This is March 25 2024. And at the suggestion of some Sangha members I'll be sharing their the events of the last two or three weeks regarding hit outro Roshi. I'll just dive in about six weeks ago, Geraldo called me to report quite a severe weight loss. And, and then, a little later, he wrote back and he said that tests had revealed that he had lymphoma turned out to be a very late diagnosis. I heard down there that he was, he may have had it for many months, without knowing it. And then, from there, he had to wait and wait. It was quite baffling. We got all kinds of mixed reports from the physicians and nurses down there. From various Sangha members of Casa Zen, his Sangha. It was quite confusing, actually, at what point at one point I started so serious that I, I was just on the verge of booking a flight down there. And, and then came the report that a physician had seen him Zoll in Mexico, of course, physician had seen him and said, yes, he's very frail, but he's not in critical condition. And so I postponed my trip, I really was aiming to be there, as close as possible to his death, whether it was this year or 10 years from now. It's a great privilege, as I'm sure some of you know, a great privilege to be at someone's bedside as they're dying. And now, there's a time once when I was in Rochester, when a former Sangha member who was very active with the center, many, many years ago, 50 years ago, I got word that he was near death at strong hospital. And his wife asked if I could go there, and and I did that one right over there. And he was indeed in critical condition. And I did what I heard was, the thing to do was chant the Prajnaparamita, sort of the, the fundamental sutra, in examine you, perhaps in Buddhism generally. And I was chanting loudly in his ear, because that's often necessary for the dying person to hear. And I chatted and chatted and chatted, I was getting tired. And then his wife, who was standing at his side said that he died. But she also said that he died with a smile
now, whether whether I'm making too much of that, I don't know. But it still feels like a privilege to be with someone as they're dying. What event of one's life? My life, anyone's life could be more important than that moment. I hadn't been able to be at Roshi Kapleau side when he drew his last breath. I was in Germany giving sesshin but I heard that it was very, very moving. That it was so gentle that the people there this is in the back garden of the Zen Center on a park. The people who were there at his side said they couldn't even tell when he had drawn his last breath. That's how peaceful it was. Anyway, I knew that I knew that with Corrado, I really could only go to Mexico once. And so I put off my trip until things turned even worse. And they did
on the morning of March 15, during the morning zoom sitting, I got word from his daughter that he had died just then with her brother in law, his son at his at his side. And then I just felt I had to get there right away, for no other reason, if for no other reason than to help out with all the arrangements, the funeral and so forth. So I was able to get off like that very day, the same day he died and get down there. It was quite a shock. I just wasn't thinking you'd be that fast, that sudden. And, for the first time in decades, when I arrived in the Mexico City Airport, it was not a lardo, who met me.
Let me say a few things about Geraldo and his family. He and I go way back. We had some kind of karmic affinity, as we say, in Buddhism. Not to mention just himself having strong karmic affinity. Long, long ago, his, his wife at the time, his wife had found her way to the Rochester Zen Center, this is the late 70s, I think. And and she got involved with the sesshin head monitor at the time. Just to make this brief. It seemed that basically, they had an affair. And the the monitor stole collaterals wife away from him. It's maybe a little too simple. But yeah, basically. And I thought at the time of what, how many lifetimes will it take for Geraldo? He was not a Sangha member, then how long? How many lifetimes? Will it take her husband to get over that and find his way to the Dharma? Well, to my amazement, he, it was the opposite. He just plunged in. He's now they're divorced. He plunged into practice of the center with great devotion, right order and became an important member of the Sangha down there, Casa Zen, and grew quite close to Roshi capital and to me, the spoke good English, that wasn't to be taken for granted down there. And over the years, this is now starting in the late 70s. Over the years, he and I became quite close. There came a time in 1986 where I decided I wanted to learn Spanish, I was already growing closer to the Sangha there. I had been making trips to Mexico City from the village where Roshi Kapleau and Polly and I were staying working on his books. I would drive over the mountains and and just conduct sittings there. And
