Coming to the Path Talk by Jeanette Prince-Cherry

John Pulleyn49min

Jissai Prince-Cherry00:00

Today is April 10, 2022. My name is Jeanette Prince-Cherry, and this is my Coming to the Path Talk.

Jissai Prince-Cherry00:12

So let's begin at the beginning. I was born in 1967, and as of Tuesday, I am now 55 years old. And I say this because as I tell my story, I'm going to be talking about different ages that I was when these things happened. And maybe that can give you some sense of what's what and where we are in the story.

Jissai Prince-Cherry00:43

I'm the youngest of three children, and I was born and raised in High Point, North Carolina. And I had the normal ups and downs of childhood, nothing dramatic, nothing traumatic, just a little black girl being raised in North Carolina, until I was about 12 years old.

Jissai Prince-Cherry01:21

And then the ground changed for me. I began having this recurrent dream. Some aspects of the dream were quite vague, but one aspect of it was very specific and consistent. And that dream was that I would die by the time I was 34 years old. The dream never said how I would die, whether it was by sickness or accident, or whether it was going to be some long-drawn-out death or something sudden. But I was going to die by the time I was 34 years old.

Jissai Prince-Cherry02:19

Up until that time, I mean, I'm just a kid, I never paid any attention to my dreams. And I guess I still don't; I know people do. But I never did until I started having this particular one. I had the dream, at first, every other night. And I dreaded the dream. I was afraid it was predicting my death. As a 12-year-old, you think you're going to live forever. I didn't want to go to sleep at night. I talked to my parents about it. Everybody told me to ignore the dream. It was no big deal. It was just a dream, but it persisted. And my father gave me a bit of advice. But his advice was on something that was going on in school. It was something he felt like I needed to face. And I took that piece of advice to this dream.

Jissai Prince-Cherry03:31

And I don't know if you've had that experience of where you're dreaming, and you know you're dreaming, and you are able to kind of step back from the dream and witness it, knowing that you're dreaming. Well, I tried this several times; I had many opportunities, so frequently the dream occurred. And then, finally, I was able to just witness this dream without the emotional reaction, the fear, the dread. And the dream itself was very matter of fact; it wasn't dark and foreboding like I took it. It's just, you're going to be dead by the time you're 34.

Jissai Prince-Cherry04:30

So what do you do with that? What does a 12-year-old do with something like that? Especially since the dream was "by the time you're 34." That could be 34. It could be 24. It could be 14. It could be 12 and a half. And so what do you do when you could die at 12 and a half years old? Well, it wasn't in my nature to just party like it's 1999. That just wasn't me. What was me was to live right now. If I was going to die tomorrow, I want to be here today. There was this sense of urgency in this dream to live now. Right now. Don't wait. Don't hesitate. Do it now.

Jissai Prince-Cherry05:50

Looking back on this dream (I hadn't thought of it in years) reminded me of what Roshi would say. He says, "Discipline begins with the fear of death," which is what occurred for me. I began to discipline myself. I didn't know when I was going to be dying, so I didn't have time for trivial stuff. I had to take care with my limited mind, with my limited time. I couldn't allow myself to be distracted from whatever my purpose was, whatever it was I was doing, because I could be dead tomorrow. And despite how it might sound, this was exciting for me. It changed the ground out of which I was operating. It was life affirming. And I found no way to express it. I've been talking about how afraid I was of this dream, and now I had this totally new perspective on it.

Jissai Prince-Cherry07:14

And I found a way to express it. I found a way to understand it in high school. It was a high school literature class. We were studying the play "Our Town," by Thornton Wilder. I don't know if you remember this play from high school or middle school, but in it, the main character dies young, in childbirth. And she is greeted by other people that she knew in life but that were now dead. So she got greeted by a bunch of dead people. And then she found that she could relive moments of her life. And that's what she wanted to do, she wanted to go back and relive a part of her life. All of her dead friends said, "No, don't do it. You'll regret it. We did; don't do it." But she did anyway.

Jissai Prince-Cherry08:21

And so she decided to relive a birthday, knowing what she knows now, knowing that her brother would die, knowing that neighbors would pass away, knowing what she knows, her future. It started out just fine. And then, very quickly, she realized everyone seems to be in a rush, that they didn't really look at each other, didn't really appreciate each other. She was so distressed that she never got to the end of the day. She left and went back to the land of the dead. This is what she said. She said, "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it, every, every minute?" And the person that she was talking to said, "No. The saints and poets maybe, they do, some."

