What's left behind

This is a picture of the box that I keep my incense in for meditation. It was given to me by my grandma before her death and it was one of a few things that she gave to me. It was such an uncomfortable moment when I visited her and she had all of these things on her table. I told her at first that I didn't want to take them, it made me feel uncomfortable thinking about her death. However, she explained to me that it was a joy and a comfort to her to know where her prized possessions were going and to whom. For me it is a wonderful "heart connection" to her every time I meditate. You see I also really treasured the box because of the bird on it. My grandma and I used to love to watch the birds outside the large windows of their mountain house.

I think she had the right idea about giving things away when she did, it has kept a wonderful "physical" connection between us. I've learned how important it is to keep onself open to the wishes of the dying!

Changes other than death

(this is a picture looking our form where I work. A large skyscraper had been torn down and a new one is slowly being put up. This is how it looked last year. In the background you can see the "Alte Oper" Old Opera House, and then in the far background St. Bartholomew's Cathederal where the Holy Roman Emperors were crowned as well as other buildings being constructed with cranes.)

I realized in the past few days how changes can be very uncomfortable and since death is one of the big changes, I sensed how even with some of the little things I can become so disturbed. The first change was to hear from our neighbors, who I really cherish, that they are looking for a new place because she is pregnant again and they need a bigger and better located place. I felt very sad as I had just really felt how wonderful it was to have really fantastic neighbors. Then after that I was at Yoga on Monday and my favorite teacher, who also has an interest in Buddhism and who I've know for almost three years now, told me that she is moving back to the States because her husband works for the diplomatic corps and has been called back to D.C.. Then at work, new classes start in March and some of the participants that I've had, and cherish, since I started in 2001 have been told by their boss that they cannot take English anymore. All of these really jOlTeD me emotionally. Change and loss. Very real even when it does not involve death. This has really pointed out to me how I must remain mindful in such situations and look at the core of the discomfort.

I wish all of these people well in their new endeavors and know that in heart there is always a connection.

By the way the building that has been started has come quite a long way, I'll try to post a picture of it this week. Funny, people at the bank are now sad because of the change of having a new building there. Their view is no longer so nice. Change and change and change and how do we deal with it?

(taken in the desert outside of Dubai)

"Death is not our shadow, it is our guide."

-Gurumayi Chidvilasananda-

The passing of others

These are two pictures of the wall of the foundation in the churchyard that has been turned into an AIDS memorial. The metal spikes are put into the wall as a memory for those they know who have died. Often there are fresh flowers put upon the spikes. In golden letters are the words in German "Verletzte Liebe"---"Injured Love". As you can see our dying camera didn't get such a good picture of this, but I still wanted to share it.

In my early and late twenties I lost so many friends and even my first partner to this disease. As I said in an earlier post my Grandpa was the first death of someone that I experienced and then just a year after I begin to see death all around me. The deaths of very close friends and many others not so close, but the numbers were staggering. So many died very painful deaths. One friend who was only twenty-five died from herpes covering his whole body. This was a time of great suffering for me as well, not physical but spiritually. Unfortunately, I didn't learn at this time how to keep my heart open. However, later with experience and from these experiences, I have slowly learned how to let the heart continue to open.

Lama Shenpen Hookham has some wonderful lines about this:

Connecting to the heart

"What we mean by heart is multifaceted and reich, and there is much about it that is relevant to how we approache death and thereafter. There seems to be meaning in talking about 'our heart of hearts', 'deep in our heart', 'holding someone in our heart', as if there were some kind of inner sanctum or place of innermost sensitivity. As well as being the seat of our deepest longing, the heart is often associated with warmth and genuineness of feeling, which mean so much at death. When one's whole world and all that it means to you is slipping away, it is only your own other people's hearts that can offer any sense of meaning at all."

Our hearts are connected to the One Heart, so there is no separation at all. A very consoling and joyful thought!

An endless end

"Your end, which is endless, is as a snowflake dissolving in pure air."
-Bassui, addressing a dying disciple-

Away from home

I was really touched by this tombstone in the churchyard here in Frankfurt. To see someone who was so far away from home and so young, who died. Was alone? Was he with his family here? Had he been visiting relatives? Was it an illness? An accident? A crime? Were his last wishes and thoughts to be at home with his family?