as time went on, and I went I wanted to learn Spanish and Roshi Kapleau gave me a strong endorsement to do that. In no doubt thinking that okay, I have some future, helping out the Mexican Sangha and it was it was it six weeks intensive Spanish course in Cuernavaca. Cuernavaca is about an hour south of Mexico City and you're famous I've learned for its language schools, Spanish especially, and, and had added Noah and his family had a, a compound there, quite a sizable property of several buildings. They'd had it for a long time. I guess ever since his parents moved there, they moved to Mexico to flee McCarthyism. And out of those said in the United States, his mother was American from Pennsylvania, and his father was from Spain. And here's something else had already told me. His parents were friends with the family of David Brooks, The New York Times columnist, had always said he remembered the Brooks family visiting them there and the family property. Remember little Davey Brooks scampering around the property in his shorts and and over time, templates, lawn, the village where Roshi Kapleau and I were Polly were staying. It was just 20 minutes 25 minutes from the galley, family property and Cuernavaca and I know, when I was mother became quite fond of Roshi Kapleau. And they would talk about yoga, they both did yoga. I heard from one of them that they used to have little heads, headstand contests, who could be who could stay in headstand longest longer. I visited the compound there when Harada his mother was dying. And over the years, got to know had our son and daughter member Lara going out free pretty frequently taking his son Danielle out to the two of them to fly a radio controlled planes. And when you know, Daniel became an engineer, an aerospace engineer. He was hired right out of University of Michigan to work at Boeing. Pretty high place position in Boeing. And then before all these problems with Boeing aircraft began, he was hired. Or maybe in the middle of those problems. He was hired a couple of years ago to work for Blue Origin. That's the Jeff Bezos company. And now, Danielle told me last week that he's working on the lunar landing craft and the moon. All that you can trace back to those those trips out to the out to the field with his father flying planes. Cassandra, the daughter became extremely successful in karate. She won tournaments all over the place I think once she won them Mexican championship. Danielle Danielle lives in Seattle there. And Cassandra now lives in Cambodia. They both rushed rushed to Mexico as I said, Danielle was with his father as he died. And Cassandra was not too far behind. I used to go during those six weeks I was taking Spanish I would be I'd have a house to myself because the house was not finished yet. And remember, He permits some reminiscing I remember just doing homework, my Spanish language homework there alone in that house. Another another of many reasons I felt grateful, still feel grateful to head out.
Speaking of gratitude, head out earnings wife at the time had insisted that their the two children speak only only English at home they knew that they would easily enough pick up Spanish in school but they wanted to give them a good grounding in English. And Danielle told me last week when I was there that he had there were times when they resented having to speak only English at home but he said he's very grateful now with the currency gives him all over the world speaking fluent his is by fluent bilingual
and have always had a tendency to skirt the law. He used to, he knew how fond I was of mangoes and papaya and other Mexican fruits. So the papayas This is may come as a surprise to some of you that papayas it's legal to bring papayas into the United States unlike most fruits for the mangoes he would bring to me in sealed cans. I aluminum cans with with the with labels of you know, jalapeno peppers or cilantro or something. Now, tell me how how would from whom or where would you find the means to have mangoes and other fruit sealed in cans to get across the border. I used to tease him about that, about his his connections he must have had. But like so many things, he played his cards close to his chest. Getting getting information out of Geraldo was like pulling teeth
skirting the law, he also
he found a way to settle when he was going to when he was stopped for a traffic violation by the Mexican police the Federalists. He would find a way to settle it there. But but not just by paying the police in cash. But he went further. He told me that he would sometimes have to haggle with them. They would say alright, we'll go on our way. And we'll this will be resolved if you can pay, I don't know 200 pesos and had no pushback. Now this is him with him in the car and I don't know in the car and the cop right there, and the right standing next to him. And it's all come on 200 pesos. 75 is the mouse and then they would get into haggling.
