to the end of the sentence what I meant to say.

[04:09]

I want to talk about this process for me, not just because I like to talk about myself, which I do, but also because... We are all of the nature to become ill, to grow old, and to die. We all know that intellectually. Something shifts as we realize we may be closer to death because it's not going to happen to me. I was so surprised because intellectually, as an aging person, I've almost always included this in my last Dharma talks, old age, sickness, and death. because it's been on my mind. But here I am with this cancer diagnosis. I don't think this is news to any of you, that you're all going to come to this place. It may not be cancer. But everybody is going to transition from this bunch of stuff that we call us, me, to something that we don't know.

[05:20]

And Having no mind can be very helpful, except when we want to know. So I made these notes to help jostle my memory. And I thought I was going to talk about living and dying, but I realized there's no separation. We're all living, and we're all dying. And we don't even know what dying is. We do know what living is. Those of us that are awake. Some of us that are not awake are just going through a lifetime by rote. We're not aware. We're not awake. And so people come to practices like we offer here and other contemplative practices to wake up to their life, to wake up to the choices that may be available. Some people just come for refuge. They come for refuge in the temple. They don't know that the refuge is inside. that coming to places like this are training to find your own refuge, to be your own teacher.

[06:29]

So this body has two cancers that are not associated with each other. Did I say that already? I said that already. All right. I'm going to need your help. First, David went through the whole thing with me, and then you coached me all this way, and I still need your help. So I'll just ask you for it when I need it. So because they're two different cancers, they're treated differently. And there was concern that a bronchoscopy I had about the middle of doing the online course, that they wanted to make sure they knew what that cancer was so they would know how to treat it. And the bronchoscopy did not give them enough of a sample to find out what it was. So then the next thing that was offered is what's called a CT-driven CAT scan.

[07:33]

I want to bring this up to you because it's about how when we practice for a long time, and I've been practicing, I don't know, 25, 35 years. You know, once you go past the 20-year, I guess you stop counting so much, except when people ask you for bios. So the way a CT-driven scan goes is you can't have anesthetic because you have to be awake enough so that you can follow the directions that the doctor is giving you and that a machine then starts to give you. And the directions are... I'll tell you my story about the CT scan. It's emphasized that the person on the table Follow these directions precisely, no matter what. And you cannot move. You're not anesthetized. You're given like a little la-la, something kind of like that nice sweet high we all used to get, and some of us still do, that kind of makes you feel a little pleasant, a little ogy, and, you know, I'll do whatever you want, like that.

[08:49]

So what they do is they insert a camera, inside your lung, along with a thing that I call a snippet, a thing that's going to take a piece or two when they find the mass. First they have the camera, they're looking for the mass, then they take a snippet or two. And here are the directions. And they give the directions over and over again. Breathing in. Breathing out. Stop breathing. See if you can follow along with this. Breathing in, breathing out, stop breathing. Breathing in, breathing out, stop breathing. And then came incredible

[09:53]

Unpleasant sensations that ordinarily I call pain. But I didn't call it pain. It was just still breathing in, breathing out, stop breathing. And then without going into all the elaboration of what happened, a lot of gunk started to come up and started choking me. And so they were very busy trying to help me not choke. And in the meantime, I'm told, don't move. So there are all these extraordinarily uncomfortable sensations. And the practice for years and years and years is right there for me. Don't move. Stay. You know, when I teach, I talk a lot about being with whatever the sensations are, Don't move. Stay. And that was there for me.

[10:56]

They didn't have to give me those instructions. I knew that something was going on that I didn't know if I would be able to take in another breath. What was interesting to me is there was no fear. That was astounding to me because most of my life has been fear-based. There was no fear. And I realized with each step of this process, I could simply stop breathing. And there was no fear. And it was such a release for me because my life has been driven by fear. And I realized that When there are certain conditions available, we breathe in and we breathe out. And when those conditions are no longer available, we stop breathing.

[12:03]

It's really, it's so simple. It was so freeing. This really very unpleasant experience was a road into freedom. I didn't know that then. I just, you know. I didn't have those thoughts then. It was afterwards when my oncologist said, sounds like it was torture. And I said, gee, yeah, it was. And I kept breathing. It's actually pretty simple to grok when you're in those kinds of situations. Because this is how it is for all of us. It isn't that... I'm the only one in this room that has a lot of practice or even beginning practice. This is how it is for all of us. We keep breathing until we don't. And when I say all of us, I mean the oaks, all the trees, the daisies, the coral reefs, cookies.

