Graceful Exits; a recommendation

[sittingzen]

Friends,

Forgive me if this book has been previously discussed. I highly recommend it. Sushila Blackman, a Hindu student, compiled and edited, "Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die-Death stories of Hindu, Tibetan, Buddhist, and Zen masters." Sadly, just a few months after this book was completed, Sushila passed away from advanced lung cancer and was not able to witness the book's completion. I would like to share with you a few snippets:

---
Before he died, Hui-neng, the sixth Chinese patriarch of Zen, spoke these moving words of farewell:

“Come close. In the 8th month I intend to leave this world. If any of you have doubts, ask them quickly, and I shall resolve them for you. I must bring your delusions to an end and make it possible for you to gain peace. After I have gone, there will be no one to teach you.”

Deeply touched, all the disciples began to cry. Among them, Shen-hui alone remained unmoved. Hue-neng turned and spoke to him:

“Shen-hui, you are a young monk, yet you have attained the status of awakening in which good and not good are identical, and you are not moved by judgment of praise and blame. You others have not yet understood...You’re crying just because you don’t know where I’m going. If you knew where I was going you wouldn’t be crying. Nature itself is without birth and without destruction, without going and without coming…”
---

I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself; “What is the essence of this mind?” Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end, which is endless, is as a snowflake dissolving in the pure air.

-Bassui, addressing a dying disciple
--

When the tenth-century Chinese Zen Master name Dasui Fahzen was asked, “How are you at the time when life-death arrives?” he answered promptly, “When served tea, I take tea; when served a meal, I take a meal.”

--
Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going-
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.
-Kozan Ichigyo; 14th century Zen monk

[RichardH]

Idealizing how I die is iffy. It's going to be how it is... maybe like a spring breeze, maybe not. Good and not good are identical, but it is also true that good is good and not good is not good. When your stomach acid makes a final home in your throat, and your rectum has to me manually cleared of concrete, it is not so good. I can't be sure what my state of mind will be, .. the only thing for sure is it will be just what it is. Gassho Daizan

[sittingzen]

Daizan,

I agree. Idealizing how one dies is iffy. Hopefully, through our practice, we will meet that inevitable point as it presents itself.

[Jundo]

A lot of Buddhist Ancestors' heroic deaths have been polished up, or made up, in the process of writing their legend after they died.

Me? I will probably die asking if anyone got the license plate number of that bus, or begging the doctor for more morphine.

I better write the "death poem" in advance, just in case, so it is handy when my disciples start to write my legend.

Gassho, J

[Jundo]

I do, however, believe that an aspect of our Practice is a lifetime's mental preparation to be more accepting, perhaps thoroughly one and allowing, of the endless end.

I was inspired this week by the story of San Francisco Zen Center Teacher Steve Myogen Stuckey, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer only a few days ago. As I hear the story told, no legend about it ...

One of our Abbots was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. There is no stage 5, he said. He gave a dharma talk last night and sang Blind Lemon Jefferson's words:

Feelin funny in my mind lord I believe I'm fixin to die
Oh funny in my mind I believe I'm fixin' to
I don't mind dying but I sure hate to leave my children crying

... Despite his pain and diagnosis, he'll continue to attend to Zen Center as he can, for as long as he can (3 months to 1 year). He said he was grateful for it all and that the practice of Zen would carry him through to the last moments of consciousness.

He sat there like a mountain last night, big smile, like he swallowed the moon. He told us of his walk with Shodo Spring through South Dakota at Pine Ridge with the Lakota people. He remembered harvesting wheat when he was a boy. He reminded us of Dogen's poem: What can we liken the world to?Dew drops reflecting the moon, shaken of the beak of a heron.
http://drizzleanddew.blogspot.jp/201...our-heart.html

Let us sit for his Peaceful Transition.

Gassho, J

[sittingzen]

I do, however, believe that an aspect of our Practice is a lifetime's mental preparation to be more accepting, perhaps thoroughly one and allowing, of the endless end.

I was inspired this week by the story of San Francisco Zen Center Teacher Steve Myogen Stuckey, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer only a few days ago. As I hear the story told, no legend about it ...



Let us sit for his Peaceful Transition.

Gassho, J

Jundo,

My memory may be errant, although I recall a conversation with you (possibly by email?), in which you stated that when your time comes, that perhaps you would sit, if possible, and stream it. Because that is reality. We come and we go. I thought there was significant beauty in that.

I will sit tonight for Abbot's peaceful transition this evening.

_/\_

[Kyonin]

I wonder how will I be when the time to depart comes for me.

Will I have a heroic death? Will I have a death worth the Darwin Award?

Who knows.

All I have really is this second.

Oh it just went away.

Hey, here comes another one.

Gassho,

Kyonin

[Ishin]

Unfortunately Jundo, unlike many of your predecessors, we have a written a video record of exactly what you have said. It will take a good deal of polishing , but perhaps we can edit here and there.

I am sure your last words will be" Lovely Lovely" or.. something like that

Thanks for posting this sittingzen.

