I vow to chase the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Last night, about 8.30, 8.15, our dear Dharma brother and recently ordained priest, Bhut Jvalyut, passed away. And so I want to talk a little bit about Butch and about dying. Butch was from the Philippines and he came to America to, I think really to practice Zen. Can't remember exactly when he came, but 10 years, 12 years ago, something like that.

[01:08]

And so he practiced at Zen Center. He practiced at Tassajara and in the city center. And he was a good Zen student, a little troublesome. You know, a little troublesome. And he wasn't so interested in how the mechanics of how you're supported and all that work. You know, he was an artist. Butch was a wonderful photographer. During his family time, when he was in the Philippines. The way he got the name Butch was that the American soldiers used to call him Butch. And so that stuck with him. And I don't even know his first name.

[02:10]

It was Butch. But he had a very tumultuous family. He's got a great family, an incredible family. But he had five brothers, and growing up, they were all junkies and got into a lot of trouble. But somehow, he and his brother became photographers. they became really good photographers and Butch became an outstanding photographer and he was promoted by the government and by some associations and he went all over the Philippines doing photography and so he had this wonderful artistic temperament and

[03:15]

but there was something unsatisfying about his life. And so he wanted to practice, find true practice. So he came here and started to practice. And when I was the abbot at Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, I prayed. practice with Butch, and I really liked him a lot. I liked his spirit, and I liked his kind of unorthodox, I liked his artistic spirit, which kind of irked a lot of other people, but somehow I understood him, and I wanted to see him be successful. And what I really wanted to do, and he always wanted to be ordained. His goal was to be ordained as a priest. And he wanted me to ordain him.

[04:19]

And so I practiced with him for quite a while to get him to where he could actually do that. I don't ordain priests easily. And I always wait until a person is practicing as a priest before I ordain them, so that it's not some big leap, but it's simply a step. Sometimes people say, well, I would like to be ordained. Can you do that? And I say, well, when you practice, what does it feel like to practice as a priest? Take that on, and then see what that feels like. What would you do? So I just turned it over to them. So we got to the point where I was going to ordain Butch and he was very happy about that.

[05:22]

Recently he went back to the Philippines and had a show of his photography. He has a wonderful book that's in the community room. of his photographs. He had this ability to bring out the quality of portraits, to bring out the quality of personality in portraits. Somehow people responded to him well. So he'd had a lot of trouble, you know, being in and out of Zen center. A lot of it just, you know, financial. And so I just took him on and I said, I'll ordain you and then you come to Berkeley and practice with me, practice with us in Berkeley. So, you know, during Butch's life,

[06:28]

He had contacted hepatitis C, which is very hard to get rid of, very hard to cure. There was one other person that had that, and it takes a year of taking this terrible medicine to execute a cure. And he took that, but it didn't quite work completely. And then he contacted liver cancer. because the hepatitis C is associated with the liver. And this was just before I was going to ordain him. So Butch moved in, and he found out that this liver cancer was really terminal, and there was really nothing they could do with it. So we had this wonderful ordination ceremony at Page Street, But he just started deteriorating after that.

[07:33]

And slowly, slowly dying. And watching the dying process, you know, people respond to dying in different ways. None of us knows how we're gonna do that. We may have some idea about it. But when push comes to shove, so to speak, we respond with who we are and what our attitudes are. Butch was scared. And I, what I did was to give him breathing exercises from the Satipatthana Sutra, the Sutra on Breathing, the 16 Methods of Breathing.

[08:48]

And breathing in and letting go, breathing out and letting go to prepare one's mind for letting go, actually, and embracing dying. There's a certain point in our life where we see that there's all of the goals of our life are no longer goals. And when we're dying, the goal of our life is to die. So it's very interesting that this becomes our living process within our dying process. We say living, we're dying, and dying, we're living.

[09:51]

As soon as we are born, it's like a death sentence. And as soon as we die, what? A life sentence? Why not? Our life seems to go in cycles. Sometimes we tend to think of it as horizontal or vertical. But in Buddha Dharma, we tend to think of it as circular. So we come up with all kinds of notions in this circular way of thinking. We think of reincarnation, and we think of rebirth, and we have all kinds of notions about it. Probably there's something to all of these notions. But most of them are notions, ideas.

