So tonight I want to talk about a topic that is no stranger to all of us,
This great matter that we know as life and death,
And actually Zen Master Dogen talks about it as life and death,
All one word.
Actually all spiritual practices deal with life and death because this is the greatest matter that we humans have to contend with.
And so tonight as we do in every Sutra service we read the five remembrances.
I'm of the nature to grow old,
To have ill health,
To die.
And I remember when I first heard this chant I was both horrified and wanted to run away and relieved because somebody was finally talking about what was real as so much of our culture turns away from death.
We hide death often.
So why is it that we think so much about death?
Well clearly it has something to do with death being a great teacher,
That it teaches us about how to live a good life,
How to live a life that's meaningful,
A life that we can look back on with satisfaction.
I looked at what the Buddha taught as he was dying.
He was sick and as he was dying he taught something called the Eight Awarenesses of the Awakened Being.
It's from the Mahabhari Nirvana Sutra and it's a very specific list of the Eight Qualities of the Awakened Being.
And as I read further I saw that in fact Zen Master Dogen centuries later in the 13th century also at the time of his death was teaching the Eight Awarenesses of the Awakened Being.
Now these Eight Awarenesses are one of those typical lists that we make in Buddhism,
Particularly our ancestors make,
And they are realizations,
Awakenings that are available to us all.
Here's the list.
Having fewer desires,
Knowing how to be satisfied,
Enjoying serenity,
Exerting meticulous effort,
Not forgetting right thought,
Practicing samadhi,
Concentration or meditation,
Cultivating wisdom,
And the last one is avoiding idle talk.
So I was delving into these teachings because death visited my family a month ago.
Actually a month ago tonight I signed off from Hank and at that moment my dear cousin Donna called to tell us that she had been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer.
And she went from thinking she just had a cough to dying from her illness in 13 days.
So this was a shock for all of us,
Most of all for Donna.
Now Donna was probably more like a sister to me than a cousin and she was one of those family members who you choose,
Who might be assigned to you by by dint of birth,
But who you choose.
And she was a pillar.
She was the the connector of everyone in the family.
She was the glue.
She created sangha in my family.
And so she was the person who I couldn't imagine life without.
And suddenly,
Suddenly,
She was dying.
And how she met her death was a very useful teaching for me.
And so I'd like to talk about it a bit with the frame of these eight awarenesses.
Of course,
She first went through a lot of denial.
How can this be happening?
I thought I had a cough.
And then moving toward great acceptance and naturally needing to discern what's really important in these last days of my life.
She was very clear about wanting us to come and be with her.
She put herself into hospice care.
And she knew that she wanted her family gathered around her.
And we all did.
What was surprising was the way that she,
In her wonderful managerial way,
Orchestrated the end of her life.
That she had us all there with her and knew exactly how she wanted things to go.
So there we were being tended to by this dear woman,
Even from her sickbed.
And she manifested those great awarenesses that the Buddha and Dogen taught about.
She had fewer desires because it was suddenly clear what was most important.
And what was so helpful to all of us was her clarity.
Who she wanted to see,
How she wanted to see them.
She knew how to be satisfied.
She focused very clearly on what she could enjoy in her last days.
And what she enjoyed was a kind of serenity as we all sat around in her hospital room and told stories and told jokes.
Donna was getting to the point where she couldn't talk very much,
But she was very clear that she could listen.
And she beamed as we talked about the various adventures and mishaps of family life.
The other thing that she began to do was this thing called exerting meticulous effort.
She was very clear that she wanted time to speak with each of us alone.
And she did that.
The day she died,
She brought each of us in,
And we sat with her to have that time to say the things that we wanted to be sure to say to each other.
And then that awareness of not forgetting to have right thought.
She was very clear that she did not want this to go on very much longer because she wanted all of us to get on with our lives.
And so she practiced great concentration.
She was very focused,
Very wise,
And certainly avoided idle talk because the urgency was to focus on what mattered.
And so we all sat and told stories and told each other how much love there was for Donna,
For each of us.
And then we sat in the room as the oxygen mask was removed,
And Donna took her last breaths.
Now,
This can sound like an idealized death,
And this was probably as idealized as it gets,
Because Donna was incredibly lucky.
She really was able to choose her death.
Most of us cannot do that.
But what was so clear was that this woman,
Who never meditated a moment in her life,
Was not a person of the way,
Never practiced Zen,
That what she was able to do was to teach us through this concentration that happened toward the end of her life.
And I think what she taught us was that we are all Donnas,
That we can all have this capacity for these eight awarenesses,
That we all have that capacity,
And we simply need to discover it in ourselves.
And that facing toward the end of life is so sacred because it offers us the option to learn how to live.
Holding these eight awarenesses in mind charts a whole way of life,
And these eight awarenesses reflect back on each other.
If we have fewer desires,
We know how to be satisfied.
If we know how to be satisfied,
We're more able to enjoy tranquility.
Tranquility.
And if we enjoy tranquility,
We're freed up to exert right effort for the things we most care about.
And that includes concentration,
Meditation,
Cultivating wisdom.
And of course,
When we practice wisdom,
We don't waste time on the trivial,
On idle talk,
Or mean-spirited talk,
Or certainly not the unkind self-talk that many of us are plagued with.
But everything comes into focus.
What I saw was that Donna was able to have fewer desires as she approached the end of her life.
She knew what was going to be satisfying.
Because she was so satisfied with what she had,
That being grateful for what she had was what accompanied her as she approached the end of life.
And of course,
You know,
With the world falling apart,
As it is,
And the world always burning,
As the Buddha pointed out,
It's easy to say,
How can we be grateful?
But so much of our ordinary everyday suffering is optional.
And that's what facing the end of life can show us.
That we really have so much to be grateful for.
You know,
So we can get lost in thinking,
Oh,
We could be truly happy if we were married,
If we were single,
If we were somewhere else,
If we had a different job,
A different life.
But being able to be satisfied with what we already have,
Even when we only have days and hours left to live,
That's what happens when suddenly we don't take life for granted at all.
And that's one of the reasons why being with someone during that time is so sacred and so healing for the living.
I saw Donna's ability to find joy in seemingly small things,
A cool glass of water,
Or just taking a breath,
Certainly being teased by her grandchildren.
And so now,
I'm certainly left with a lot of sadness,
Always there waiting in the wings,
That comes and goes.
But I find myself welcoming the sadness because with it comes the memories of this wonderful being who was always in my life.
And of course,
Donna reminded me of how precious life is while I still have it.
There's a wonderful story of an elementary school teacher who wrote about this.
She saw one of her little students,
He was seven,
They were having quiet reading time in class.
And she saw him quietly doing a little dance at his seat.
And so she called him over and said,
What were you thinking about just now?
And he said to his teacher,
Do you ever forget you're alive?
And then all of a sudden you remember?
This little seven-year-old had a moment of awakening.
And each time I think of my cousin,
Yes,
I feel deep pangs of sadness.
But I remember that miracle of being alive.
And to quote Lewis Thomas,
When we feel that miracle of being alive,
You would think we would never stop dancing.
Thank you.
