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Newsletter of Dharma Rain Zen Center Portland, Oregon Volume XXIX Number 5 September-October 2004
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by Kyogen Carlson
(Editors note: This is a transcription of the Dharma Talk given by Kyogen Carlson, June 20, 2004, the day after Kenryus ordination and two days before Rinchen Dorje passed away. This talk connects these two major transitions within the Sangha and offers a poignant teaching on Shukke, home departure.) Click on any photo below to see a larger, more detailed view. Click on your browser's back button to return.We are in a time of transition. Today is the first day of summer, a time of change. Last night there was an ordination ceremony, a transition from one form into another. And we are undergoing another transition: one of our members, Hugh Rinchen Draney, a resident who has taken care of so many things around here, is on the edge of dying. Right now he is over in the sitting room at the Dharma House, where we are providing him with around-the-clock care.
Last nights event was wonderful. Kenryus parents came all the way from Iowa to witness his ordination, and lots of folks came to congratulate him and welcome him into this new phase of life. Transitions draw people toward an event and to those in transition. When someone is dying, family members come together, and things begin to rise to the surface. Things that need to be said suddenly cannot wait any longer. Unresolved matters are drawn as if by gravity toward this vortex of change.
Rinchen came in last night and sat in the back to watch the ordination ceremony and was very attentive and quite moved by the whole thing. Before an ordination, the ordainees head is shaved except for one spot of hair at the top of the head, which is shaved during the ceremony itself. The first part of Kenryus head shaving took place in Rinchens room, and there is a beautiful photograph of him making gassho and watching from the bed. Its quite compelling. There is a parallel that I have long been aware of, and I have commented on it many times, but I am struck by it quite profoundly now, and that is the parallel between dying and the spiritual process.
First of all, in our tradition, the funeral ceremony is an ordination. So, quite naturally, I have been explaining that to Rinchen. I gave him a copy of the ceremony to read over, and let him know what we are going to be doing. The sequence of events are exactly the same, so that when someone dies, following reading the instructions to the dying, the head of the deceased is shaved, the body is bathed and the deceased is then dressed in a white kimono. For ordinations, it is the same: the head is shaved, the body washed and then dressed in a white kimono.
For a funeral, the body is given a white mala (a rosary) on the left wrist, a white wagessa (a "circle-kesa", a strip of cloth and cord also given at Jukai in black instead of white) and the precept ceremony is done. A ketchimyaku -- the lineage -- is given again. This time it is placed across the chest toward the right hip, in a manner similar to the way a kesa is draped across the body. In this way, the deceased is ordained into the Sangha. The body is left that way for three days, then taken to the crematorium for cremation, if its going to be cremated (which will be the case with Rinchen). Then there is a public service, in which what was done at the time of death is reenacted, but symbolically and ceremonially, so that everyone can participate. The priest goes to the altar and symbolically washes the body by sprinkling very fine powdered incense over it, then washes his or her hands with the incense, and "shaves" the head with a fan by holding it over the body. The precepts are given again with someone answering for the dead.
The cremation is itself returning to shunyata. Its interesting how people in Asia view this. When Jiyu Kennetts ordination master died (Rev. Sek Kim Seng, a Chinese priest in Malaysia, not Koho Zenji, her transmission master) some of his disciples came from Malaysia to bring Roshi Kennett a funeral album. By this I mean a photo album of the funeral. Now this is not something we do over here. It showed the funeral feast and the procession, which was an amazing thing. It seemed as if most of the city of Malacca turned out to see floats, trucks really, decorated as dragons, and the procession of monks and lay members of the temple. The body was carried on one of those dragon floats. There were photos of the huge, outdoor funeral pyre, including one of a man pouring flammable liquid onto it. The final photographs were a series showing the flames, zeroing in on the pyre and casket. This was presented as a beautiful returning to primordial emptiness, and the album was offered with great joy, as well as grief. The way the nuns presented the album, and the feeling captured in the photos, was quite striking, and so different from the way a funeral is observed here.
