Inconceivable Life
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thank you very much
good morning friends
do morning song her
my god you let me know if there's any problem with the video order sound and it's not enough and rogers
continue
you we are in the
dieser the longest nights and shorter's hours of sunlight at least
those of us than joining from the northern hemisphere
it's a time energetically of cocooning mom
you know that not first presenter observers they're all the religions nine know that holidays in his mom that evolve light landing phase the return of ones
oh they've than what we cannot see you
nor gardens arm
or baron but there's still life
where we can't see you
we had a wonderful conjunction or or hatsune this year with this monsters
hum
no that means it's a good time
that's a good time for her job
a time watch me reading
you know as some of you know i've talked about it before i have been a river runner on my my past and an older woman
and there was a time when i was together with my bow colored scouting the earliest rapid marble falls on the narrowest reverand the colorado
and we were making our plan on how to proceed through and she turned to me and she said
this is a plan b rapid
meaning we can do all really we want about and we can make all the plans we want which is that always a good idea but actually
the river will decide what happens
and it is likely not to be the plan now no evening
it's taken me a long time to realize that i mean is not
lesson
plan a's what we think is going to happen i am be as what actually does happen
hum
and certainly and rewriting you learn that the more quickly you can let go of your idea about what you will thinking was gonna happen the more pleasant you can be to respond don't what is actually happening
and there's it doesn't help
to say i should have done that sword i wish i had said that any of those kind of my grandson
plan a is our idea that we are somehow in charge and plan b is the fact that we are actually not enjoyed
but
we are completely responsible
we are completely able ah
a to respond
and that's on isn't that our practice like to find the appropriate response
i think it's fair to say that this has been a plan the year
allright olmert we've had to turn toward what is an embrace that rather than what we imagined was going to be happen
no
eight and he gets also true that this has been a a plan b week
oh
fitness week we reschedule the bouncy ceremony on
we're are turning toward a new reality with our dear friend or de jure amusing since found him know
up to tuesday of this week this talk was going to be a about
the ceremony about the mountain seat and why it's called a mountain insignificance of a thing called about and and why representatives called oaks some mountain when there is no mountain to be seen anywhere
and the complexities of this wonderfully
a celebratory ceremony
but that's what can be given later by me or somebody else on
and on tuesday this week
intuition arose in a number of as brilliant led by hassan that we should postpone the mountains seed ceremony
we consulted with on people and our wider community
oh
and we were moving back and forth between two zen principles to
follow something through to the end regardless
where did you one thing at a time
i sent out an email again in an emergency please respond to emails are all the board on tuesday and gathered their responses as that they went on and by the evening it was unanimous that the right thing to do would be to postpone the ceremony so then the ceremony new jade is
january thirty first
oh
we were following the principle
i'm doing one thing that time because we wanted for ourselves when we wanted to know all about solid and saga to be able to focus our complete full attention on this morning insurgents lives any of our women's
and to be fully with him with hard heartening
so thinking over the last year oh we celebrated surgeons ninety eight reclaim in july of two thousand and nineteen and in the following september and he and what isn't when to touch the harm and to give dami transmissions and two people one of knowing many of us know
oh well during the codes and in that week
a surgeon develop some very puzzling sometimes nano which got him hospitalized
and that began a pan of discernment about what was my on on and so
december january when it was clear that what was going on was that he had what started as a small cancer in a bile duct cleaning and metastasized cancer and his reverence of would own
sort of accidentally accidentally i came across some nerds or a book
this week this week i came across an answer i took in january last year not tissue and twenty nine
mom after a breakfast meeting i had it's gone hands with with surgeon i don't usually take notes after breakfast meetings but this one seemed different
oh
he said that he didn't know like how do you didn't know how long the hand
did he have a year as three months
you are going to set emotional conversation about the transition
ah he said he was accepting whatever happens
we went on to discuss about how this conversation the transition should have ended he named five people he wanted to meet with him about it
ah
he said maybe he should retire and turn things over to allen but then he said he wasn't ready to do so because he wanted to stand on