Jissai Prince-Cherry09:40

And then one of the other dead people said, "Yes. Now you know. Now you know. That's what it was like to be alive, to move about in a cloud of ignorance, to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years, to be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion or another. Now you know, that's the happy existence you wanted to go back to, ignorance and blindness."

Jissai Prince-Cherry10:22

I love that play. I found something that expressed what I was feeling from this dream. And it gave me a mantra to remind myself, "every, every minute."

Jissai Prince-Cherry10:51

Fast forward a few years. We're now in 1994 and I am 27 years old. It's a year after I left the United States Air Force. I was in the Air Force for eight years. I entered two weeks after graduating from high school. It was planned well in advance. And now, my time in the Air Force is over, and I'm still transitioning to being a civilian. During that time in the Air Force, I met my husband, Jim, had children, cultivated a career in industrial engineering, which I did in the Air Force and which I did outside the Air Force.

Jissai Prince-Cherry11:46

But I had so much trouble transitioning to being a civilian. I didn't know how to dress. The last time I essentially chose my own clothing I was 18 years old and my parents had chosen my clothing for me; they bought them. And when I was in the Air Force, I wore a uniform, either a blue uniform or a green uniform. I didn't know how to dress for work professionally. I didn't understand the office hierarchy. In the Air Force, we know the hierarchy. Either you wore your rank on your shoulder or on your collar. So we always knew where we stood. Even the terminology that we used was different in the Air Force than it was on the outside. So this was a difficult transition. I can't imagine what it would be like for someone who retired and then transitioned.

Jissai Prince-Cherry12:56

But other than the stress of this transition, I had a very good life: a great husband, great kids, great home. I had all the money that we needed. So why was I so miserable? I got sick and had some surgery. And during my recovery at home, I took a good look at my life. I took a good look and saw how miserable I was. I didn't realize that that was essentially dukkha.

Jissai Prince-Cherry13:45

In the workshop, my first workshop that I attended at the Rochester Zen Center, Roshi read this quote from Bernard Levin, English journalist and author and broadcaster, that so characterized my state that when I heard it, I heard this sob just come up out of nowhere. And I immediately stomped it back down again. I was not going to start crying in front of these strangers. But this was what I was feeling at the time. And here's the quote that Roshi gave at this workshop. He says, "Countries like ours are full of people who have all the material comforts they desire yet lead lives of quiet, and at times noisy, desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there is a hole inside them, and that however much food and drink they pour into it, however many motorcars and television sets they stuff it with, however many well-balanced children and loyal friends they parade around the edges of it, it aches."

Jissai Prince-Cherry15:16

So there I was, 27 years old, with this ache. So what do you do with an ache? I avoided it by watching television. I was recovering from surgery and flipping channels and watching these talk shows. And they all had segments on meditation. I didn't want to see that. So I would flip the channel and go to the next talk show that also had a segment on meditation. Nope, not interested. And by the time I got to the third talk show and they had a segment on meditation, I was like, maybe I need to be paying attention to this.

Jissai Prince-Cherry16:13

So I watched and got very interested. And then I started reading books, secular books, on meditation, going to the library and picking out whatever secular books I could find. I avoided the Buddhist books. I still identified as Christian and didn't want any part of any of that. And then I ran out of the secular books. But in that time, I started a meditation practice and had gained enough insight to see this reactivity to these Buddhist books. I had no reason to reject the Buddhist books. And so I decided to grab, from the library, the most Buddhist book I could find, but the short one. I didn't want to commit myself to reading some long book. And the book I decided to read was "What the Buddha Taught," by Walpola Rahula.

Jissai Prince-Cherry17:30

And I found myself in the pages of those books. It was like it was speaking my heart, the way I saw the world. So I grabbed another Buddhist book, just in case that was just a fluke. And it wasn't. I was Buddhist, firmly. Okay, so what kind of Buddhist was I? I continued to read. Vajrayana? No, no, no. Theravada? No, no, no. Zen. Yeah, that was it. I read one book about Zen Buddhism and zazen after another, continuing this meditation practice but now doing zazen.