To a person who is in the process of dying, things become ephemeral. People, objects and memories often become vague and almost irrelevant, drifting in and out of focus. Awareness drifts in and out. Over the last few days, Rinchens awareness has sometimes expanded out to include most of the room, and then it has narrowed in to where he is just aware of his own body and not much else. Its been like this for awhile. This is part of the process of dying: ones awareness, ones world, becomes smaller and smaller. I remember telling this to Rinchen when we first started working on this. When you receive a terminal diagnosis, your world shrinks immediately. You are then limited, in time, certainly, but also in space. Some people might be able to take a world cruise at that point, but even so, you know your time is limited and, likewise, the places you can go. Usually people have to stay where they can get the treatment and the support they need.
In Rinchens case, his world shrank to the Portland area. He could still drive out to see his dad in Beaverton, but that was it: his world had shrunk to that size. It would never get bigger again. After that, it continues to shrink, slowly or rapidly. For Rinchen it has been rather rapid. Before long he couldnt drive anymore, yet he could walk around the neighborhood. Then pretty soon he could only make it out to the driveway. Following this, he was confined to the house, though getting up and down the stairs was hard, so, eventually, this led to being confined to the second floor. He was carried here for the ordination last night, but getting to the bathroom is about all he can manage on his own. Hes moving rapidly down to just one room. Getting out of bed is already difficult; pretty soon his world will be just the bed. When it gets to this point, the persons awareness really doesnt reach out beyond that space. If you want to talk to them, you have to come into that space. They cannot see you if you are not that close. Then ones awareness shrinks to just around and within the body, coming up from the feet to where its just the head and the chest, and it narrows down to where its just the space from the face to the heart. It narrows down, narrows down.
We prepare people ahead of time to help them understand what they need to do. We explain that eventually its like a small light opens up in front of them. Everything will be taken away from them except the ability to move into that space. That is where their life is. When talking to someone in this state, when theyre basically in a coma -- a sort of light coma -- and even if theyre a little bit agitated, I can still direct them to pay attention to this one space, the only place where they can go forward. I can see them choose it. It isnt visible as a motion, yet their attention goes toward it, and the agitation stops. And then they just slip right through. A lot of the time the dying is quicker and not so much of a struggle, if one is prepared to do that. And Rinchen is on his way; it seems theres no stopping him. Ive been telling people its as if he is in the express check-out lane; five items or fewer. He doesnt seem to be holding on to anything.
Still, each phase of ones world shrinking is a loss, with things dropping away, and every time this happens, anxiety appears. "Am I going to know what to do?" "Am I going to know how to deal with this?" "Who am I now that this is dropping away?" One tries so hard to hold on to things, which is natural. Thats what were programmed to do, to hold on to life. We struggle to learn how to function, to be an independent person in this world. So, anxiety arises with fear as we lose control, and we dont know whats going on. But as each thing drops away in the dying process, if we accept it, there is a release and peacefulness results. At first, someone might have a lot of anxiety about not being able to get up to go to the bathroom, for example. Its something they worry about. Then one day a catheter is inserted and theyre able to stay in bed. A day or so later, theyre not even thinking about it. Its completely forgotten, with no concern whatsoever. Eventually their concern will be about their next breath. "Can I take this next breath?" You can witness all these concerns drop away, one by one, until theres nothing left but the essential matter.
And this is what is important about spiritual practice: there is an essential matter, and we can turn our attention to it now. What is the essential matter? Its always a single point of awareness right in front of us, no matter what were doing. There is always one thing that matters, one thing to pay attention to. As we train ourselves to pay attention to this, our life gains a lot of clarity. There can only be one thing to do, right now, or at any point in your life. There is always only one thing to which you can direct your attention, even if many things are clamoring for it. As you learn to turn your mind toward it, clarity comes. This is exactly the same thing that happens when someone is dying. As you learn to turn your attention to the one thing that matters, eventually its simply being awake. Nothing else.
This brings us back to ordination. If you think about it, each of these concerns "Do I know whats going on?" "Can I get to the bathroom?" "What am I going to do when I cant go up or down the stairs?" each of these is a dwelling place of the self. And these are not bad things. However, they tend to become, "I know I exist because I know whats going on," "I know that I exist because I can take care of myself." But as these things drop away, who I am has to shift. These things drop away and you have to let them go. As one goes further into the dying process, what day it is becomes unimportant. "Whos the president of the United States right now?" Thats one of the questions they ask people to see if theyre tracking. And at this point, who the hell cares? This is not political question in this political year. It literally doesnt matter. It makes no difference at all.
