Today is Sunday, March 31 2024. And this teisho is going to be about living and dying. This is a topic that each of us has a great deal of experience with. We're all living beings. We each have a birthday, the day that marks when this life began. And there's a true tradition of annually celebrating it, which helps to remind us that time is passing. As if we need a reminder that we're getting older. Moment by moment. The changing condition of our body says it all. One day, sooner or later, we're going to die. Roshi often says the only thing that is certain in life is that we're going to die. That which is uncertain is the timing.
Will my next breath be my last
and yet, death is a topic that a lot of people try to avoid. It can make us uncomfortable. Some feels so much anxiety about it that they can't even bring themselves to consider. Do Not Resuscitate order or to plan a Living Will an advanced directive that spells out the medical interventions that you would want and that which you would not want to be used in order to keep you alive. Along with instructions about pain management and organ donation etc. Also, what are your wishes for your deceased body? There's lots of options. Burial above ground or below cremation, composting scattering of ashes or composted remains perhaps in a garden or at sea donating one's body to science. And depending on your resources nowadays, you can actually launch your ashes into space or have them turned into a gemstone
Currently, there's a task force at the center that's getting very close to finalizing the design for the memorial path at Chapin Mill which will include a cobblestone wall that fits into the natural landscape there. There will be places for both storing and scattering human cremains and compost. So with the exception of Roshi Kapleau, who is the center's founder, who is buried in a casket on the crest of a hill at Chan been male below ground, there won't be the option of a conventional burial. This memorial path as we're calling it is a big undertaking. There's a lot of details to work out. But we know from conducting a Sangha survey, that there's a deep desire for the center to create and maintain a place to visit our ancestors to visit those who walk the path with us. And for the sake of your loved ones, it can make a huge difference to work out ahead of time. What your wishes are. So why do so many people avoid talking about and planning for the end of their life? For one, we might think it's not relevant. I'm too young. Well, it's true. Statistically, you're less likely to die, perhaps at a younger age, it's certainly not a given. The timing is uncertain. And then, in putting it off, you might also say to yourself, well, you know, I trust my family to make the right decisions, if I'm unable to. And that only puts the burden on somebody else to decide. And it could get quite complicated. For example, what if your family members disagree on whether or not you'd want life support in the form of a ventilator or feeding tube, let's say whatever the reasons we might have for avoiding the subject, it still doesn't change the fact that we're going to die.
And what lies beneath those avoiding avoidance tactics, fear fear of death, fear of the loss of self
fear of the unknown.
And that's the fundamental human condition. Human beings, as far as I know, are the only living beings that are aware of their own mortality. Having this ability to think about the past and the future, and to use language, to communicate our thoughts and feelings to others, we grapple with the meaning of life and death. So our awareness of our own mortality is tied to the notion of there being a separate self, a me and others duality
but when it comes to communication, about death, how we talk about it, the public discourse that's circulating, it actually varies from culture to culture. For example, the the J of the dead. Dia de los Muertos is an annual tradition that dates back 1000s of years. It takes place on November 1 And second, All Saints and All Souls Day, respectively. And it's believed that the deceased return to visit the living and there are all these rituals that are meant to guide the deceased back to the homes of the Living back to their loved ones who are still alive and to help the deceased people to experience that which they had when they were alive. It's widely celebrated in in Mexico. And there are these elaborate altars that are created that evoke all of the senses. The altars include photos of loved ones, their favorite food and beverages, flowers, incense toys, colorful skull figures, as well, some made of sugar. I'm reminded that when my husband Tom and I got married, we had Mexican skull figurines Day of the Dead figurines on our wedding cake. It was a bride and a groom. And they were very kind of playful looking. And we we thought it was wonderful. We found it very meaningful for our Buddhist sweating. But we learned later on, after the fact that some of our family members were freaked out about it. Oh, well. Another indigenous tradition in Mexico is for family members to visit the graves of their deceased loved ones and clean them clean the graves, decorate them with flowers and candles and other offerings. And the atmosphere isn't somber, it's celebratory. It's joyous. So in the spirit of uniting the alive and the dead.
And, you know, this is in contrast with North American and Western European attitudes about death. The poet Octavio Paz put it this way, he said, the word death is not pronounced in New York, Paris, or in London, because it burns the lips. The Mexican in contrast, is familiar with death, jokes about it. caresses it sleeps with it celebrates it. It is one of his favorite toys, and his most steadfast love.