And there were other things that heaven or hell I don't know found a way to get things done. There's a saying in Mexico. here here's the saying in Mexico, there's always a way I found the same myself once I was again with Roshi and poly and we were made one of our very infrequent trips into Mexico City and I some incredibly minor thing where the that I did driving the car in front of just the tires going six inches over some kind of a line in a big huge intersection and the police saw the New York license plates and came up to see the dollar signs in their eyes. They came over and with that big, beautiful white grin. They said something about an infraction and so forth and and of course their expectation. The police's expectation is that we settle the matter there Roshi was incensed. He just could not want to be part of this whole system of bribery that He's just part of the endemic corruption in Mexico and so many other countries. And so he said, No, no, we're not. We're not going to do it, we're going to fight this. And finally Polly and I persuaded him to let it go. save ourselves a lot of time. Same thing happened once when I was driving with my wife in Acapulco, where I did do an I did do a slightly more serious infraction, I made a U turn. And they came down on me. And the cop said, All right, you have a choice. Now. You can you can pay this ticket, he had written up a ticket, pay this ticket, take it on Monday to the Municipal Building. Or we can just settle it now. What would you like to do? I said, Oh, I'd like to sell it now. And so he said what the quote fine was, and I told him, honestly, I said, I don't have that much. Let's say it's now let's go back to 200 to interface so I guess I only have 75. And he pushed back and I actually opened my wallet. And I said, Look, this is all I have is 75. And, well, he took it in and off he went
most of all, I'm forever grateful to Harada offer for years and years and years and years of him explaining things to me about Mexico and, and making me understand the marvelous, marvelous things about that country about the people. He opened my heart, he really opened my heart to Mexico, when when Roshi Kapleau asked me to go down there to help him work on his books, I had no interest, I've never had any interest in going to Mexico zero. So last place, I'd want to go. But duly called and. And in no time, I just fell in love with the Mexicans. And to this day, I I just have to go there. Just about every year, I have to go back and get my Mexico fix with these wonderful, wonderful people. The way that they're mis portrayed is just a crime. There are no harder workers, there are no harder workers I can I can imagine in the world and the Mexicans. And yeah. One little final snippet of memory of hedera was when we were together in Sweden for the celebration of the Swedish Sangha 30th anniversary. It was quite a, an event, a weekend event with all kinds of events. And it included near the end of the weekend, it included music, there was a band two or three or more of the of the band. Were a Sangha members. And they were performing outdoors. It was nice weather summer in Sweden. They're performing outdoors in there, the all of us is big. This big Swedish Sangha, and those of us who are guests there, and they were playing was a rousing I think it was a jazz band. I don't know. That it was it was it was great. It's great music, and no one was dancing. Not that people were asked to it's just that there were a lot of people there listening until I noticed that this one guy had I don't know, was quietly dancing on his own. Quietly, discreetly, even persistently, he just kept dancing, just little little movements, feet with a big smile on his face. And what was what was remarkable is that he just kept doing it. Alone. There in the middle of all of us. It just was having the time of his life dancing. And, and then it caught on. Then it became contagious. 123 of us joined him, and just dancing individually. And before long, the whole, the whole crowd seemed just about the whole crowd were dancing. It was it was really a, I've never seen anything like it. While this one person, it was enough for himself to just do this on his own. But to keep doing it and doing it and doing it and just enjoying himself and it just spread. Very, very, it says so much about her Lara.