oh you created turning things over somehow with not getting involved and cylinder anyone not being connected to us to fall of you
and
no
is his most important him
he said he was recognizing periods of confusion cognitive intrusion
and she wanted to finish yet three books in our collection of situations but lectures a collection of his own elections and a memoir on
he said he was letting go of worry about the transition and accepting what is
and ah but i would to moving way he recognized that burglaries and center is a place where there are a number of l denver's there is a deep bench as them saying
and i experienced this conversation as am kind and thoughtful wearing out
prepping everyone for this moment
thinking about how things would be for us not during done
and then the conversation turned to other matters you know that but are are cutting that legacy project for example
since then on that
transition that small transition bed
less than a handful of times really a hundred spaced far apart alone
and surgeon has been working with wrong and kicker and a collection of his own talks and went during here on a collection of suzuki roshi stance on and i believe his memoir while i think the memoir comes in third place in is
need some attention
after a number of inquiries and queries from us are archived committee received an offer from the asian library at stamford to how's all our papers and photos and toxins of one quiches and we signed the deed of
gift and november zombieland and so that is a place where if sojourn wishes and into his which it my questions his books not in writing sense of what can be also housed and made available on digitized
and as is a direct recognition of our kids our historic place in the story of
american buddhism
we started in september to actively plan was stepping down ceremony in the mountains in germany are usually they are fucked they are related but oftentimes in the same weekend and or a couple days apart in me he did plans for them to the one on the twenty eight and the other on
missouri of december
and we enlisted to help out of steam do wines robbed oh and she has been an engineering study and knowledgeable and detailed and encouraging and helpful in a plan
repeatedly certain call be stepping down ceremony the throw the bomb out ceremony on
i finally asked him to stop saying that one
own
wish i was surprised to find that he actually did style saying you play it i think it says something about is
i'm trying to work through a framework in which to step down that it could also mean stepping into things he must wanted to do and also to stay connected done the most important anguish his wish to stay connected to us
in early over there was a perceptible sheriff in surgeon and it was clear that this december plan was not a good fit
for where he was and you know that stepping down ceremony was scheduled for october twenty four words
rather rapid kevin and that other plan view how that happened in october
and he became our founding dharma kitchen home
i handed him no
in that ceremony handed him a contract from the board that
tried she knew
articulate the way in which you were still falling
engaged and connected with lesson bombed
a thanksgiving there is a shift another and another one in mid december and which is initiated the huskers on and brought him to need oxygen and during our hudson new just
not even a week ago and he shifted again and sham comfort in a hospital bed i'm at home with oxygen and eating and drinking thirty
so what is our appropriate response to this moment
often we experienced this moment is a color do something and to be at home
the hardest thing to know i think is
wow what's called a half were iceland's to just mean
be with him with ourselves
with one another
sometimes isn't is called witnessing in it's a good word i shouldn't but to me it feels just being workers more on where you
pedigree
it's also true that our experts and well-being have palpable effect
now they matter and i i don't know this intellectually i don't know it i can't explain it but i know it from my experience i know it from
on having been held by your well being herself
this past year
on
i also think it's helpful to remember that we are standing on the shoulders of our ancestors
no i came to be to her several reasons first because as a doubting time i wanted something that had some ancient ground and i thought all those people over the thousands of years must have them onto something
well
and you know when we are they ordained representing preserving receive a new jail genealogical chart home and we are told that we stand in a line of ancestors named all the way back to buddha
and our name is matt woman
i know darmon said memory
i think it simple or and remember that we stand on those shoulders whether they are dead or alive
doesn't matter they are ours our guides on you
and i realize now that you know without thinking that it's okay to rely on ashamed of items
that's what answers to observe for
as second reason i came to represent it was because i knew
that mill was a stimulus for rookies and i had a longing to have non choosing to
question and i wanted to see older transmitted light from sinking
and i don't think that there's any question
ahem that so to know is transmitting that line
an with some categories words agenda and i want to ask you for your thoughts and feelings about how we hold this moment together and what your practice news them
