I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Good morning. Excuse me, good morning. Our speaker today is Mary Mosine. She's a long-time practitioner here at the Berkeley Zen Center. She's now the abbot of the Vallejo Zen Center, Pure Water Zen Center, and she gives practice discussion here on Monday mornings. Not that bit, but thank you. We don't feel, I don't feel ready, they don't feel ready, we'll see, I don't know. We do have a resident, we have a resident for about a week now, we have our first resident at the Vallejo. Zen Center as a, you know, a student, Zen student resident. So, we'll see.

[01:00]

I wanted to, I want to talk about John King, who died on Tuesday afternoon, and whose name is on the altar. Maybe a little bit about Betty. Warren, I didn't know her very well, but I wanted to put it in context of Case 55 from the Blue Cliff Record, which you may not recognize the number but most of you will recognize the case, it's sometimes known as alive or dead. Daowu, Daowu you may also recall as from the ... I think it was a koan that Laurie talked a lot about when she was Xu Tso, he was the one that said, �Too busy.� And Yun Yan said, �There's somebody who isn't.� And Dao Wu said, �Yeah, so there are two moons.� And Yun Yan, great guy, shook the broom and said, �Oh yeah?� �Which moon is this?�

[02:10]

I just couldn't resist bringing that up. It's nice to know these people as people, so when you hear different stories about them you get a sense of them because these are our ancestors. And I guess in a way that's what I want to talk about, this notion of alive or dead. Just because somebody stopped breathing, are they really dead? These people, like Dao Wu for example, I think they're alive for us, at least they're available to be alive for us if we want to make it so, if we want to take them into our Dharma family, in some sense maybe into our own bodies. They become real for you, then they're alive. Sort of. Are they alive? Are they dead? What's a person? So I'm just going to read part of it. Da Wu and Qian Yuan went to a house to make a condolence call.

[03:17]

Qian Yuan hit the coffin and said, alive or dead? Wu said, I won't say alive and I won't say dead. Yuan said, why won't you say? I won't say. Halfway back as they were returning, Qian Yuan again said, tell me right away, teacher. If you won't tell me, I'll hit you. and Dao Wu said, you may hit me but I won't say and Chen Yuan did hit him and then Dao Wu sent him away because if people at the monastery heard that Chen Yuan had hit his teacher he would have been in very, very deep trouble so he he left and went off and studied and practiced elsewhere. And the story goes that he finally kind of began to understand something about what his teacher had been trying to show him and then later he went back to the monastery to pay his respects.

[04:29]

and Da Wu had died, and he told this story to the senior monk, the abbot then, and the guy said, I won't say, I won't say, and that's when Qin Yuan really woke up. Mel gave me this koan when my parents were dying, and I remember reading it and thinking, what? and figuring, well, my teacher gave this to me, there must be something here. Plus, also I know myself that when I am really irritated by some kind of Dharma story, I know that it's really working in me in some way, that my brain may not get it, but my ego gets it. My ego is threatened and I get pissed off. So when I'm angry like that I think, oh okay, it must be something here, so I just kept reading it.

[05:31]

Because what came up for me initially was, he's not saying I cannot say, he's saying I will not say, implying that he could. And I thought that was so unkind and so rude. And I see now, it was my question too. You know, when Qianyuan hit him, you know, it wasn't idle. It was because the question was burning for him. It was a matter of life and death for him. Alive or dead. What is this? What is this death? It was a huge, it was a big, big deal for him. And he couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand it. And so he hit his teacher. Which probably didn't relieve much. of the pain, but you know we do that sometimes. Maybe not physically hit people, but when there's a question, when we're feeling really, really off balance, maybe scared, we lash out.

[06:34]

That's not so great, but it's very human, and it's very human. I've been conscious of it in myself these last few days that I don't think I've acted it out but since John's death I've been conscious of a sort of a low-level irritation or an available irritation and a lack of patience, a lack of resilience if you will. So I think it just goes with the territory, not for everybody, I don't really know, but for ... you know, I think we all have a ... right, there's greed, hate and delusion and we all kind of ... we all cycle through all of them all the time, but we have a home base usually, and I'm sorry that my home base is anger, I'm an anger type.