All right back to the funeral. When I got there, of course, the Sangha was grieving. Hello, Rose body had been moved to a funeral home, I was invited to stay in his room. Casa Zen was was the present center there. And that's where also where Geraldo lived alone. And
first, we have my second day there, we have a memorial service. Now, to clarify, as I've always understood the difference between a Buddhist memorial service and funeral service, you can have any number of memorial services. There's a whole formula in Japan of memorial service each day for the first seven days. And then each week, once a week for seven weeks, and then on and on. They have a whole elaborate schedule. And you can have memorial services on the same day everywhere. Yeah, there was one and I know in Rochester. So the first day we had the memorial service at Casa Zen itself. And then, after some discussion, we decided to have the funeral service with the body. On display and in the casket at a funeral home. The reason was that just Casa Zen was just not large enough. For the I don't know 50 or so people who we expected to come not all of them Sangha members, some of them. People from work, had those employees. And so the next day, we we had the funeral home for 24 hours. So the first, the first day, first afternoon, there was the Wake where the body was in display there and people anyone could come on when we went over there. But the service itself the funeral service. Again, there's only one funeral service, it can be many memorial services, but the funeral service was the next day a Sunday. And we had no time for a rehearsal. So always risky to do any kind of ceremony that involves more than a few people to do without a rehearsal. But that's that's just what we had to accept. Just to give you a picture of things there they someone in the Sangha removed the it's a it's a Catholic funeral home, or I don't know if it's fair to say it's Catholic, but let's put it this way. At the end of our funeral service, someone there the director of the funeral home said it's the it's the first Buddhist funeral service they had had there and 15 years. So it's a Mexico's a Catholic country. And we were able to remove the crucifix and instead place the Buddha figure with from the Zendo, the Casa Zen Zendo. There. And then, before the ceremony proper started before the funeral, gave a talk. I've heard since then that my talk was about the only thing that really came through on Zoom. It was otherwise a disaster. Technological disaster. But these things are his eyes when there are people there. And there were there were all kinds of people who weren't in the Sangha who came to pay their respects, it's always an opportunity to, to educate people. And that's what I tried to do, I said that, that a funeral service or memorial service, either one is based on the teaching of rebirth, believe it or not, there is rebirth. And what I said, for those of you who didn't hear was that we can see, we can see anything reality, the whole matter of reality from two sides. Many of you have heard this. From one side, like it's like two sides of a coin from one side, you can call that the side of the essential, the unconditioned, the absolute, there is no here or there. Now and then before and after. From that side, work could head out or have gone here. From the other side of the coin, the side of the relative side, that side of change of karma, he has entered this intermediate stage between death and rebirth, with a dependence called the Bardo. And that's really what a funeral service is for primarily is to help the deceased through this intermediate stage. So that he or she is most likely to have a favorable rebirth.
The idea is that when we, after we have died and lost our whole coping defense structure of the body mind, we enter this realm of vulnerability, where we we come into, into confrontation with our karma, all of our conditioning, images, thoughts, memories, fears, joys and in that very kind of defenseless, vulnerable state, the deceased can be helped through this memorial service. The service begins with chanting, the usual chanting, the Prajnaparamita, the cannon, do they show sign your validation? These are all really directed to the deceased. Yes, the understanding and Buddhism is that especially the first three days after death, there is some kind of hearing. Don't ask me what that means. But there is some kind of hearing that is still happening that one, according to some sources, hearing is the last sense to go after death. And that by chanting these, these classic chants, such as the Prajnaparamita, we are reminding the deceased, of the truth, the nature of reality. And you could say the most important part of it all is near that the beginning of the Prajnaparamita form is only emptiness, emptiness, only form. And that's the key to moving through the Bardo, through this intermediate realm. Without too much distress, is seeing that all of these images and thoughts and memories, all of the painful things, the longing, the fears, and the anxiety, all of those things are essentially without any substance to them. In other words, through the chanting, the deceased can be reminded that it's all ultimately illusory. And that there's nothing to fear that yes, fear happens maybe. And, and by the way, these services are done for even the most seasoned Zen master. The idea being that until full enlightenment Whatever that is, until for enlightenment, there always be some some degree of conditioning of clinging, maybe that can happen. And so even the most seasoned person can use some help with the chanting. So that's one way that in the service, we're trying to help the deceased. The other is more specifically in the memorial prayer, the memorial prayer is sort of the climax of the whole service as a whole. In the memorial prayer, we began all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. And I explained there at that funeral service in that very Catholic, funeral home, that Buddhas and bodhisattvas these are these are, in the deepest sense, that's our own nature. It's with Buddha's, it's our own innate wisdom with Bodhisattvas. It's our own innate compassion. So in a sense, we're calling on Buddhas and bodhisattvas, these great sources of enlightened energy. With or without bodies, we're calling on these Buddhas and bodhisattvas, as kind of reinforcements to come to support to sustain the deceased through the Bardo. We're also calling on ourselves to open our hearts and really do everything we can. On Hulu's behalf to prevail through whatever trials there may be in the Bardo. You know, there's this widely reported phenomenon of after death, people who survive death, clinical death, who report this white light entering the white light and are people then the deceased, their, their, their predecessors, their deceased family members calling to them, and how wonderful it is and all, but I that may have been just how you can't deny that that's the experience they're having. What is that? And I think with Roshi Kapleau, I would say, okay, that's the initial, that's the initial few minutes. What about after that? Well, who knows, I don't remember what happened after my last death. But we have this tradition is 1500 year old tradition, that sites with a lot of consistency across the different streams of Buddhism that there is this intermediate realm that we have to come to terms with.