[11:03]

But the fact of circularity bears some attention. Because if we look at nature, we see that everything revolves in cycles. Everything, nature, all the aspects of nature are circular. And our life forms keep reproducing like life forms. So in the Mahayana we say that our karmic energy and the seed bed of our memory is the action influence that continues to be fulfilled in a new birth.

[12:14]

It's not like I am reborn, but there's something that influences another birth. You know, if we identify just with myself as myself, then this is a very narrow view of who we are. But if we identify with life itself, then nothing gets lost. This is why we say in Buddhadharma, There is no permanent self. There is no inherent self in things. Everything is a part of everything else. So this is, we have what we call two truths.

[13:21]

The one truth is that we are born and we die. That's the mundane truth. You can't deny that. But the higher truth is that there is no birth and death, actually. There's simply endless transformations. That's also mundane. There are just endless transformations. So what is it that's born and what is it that dies? Who is it that's born and who is it that dies? When we have good understanding, not just intellectual understanding, but total understanding of letting go, then we can realize this. Then we can live out our dying

[14:26]

as part of the process. Every moment is part of this process. Breathing in, we come to life. Breathing out, we let go. Breathing in, we come to life. Breathing out, we let go. Suzuki Roshi used to always say, the breathing out is more important than the breathing in. But he's just making a point. You can't breathe out unless you breathe in. But you can't die until you're alive. And you can't come to life until you die. So this ebb and flow, this living and dying is not only one after the other, But it's both at the same time.

[15:27]

In each moment of coming to life, it's a moment of dying away. So there's only continuous transformation. What is this I? We feel this I. This is me, you know. If I hit my thumb with a hammer, it hurts. I like to eat and I like to do all these things. That's me. But it's only a moment's manifestation. It's a process. We start as a baby. Am I the same? Am I that baby? Well, yes and no. Yes, but. That's where the reality lies, in the but. Yes, but. No, but the same and different.

[16:32]

Yes, it's the same, but it's not the same. It's different, but it's not different. So, When we're totally alive, totally, we say just be, when we're alive, just be totally alive. When we're dead, just be thoroughly dead. When you cry, just thoroughly cry. When you're happy, just be thoroughly happy. If we do everything thoroughly, then whatever is the next step, we can take on thoroughly. So here with Butch, he's dying, but we want him to stay alive.

[17:43]

So I always encourage him to do things to make himself happy being alive. But at the same time, it's not working. So we have this, we want to stay alive and we know we're dying. That's our koan, big koan. At the same time, these two things going on at the same time, how do you accept your death? when you want to stay alive. There is a famous koan from the Blue Cliff Record, Dao Wu, the Zen master in the Tang Dynasty in China, and his student were invited to a funeral. You know this story, it's an old story. And when they got to the funeral, the deceased was in the coffin and the student knocked on the coffin.

[19:05]

Teacher, dead or alive? Is he dead or alive? Dao said, I won't say, I won't say. And the teacher said, and the student said, but teacher, you know, you've got to tell me. I have to understand this. You gotta let me, you have to enlighten me as to this question. And Dao said, I won't say, I won't say. And then they were walking, they were leaving. And the student said, I'm gonna ask you once more. Dead or alive? Dao said, I won't say. And the student, he said, the student said, if you don't tell me, I'll hit you. I won't say, I won't say. And so the student hit him. And Dao said, I won't tell anybody.

[20:07]

But we all know the story, right? He said, you better leave because if people hear about this, They don't like you hitting me." So he left, and in the meantime, Dawu died. And the teacher, the student, went to one of Dawu's other students, who was a teacher, and asked him the same question. He told him the story and said, well, you know, what do you say? And the other student said, I won't say, I won't say. And the student woke up. What does that mean? I won't say, I won't say. Dead or alive, dead or alive. If you fall into one side or the other, you don't get it. Within life there's death, within death there's life.

[21:15]

all you have to do is just point to whatever it is. If you say, one of my teachers, Yoshimura Sensei, once said, it's great arrogance to say I am alive. It's a very arrogant statement to say I am alive. And that was a real shocker for me. But then that was a kind of koan for me. you could just as easily say, I'm dead. We have to accept both sides equally because without one, there's not the other. We kind of want it to be one way because we experience, the feeling of our experience is one way. But if we look at our experience, we can see that our experience is both ways.