[07:39]

I'm also a one which is also an anger type in the enneagram system, just in case there was any doubt. So that's what I have to watch out for. So I get maybe qianyuan, was a one, two, I have no idea, or an anger type, but anyway he hit his teacher, but it wasn't just a silly thing to do. And that's why his teacher was kind to him and sent him away. He didn't hit him back, he didn't tell him the answer, he didn't do anything but just said, you better go off now because if you go back to the monastery you're going to be in trouble. So first I thought it was just rude and then I kept reading it and reading it and reading it and then one day I was in a rather public place and I read it again and I felt like I got socked in the stomach.

[08:50]

It wasn't a verbal understanding, it was a gut understanding. If I put words to it, it was something like, there's nothing to say, you just have to accept it. And my impulse was to throw the book across the room, which I did not do. But it was that, you know, it was very intense. And then I keep on, I still think about this koan. And I think it's very useful for us. Right now what it's doing for me, you know koans I think it's Michael Wenger referred to them as Zen Rorschach tests that we project onto them and then they show us ourselves by you know kind of what comes up in response to the koan. What's up right now for me is this notion of alive or dead.

[09:54]

What is a person? Is John dead? Is Betty Warren dead? I imagine, has somebody spoken about Betty Warren here since she died? There was a memorial service, I imagine. Anyway, she was one of Suzuki Roshi's very early students. There's a picture of her in Crooked Cucumber in the pictures. She's with Gene Ross and Della Gortz. Della is the only one who's still alive. Anyway, I met her. She used to come to City Center every so often and she, in her 80s I think, she was still leading vision quests. She was a very, very alive person and very interested in the world. I didn't know her well.

[10:56]

but what I did know I liked very much and I admired her. John I knew very well. I just wanted one just about Betty that all the people that she led on vision quests and for friends of hers, people that were close to her, you know she's alive in them. her work lives, her ideas live, her words live, her spirit in some sense. I'm not talking about la-la land spirit or soul or anything like that, but just the spirit with which she lived her life lives on in people who knew her. And John King, who died on Tuesday, he was a disciple of Blanche Hartman. He received transmission from Blanche last fall. and he was a priest at San Francisco Zen Center and also at Hartford Street Zen Center in the Castro.

[12:04]

John lives in lots of people and lots of ways. So one thing it is, is comforting to think, well he's not completely gone, he's right here in my heart and lots of people's hearts and in all the stories people are now, people are telling John King stories. I'm going to tell you a few John King stories. At the same time, of course, he's completely dead. He inhaled and then he exhaled for the last time and that was it. And he died of cancer and he had that, you know, sort of wasted look so that he looked like his face looked like you could just see the skull. so he's not going to go to San Quentin anymore.

[13:27]

He used to go, there's a meditation group out at San Quentin that Steve Stuckey and Leda Barros lead and John was also one of the leaders of that and he used to go to San Quentin almost every Sunday. He also used to go to the jails. He was also a tea teacher. So no more tea made by John directly, but then he has tea students, so he lives in them. We refer to a body sometimes as a skin bag, but really what is a person? It's not one, not two, so it's also one and two. So maybe the one died but the two is here. One of the wonderful things about him was his sense of humor.

[14:37]

and his openness, as he died he was very open about the process. He actually taught a class, he had scheduled to teach a class at San Francisco Zen Center and then he got his terminal diagnosis and he decided to go on and teach the class but they changed it to a class in death and dying. So I'm told it was very, very powerful. He went and talked about it, I don't know if any of you took that class. It was, I'm told, very powerful. There would be lectures and also small groups. And he went ahead and did that. And sometimes he cried. He didn't pretend that it was okay. It's not okay, you know? It's just not okay. A friend of mine said, I don't know, a couple days ago I guess, she was coming out, people were sitting with John for three days after he died, and she was coming out of the house on Thursday and she said, I mean she was sort of joking but sort of not, you know, she said, it's too final.