I guess this has an especially strong feeling for me since I'm also living in a foreign country, away form my original home. Although Frankfurt is my new home and I have my "new" family and friends here, the thought still remains, when I die, will I think of the Rocky Mountains where my life started? And who knows at the time of my death where I'll be...it could always happen away from home, on vacation for instance. But I guess that's what my Buddhist Faith is trying to teach, I'm already "home" when I rest within the Eternal. Easy to say, but not always easy to be there.

"Coming, all is clear,

no doubt about it.

Going, all is clear,

without a doubt.

What, then, is it all?

-Hosshin 13th cen Zen Monk-

"Empty handed I entered the world

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going---

Two simple happenings

That got entangled.

-Kozan Ichigyo 14th cen Zen Monk-

First Encounter

Today I thought about the first time that I really encountered death and I was surprised how really late in my life it was. All of my pets lived long lives until I was in my early twenties, in fact, our cat Musette lived to be 23 years old! The first encounter was completely unexpected, a total surprise. I was in my freshman year at university, in the spring semester and my parents showed up to take me home as my grandfather---a strong and healthy man---had died unexpectedly.

This was one of the most beloved people in my life up to that time. My grandfather who took my fishing and knew that I never put a worm on my hook because I felt terrilbe killing something. He smiled and told me that was an admirable quality. Or this wonderful man who could make anything grow and had a huge garden every year, even planint different kinds of lettuce outside of the fence for the deer to nibble on and have a treat. This wonderul man who had hugged me and made me feel so deeply loved---he was gone.

I remember arriving home and walking out to the garden. It had all been freshly planted and the sprouts were just rising up. And there I wrote a whole poem, a poem that I later read aloud in my first creative writing class and there was silence from everyone and tears from a few. The pain was almost overwhelming and sadly I cannot find the poem anymore, it was published in the universities quarterly literary magazine. Today as I thought about this day of unexpected and such painful loss, I could remember the last line...the two pictures I had in my head, the garden and the graveyard and this was :

and You in a row, instead of planting

I also happened upon a poem from 2005 in my little book that I carry around with me that I scribble all sorts of things in and it said:

In autumn

In falling rain

You don't see

The tears

Of the turning leaves

As they fall.

Funny how different memories of loss rise to greet us at different times in our lives. I also thought happily, how I have my grandfather's first name as my middle name and how wonderful that is.

Open heart

After a bit of a long day, I'd just like to put some of the things I read in Lama Shenpen Hookham's book here. The importance of meditation that leads to an open heart is the most important thing to prepare us for our death, and of course, it is also the most important thing while we are alive. The quotes from today's reading:

"In other words, what is impermanent and illusory about us is not what we are. We are awareness, and awareness is no other than our heart."

"Genuine understanding of the true nature of reality comes from being deeply connected with our heart through meditation."

"To have a deep, ongoing confidence in our heart is the most important thing at death."

"What we sense as meaningful in our heart is really the living presence of the heart of the universe, right there in the heart of our being. That is a bold statement indeed!"

"What we all need to develop is a sense of an underlying trust in what is in our heart that can carry us through life and death. That is what takes the time adn requires commitment."

Seeing death

I've been reading a book by Hape Kerkeling, a German comedian who took time out to take the pilgrims path to Santiago de Compostela. The book's title, "Ich bin dann mal weg", (I'll be gone for a bit) has some wonderful reflections about how one can see life and their own life along a pilgrimage route. I just read on Sunday the part where he reflects on a near death experience and what he felt:

"Man wird ganz friedlich und ordnet in aller Ruhe die eigenen Gedanken. Da geht es zum Teil um völlig banale Dinge, die aber im Sterbeprozess unglaubliche Wichtigkeit bekommen. Vor allem geht es aber um die Frage: Was tue ich anderen und was tun andere mir! Tiere übrigens eingeschlossen."

"You are completely peaceful and put in order your own thoughts. In part it deals with banal things, which, however, have become unbelievably important. Above all is the question: What have I done to others and what have they done to me! By the way, animals are also included."

And then he describes the moment:

"Ich kann es nur versuchen, es zu beschreiben. Es ist etwa so ein Gefühl, als würde man mit einem Plöpp-Geräusch eine Bierflasche öffnen und dazu die Berliner Symphoniker in doppelter Besetzung die 9. Sinfonie von Beethoven spielen lassen. Banal und feierlich zu gleich."

"I can only try to describe it. It is a feeling as if you hear the sound *Plop* sound of a beer bottle with the Berlin Philharmonic with double the musicians playing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Banal and celebratory at the same time."

I think there is a lot of wisdom, and good humor, in these words!

And from my Calendar this week is a qoute from Hakuin:

"The monkey is reaching for the moon in the water.