hmm
some of this category
instead of being tossed about by are speculations about life and and we have to take responsibility for our capacity to see inconceivable by
the final goal of meditation
he that your worldly life miss merge with inconceivable life through actual realization
july's and separate ourselves from the world there is the inconceivable
there is already universal cosmic waves
and it is why you were alive
this is why recent seismic
in the truth of zazen life and death and burgeoning moment after moment
and thus because our lives are supported by all things through the merging of life and we bring forward inconceivable knife
so
we have plenty of time now i would like for us to share when our rituals are number how we are meeting this moment on how are we are holding this moment in i know life together
hands
blake i think you have something awesome
as you all know we just raise our blue hand and i will call on people you can type a description of your practice and how your meeting at the moment and if you have a question or you can also type that na sort of swing back and forth with us so
again please raise your blue hand and you'll be called that
i see right on
raghav
find your way i married i bought everyone ah economic ah
hurts me ah that surgeon was thinking that stepping down was going to ah
a distance distance them to send some from us
so maybe someone should government on that tower
the one way
you know i am
i think it's none
i think it's because he is the most important leaving his life was miss burglaries center i'm being habit
and that's what he knew who weren't more than fifteen years so i mean that's that transition is hide from others when you think about retiring retiree nord making a kind of shit like new are we now know it's not it's head
an understanding that we are we are and we don't actually use of anything that transition still have other those connections and skills
our passions that we haven't been you there is a young a redefining that goes on he now prominence that's not and he was working i use working in the work done a pretty active way
no
yeah and
yeah in our the thing ah
up
i think
i feel i've learned a lot from him and
what i can't do gonna see us
just to hold him
ah this is this is my thought right now we just do
that you'll never be separate
ah an entry in bread and
no however long is the inconceivable part of what do you were talking about which is
that connection continues in considerable hit know
about slots diameter
two one
hi mary thank you for your
helpful words and this is a hard a torture people i think that just jump into this conversation at such an intense moment
i just want to say am
two short things in response to your invitation up well one thing i remember
i'll call him now right now said to me and i think or is probably we're working on that book glad about his life a path unfolding anyway he he said and i was asking him about succession and how he felt about it and he said well and other people copy now he's
said this in other contexts to but he's above and know the traditional way for as an abbot to retire as by dying
and that's true in our is thinking of the people in japan and other than yourself and he likes likes to honor the traditions i think that was a part of it
i'm in terms of how to respond in this moment
am i just have found that for me i'm really able to get in touch
i'm with my heart said i'm breaking up in a new way of with up the love that i feel for him just so simply with not no barriers to that and then right now i'm sitting in my room at the front of my house which is just a few blocks from where melon levelers and and thinking of
the quite many times that i would look at the window and see male walking the dog right past my house and so just that they're all these moments that we all have of times we were with him that we can just
the grateful for and and cherish and send i love to him
right now he's fresh air with estelle it is it is still breathing and is right here and we can love him
wherever he is weather is here with us or somewhere unseen
that's what i'm trying to do as best i can
you
veronica
thank you for your talk mary ann
i just wanted to briefly say i have been thinking of surgeon roshi and so much in these a past past weeks especially and
appreciating the opportunities to to go to the thursday night talks he question and answer periods and it really resonated with me when you talked about being drawn discerned in shame because of the way he transmitted of
right oh that came from suzuki roshi and in that tradition and
i'd feel the same way i've practiced at a few different centers and berkeley's and center just immediately felt like my home and and still dies spiritually and i think a lot of that is because of that lineage of a you know the specific light that is is
an expression of of something i think is universal and so in terms of in this moment i've been thinking a lot about how it's you better learn to transmit at late myself and me
dedicating myself to the things i know helped me connect with that and
that's that's been a big part of what i've been thinking about you know and just that
ways i can and keep that alive
on in life
thinking
mine
hi everybody thank you so much for
together and in this way
two are able to so good at doing