[15:56]

I said, yeah, it's unacceptable. She said, that's right. And yet, of course, we have to accept it. Alive or dead? Completely dead. And is that completely okay? Well, no. Not to me. Not now, anyway. Sometimes it is. Sometimes about the fourth day of Sashin, death and dying are okay with me for a little while. Not usually. It's very much my con. So, but he could also, and he could talk about death and what does it mean and what is it, but also he could joke and he could laugh and he could, I could joke and it was okay. One time leaving his house, I twisted my ankle on the step and I sprayed my ankle.

[17:07]

And then I saw him a couple of days later and it was really just about fine, it was not a big sprain, but I saw him and I started limping very badly and said, I think I'm going to sue you. And then I had this picture in my mind almost immediately, I thought, you know, I go into court and I say, oh my ankle, and then John comes and says, you think you've got problems? I'm dying. I started laughing and then I told him that and he thought it was really funny. So he was open to that, he wasn't all serious. I think I'll spread this one.

[18:08]

This is infamous, this story. He was a very generous and very sweet person. He also had some control issues, I could say. It takes one to know one. I do too, so I get to say this. It's not exactly a secret. It's also true that he was very, very thoughtful. You know, our stuff and our strengths are often basically the same. So he was very thoughtful. I guess that's why, I don't know, at any rate he insisted on driving his car into Tassajara for a practice period when he was there. Well he had like, I don't know, a Honda sedan or a Toyota Corona or something like that and he did not have chains and it was by no means an SUV and then it had snowed and the road was really icy. And by God, John drove out and he and Mark Lancaster did this.

[19:14]

They actually had some passengers and I remember coming up behind them and they had hit the level where the snow was and the car was like fishtailing and they had the passengers out behind and everybody but I guess the driver was out behind. They were trying to push it up. I used to have a Pathfinder, which is a moderately big SUV. I tried to push them, but the bumpers didn't meet. And I think maybe I did push them some, and I loaned them my chains, which of course were way, way too big. and sort of babied them up the hill, stayed with them, because I was afraid that they were going to go over the side and on the Tassajara side especially, it's very steep cliffs. And it was just agonizing, you know, they'd go a little bit and then they'd have to stop and it was a mess.

[20:15]

Then of course other vehicles were coming out, so a big Chevy Suburban that Tassajara owned was next and they got there. And so I said, �Somers,� I went on, but then I think they tried pulling them, eventually they did get out, but lots of vehicles passed them and helped them and pulled them and pushed them and did whatever, so this became a very public public event, but he needed to have his car in there, which some people do. It feels like you're able to stay if you know you could leave. I was one of those people, so I can't sneer. It was, Mark said the other day that when they got down the other side to where the paved road starts where there's a couple of houses at a place, it's called Janesburg, it's just a widening of the road really, and that's where some people live that take care of Tassajara and so on, and also where people have parked their cars for the practice period and so there would be a lot of people there loading, unloading, milling around saying goodbye and whatever, they thought about just driving through.

[21:34]

Not even stopping, you know, maybe letting their passengers out. Going with, they decided they had to kind of take their medicine, so they stopped. It was very sweet. He died on Tuesday, and Tuesday night some of us gathered and sat with him and did a ceremony, kind of the first round, right after the body's been washed and dressed and all. chanted the daishandarani and then we sat around for a while and told John's stories and of course Mark Lancaster was his best friend, Mark was there so I think Mark told it on himself on the two of them that everybody had a piece to add because this is the infamous story. But the generosity, the generosity is what really stays with me.

[22:36]

He gave his teacher a donation, he paid for a massage for her. Once a month Blanche has a massage that he's provided for quite a while. And one of the things he did was arrange for that to continue for the rest of her life. and when he had esophageal cancer and he couldn't eat after a while and he'd go over there and he'd offer you something to eat and after a while he couldn't even drink anymore he had a feeding tube but he couldn't even drink a tea or anything and you'd go over there and he'd offer you tea or water And he spoke, you know, he ... wait a minute ... I wasn't his lawyer but he talked to me like a lawyer and I think, now wait a minute, is this ... no, this is okay.