[22:16]

The past is gone, but we bring it to life. The past is dead, but we bring it to life. The present is alive, but where'd it go? The future is just an idea. There's no such thing as the future, except as it exists in our mind. There's only this right now, and right now is ungraspable. Dashaan, who was also a teacher in the Tang dynasty,

[23:21]

was a scholar of the Diamond Sutra. The Diamond Sutra, it says, past mind, future mind, and present mind cannot be grasped. So, But Dashan, although he was a scholar of the Diamond Sutra, was looking for some Zen. He wasn't a Zen student. He belonged to some other school, but he was looking for a Zen master to defeat. So on his travels, He came across this woman who had a tea cake stand.

[24:28]

Tea cakes, I can't remember the name in Chinese, but the name means mind refresher. So he came to this little stand and she said, well what do you got on your, what are you carrying around with you? And he said, oh this is, I'm carrying on the Lotus Sutra. I'm a scholar of the Lotus Sutra and I know more about the Lotus Sutra than anybody else on earth and I'm looking for a Zen master to defeat. And she said, in the Lotus Sutra it says, past mind, future mind, and present mind cannot be grasped. What mind will you eat this mind refresher? And she had him stumped, couldn't answer the question. She said, there is a Zen master that lives up in the hill, up the mountain, Lungtan.

[25:37]

Why don't you go visit him? So he went up the mountain to visit Lungthan. And Lungthan means dragon pond. So when he looked at, when he saw Lungthan, who was this little emaciated guy, he said, where's the dragon? Lungthan said, what you see is what you get. So Lungthan invited him in. And they spoke all night long. And they had a great meeting, great conversation. And Lung Tan said, well, it's time to go to bed. And you have a room outside in that little hut over there. And so he lit a paper lantern. to give to Dushan to find his way.

[26:40]

And when Dushan took the paper lantern, Lungteng blew it out, and everything was in total darkness. And Dushan woke up. Dushan became very famous and master. who was famous for his 30 blows. He said, 30 blows if you're right and 30 blows if you're wrong. 30 blows if you're dead and 30 blows if you're alive. So I think that over the last month, Butch reconciled himself with his leaving, passing on.

[27:53]

It was difficult. But, Through his difficulty, actually, it was a great teaching, you know, wonderful teaching, because he maintained his stability and his integrity and was inspiring to people, even with his fears and so forth, inspiring, because we all have those fears and how we handle them is what's important. So I very much miss him and it's kind of anticlimactic.

[28:54]

I wanted to send him back to the Philippines at some point to do something there. I think it would have been a really nice opportunity. But I think, you know, his whole family came over from, I mean, and people he went to high school with came over and visited him, you know? It's amazing. At one point we had 50 people from the Philippines here. And I think that there was a connection made, a real connection made between all those people and our practice. So I think I just have a feeling that something will come out of this whole event that we can't foresee.

[29:59]

But I feel that very much. I feel that something's been transmitted through this whole event to the Philippines. Some kind of connection. Do you have any questions? Sounds like the Philippines came to him. Philippines. Yeah, well, the ripples go both ways. Yeah. Ripples go both ways. There's actually a Zen center in the Philippines, a couple of Zen centers in Manila.

[31:08]

I wondered, he came here rather than to San Francisco, rather than to a practice place in Manila or Japan, which is Why you came here? Because the United States is where Zen practice has renewed itself. It's very hard to practice in Japan if you don't speak Japanese. And also, if you're not Japanese. You know, it's two sides of the world, and we do everything backwards. It's just the opposite, it's amazing how China and Japan, especially Japan and America are opposite sides of the world and we just do, it's like they go this way and we go that way.

[32:23]

And so it's hard for most people, not everybody, but most people to connect and hard for them to connect with most people. doing that sort of activity, monastic activity. So a lot of, sometimes people go to Japan and they want to practice and they're told, go back to America, you have good, you know, that's the best place to practice. Can you say something about the process of grieving? In some ways, there's nothing to grieve, and in other ways, it's very personal. That's right. So, there are two truths. One is the truth of grieving, and the other is the truth of not grieving. So, you know, we tend to think that Zen people should be non-grieving. You know, when Buddha was dying, and all the arhats were crying and wailing, he said, how foolish, you know.

[33:32]

They don't understand what's happening. But nevertheless, we cry. So even though it's foolish and we do know what's happening, maybe, we should cry anyway. Because it's an emotional thing. It's like you're not gonna help the person by crying, but you help yourself. We grieve for ourself, actually, mostly. And that's fine, we should really, if you feel grief, really feel grief, totally. If you cry, cry totally, big tears. And then go on. Then if you do that, then you can let go of it and go on. So grieving is important.

