Good morning. I'm happy to be here with you. A little belatedly entering session. I was on the East Coast. The primary purpose was to be doing some work with exiled Burmese monks. And that happened and that was really It just felt good. It was very useful. It was wonderful to be with them. And I did a few other things while I was there. A couple of readings and talks and also got to visit with Sylvie in Connecticut. I think Sojan recruited me because he's in the kitchen today. So I think we can expect the beans. Between Sojan and Paul, we can expect the beans to be I left throughout last Wednesday morning and the evening before our good friend Rebecca Mayeno passed away at her daughter's home in Berkeley.

[01:22]

And I know you had a ceremony on Sunday evening, is that right? Yes. Some of you were at the cremation ceremony at Pacific Interment. So this has been on my mind for the last three weeks. And I thought, if it's okay, I'll talk a little about Rebecca and the process of her dying and how it feels to me. I think I'll start with a poem by a 14th century Zen master, Kozan Ichikyo, who died in 1360. At just about Rebecca's age, Rebecca was 78, and Kozan was 77.

[02:33]

And this was his death poem. Empty-handed, I entered the world. Barefoot, I leave it. My coming, my going, two simple happenings that got entangled. Read that again. Empty-handed, I entered the world. Barefoot, I leave it. My coming, my going, So Rebecca, just some basics. Her Dharma name was Daishin Mitsuzen, which means great or magnanimous mind, intimate Zen. She was a priest here at Berkeley Zen Center.

[03:36]

She was ordained in three of you guys together. She began to practice the Dwight Way in the late sixties, and then was involved in raising her family. She had five children, and until recently, I couldn't keep them straight. But after the last two weeks, I could see them all quite vividly. She had a son, Jan, who lives up in Mendocino County, and then four daughters who are all around here, Sarah, Lauren, Amiko and Reiko. And they have a lot of, I think all of them have children. So there's a gaggle of grandchildren who are quite wonderful, really, really wonderful to be around.

[04:44]

And they were all around in these last couple of weeks. Rebecca was born in 1932. She was married to Arthur Mayeno, who some of you may have met, one of the quietest human beings on the planet. And, yeah, always warm, always inclusive, and his, you know, his outward demeanor was so quiet But he's a terrific artist, and his art is very loud. It's really out there, and colorful, and bright, and expressive, and really a wonderful artist. And that's what he's been doing all his life, making art, working with his hands. He built a house for one of his daughters behind another daughter's house, and built it all by hand.

[05:51]

So they had a wonderful marriage. She began here in the 1960s and then took a break, I think, to raise her family. And then returned after a while, after some hiatus, just about the time that I started coming here in the early 1980s. And she just was the kind of person that Just a person that when you meet them, you feel like they've decided they're going to be your friend, irrespective of what you think of you. And, you know, he wrote something that I think she sent back to the PC, the practice committee list. There's a way in which at least I felt. that she was mothering many of us.

[06:57]

She was just inclusive and she had that, you know, the body of the Prajnaparamita that she made appear on the altar somewhat resembles hers, somewhat deluctuous and embracing and encompassing. And that's the way her spirit was. And that's the way her spirit is. She was really an exemplar, initially an exemplar of lay practice. And she was the third shuso or head student that we had here, and that was in July. late June, early July of 1991. And she was the Shuso after Maile Scott and Fran Tribe.

[07:58]

And, you know, they were, they did the Shuso ceremony in a kind of proper way, you know, just really speaking in a very very condensed, brief manner of addressing everyone who asked the question, which is the way you're, quote, supposed to do it. And Rebecca's was the longest Shuso ceremony in history. It just went on. Some of you witnessed her. But it's because it was just an interesting. She wasn't going to give this Zen response. She had a conversation with everybody. Each person who asked a question, she had a conversation. It was really wonderful. The whole room was just alight with her warm energy.

[09:02]

And then, as I said, later, she really felt when her children were pretty much grown and she had ended her teaching career. She was an elementary school teacher. She wanted to ordain as a priest. That's what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. And that was in 2000. And she did that. I'm sorry. I just It occurred to me I was thinking of the various people that I have sat with here as they were dying and I realized it's like not a good gig for longevity to be a priest at this temple. This is my dark sense of humor, I'm afraid. But she continued, she taught sewing. And so many of us have sewed with her and worked on our rock suits and robes.