Until death overtakes him he'll never give up.

If he'd let go the branch and disappear in the deep pool,

The whole world would shine with dazzling pureness."

(from The Zen Koan, by Isshu Miura and Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965)

Going over to the other shore

(Bronze Age "Boat" Graves on Gotland)

After talking about the archeaological dig on Gotland, I thought of these wonderful graves from the Bronze Age. They were made in the shape of boats to symbolize the journey to the other side. At the same time, the Buddhist image of the boat taking us to the other shore from samsara to nirvana came to mind. So, even in Buddhism a boat helps us to leave the division of death and life behind. Once we know our True Nature, the death of the physical body no longer causes concern. The finla state is like a raindrop merging into the ocean, existence remains, but one's limitation and sense of separateness dissolve. It is something like this, anyway.

The first "death story" in Sushila Blackman's book is this one:

"When an elder Buddhist master asked a group of meditators, 'What survives when an enlightened being dies?' a man in the group replied, 'When an enlightened being dies, nothing remains.'

The master smiled and replied to the surprise of those assembled, 'No. The truth remains.'"

May I find the Truth, so that It may remain!

Not me!

(Looking down onto our excavation field near Fröjel)

(Sarah, a Viking woman from the 9th century)

"Yudhisthira asked 'Of all things in life, what is most amazing?'

Yudhisthira answers: 'That a man, seeing others die all around him, never thinks that he will die.'"

-Mahabharata-

This is such a good point, but perhaps in our day and age we are not confronted with death as people were in the past. Above you can see a photo of an archeaological dig that I participated on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. We were working in a Viking graveyard that had layers from the early 6th all the way to the 12th centuries. This grave is of a young woman, who probably died in childbirth. At that time, death permeated much of life.

Working on this site it became evident how gentle and reflective one becomes around death. With gentle bruch strokes, we slowly revealed the skeletal remains and among everyone was a sense of respect and wondering who this woman was. At the same time, even on those beautiful, long Swedish summer days, our thoughts were confronted with death, ours and that of others. As Lama Shenpen Hookham says:

"Although the best time to read and reflect on death is before we have to face it---preferably a long time beforehand---few people do so. It is symptomatic of the human condition that life's preoccupations sweep us relentlessly on, leaving us with no time to think about death, and little inclination to do so. This is one reason why the prospect of death tends to come as a shock, when we are suddenly faced, at the worst possible moment, with fundamental questions about what life is, or was, all about."

It is interesting to not that in early Buddhism and still to this day in Theravada tradtions, monks meditate in graveyards. Working on an archeaological site all one summer, on a beautiful island in the Baltic, brought me closer to thinking about what death is and how things really are impermanent.

Well, I guess I wandered away from the cemetery that is so close to our home here in Frankfurt, but the island had so many expressions of death and LIFE! It was one of the most enjoyable things I did in my life and friendships were formed that still go to this day! The island also has incredible graves from the Bronze Age, in many different forms, so I'll have to show those later. I have to dive into the days preoccupations as my parents-in-law are coming. And my father-in-law is having to deal with illness at the moment. In a week he'll start radiation therapy for the cancer cells which are gorwing in his prostate. Another reminder!

Reflections on the place we all have to come to...

"Of all footprints

That of the elephant is supreme;

Of all mindfulness meditations

That on death is supreme."

-Mahaparinirvana Sutra-

I made the decision this month to reflect on death, not out of a morbid sense, but out of the sense that it is something I often forget to think about in my day to day life. This, even though there are signs all around. One of these signs is a graveyard in the churchyard that I walk through on my way to the gym many times a week. As an American who grew up in the West where the cemeteries are no more than 150 or so years old, it is amazing to see those that are much older. Today, on a rainy and dreary day, I really enjoyed taking a closer look at what the churchyard had to show. The picture at the top, I thought, was fitting for the start of a month of long reflection.

February is also the time that Buddhist celebrate the Paranirvana of the Buddha and so I thought I would also be doing some reading about death. The two that I'll be reading are:

Graceful Exits: How Great Beings Die

(Death stories of Hindu, Tibetan Buddhist, and Zen Masters)

Compiled and Edited by Suchila Blackman

and

there's more to dying than death: a buddhist perspective

by lama shenpen hookham

The later I've already read, but want to return to it because it had so many wonderful and intriguing things to say and present. I hope to also share the photos that I took of the graves...some are a bit blurry as our camera is also on its last legs. And some have things to say themselves without any words!