Jissai Prince-Cherry18:26

Within six months, I had a daily sitting practice. I'd found a local group to sit with. And a year later or so, my husband got a job offer in Rochester, New York. Oh, I knew all about the Rochester Zen Center. So my vote was yes that we move. And so that's what we did. In 1996, my family moved to Rochester. I was 29 years old and still having that dream. There were longer stretches in between episodes of the dream, but they were still happening. And when the dream returned, I would be reminded: "every, every minute."

Jissai Prince-Cherry19:37

Two weeks after arriving in Rochester, there was a workshop. I couldn't wait. I was ready. I remember in the workshops at the Center (if you haven't attended an in-person workshop, I strongly recommend that), walking into the place, smelling the incense permeating the building. As soon as you walk in, seeing the warm wood. It's beautiful. There are breaks during the workshop that will give you enough time to kind of wander around. And so I wandered around like other people were doing. And there in the zendo foyer was this big block, the wooden block, the han, and inscribed on the han was what became my new mantra: "Great is the matter of birth and death. Life slips quickly by. Time waits for no one. Wake up, wake up! Don't waste a moment." I was in the right place. I was with the right people. After that workshop, I started going to sittings a couple of times a week, Beginners' Night being one of them, Sundays, the other.

Jissai Prince-Cherry21:24

Two months later, I went to my first sesshin, and then my next, and then my next, and then the next. I was ready. And then in 1998, when I was 31 years old, the bottom dropped out of the economy there in Rochester, y'all remember that. Both my husband and I were laid off from our jobs and we couldn't find work there.

Jissai Prince-Cherry22:03

And so we moved back to Kentucky, where we could find work, but with the understanding that I was going to be coming back and forth to Rochester. I wanted to commit to the Dharma, full time if possible. So I stopped working as an industrial engineer and started working as a substitute teacher, a job that was flexible enough to allow me to go back and forth. And then, in 2007, when my youngest graduated from high school, I was able to step up, going back and forth to Rochester.

Jissai Prince-Cherry22:50

And in 2007, I was 40 years old. The dream that said that I would die at 34 wasn't true. I didn't die at 34. But I was still having the dream. My death occurred much later, 10 years later. So this was November 2011, on the third night of a 7-day sesshin.

Jissai Prince-Cherry23:37

Now I started going to sesshin when my youngest was six, seven years old. And I was given permission on the third night to call home. And that continued, even though that young child graduated from high school, moved out, and we were empty nesters. So I would call my husband on the third night and we would talk. I would catch him up, let him know how I was doing, and I would go back to sesshin.

Jissai Prince-Cherry24:22

Well, on this third night of sesshin, I called and there was no answer, which was unusual. I knew my husband wanted to hear how things were going, especially since on the first night of sesshin I had a ceremony where I became a novice in the lay program of the 3JO, Three Jewels Order. And I knew he wanted to hear how that ceremony went. So I called our son, who lived locally, and asked him to check on his dad. And he came over right away and found that his dad had died right here in the house. And he had the unhappy job of calling and telling me in sesshin.

Jissai Prince-Cherry25:26

I was absolutely devastated. My husband and I were best friends. Just before sesshin, we had celebrated 21 years. And when he died, so did I. The person I had been was gone. I was 44 years old, and I never had that dream again. After his death, I continued sitting, but I didn't know why. I started even going back to seshin about six months later. And I had no idea why I was doing that. I didn't know why I had any interest in the 3JO. I didn't know why I was doing any of it, so upended I had been.

Jissai Prince-Cherry26:30

And even though I don't remember why, I didn't remember why I was doing what I was doing, others in my life knew the path that I was on and supported me in it. First and foremost was my husband's sister and her husband. We were close. They knew all about my path. They pledged to do what Jim would have done for me, which was financially support me. And for the three years of my novitiate, they financially supported me fully.

Jissai Prince-Cherry27:25

The Buddhist texts talk about monks and nuns being sponsored by a wealthy patron so that they can practice the Dharma full time without worry. I thought that stuff just happened back then. It still happens today. That happened to me. Roshi would often read this quote from W.H. Murray, author and mountain climber. And I printed this out years ago and put it on my refrigerator. And somehow on the refrigerator, it would get wrinkled and get, you know, food on it. And so I printed out a copy again, and we put it in a page protector, printed out big. It's been on my refrigerator for years. It's a reminder of what happens when we commit.