i guess what i keep feeling is i mean i've never felt so close to the truth to truths being alive at the same time because
there's nothing more or you know temporal than the fact that he's leaving and he won't be back that there's a person who was born at a certain time and is going to die and we won't see those shades drawn in the office ever you know in that way and just the many many things
i am
at the same time everything he tried to teach us a is not out the window which is you know
re from the duality of birth and death and and
something bigger and also true an equally true and more true when you have them both at the same time somehow i mean i just i just have never experienced
the two ways of
experiencing you know at the same time so much and adds it's another gift from him i'm and i'm sure they'll just continue to be i i believe there will continue to be gifts from him for the rest of my life and
so you know really sad that of the many details you know
i'm at the same time we i cannot forget everything that he stood for you could say are you know sat for hours thing in any anyway it's a wonderful thing and it also the fact that we can do this together is it didn't either for amazing wonderful
did you
ross rights
ah i like to think surgeons let's kick the old bum out is in the spirit of our literature where and sisters reference those giants in what appears to be a derogatory but as surgeon has reminded us don't take than words literally it feels both self effacing
and uttering the tradition
thinking
and karen son home i invite you
to unreal yourself and ask a question
thank you i just wanted to say that on
one thing could took me a long time to realize with sojourn with how much he loves all of us i remember thinking of teachers as being kind of remote that they were up on some little mountain actor was hard
to reach and i remember asking someone in the courtyard you know that i wanted to tell mouse something and they said we'll go knock on his door and it took me a long time and then i realized there were people knocking on his door all the time and he the mall in and
so that's just something you know
we all love him i know i do but what strikes me so much is how much he loves us and i'm sold
that's what i'm feeling right now and it makes so much sense why he didn't want to give up his
place
ah
he's just were all to so attached to each other connected let's say
susan
morning mary thank you for your heartfelt talk
one thing that i've been thinking about a lot that's been helping me as i've been watching the garden and my own garden and i'm looking at other gardens as i've been walking and in a surgeon was a wonderful gardener himself and
i was thinking
in a last year when our daughter's friend died at the age of twenty three i sought her life was like one of those early spring flowers that bloom spurt just a few days and then is gone and i was thinking that sojourns life was has been like
more like a an early summer flower that blooms in june and just continues to bloom and bloom and bloom and bloom all through the summer and well into the fall and it's only like us the you know of frost either an early frost or a late frost that
kills that flower but not before it he knows first it seeds open and those seeds go everywhere i'm amazed in my garden right now i'm seeing little plants coming up litter in my backyard but they're they're starting in the front yard and it's just that's the
way it is in the garden and down the street and all over and it's really helping me to to think of
you know his influence on all of us and people all over the world
i'm
thank you nicki read has a beautiful image you you have wonderful garden the emergence making
john
hi everyone i rarely speak so i appreciate the time and thank you mary for a very beautiful talk and
one of the things i regret it is that i've been meaning to send now a card for very long time and i didn't perhaps i thought if i don't send it then he won't be sick for some bizarre reason but of this is one of this is the card and if you can
see it it's a rabbit and it looks like it's bowing to me and i thought now might appreciate it and i'm sure many people have many stories with now but i wanted to share one from a long time ago and i wrote to him and i said dear mom for likes he said sojourn maybe two
twenty five years ago i came to bcc and i sat most days in a state a big sadness and despair and at that time i went to docusign and i told you i didn't know what to do because every time i sat i just cried and cried and i felt so sad and lost and i think you said something like
if you cry just cry just sit just cry and i still carry this little message with me even twenty five years later that if something happens let it happen and just sit through it and everything will pass and everything changes and i really
i know that this is
one message he gave to me many many years ago and i know that he's given that message to so so many folks and it's just i'm just really lovely testament this community that mom he's touched so many people and i just feel very very
very grateful and i thank you for letting me share this cause i didn't get it to him in time and i have this crap so am i think you and i thank you so much again for your talk and for all of you for making this community community and letting me
a part of it i feel very grateful even though i don't say a lot so thank you thank you nicki green