[34:33]

And also, not grieving is important. Not grieving doesn't mean not grieving. It means simply letting go of grieving at the right moment, at the right time. Could you address another paradox of doing things totally, wholeheartedly? If you're really sad and you need to be sad totally, And yet we have precepts, we have guidelines for behavior. Yeah, what's the contradiction? Well, the precepts and the guidelines are to presumably modify our behavior, or question what we're doing. In one word? Precepts are have compassion.

[35:38]

That's all the precepts are about, is compassion. If you want to get to the heart of all the precepts, any precept, simply have compassion. That's all that the precepts are. You can just push them all aside and just, if you really focus on have compassion, then you don't need them. But the precepts are there to help us to focus on compassion. There's no contradiction. They're not, precepts are not something to restrain us or modify our behavior or anything like that. No, that's not what they're about. When it comes to emotions, say anger. be totally angry, but then... Yeah, be totally angry and then let go so that you're not attached.

[36:42]

When angry, be totally angry. That doesn't mean to be possessed by anger. It's simply do everything wholeheartedly That's compassion. Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly, with compassion. So when anger arises, be angry totally with compassion. When you're angry at your friend, you have to do it totally with compassion. If you don't have compassion, then you can kill your friend. But if you have compassion, you will, it will modify the anger and then you can use the anger as a tool instead of being turned by the anger. It seems that both Dali and Butch died with their eyes open.

[37:59]

part of the time, and Burj was having, with his eyes open, he was having conversations. Could you say who he was talking to? About the eyes? Who was he talking to? I don't know. I wasn't there exactly when he died. Is that what you mean? Well, they both had their eyes open. Yeah. But Burj was also, with his eyes open, he was talking to someone. No. No? Not when he died. What was the process like? He was like, he was incommunicado. Yeah, really, really incommunicado. Both were. But I have to say, I don't want to talk too much about Bush, but personally, but there were times when he would come out of his room and his eyes were like saucers.

[39:05]

And then when he'd see you, he'd, oh, come back. So it was very, very similar to Dolly's eyes when she was dying. In that way, it was similar. Did you say something about that? Well, it's just like, you know, looking at something so personal, With Dolly it felt like she was just, it was awesome, like there was awe. But I don't know what exactly, I can't say exactly what it was. Can't say. Can't say. Yeah. that actually touched on something about can't say versus won't say. Do you think that's a translation issue or do you think that is inaccurate?

[40:08]

Well, I can't say. I knew you could say that. I think it's I won't say because it's always translated as I won't say. I've never seen it translated as I can't say. I can't say would mean that he didn't know. I won't say means that it's not explicable. If I explained it to you, it wouldn't work. You have to find it for yourself. This is always the point. The difference between a good teacher and a mediocre teacher is that the mediocre teacher will explain. whereas the good teacher won't explain. Do you think he could say in ways other than speech or do you think he couldn't say it for the other person or communicate it to the other person in any way?

[41:11]

I think he didn't want to say any more. He could have communicated it in various ways. I mean, there are various ways to communicate something, right? But being asked the question, he answered with a response, but not an answer. If he'd said, well, you know, it's like this, the energy of that koan would be lost. So even at the risk of being socked in the jaw, he wouldn't explain it to him. You know, Tozan was doing a memorial service for Ungan, and somebody said, why are you doing a memorial service for Ungan?

[42:20]

I'm trying to think of how it goes. What did he explain to you? I'm kind of putting two stories together in one, but you get the point. What did he tell you that you're so grateful for? He said, well, what I'm really grateful for is the fact that he never revealed to me the answer. Bob, Robert? how can you hear a teacher saying it? Explaining it to them, yeah. That's a good point. Well, thank you. I just want to say one thing first.

[43:23]

We had a little memorial service last night, just expedient, and then there will be a memorial service which will be an interim memorial service, and then there'll be a formal memorial service later, because later, you know, you do something for, just to get, just to, before the cremation, hopefully. And then later, you invite a lot of people, when people can come together to have a more formal service. But I don't know exactly, it's gonna be, maybe Tuesday night or something, but we'll post a notice on the bulletin board and tell people when that's going to be, but it'll be fairly soon, beginning of next week.

[44:17]

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