[23:55]

This lawyer-client confidentiality or something, but I don't think so. I think he said this in front of other people too, I'm sure he did. At any rate, he said apparently he made some bequests One of them apparently is to Clearwater, I'm sure there's the Hartford Street and San Francisco Zen Center and whatever. And he took great pleasure in it. You know what, it wasn't a crowing kind of pleasure, it was just little, he referred to them as little gifties, he was doing little gifties. But at one point he said, he was talking to me and somebody else and he said, so you better be nice to me. I'll change my will." And there was something, it was just, I don't know, I don't know if I can convey this, or maybe it's obvious, but I just take great delight in that we could joke about it. I mean, we knew, both of us knew that I wasn't there because he was going to make a donation to Clearwater, and he wasn't going to change his will if we, you know, if we sort of had some misunderstanding or something.

[25:05]

it was completely irrelevant and it gave him great pleasure to share this information you know it's kind of like a giving with warm hands we talk about sometimes people give you something while they're alive that they want you to have to remember them by they want to give it with warm hands so that they get the pleasure of your pleasure in receiving it So it felt like that, and it was actually, it was very sweet and it was very funny at the same time, and that became... It became a running joke. not long before he died and he was still a little mobile in one time, he was sitting on the side of his bed and he was kind of in and out, so you just sit with him, it wasn't the time to have big conversations, but he was sitting on the side of his bed and he looked very kind of concentrated and kind of serious, like he was, you know, he looked like he was thinking deep thoughts.

[26:26]

I had no idea what was going on, he may have been off in, you know, what was it, methadone heaven or whatever, I don't know. At any rate he was sitting there and after a while I said, so what are you thinking about? He said, you know there's a plant out there in the garden that needs to be shored up. It's still taking care of things. And I thought, in a way, I could imagine Dogen saying, that was a really deep thought, just taking care of what needs to be taken care of. Not seeing little pink angels flying around. So John, he also, he used to go over, you know, at Green Gulch Farm there are a lot of families, little kids, and he used to go over there and play with the kids and bring them toys and things, just because he liked them.

[27:56]

So he will live in many hearts and many minds and many teddy bears or whatever and Betty will live in lots of desert locales and people's hearts and minds so alive or dead His teacher said, I won't say in order to turn the student back to the question. I suppose though you could say too, I can't say. Because it's not one or the other. It's not one or the other. The body will die. The body is dead. The body will be cremated. The ashes will be scattered here and there, buried here and there.

[29:04]

but whatever John King is or was or Betty Warren is or was that's not so simple. We grieve, it's natural, it's normal to grieve and we can remember and we can carry them on and know people that mattered to you I imagine you have this experience, people that matter to you, they come back. You say something and then boom, they're there. Or you're sitting Zazen, minding your own business and boom, they're there. You do something and boom, they're there. So, John is here. Dengshan said as long as there's a companion or a friend than somebody who has died, that person is actually present.

[30:11]

I think that's true. So I just, I don't know if any of you have John King stories or Betty Warren stories or other memories of friends that have affected you in this way, but I wanted to leave a little time. Mary, welcome home. Thank you. You know, at our temple, we're kind of celebrating the sewing frenzy. We added a woman ancestor who's a big name in sewing lineage. And yet, in a way, I think sewing in our lineage began with Betty Warren. She was probably the first person to make zappos for us and sew them and stuff on her with Jean Ross.

[31:18]

So I look at her as part of our sewing lineage. I got to know her a little bit because one of our Sanga members, who's an elder here, knew her in the past couple years. She was able so much to transition as her body transitioned. I know what congestive heart failure is. Today is the 8th anniversary of my mother's death. I was with her when she died of congestive heart failure. It's very uncomfortable. I just felt, watching Betty, how she was able to carry her practice into that discomfort She also organized the Seniors for Peace while she was up in Marin, which was right next door to the high school. And many of the high school youth would come and have dialogues with the elders.

[32:21]

I mean, what are elders for, if not to teach peace? And that was Betty Warren's legacy. So yeah, in that way she still lives. And then her body, yes, is back to the Marsh Men, just like Can I say about John? In many ways, gay men from his generation raised me and saved my life. I was not able to reciprocate with many gay men as they died of HIV and AIDS. I met John in the disability committee at San Francisco Zen Center. And then I saw him walking down the castle and I thought, oh my god, he's a brother. And he's going to be a gate into my identity, into this heteronormative world and how to do it.