And that's very telling to look at other other cultures, because we can see them that to some extent, our anxieties and fears of death, to some degree, are a product of social and cultural conditioning. We're taught that life is good, death is bad. There's even a clothing company that sells graphic shirts and hats and other accessories. That has a slogan, life is good. And it's trademarked and there's a little stick figurine with a big smile on its face, life is good. And we we can actually see that as a form of toxic positivity as it's called by psychologists. Toxic positivity is a social phenomenon where people are made to feel pressured to stay upbeat. Think positive, no matter how difficult ones circumstances are. So what that which we perceive to be negative emotions like anxiety, anger, sadness, or just hardship in general. They're all bad. Don't worry be happy. because I say so. Of course, this is just a denial of things as they are in in actuality, Life and death are neither good nor bad. Life and death just are just that they are. So how can we more commonly calmly and openly look at our living and dying? Look at the nature of our own impermanence.
To get into this topic further, I'm going to turn to Roshi Kapleau. His book, the Zen of living and dying, a practical and spiritual guide, the earlier edition which was called the wheel of life and death. And by the way, the newer title the Zen of living and dying, is also the name of one of our most popular and longest running Sangha programs at the center. It was started by Wayman, Kuba, who's a resident priest at Chapin Mill. I think he started it something like 10 to 15 years ago. And recently, this past week, we got news that Wayman was diagnosed with a life threatening condition
but, you know, not to diminish the difficulty, what he's going through he and his family you can say that we all have a life threatening condition as being alive, to be a living being to have a life threatening condition. Again, we just don't know the timing of our death.
So I'm gonna read a few excerpts from the first chapter of Roshi Kapleau, this book, and I'll also draw in some other sources. Kapleau Roshi begins by describing the ordinary the typical understanding of life and death. He says, What is life? What is death? To the casual observer, the answers may seem obvious. When the heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs breathe, the brain perceives, that is life. When one eats and sleeps, works, makes love feels pain and joy. One is alive. Death of course, is that condition in which there is a permanent cessation of all the vital functions, respiration ceases, the heart stops speeding, the brain no longer reacts to stimuli, and the vital tissues have degenerated beyond any function. In short, one can no longer experience think or feel. With death, one becomes immobile. A corpse if buried, fit only for worms to feed on. If cremated, a puff of smoke, then ashes. There is nothing before birth. Nothing after death
we're so conditioned to believe that birth is a beginning and death is an end Kapleau Roshi goes on to recount the story of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo makes the mistake of thinking that Juliet is dead. His love, Juliet is dead, when actually she was in a deep sleep. And so he kills himself because he can't live without her. But then Juliet wakes up, only to find Romeo dead. And then she kills herself. And Kapleau Roshi refers to this as the Romeo error, a confusion about the nature of life and death. Again, it's a distinctly human predicament. Other animals don't have mental constructs of death, although some do show signs of grief and loss, when a member of the pack or a member of the pod has died. And we see that in the case of elephants, and whales, that that tend, they tend to the deceased body, they stay with it. So the loss, we social animals experience is tangible. It's real, it hurts.
There's a short story about grief that comes out of Tibetan Buddhism. And it's included in the book, stories of the Spirit stories of the heart, which is edited by Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield.
This is the story. The great Tibetan teacher Marpa lived on a farm with his family 1000 years ago in Tibet. On the farm, there also lived many monks who came to study with this great teacher. One day Maurepas oldest son was killed. Marpa was grieving deeply. When one of the monks came to him and said, I don't understand. You teach us that all is an illusion. Yet you are crying? If all is an illusion, then why do you grieve so deeply? The master Marpa replied. Indeed, everything is an illusion. And the death of a child is the greatest of these illusions.
So basically, this monk was asking his teacher if you're so enlightened, how could you be grieving the loss of your son, as if can show results in one becoming completely detached and devoid of feelings.
What this monk didn't understand is that the absolute and relative are not to just as birth and death are not to. And if we cling, if we cling to either one of them, we're not seeing the whole of it.
And then, back to Roshi Kapleau. Is book skipping ahead. He says, the evidence of biology, psychology and anthropology points toward the conclusion that life and death exist alongside each other in a constantly changing dynamic relationship. Death then does not extinguish the flame of life. It merely He changes its form and direction. Put another way, death is not a period, but a comma in the story of life, not a period, but a comma, an aunt, or a but
the events as we refer that we refer to, as life and death don't represent a fixed event, a fixed beginning and a fixed end. But they're part of an ongoing cycle. They're a process. They're spokes on a wheel.
You can see it as like waves in the ocean. Water swells and rises up. And then it breaks. It crashes and disperses. The form of the wave appears and then it disappears. But it's all water. It's all the same water, and it's continuous the cycle repeats.