[10:19]

And she did periodic classes in Buddha making. And in that last section of her life, she became, she had been a potter all the time and made cups that we used for years for tea and made them for San Francisco Zen Center and other places. But she really got taken with making these images, basically Jesus and Bodhisattva and Prajnaparamita's We had spent a long time meetings, haggling back and forth about the lack of feminine images in the Zen Do, which there was, is a real lack. And what's the right one? Where do we get one?

[11:20]

What do we do? And then it's like that showed up. She just decided in the midst of all this, she realized She could do that and she began making these and they were, you know, you'll find them, her Prajnaparamita's and also her large, the Jizo she made, is back in the Jizo garden, which is very lovely. And this was, this is her work, this is what she did each day. She had to work back in her studio behind the house and made these images. So these are kind of facts. At a certain point she was having trouble with memory and I can't remember how this happened but I was with the family when we went to Stanford and she got the diagnosis.

[12:26]

that she had early stages of Alzheimer's. And it really was like for everybody, like just getting punched in the gut. There was not a lot that you could do. There was some medication you could take. But for my sense of time blurs, but I suspect that was in the early part of the 2000s, must have been like 2001 or something. the latest or three but for a number of years she came to Zazen she was slowly retreating in her interactivity but she came to Zazen and sat in a chair and put on her robes and it was a really intimate I mean her name was Intimate Zen and for me it was a very intimate experience because I was sitting across from her.

[13:31]

And I just felt like we were trying to take care of each other. And then there came a time when it just got too difficult for her to make it. But in that period before, a number of us, we would pick her up in the morning at her house. And that was always very sweet. wasn't a lot of talk but there was a sweetness in the interaction and she was comfortable and we were comfortable with her but there was a grief and a sadness in watching her slowly retreat from what seemed like the present of course we don't know what was actually taking place I do remember, this is long before she had this diagnosis, she was talking about her mother.

[14:34]

And I guess her mother had had Alzheimer's. And she was talking about an encounter that she had had late in her mother's life when she went to the facility. And her mother said something like, I don't know who you are, dear, but there's something very sweet about you that I like which was you know it was very powerful when she said it and then of course even more powerful when when that was what was happening so a number of people from here visited her over the years both in their home and then she was moved to a Street in El Cerrito and the interactions were limited but there was definitely responsiveness response she would eat and she would watch particularly like to look at images or look at photographs in her room was there were photographs all over her room of people who were close to her in her life and pictures on the altar.

[15:55]

And I had visited her not so long before, I think just a couple weeks. And then there was a call on November 16th that reportedly Rebecca had 24 to 48 hours to live. And so we went over there, a couple of us, Lori and I went over there and chatted with her. And then that night there was another call that the facility, I guess her daughter Lauren had stayed with her the night before and she had stopped taking food and drink and was not really able to swallow for some mysterious reason. Lauren had spent the night and the next day the people at this facility said, oh, nobody can stay here after 7 o'clock.

[17:06]

And, you know, the family was shocked. Hospice was shocked, the Kaiser Hospice. And, you know, everybody felt, well, no, this is not OK. But also, It was kind of freaky. I mean, OK, so what are we going to do? We're not going to leave. They weren't going to leave her there. But the thought of moving her in this fragile condition was was daunting. But that's what they ended up doing. Hospice was really good. They they arranged for an ambulance and the guys that came were really skilled and just very kind with her. And they got a bed delivered to her daughter Sarah's house, which was all set up. the whole environment had been sort of recreated and contrary to expectations is 24 to 48 hours stretched out to two weeks which I gather from talking to Andrea and others is kind of unusual but I think it had something to do with the

[18:31]

how comfortable it was there how she was surrounded by love and really there was nothing that she needed to do and the quality of love that surrounded her at the same time as the quality of ordinary life which I think was a mark of Rebecca's practice just to be able to really thrive and grow in the midst of family, hustle and bustle, work. And so she was just in the middle of it all. So it was another one of those life lessons in not knowing what's a good thing and what's a bad thing. you know, looked like really, you know, how could they do this, you know, not let anybody stay there, you know, just this is wrong.