Is a, you know, the preparations that we were scrambling to put together the funeral service, I forgot my copy of the memorial prayer of what we do in Rochester, when we have only one language to contend with is the officiant at the service Memorial or funeral service, reads each line of the memorial prayer aloud. And then those who are in attendance, repeat it, and they go through three times. Well, I forgot my copy of the memorial prayer, but we did have the Spanish and so I felt forced to, to recite the memorial prayer in Spanish, which wasn't a complete disaster. You know, my, my Spanish pronunciation isn't perfect by any means. It's a lot better than I would have. Then my attempt to to translate it on my own. But there was there was that it was a pretty stressful moment, where I realized I had to do it all in Spanish. It was very heartwarming after the end of the funeral service, to have not not just the Sangha members, but to have had all those former employees, the ones who had already retired and the ones who hadn't come up and thank us for the service. My impression And this is only an impression. So because how much do I know? But my impression is that there are a lot of very loyal, very devoted employees, former employees of helado, who were who had been deeply affected by his his generosity and his caring, I heard so many stories about how, how much he looked after his employees
just to wrap this up, after the, after the funeral service ended, and we were, we were under the gun because at the stroke of noon, we had to be out of there. So we didn't have time to invite these 50 people to speak, to express their, their memories of head auto, that had to wait until the internment had Otto had decided to be buried rather than cremated. And after the, after the funeral service went directly to the cemetery where the family plot was his mother and father and, and sister who had died before him. And that's where it gets real. When you see the coffin, lowered into the grave lot of tears and as we were all standing there, each of us through a flower on top of the top of the coffin, down down in the grave. These words came to me from from Chinese, and the Chinese culture, I don't know if it was Buddhism or just bro more broadly, China. Life is a bitter sea of suffering.
The next day, we had or no, not the next day, the same day after the internment in the cemetery. We managed to find our way to a restaurant I had suggested I've asked or there's going to be some kind of a meal afterward. This is I think, common and often in Catholicism. I know from the funerals and in tournaments and my wife's side of the family that the Catholics that they call them, in her family they call the Mercy meal. And we managed to come up with 20 people at this Japanese restaurant, and sort of put a a warm feeling of togetherness in the midst of the grieving that there was this, this joy that could come out of it. It's not at just an ending at the beginning. In the beginning, we've focused on the next day, when we had a Sangha meeting, it was my last day in Mexico, where the Sangha are just some of them anyway, came together at Casa Zen now and talked about where to go from here. Because head I don't know had carried that group. I'm not exaggerating. He had almost not single handedly, of course, he had help from different Sangha members, but financially is mostly head out at all, that kept that group going for 45 years. He was the backbone. He was the water buffalo. They carry that group. And I said to them, you know, if, if you need to find a fault with Geraldo, it's that he provided everything. He took care of everything. In terms of management, organization, financial support, leaving them now. Orphans. That's their word. They said in the Sangha meeting, we are not orphans. But life goes on with the group. And they're, they're determined to find a way to pull together and fight the halls and keep going as the Sangha As I said to them, you know, one option, just just full disclosure, one option is, is to go to a different lineage. There's no, there's no authorized teacher there now in Mexico, fully authorized teacher, you could consider going to the lineage of another Zen teacher in Mexico City. But they all very quickly. Maybe it was too, too soon. But they all said no, we want to stay in the Rochester Zen Center lineage. And now I'm in contact with four or five, six of them, figuring out how that may work. Well, thank you for your patience. This was a long talk. And may all beings attain Buddhahood