And as the chapter continues Roshi Kapleau comments on a koan from the Blue Cliff Record, case 55, Togo's I won't say which centers on this this interplay between life and death. One day, Zen master dogo, accompanied by his disciples Zen again, when to offer his condolences to a bereaved family in the neighborhood of his temple. to happen tapping the coffin, the the type, the disciple, Zen again, said to his teacher, alive or dead. jogo said, I won't say alive. I won't say dead. Then Zen gun asks, why won't you say? I won't say I won't say. And then on the way back to the temple, another exchange took place. Zen Gan said to dogo teacher, if you don't tell me, I'll hate you. And dogo replied, strike me if you wish. But I won't say and then sang in struck his teacher can only imagine the state of desperation he was in the deep questioning in that moment to go as far as to hit his teacher.
Later, after dogo had passed away zeggen then went to Seki. So who was Togo's successor? And recounted the whole episode? And psyche so said, I won't say alive, and I won't say dead. And it was upon those words that zeggen had a deep realization in his commentary on this koan, this is what Roshi Kapleau says. Sooner or later, all of us if we are to have true contentment must face and resolve the same perplexity, not philosophically, but existentially. Why am I on this earth? Where did I come from? When I physically pass away, what happens to the energy force I call myself? Do I face total extinction? or will I survive in some form? Or other? Is there a soul substance independent of my body that will migrate and reimburse body itself in a form commensurate with my thoughts and deeds in this life? Or is there perhaps some kind of afterlife? Either material or bodyless? In an unknown realm? In short, do I go into non being, or a new being?
This is the greatest mystery what happens when we die? Unless we have a memory of our previous births and deaths, we don't know. And even when our body becomes lifeless, a corpse can we say for certain that life is extinguished? Our bodies consist of something like 75% water. Where does that water go? Where does that energy go? And then there's the trillions of microbes inside us and on our skin, where do they go?
There is more to this mystery than the question of what happens when we die. Roshi Kapleau says, we can speak of two kinds of birth and death, momentary and regular, momentary birth and death, that is momentary creation and destruction takes place every millionth of a second or at some such phenomenal speed, as old cells die and new ones come into being. So, we can say that a new self is constantly being worn. And that a man of 60 is not the same as yet not different from the person he was at 30 or at 10. Living is thus dying and dying living. In fact, with every inhalation we are being reborn and with each exhalation We are dying
another way to to put it is that each inhalation is its own lifetime. And the same with each exhalation a lifetime in itself
nothing is fixed. There there's no fixed self
the Daraa that is sitting here and talking right now. Is not the one from a moment ago
How could that be? Still sitting here? So hard for us to fathom.
We're so conditioned to want to put everything in a neat box to employ our rational thinking mind. There is me over here. You over there. There's this and that there's a beginning and an end
But those mental constructs miss the mark. My father died several months ago, at the age of 92. He had been in the end stage of dementia for quite some time. So it was clear that the father that had died that morning in November was not the same father that I knew when I was a child, nor as an adult that father left a long time ago had left before his physical body had died. In the, in his final months final year, maybe I couldn't have an ordinary conversation with him, he would have hallucinations. And he didn't recognize me. Occasionally he would. But most for the most part, he didn't recognize me as his daughter. So the by the time that his his physical death had come, there was already a great deal of mourning that happened.
It had unfolded gradually over time, over the years since he had a stroke. So his body had remained alive, but physically. Yeah, he was recognizable, as my person as my father, this person is my father. And yet at the same time, who was he
our tendency is to view, life and death as as these discrete events again, putting them in a neat box. But actually there are process. And when we deny or refuse to face our death, we're denying our life. At the same time. When we employ all those avoidance and escape tactics, all those distractions we're denying life, the life that we're living right now, just as it is not the life in the limited sense of there being a self with an identity, but in the larger sense of a whole of life. The whole of life is beyond words. Beyond duality, there are no borders or edges, there is nothing that that contains it. Nothing that limits it.
And this gets to the heart of why we practice Zen. Through practice, we're learning how to live are dying, to be one with change. To see each moment as a new one. Each moment is a beginning and an ending. So we also learn, learn how to die in our living, meaning to let go to let go of our ideas about the past, future, even ideas about the present, to let go of it all. To just directly experience this
to live fully each in breath and each out breath
going to close with reading a poem from the book titled Japanese death poems says wonderful collection of Haiku verses that that conveys the imminence an ever presence of death and this particular haiku is from COEs on a Chico. For some context, COEs on died in the year 1360 At the age of 77. It said that a few days before his death, he called his pupils together and ordered them to bury him without a ceremony. He also for forbade them to hold any memorial services. He reportedly wrote this poem on the morning of his death and this is what he wrote before laying down his brush and dying sitting upright
empty handed I entered the world barefoot I leave it my coming my going to simple happenings that got entangled.