[19:39]

And if we had gotten caught in our anxiety, she probably would have died within 24 or 48 hours, maybe. Who knows? But everybody, including Rebecca, did what they had to do to make the move. And then that was That was really a good thing. So there are a number of, the family, there were a lot of people who visited Rebecca. The family was most acquainted with just a small group of people. Sojan, Ross, Andrea, Lori, myself, and Peter Overton's sister, Ann. And so, We were there most days over the two weeks sitting with her and then towards the end set up a schedule to help the family because they were exhausted.

[20:42]

They had not expected such a long haul and really needed help just to have someone present. And so we had shifts. I was really thinking a lot also of Case 55 in the Blue Cliff Record, which I've talked about, Sokin's talked about, other people have. Daowu's Condolence Call, where a student, Yuanwu and, oh, Qinlan and Daowu go to visit a family where a person has died. Chinyuan knocks on the coffin and wants to know alive or dead I won't go into the whole koan, but I thought of that a lot Because over the course of the of the two weeks it seemed to me Physically Rebecca was

[21:58]

diminished and diminishing and there was some you know initially some responsiveness and some eye seems like eye contact and tracking and less and less of that and also since she wasn't getting food or water she was physically changing but what it seemed like and view there was something like her skin became very smooth and it was a kind of sweet expression often on her face and in the last days last two days it just seemed like the line between being alive and And not being alive was so close.

[23:02]

And yet, she was decidedly alive. You know, in some sense, fully functioning human organism. And yet so close to this line. And then, what is this line? What is it for her? What is it for us? There didn't seem to be a lot of distress. Her breathing was, for the most part, pretty easy, slow, shallow, but her eyes were either closed or then later had, you know, this kind of faraway look. Was alive or dead. But in those moments, coming down on the side of life.

[24:08]

And I kept thinking, who is Rebecca? Where is she? Because she was there. And after returning, the night that she died, playing at Ashkenaz and I got a call from Lori and so I came after the show and wonderful, just incredible energy to walk into because the women were all gathered around Rebecca. It was her daughters and Lori and Andrea and I think Yeah and the two granddaughters dressed in white who looked quite angelic and everyone was lovingly, they washed her body, they dressed it in initially in the kimono and then they shaved her head and then put her in her robe

[25:26]

It was easier than we thought, maybe. And looking at Rebecca, I saw, whoa, there is a real difference. So now, alive or dead was coming down on the other side. And yet, the whole room was touched, filled with a sort of formless presence and I couldn't help thinking and I had been thinking about this for several days that the last thing that she did was this amazing pulling together merging of her family her biological family and her Zen family I think there had been perceptions at different points by each side of those family vectors leading in, there's some tension there, pulling in one way or another.

[26:43]

But we had spent a long time, two weeks working together and it really, the feeling was very, very intimate. And then finally all the work was done. and Sojan Roshi organized a very small intimate service where we chanted the Heart Sutra and circumambulated and then people got a chance to speak in that moment and when you do this you set up an altar just as at the cremation ceremony He set up the altar, but there's no Buddha image on the altar because the body there is the Buddha. And that's really the feeling that there was in the room. So people spoke briefly, but with tears, with joy and appreciation.

[27:54]

And that was the first of what will be a succession of goodbyes. There will be a large memorial which will be open, I believe, in late January. We're working on this now. This question, alive or dead, lingers. Rebecca is here in many of our hearts. Not everyone knew her, but a lot of people did. And some of us knew her in her prime. Some of us knew her later. but her hand and her spirit are also in this place and with all of us.

[29:03]

So I think I'm going to stop there. There's probably more I could say, but I want to leave time for people to speak or say whatever you would like to. As I said, in each of our Each of our rituals of goodbye, there's opportunity to do this. That's what we do. So, we have a little time here. I wanted to mention that a number of years ago we had a ceremony for Rebecca. And we all lined up and expressed to her how we felt about her and how we appreciated her while she was still able to receive that and she had a wonderful time. It was 2005 I looked this up, yeah. 2005? Yeah.