[13:11]

Those that know me know that cookies are... I still eat them. Don't tell my oncologist. And I still eat cookies. I mean, a person does have to do a few things on their own. And I've been surprised that no fear, no fear thoughts have come in relationship to what's happening in the body. Bottom line, I do fear pain. Emotional pain, physical pain. I've experienced pain. I've had a long-term illness. And I don't want any more of it, and yet none of us can escape pain in our life. It's just, you know, there's suffering in life. It isn't that we did anything wrong. It's not our fault. Life can be very dissatisfying at times. And how we relate to that either brings us a lot of pain that we try to avoid... We usually can't.

[14:11]

We often do it with all kinds of drugs and alcohol and storytelling and cookies and stuff like that. But it's a part of living. It isn't that anybody's done anything wrong. So right now, I think it's important for me to tell you again that along with this, The gift to me with this is that I don't have any fear. I mean, there is no fear. I knew when I came here I would be supported. And I want to talk about bodhisattvas and angels in just a moment. I'm living accompanied by equanimity and acceptance, a sense of lightness of being, fingernails breaking, Probably have to give up my fantasies of being a hand model.

[15:13]

A new normal of this short-term, long-term memory loss. No sense of time in the relative way that we usually think of it. And I got a free haircut. I went bald. Which meant, of course, I had to buy a whole bunch of hats. First, I wouldn't like to have to buy a whole bunch of hats. I have some energy some days, and then zap, zap, it's gone. And I'm learning that when people come to visit, I feel injected with energy for a while, and if I spend too much energy, whatever that means, I get so depleted that I'm in bed for a day or two with unpleasant consequences of chemo. Again, I don't need to elaborate about that. Every moment is a new one. Every moment is a new one, and I'm on a strong learning curve.

[16:15]

Having cancer is a full-time job, and it doesn't pay very well. I don't recommend it. By full-time job, I mean take this medicine at this time, this medicine at this time. Don't forget to take this. Take this on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I mean, it's like, that's the way it goes. At least that's the way it's going for me. A singer-songwriter friend of Prince wrote about a visit that she and some others visited him in around 2008. I do want to mention him because he's been on our minds so much, been on my mind so much. And I quote her. She said, I asked him how he had seemingly frozen time looking, singing, and dancing exactly the same time Without aging a bit, he smiled and said, I tell you my secret, I stopped counting. She wrote, I've always remembered that a sage piece of advice from someone to whom age was just a random number.

[17:22]

How iconic and tragic that he died so young. But he wasn't counting. He lived a life full of many more lifetimes than the average person will ever live and obviously will live on forever. Besides fear leaving me, I notice that I don't have questions about living on forever. I have questions about who will drive me to my next appointment. How much dust can I tolerate in my apartment? Giving up a clean apartment? Dust, dust, dust, everywhere. My relationship to dust, a friend laughed. When I told her, we laugh a lot about the, she's sick a lot, about the conundrums of sickness, aging, and death. I told her that I figured that the apartment dust was really ancestors. Trees, mountains, blades of grass, cookies.

[18:27]

And she requested that when I am dust, would I please settle some of that dust in her place. I promised her that when she looks at dust after I've become dust, that she can say highly. She says, okay, highly. That reminds me, I saw a picture recently that Peter Matheson drew that he had brushed. And let me see if I can describe it. On one side, there were like blades of grass or reeds. And this is just brush strokes. And then on the top... Oh, I can't do that. And then in the sky, there were three brush strokes of birds. And then over on the right side, there was something I can't quite remember, but it was sparse. And it was titled... My face before my parents were born.

[19:28]

And it's like that. A bunch of stuff comes together. We call it me. And then a bunch of stuff falls apart according to causes and conditions. And this that we've called me is in a different we don't know. And that excites me because I don't know. And this, what is this? Can be very exciting to discover. That's my study. What is this? What is the middle way in being as it is now? So one of the biggest treats of all is that I've discovered that we're surrounded by bodhisattvas and angels. And I'm not going to elaborate about the differences because it's not important to what I want to impart.

[20:35]

And not everybody in here is interested in the Buddhist language and many of us aren't interested in the language of angels. But for this purpose, I'm going to say they're really similar. And our senses, at least my senses, have become to trust that these bodhisattva angels are with us. We're surrounded by them all of the time. In Buddhism, we talk about calling on bodhisattvas, but what I've discovered is that I don't have to call on them. They're there. They're there. I go to the bank, and I feel I can be in the bank by the person who's volunteered to help me. I have a couple, three people from Shanti that help me. They're bodhisattvas. They're there, and I didn't even really have to ask for them. People told me, you know, ask for them, and they've been there for me completely. So I asked the volunteer, I think I'm feeling strong enough, there's only one person in line at the bank, and I'm feeling strong enough to be able to get to the, wait, I turn.