[Mp]

Thank you for this sittingzen - for me, I didn't come into this world gracefully, so I will probably go out in the same manner ... but that is ok with me.

Gassho
Shingen

[Jundo]

Jundo,

My memory may be errant, although I recall a conversation with you (possibly by email?), in which you stated that when your time comes, that perhaps you would sit, if possible, and stream it. Because that is reality. We come and we go. I thought there was significant beauty in that.

Oh yes, that is my dream death! One last Sit-a-long. Like the Masters of old (many still today) have themselves propped up in the Lotus Posture for the final moments, and pass on while sitting. Such would make a powerful Teaching.

Lighting would thunder, and the ground would shake, as a Halo appears in the clouds overhead. (In fact, this is much like the description for Trungpa Rinpoche. I will ask my students to mix a mild hallucinogenic or some massive fire crackers in with the burning wood for a similar effect on the crowd ... )

When the cremation fire was near its peak, there was one point in the ceremony when the audience was asked not to take pictures. I started paying closer attention to the ceremony. At the climax of the ceremony Trungpa Rinpoche's astral body exploded. This was a flash of white light, like the first flash of an atom bomb. Then this cloud of light slowly ascended upwards.

I was still in awe of this when people started talking about rainbows being seen on a blue sky day. As I breathed in the essence, literally as I smelled his burning body. I knew that I was blessed.
http://chronicleproject.com/brief32.html

... whereupon various bits of bone and gall stones (there should be more then enough) are dug from the ashes as sacred relics to be distributed among all of you. Maybe you could dip me in gold and keep me on the Altar, like some do (there are dozens of the fellows in China, Korea and Japan too ... pictures a bit graphic) ...

http://www.thaibuddhist.com/the-mummified-monk-in-samui/

http://www.lookatvietnam.com/2009/12/secrets-of-vietnamese-mummies-explained.html

http://www.wa-pedia.com/religion/japanese_buddhist_mummies.shtml

But, anyway, I see no reason to plan my "dream death" and when it comes, today or somewhere down the road, such will be what it will be.

To be serious for a moment, I have told my wife that I do not wish one of the elaborate Buddhist funerals like they typically have here in Japan, by families worried that a failure to do so dooms Grandpa to Hades. Send me over for a cheap cremation, dump some of me under the persimmon tree in the back yard, some on Tsukuba mountain. I would ask Taigu and my students to have some short joyful celebration here at Treeleaf, all online of course. That celebration should center on Just Sitting.

That is all that is needed. Each moment someone sits will be a celebration.

Gassho, J

[Ishin]

[Jundo]

A couple of Koans that come to mind ...

Great Master Matsu was sick.

The temple superintendent asked him: Teacher, how is you're
venerable health these days.

The Great Master said: Sun face buddha; moon face buddha.

Matsu died a few days later. The story is that the sun face buddha lives 1800 years, and the moon face buddha lives for a night and a day. It's a legend from an old sutra. My interpretation? There are sunny days, there is the coming of night, there is human measures of "long time" and "short" ... all Buddha.

Another Koan, also from the Blue Cliff Record:

Dogo and Zen-gen went to a house [where a funeral was being conducted] to show sympathy. Zen-gen hit the coffin and asked, "Alive or dead?" Dogo replied, "I won't say alive, I won't say dead." Zen-gen demanded, " Why won't you say?" Dogo repeated, "I won't say." On their way home, Zen-gen cried, "Tell me right now teacher, alive or dead; if you don't tell me, I will hit you." Dogo said, "You may hit me, but I won't say." Zen-gen hit him.

Later after Dogo died, Zen-gen went to Seki-so and told him the foregoing story. Seki-so said, "I won't say alive, and I won't say dead." Zen-gen said, " Why won't you say?" Seki-so repeated, "I won't say, I won't say." At these words Zen-gen came to awakening.

One day, Zen-gen took a hoe into the Buddha hall and crossed back and forth, from east to west and west to east. Seki-so asked, "What are you doing?" Zen-gen said," I am looking for my teacher's relics." Seki-so said, "Vast waves spread far and wide, foaming billows flood the skies - what relics of our late master are you looking for?"

Zen-gen said, "It is a way of repaying the kindness of my old teacher." Fu of T'ai Yuan said, "The late masters relics are still present. "

Gassho, J

[Jundo]

I just saw this online. Will be good to know. What happens if you forget to change the batteries?

Now there's a watch that can predict your death to the nearest SECOND
The Tikker watch asks a set of questions about a wearer's medical history
Their age is subtracted from the results to get the estimated death date
Countdown then begins shown in years, days, hours, minutes and seconds
Creator claims it will help people make the most of the time they have left

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...own-death.html

[Biko]

I just saw this online. Will be good to know. What happens if you forget to change the batteries?

Oh dear. Haha Reminds me of that movie "In Time", good flick.
Gassho, Jeffrey

[Geika]

I don't have that watch, but I'm wearing it.