[30:09]

It would be nice to have that book. There is a, yeah, I don't... It's in the community library. Okay. So it was sort of a book of remembrances, right? Yeah. You know, I have a Would you like to scan it? We have a copy in the library and we can bring it out and set it on the counter by the bulletin board after the lecture and people can look through it. That's a good idea. I just looked at it a few nights ago when this came up so I know it's in there. That's a good idea. Scanning it also might be good. I think Ross has the whole thing and can generate more copies if people want them. I think it says in the book what you can do to get more copies. I just want to thank you a lot for talking about Rebecca. I was kind of longing for that, I think, because we did celebrate. I mean, we did a memorial, but we didn't have words. But along those lines, you know, my coming here, Rebecca's going from here got entangled.

[31:15]

I mean, I started coming here, I think it was 04, and she was already, you know, in decline and being escorted to Zazen in the morning. And I have this really great memory of one of my first Shosan ceremonies. And she came to the end of the mat. And she did like a, she just turned and did a circle and looked at each of us around this end of us. And then she got back to facing Sojin. I think there was one word maybe, like just, you know, this or something. I don't know what she said. There were some words that had gone out. And then bowed. I was so touched. And I still remember it. And I didn't know this woman at all. But she really did have that sort of extending warmth. The mothering that you talked about, that resonate. I really feel that was true of her.

[32:16]

Thank you very much for sharing. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ellen, for your talk. I was one who didn't know Rebecca very well. And I had this thought about her death. And perhaps the length of time that it took her to die gave the two sides of her family, the Zen side and the biological side, a chance to come together. And there's something, the beauty of what she represented as far as service. I wanted to share that thought. Thank you. Sue? Thank you. A lot of memories. I was at her show song. I guess it was the first that she got.

[33:19]

She was pretty close to her. And I was pretty new then. I said, do you think that I could be a substitute? Because I wasn't sure. And she said, with this gigantic beam on her smile, she said, with absolute confidence, oh, yes. And, you know, it's like welcome. And if you went to her house, it would be likely you'd get dinner, you know. I felt indebted to her because I felt a little bit in awe that, you know, I think I have this shy part of me that I never invited them over, you know.

[34:22]

She fed me. Thank you. Peter? Well, a special thank you was coming from me because I only knew this sort of ghost-like character who would show up here early mornings with being accompanied and it was obvious that she was both venerated and also past her prime, for sure. And your talk today really, in the same way as the figures that she made, have form. Now she has a form for me. And there's been a lot of talk with Rebecca that over the last couple of weeks here. But this talk really Thank you.

[35:27]

Yeah, just again, this is my own wariness. I want to be careful about not sanctifying her. And if ever there was a person, she was very, what she exemplified was the wondrous quality of ordinariness, you know, just really doing all that, you know, not a saint, a physical, you know, voluptuous, big-breasted, chunky, heart-filled person, and going at life, and making mistakes, but full-hearted, so, you know, I just They don't want to get too rarefied, that's all. John? One of the things that has been really very powerful for me through this whole process, and her dying, and also being at the cremation ceremony, is the span of time that I've known her, when she was, before she really started to decline, and these various qualities,

[36:48]

And there's a whole range of experiences I've had with her, which she could be wonderful, she could be, you know, a bitch. And then when she started declining, I just very vividly recall the times in which she started to get very agitated in the Zendo. And it was a very, very a tremendous feeling of loss in that. And what really kind of struck me in the ceremony was that here's this one person encompassing this whole mix of things. The extraordinarily warm, helpful person to rescue my a jukai with my envelope for my box, which was this absolutely flawless thing, and there was this wonderful feeling, and at the same time I have these feelings like that, and then being with her when she's just extremely

[38:13]

And then as she became fairly connected, and Ross and I would go have lunch with her and Arthur, and there'd be this sweetness and mellowness. Maybe a lot of it also had to do with medications that she was taking, but there's a sweetness. So it's this mix of sweetness, wonderful lovingness, time-spirited ability. agitation, and all together in this one package, and just looking at her and realizing this is all mixed around in there. It was a wonderful experience, kind of experiencing life in totality. Yeah, well, that's the way we are, each of us. Yeah. I'm wondering, the person who is in the process of dying, Are they the same as a person who is alive?