[21:46]

And she says, well, just call me, you know, I'll just be at the store across the way, and I'll come right away. And, you know, kind of like Avalokita, Shara, Kwani, and angels, just call me, I'll be there right away. And so I begin to get a little shaky, and I see there's a chair over there. I say, the man in front of me, would you mind bringing the chair and putting it behind you? Because I'm not feeling very well today, and it would be better if I could sit. So he gets a chair, and he puts it in front of him. I said, oh, no, no, I wasn't asking you to give up your place. I just need to sit. He says, well, this is where I put the chair. Okay. So I sit in the chair and then the teller calls and he says, she goes next. And he walks behind me and he puts the chair in front of the teller for me. I'm going to tear up. It was so beautiful. And so I say as loud as I can to everybody in the bank, this man gave up his place for me to sit.

[22:52]

I want everybody to know that. And I turned around and I bowed to him. And I said, I'm going to say this to you because it looks like your ancestry is Latin. So, muchas gracias, compadre. And he says, muchas gracias. And then I did my business. And then when it was time for me to go, He left his teller, came over, helped me up out of the chair. And I bowed to him and he bowed to me. I call this a Bodhisattva angel. They're all around. People offering me time to go to the store. Open Hand Food Project delivers food to me every day. I want to cross the street and I'm shaky and And somebody I don't even know offers me their arm. These are all Bodhisattva angels. They're all around us. I never used to believe they were all around us.

[23:57]

But I just want to tell you my experience is that they are. Someone I don't even know has heard I have cancer. And she calls me and she says, I hear you have cancer. I'm going to the market. Do you need anything? I'll bring it. I want to bring in a little more about angels. In the film, Michael, I decided I wanted to talk more about bodhisattvas and angels so that you can know, too, that they really are here for us. We just don't often see them because I don't think we... I don't know. I'm not going to speak about you. I didn't very much see them because I didn't really believe it was true. We talk about Buddha fields, Buddha fields, you know, surrounded by bodhisattvas. Well, we are. So I decided I wanted to talk about angels, and I didn't know so much about angels. And I wanted to include everybody that came. So I watched this film called Michael, played by John Travolta.

[25:00]

How many of you have seen that? Yeah, yeah. When I watched it a long time ago, whenever it was made, I thought, oh, this is a bunch of hogwash. It just wasn't Mike. kind of thing, but it's my kind of thing now. And just a synopsis, two reporters and an angel expert are sent by their boss to check out an old kook who claims she has an angel living with her. Sure enough, the guy's got wings, but he's also into smoking and drinking and womanizing. One of the characters in the movie asks Michael why angels don't solve the problems of the world. Michael responds, because there are too many of them. He continues, you can't change the nature of the world. Angels take care of small miracles, and only so many. Some angels are so smart. They use them up in stupid ways.

[26:05]

I don't like to criticize other angels. Remember what John and Paul said. Another asked, the apostles? No. I listened to my words and wonder if the, oh, no. The Beatles. All you need is love. Da-da-da-da-da. You gotta learn to laugh. That's the road to true love. You gotta learn to laugh. Theoretically, I tell myself and others I prefer to be living. And then some days when physical pain is harsh, consequences of treatment difficult, I listen to my words and I wonder if the words are theoretical rather than based in reality. And I ask, what is the middle way? I'm going to end with this poem by Mary Oliver because I just adore her and it seems appropriate and then there'll be time for questions and answers.

[27:14]

This is titled A Summer Day. Some of you are familiar with it. 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, 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 wings 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. Tell me, what else should I have done?

[28:19]

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? Not bad. I wanted to end at 8.15 and it's about 8.20-ish. Good job. So I'm open to any questions. I'm open to silence. You can ask me anything you want. I would like to be available to you in any way I can be. Yeah, Mimi. I hope it's helpful to people.

[29:23]

Yeah, Chris. I'm a bodhisattva becoming. I don't know that you ever, I don't know, do you ever become a bodhisattva? I aspire to being a bodhisattva. That's my aspiration. What do you think? Are you a bodhisattva? No, you definitely do not. I retract the question. Is there a bodhisattva in the room that would like to answer this? Ah, of course. Thank you. Yes, refresh me your name. Raven. great question.

[31:01]

Did everybody hear her question? Yes? Okay. So the gist of the question is how do I relate to the pain that comes? So I'm very fortunate. I didn't know how fortunate I was. I've had fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue for over 30 years. So I've had a lot of practice with facing pain. And And I also have a lot of practice of paying attention to what's happening in the moment and moving from the idea that the sensations in the body are pain. They're sensations. And one of the ways I work with this, relate to this in myself, is first I ask where silence is. That's a really great question for me. Because the moment I ask where is silence now, because I've had a long practice, silence shows itself to me.