[33:26]

And I caught little glimpses of it because in our third peer precept, I vowed to live and He lived for the benefit of all beings. It is transcending profane, holy, taking self and others across. That's how, whatever little flashes that I got a job, that's how I felt about Him, for me. And it wasn't enough. And I regret that He's dead. Thank you for He also knew very well, like gay men from his generation know, about palliative care and the use of drugs for dying. And I say that because I see other people struggling about which physician assisted suicide. And I say this because this was in his last lecture about how we don't have access to that many medical care or knowledge

[34:33]

And a lot of us die a lot more painfully than we need to. And it's just sort of a kind of a social benefit knowledge that John put into that lecture that I wanted to bring up. His lecture, his last lecture, was called Assumptions, Living and Dying. So his question was, yeah, okay, it's hard to die, and I accept that. But the real question I pose to you and to myself is, have I accepted living? So these are the kinds of things that John has brought to me before. And so my mother, Irene Olszewski, I hope she's there to welcome John and Betty. I always think of when people die that my mom's there, saying, come on in, what news do you got for me? How's my no good daughter doing? Thank you.

[35:34]

What was his partner's name? Rodrigo. Rodrigo... I don't remember his last name. He married his wife for 24 years. You should remember. Oh yes, excuse me. Without going into a lot of details, there was a conflict that John was in about eight months ago or a year ago with somebody that I know. And I think it was a scary situation for John. a safe discussion.

[37:03]

They really straightened out this. Yeah, Laurie?

[38:49]

When you were talking, I was thinking about my father, who died when I was nine, and his other survivor death. Like now, I feel like he's everywhere in some way. He's very available in a certain way. I was remembering how, I think, when I was a teenager, I first heard about his reincarnation, you know, and I thought that would be some kind of satisfaction, like knowing that he would be reborn. And then I finally realized after reflecting on it for many years, like, well, no, that is no, that doesn't do it, you know. It's like I want that shape, that, you know, that specific, very, you know, shape, basically. And so, um, I'm just reflecting, like, the way he's, The way he's alive for me is not like his, the way, whatever, if he did reincarnate, it's not there, you know. But, and the way he's dead is about that very specific thing that I was very specifically, you know, attached to.

[40:01]

Yeah. There's a wonderful image in a wonderful book, it's part of a trilogy, the trilogy is called His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman and I guess it's in the third book, The Amber Spyglass, people go through a rather harrowing experience when they die and terrible, they're in a terrible bleak place and they get led out and when they come out and back up into the surface to the world again they just dissolve and become part of everything, they just like, you know? And as they, just before they dissolve, as they come out, they have this wonderful smile on their faces, they're just filled with joy, and then they just dissolve.

[41:03]

It's a marvelous, marvelous image. And in some sense, don't you feel like your father, I mean, he is alive for you and in you. And there was something in you I imagine, I don't know about you, I found myself sounding like my parents. Sometimes good and sometimes not so great. Okay, this should be the last one, yeah. My mother is still alive but her mind has been totally gone for a long time. I recently have been hiking and I got some black toenails and I decided to paint my toenails. I haven't done since I was a little girl. It was a tiny thing. My mother always painted her nails and painted her toenails. I must have stopped as a teenager. And so I did it.

[42:08]

And then I painted my nails. And it was like, I had this, it feels like I carried my mother when I paint my nails. You know, it's like something that hasn't been part of my life in so long. And it was so her. And on some deep level, it brings her back for me in a very deep way. It's such a funny thing because it's so... it does have this resonance from when I was very, very young. And for me it's totally my mother. So I kind of love that in something so simple and so... something I haven't identified with, I can carry her by paving my path. That's right. That's right. And it's like she's in you. It's not like, where's your mother? Where's you? They're not two. Yeah, and the first time I did it, I've done it twice now, but the first time I did it, my neighbor saw me and she said, Gosh, you did such a nice job on your nails. Oh, well, I learned this, I learned this early on.

[43:11]

That's very sweet. Thank you.

[43:13]

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