[39:29]

Because I know, like, I've seen people die and they're very, very different people as they're dying. I think everyone does it. Everyone manifests in their own unique way. That is embedded in that koan, so you should work on it. That's part of what that koan is really bringing forth. Even within life. Alive or dead. I had some interactions with Rebecca. I think while she was in sort of an intermediate state. And I was struck by her expressing herself without language, like once I was driving her home and we got to the stoplight on Dwight Way. I mean, not that she said much, she said, wonderful people, such wonderful people, such good times.

[40:31]

You know, I knew exactly what she was talking about, and she knew that I knew what she was talking about. But I think also having, there's the whole koan of our practice, because we would like to think that somehow a sincere, devoted practitioner would somehow have some kind of immunity from what happens in her mind. I mean, no, I mean, you're laughing, but I mean, you know, we can, I can, you can kind of understand that the body not, but you kind of, you know, to see her become agitated and to become, and to so much, um, you know, become unfamiliar. I mean, I think Matt's question is a really, it's very poignant because it was a real, I mean, it was an, I think an extraordinarily powerful teaching. to see that and to realize whatever we think we're doing here it's not, you know, it's in some ways it can't save you from certain kinds of things. Yeah.

[41:32]

I think, you know, especially that it was a mind thing, that it was her mind and her spirit that kind of really changed. Yeah. Thank you. Adrienne? kind of following up a little bit on both of those last points. I found Rebecca's dying an amazing teaching, actually. Rebecca went for 16 days without food and water, which is an incredibly long time for someone who has so many disabilities that we should know. You know, the family home was really beautiful and it was warm and there were candles and chanting was playing. fireplace was going, Rebecca was moving on and on, and the family started to get a little Maybe there's some unfinished business. What's she waiting for? The sun hadn't been down from Mendocino yet and they were all expecting that after

[42:35]

He came, she would immediately die, and days went on. And then they thought, we're around too much, and we're making this loving, warm, familial household. So we're going to go during the day and just leave the house empty with some people, extended family that she was connected with. We'll have other people come, and still she'd leave. It was amazing to go and be with her every day and see her slowly go through the stages of disconnecting from this life. The stages of, at times, being so alert during the chanting and so responsive to it. Her granddaughters would come and stroke her hair and, you know, this was ten days without food and water, and she would pucker and kiss them. You can tell that she was, you know, this is some projection, because who knows, but she was using her hands, still her beautiful sculptor's hands, and she would move them around.

[44:04]

And then it seemed like she turned more and more inward as the process went. And in the last two or three days, there was barely any outward connection. just the slowness of her breathing the last day or so, where you knew that any breath could be the last day. Not because it was irregular, like you know sometimes people have. But just because her dying was that peaceful. And it likened, I thought about a flower on the winter branch, just slowly, slowly, slowly withering. waiting for the last three years that were blowing off. Rebecca's passing was really that gentle and that complete. And I thought some of that maybe was the Alzheimer's, but I actually think it was a manifestation of her pregnancy.

[45:06]

That nothing was in the way, and her body could just go through this natural unfolding in a way that's really pretty unusual. I mean, it happens, but it's pretty unusual. Time for maybe one or two more. Bob? A lot of people know the image on the altar is made by Rebecca, but I think a lot might not know. Home, maybe about eight years ago. Could you hold up the striker? Sojin asked her, it had gotten worn, and Sojin had asked her to repair it. And that's made out of many, many thin layers, each of which has to be layered on and glued and set. And I remember Rebecca complaining to me how much of a work it was.

[46:10]

But she did it and she did a beautiful job. And when you hear the bell now, you'll hear some of Rebecca through his voice. Thank you. One more? Yeah. You know, we Thank you for your talk very much. It's very moving. We chant the ancestors in the morning and I always wonder, who are they? So it's not to sanctify, but to know. And to know whose shoulders we stand on. It's so intimate to know something about Suzuki that we talked about last night. I'd like to read that poem one more time and then we'll end. Empty handed I entered the world, barefoot I leave it. My coming, my going, two simple happenings that got entangled.

[47:18]

Thank you very much.

[47:21]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