Jissai Prince-Cherry28:42

So this is the quote: "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: 'Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.'"

Jissai Prince-Cherry29:48

Three years they supported me, 2012, 2013, 2014. And during that time, the fog of grief lifted, and I remembered my purpose. A momentum had been established. I no longer needed the dream and its constant reminders to stay on track. I had the certainty of death and the uncertainty of the time of death as my motivator. My investiture in the Three Jewels Order was October 2014. I was 47 years old.

Jissai Prince-Cherry30:54

In 2015, until about six months ago, I had to stitch things together myself financially. I was living on, or rather draining, my savings and my retirement. I would pick up paid work, every here and there. I did whatever I could do to keep doing the Dharma full time, writing grants for myself. I am so deeply grateful to Khyentse Foundation, Beads on One String Foundation, for the grants they provided in this time, to family and friends and Sangha for their financial and other gifts, to the Abbots' Fund, the Rochester Zen Center Abbots' Fund. It's like this scholarship program, where the teachers, Roshi and now Sensei, can grant money from this fund to pay for sesshin, residential training. At one point I had to stop paying for sesshin. I couldn't afford it. So I applied to the Abbots' Fund. The Abbots' Fund, by the way, is funded by you. So thank you for having funded the Abbots' Fund. And so for that time, I went to nearly every 7-day sesshin, did stints of residential training at the Center, and took two trips to Japan to train at a Rinzai Zen monastery there.

Jissai Prince-Cherry33:06

This is my path. I've not wavered from it. Six months ago, the Rochester Zen Center Board of Trustees voted to hire me on as a contractor, with Sensei being unavailable now to do the work that he was doing before and at the helm of the Center. I was hired on to do some of the work that he was doing as well as other work.

Jissai Prince-Cherry33:51

So now the Center is materially supporting me, and I am working for an organization I love who's done so much for me. I'm so glad. So how are things now? I love my job and my co-workers. I have what's needed to sustain myself.

Jissai Prince-Cherry34:30

And I can do it guilt-free. One of the benefits of employment with the Center is I get free sesshin and residential training and without guilt because I did have a fair amount of guilt, not shame, the guilt for taking from the Abbots' fund, receiving from the Abbots' fund, because it made me feel like every dime that was given on my behalf meant, at some point, that won't be available for someone in the future. And I was going to every sesshin, so give someone else a chance. So now I can go to sesshin guilt-free. And I will be ordained as a Zen Buddhist priest on October 23. You're all invited. It'll be a hybrid ceremony so you can come just like you're coming now. By the time that happens, because of COVID, I will have been a novice priest for four years. I'm ready. But please don't think, and I don't think, that I have arrived. There's no arrival point. There's no place to go. Zen training for me continues. I don't know, I can't even forsee a time where I won't be training.

Jissai Prince-Cherry36:29

I've had to sacrifice so much. We all have. I wouldn't have it any other way. The Zen masters say that serious Zen training is like climbing a mountain of swords with bare feet. That's how it's been and will likely continue to be, and that's okay. What other options are there for living a full, rich life?

Jissai Prince-Cherry37:24

And I'm going to close this part of the talk. We'll have a Q & A in just a moment. But I'll close this part with a warning from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It's one of my favorite quotes by him, something I never want to forget. And this is what he said. The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered, "Man because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present, the result being that he does not live in the present or the future. He lives as if he is never going to die and then dies having never really lived."

Jissai Prince-Cherry38:34

So thank you all, thank you for your attention. And I will leave it to Anna Belle and Trueman to field any questions or comments that you might have, so maybe start with Anna Belle, if there's anyone online. Oh, Anna Belle will give you the instruction.

Anna Belle Leiserson39:06

If there's anyone online who has a question, if you could use the Zoom functions to raise your hand. I probably won't see you if you raise your hand just physically. If you don't know where the Zoom function is on a computer, there's an icon for reactions so you would click that and there's the raise hand icon there. On an iPad it's three dots. So I'm not seeing anyone. Does anyone have a question on Zoom? I think I see Sonia.

Sonia James-Wilson39:54

Sorry Anna Belle, I can't find the little . . .