sam
oh
i'm sarah lou
next to
and
when was unfair sent out an update on and vision ah
i felt an enormous sense of grief i'm not a stranger and two people time
add another post friends and family and it's not like this assisted rise because people known for a long time
but i also felt on
oh my i actually have a another friend who's going to pancreatic cancer right now but my grieving over this feels different because i really wanted to reach out to the slander on
and yet i felt like i wanted to call was for that were of a beer people that i am like know better but i also fell because i
and i don't have a long term relationship
with sojourn and
i thought
the on
i would be interfering basically most people in the cylinder have very close very deep personal ties and i thought that my grief would see
i don't know gun
i don't know have have it
and that they needed the time and space to grieve and at my
muddy of wrestler me i don't understand that serve interfere with their own prices
and some my contact with surgeon in fierce of this action been pretty minerals i've only had one to be he said
but more recently i can be are
in october enemy
you know there's the image of in for as home
the rice a the way back to that with see his face
and for me and that way
it sort of like being a good it's fun i will always see surgeon space
nuts
both a way of grieving had a great comfort movie
so he's
an
he's he's there for him
now play and i've also tell you a great comfort to the sin seuss the his talks with nine on
and i noticed he did a lot of talks and birth and death over the last hit over the last year and that
thank you to everyone in this center
thank you sir in your grief matters
tom painter rights one of surgeons teachings which has stayed with me don't be afraid to use yourself up he embodied this giving of himself to all of us completely through his life long life i like what many people have said about his light not really going out
oh and i wanna thank tom for his
remembrance and also thank him for being a wonderful co saturday director sue ocher
thank you blake us and mary thank you for your talk
i had this memory suddenly as soon was talking and ross about knocking on surgeons door because you had something to say
and i suddenly had this great feeling of regret an embarrassment the one time i served as to shop for certain during sassine i was really terrified and uncomfortable i never wanted to disappoint him my tendency with teachers and
authority figures is to do it right
and at this late stage in my life i still tend to do that which does keep me separate
and i remember
he had gone to bed
and someone approached me some outside the gate who was visiting from japan
and i said no you can't see him i prevented him from going to not on the door
and i thought i was taking care of so didn't and now i wonder if i actually was
i'm soak in thinking about that i think it it just shows how we all have our personal relationship with surgeon with everybody we see it through our own lens
and i don't know about right and wrong with that one that on you know it was just the action i took and i don't know the consequences of it bad
i don't know
the seeds that i've planted i hope they're beneficial and i really appreciate that all the years of docusign and teaching and
i remember telling him
when i took a position one of the practice physicians
i said i just want you to encourage me and that's all he ever did
so thank you
and you
i am
excuse me i've got a two year old playing with the noisy truck behind me but damn was wanted to say thank you to everyone for your words and
i've also been having some dualistic feelings lately and
i also feel like i'm relatively new to busy see and phelps a bit like a satellites i'm for the last few years but the the interactions i've had with was such a been very important to me and there's on the one hand i have pardon me that wants to
she'll addressed
now that you know i've i've i've found him and now he's is is going to be gone and yet there's also a part of me that
doesn't worry so much about whether i'm adrift or not anymore and i think that is part of your what he gave me and likewise you know there's this question of
you how do i honor my teacher but how do i be independent from a teacher and i think
i've learned how to not try to for some resolution or force one of those things to be the winner and i can just let them be and that's that's one of the things i'm i'm grateful to origin for and and all of us
so thank you
you
we're getting to about that time
i'd like to share the when you hike along for example as a group in mountains and river it's important to stay together so that every a safe but i remember surgeon just shot way out in front
when i was his attended
he was gone
and that's really one of his great teachings to me is how did you be a team player but how do you
deuce it all
married you have any closing words
hmm
i'm very much
appreciate you
we rely on how do you
on so no
and i think that ah
so did his right
that we didn't mark of this saga and a marker represents nutter uses
stability and longevity and that's kearns
practice that's how good practice to the other end that's
the big one of the big lessons that we learn by just watching you
thanks
he gets i know that's gonna stay with me i'm sure it's gonna stay where everyone can thank you