[32:06]

I don't have to make therapy silence. We can't really make therapy silence. It's a fruit of a practice of asking, where is silence now? How do I relate to this? And then I start paying attention to the sensations. I let go of the word pain. Because pain means so many different things, and it's really made up of a bunch of sensations. And I... Look to see if there's sensations anywhere else in the body that need my attention. Like, so I'm noticing these sensations in my right knee. They're very unpleasant. What's going on in my left toe? What's going on in my right shoulder? What's happening with the sensations in the knee? Oh, they've shifted. So I see that everything changes. When I stay with just this that I'm calling pain in the knee, there's contraction around it. And it just seems to stay for a long time.

[33:09]

I don't know whatever that means, long time. But when I ask for silence to come, how am I going to relate to this? And move around to seeing what else is going on in this bunch of stuff. Because that's, you know, all it really is. It finds its own way out. I never know how long that's going to take. It's not my business. I pay attention to the body quite a lot for a long time because we lie to ourselves. You all know that. You tell yourself how great you are because you're feeling not so great. And you know that kind of stuff and the most wonderful thing in the world, even though we are. But sometimes we're not. We just took a pencil without asking, you know, stuff. But when we can stay with all of that and relate to what really is, we find that everything comes from the body. And then the thoughts come to explain to us what's going on in the body.

[34:14]

We need thinking. Sometimes we overthink things and we miss the point. The body tells us everything we need to know. Everything. Does that answer you sufficiently? Hi. I couldn't hear you. How is it? Well, there's a level of excitement. I feel excited to be here. I feel happy to be with friends that you all showed up. I mean, my God, what would happen if a person comes to do a Dharma talk and nobody comes? I guess I would talk to myself. So I'm happy to be here. And I'm happy to see that you're here too.

[35:14]

Some new faces. Some faces that look familiar. I don't know why. Like that. Some new faces. Yeah. I think that covers it for me. Thank you for the question. Thank you. Great question. I don't know that I can answer you. I tell you, Did everybody hear his question? First he wished me peace. Thank you. And then the question, the gist of the question is, where did we come from and where are we going?

[36:20]

Everything that has preceded me is all right here. Everything. Everything. It's in all of us. There's no... At least this is my point of view. There's no separation between ancestors and trees and mountains and buildings that have crumbled and tyrannosauruses. And it's all floating in the same... just floating in process, in process. And then when all the conditions that came together that made this bunch of stuff, the causes and conditions that made this bunch of stuff, starts to fall away. I'm 78. About time it's starting to fall away.

[37:28]

And as it falls away, it starts to... take different form. I don't know what the form is. I do know that I really relate to dust in a different way than I did. Like now I really appreciate dust because I'm going to be dust, I think. I don't know. And then I'm going to be... I said to somebody, my ashes, I want them to fill a pothole in San Francisco. But that... Do some good. But instead I bought a bio-urn. You know what those are? Yeah, that you can order these things that they have dirt. You can order the dirt in them and your ashes can be put in there. And then you order the kind of seed you want to have put in there. And then you can have it planted wherever you want. I found out it can be planted anywhere in the United States. So then I'll become, my ashes will nurture a tree.

[38:31]

Actually, I ordered a ginkgo seed. Surprising. And maybe it won't. Maybe it'll fall apart before it flowers. But then, and I don't know, because everything is in process together, always changing, always changing. So there's no place. There's no time. There's no place that we can point to and say, this is it. Because that's not reality. That's my point of view. Is that sufficient answer? Thank you. You agree with me. Oh, you're my best friend. I love to hear that. What's your name? Taiki? Daiki? Daiki. I'm going to give up and I'll practice later. Is that all right with you? Because your language and my language are different and it's hard for me.

[39:34]

Thank you. Your English is very good. Thank you. Can you speak up a bit so everyone can hear? You do. I do. It's those thoughts saying, I know what's going to happen.

[40:34]

And then another thought says, no, you don't. I don't really know that I'm going to die. Actually, Let me see if I can encapsulate this. How is it for me living when I know I'm going to be dying? Is that right? Is that the essence? I don't know that I'm going to be dying because I'm living. I've never died. I don't know what dying is like. I have no idea. It could be a really fabulous thing to do. But... Oh, yay, I've been missing out on this all this time. I'm clinging to life. Give me a break. Dying is great. Come on in. But they're really... What I've discovered for myself is that that's a false notion, living and dying.

[41:37]

It's a made-up notion because everything is in process. So I used to think of living and living slash dying, but that's fallen away for me because... now, I'm living. I don't know what's coming next. I could live longer than everybody in this room. I have no idea. I wish you all a long life, by the way. But I don't have any fear because I've never died, so what is there to be afraid of? I mean, that's how I see it. And I also know there's no No place where we just, in this moment, this is, I'm right here, right now, and I'm living. Right now, I'm right here. I'm in this time, relative time, in this place, relative place, gone.

[42:43]

Right now, this time, relative time, Because there really isn't. We make up time, you know. This time? This place? What? Each as it comes. Until the man on the machine says, breathing in, breathing out. Stop breathing. Did that answer your question? May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:44]

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