Anna Belle Leiserson39:58

That's fine, I saw you. So yeah, so it's Sonia. And when you're through asking your question, Sonia, just mute yourself, okay?

Sonia James-Wilson40:08

Good morning Sangha. I don't have a question, just an outpouring of gratitude to you, Jeanette, for this wonderful, wonderful Coming to the Path Talk. I also just want to say that I appreciate the sentiment of what the Center has given to you. But I think your contribution to the Center has also been extraordinary. And I just want to say that on behalf of myself and the Sangha. Thank you.

Jissai Prince-Cherry40:58

I guess we should probably go to the zendo.

Trueman Taylor41:03

Hey, Jeanette, is it on? Yeah. So any questions anyone? When you do ask a question, just mention your name and speak clearly. Anyone? Dwain.

Dwain Wilder41:20

Yes, this is Dwain, Jeanette. I don't have a question but a remark about seeing you at sesshin and also here in sittings at Arnold Park. You would run back to your seat after dokusan with such joy. It's so wonderful to have you whizzing by back to your seat.

Jissai Prince-Cherry42:05

I love dokusan. How about somebody online?

Dené Redding42:14

Jeanette, I have a question. This is Dene. Can you say a little bit about what your experience is like in doing the work of this path and raising kids?

Jissai Prince-Cherry42:46

Yeah. It would be interesting what my kids would say now. One of the advantages that I had was that my husband didn't practice. So I didn't feel like (okay, so I did), I felt like I was abandoning my children to come to sittings, to go to sesshin. But I also felt like I was giving to them, too. I was a better parent because of my practice. Even though three weeks of the month I wasn't there, or one week of the month I wasn't there, those three weeks were deeper weeks. They were more attentive weeks. So I do think that my children suffered, especially the youngest one, because of my absences. But I also think that they gained a lot from that. I think that parents that are working on themselves have so much to contribute.

Jissai Prince-Cherry44:36

My husband and I, we made this pact. We said that our number one priority was going to be our relationship because we thought that regardless of our work, or even us individually, that if we focused on our relationship to each other that we would gain so much from that individually. And our children would too. We didn't focus on the kids. They were, you know, they were along with work, and, you know, they took a backseat. And because we focused on each other, we brought them along. And I think the same way with doing that as a parent, as a parent of young kids, that we bring them along. And they know it. They may not know it when you're gone. But I think they know it now as adults. But it would be interesting to hear what my kids would have to say about it. Thanks for the question, Dene.

Trueman Taylor45:59

Yeah, maybe just one more question. So Jonathan, I see your hand up.

Jonathan Hager46:06

Hi Jeanette, it's Jonathan. Can you talk a little bit more about your Christian upbringing and has that overlapped into your Buddhist practice? Has it really disappeared completely? Can you talk about any interaction with those two?

Jissai Prince-Cherry46:34

Thank you for the question, Jonathan. I was raised Southern Baptist. And no, I had essentially rejected it. There were some events that happened in my life. There were three events, like three strikes to Christianity, and I had essentially rejected it. And it was actually through practicing Zen that I reconciled with my rejection of Christianity, that what I saw as flaws in the religion, or just detritus in the religion, was really, it was just human beings, people being people, flawed people being flawed people. And I had really not seen.

Jissai Prince-Cherry47:42

Roshi often quoted Jose Ortega y Gasset, I think that's the name, and what he would say is, "Tell me to what you pay attention, and I'll tell you who you are." And when I was practicing Christianity, I paid attention to the bad actors. I didn't pay attention to the hundreds and hundreds of people that followed the religion faithfully because they didn't stand out. It was the bad actors that stood out. And so I've reconciled. I still don't practice Christianity. I have a lot of respect for it. Both of my feet are in Zen Buddhism. Does that answer your question? Thank you.

Anna Belle Leiserson48:55

Jeanette. I'm not seeing any more questions online. But I think it was Krystal Angevine who did a comment to everyone, and I just wanted to read it. She said, "Thank you, Jeanette, for all you've done for the Louisville Zen Center for many, many years, setting up the zendo and bringing the Dharma to us. You are appreciated. We love you." And I just wanted to second what Krystal said.

Trueman Taylor49:29

Okay, and with that we'll stop now and recite the Four Vows. Thanks, Jeanette.

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