Im going to read from Dogen on home departure, shukke. For Dogen, dwelling places of the self are what we renounce in ordination. In the traditional way of looking at it, you leave home, your position in society, in ordination. Of course, everybody has to dwell somewhere, the body has to be somewhere, so in our tradition "home departure" has more to do with those dwelling places that define an "I." Who we think we are. So, Dogen says:
Supreme enlightenment is acquired on the day one leaves the home life and receives the precepts. If there is no day of home departure, there is no day of supreme enlightenment. Thus, the dawning of the day of your home departure is the dawning of the day when you achieve supreme bodhi, and the dawning of the day when you achieve supreme bodhi is the dawning of the day of your home departure. This is the day when your laymans body, just as it is, is transformed into the Buddhas body, and you attain supreme bodhi and preach the Dharma for the sake of all beings. Your home departure itself causes many living beings to enter the Buddha Way. It is the practice of self-benefit and benefit to others which causes them to experience supreme bodhi and acquire irreversibility... What you should understand correctly is that the day of home departure is the day when the opposition between bodhi and the first thought of enlightenment is transcended. This absolute time is the time of liberation. The day of home departure is the day when you know from inner experience that the time of three incalculable eons is the eternal now of the day of home departure. This day of home departure contains within itself the time when you dwell in the boundless ocean of the eons and teach the Dharma to all beings. The time of home departure is not a small period of time, such as that required for eating a meal, nor is it the unthinkable time of sixty small eons; it is time which transcends time. It is time which freed the Buddhas topknot. The day of home departure even transcends the day of home departure. The day of home departure is truly the day of home departure when you have overcome attachment and reached the state of dropping off mind and body. The day of achieving the Way is the day of achieving the Way; that is, the day of home departure is the day when you achieve the Way, and the day when you achieve the Way is the day of home departure.-
"Home departure is the day when the opposition between bodhi and the first thought of enlightenment is transcended." You have to understand what this is about. Yes, there are markers: we shaved Kenryus head, he put on the robe. These are markers of home departure. But even so, thats not the real home departure. Real home departure is every moment in which "the opposition between bodhi and the first thought of enlightenment is transcended" is true. Every moment, every breath, of letting go and moving into what is, is home departure. Thats what Kenryu does with taking on the robe. Thats what you do when you accept whatever is yours right now. And that is what Rinchen is doing when he takes each breath. This is the essential matter Im talking about. Everything else drops away. There is only this essential matter.
Dogen goes on to say, "the day of home departure even transcends the day of home departure." Think of that: yesterday, the day of Kenryus ordination, was one point in time; today is the day of home departure. This breath is the time of home departure. "The day of home departure is truly the day of home departure when you have overcome attachment and reached the state of dropping off mind and body." This is nothing other than this moment, and this is what Rinchen is doing right in front of our eyes.
"The day of achieving the Way is the day of achieving the Way; that is, the day of home departure is the day when you achieve the Way, and the day when you achieve the Way is the day of home departure." We sometimes say that a funeral is, or is like, an ordination. But actually home departure is like dying. Jiyu Kennett used to say that the stages of dying and the stages that occur when someone goes through a profound awakening experience are almost identical. And Ive experienced that to be so. If you look at what someone goes through in the dying process, there are all the stages, such as denying, fighting, bargaining, etc, and we do the same thing with regard to enlightenment. That is, we deny, we fight, and then we think, "well, maybe if I just do it this way...," trying to bargain with the Buddha. Eventually, however, we have to throw ourselves into it completely and surrender. And then, at some point, where effort and non-effort come together, there is complete letting go. Just as this happens in the process of dying, it happens in the process of practice. This occurs when we give up but also move forward. This is life narrowing down. Letting go is in fact an action, it is something we have to choose; we go forward into it. This "one thing" that we do is not giving up or falling back, it is going forward. And in that moment of complete "open-handed going forward," something turns over.
We concern ourselves a lot about the difference between a monk-path and a lay-path, but the real issue is about birth and death and supreme bodhi, because these things do not concern themselves with any form. Whether we take a monk-path or a lay-path, practice is about life itself. While it has no form, its all about doing it this way and not that way. Life takes a definite form, but does not depend on any particular form. It takes form through choices. And so monk and lay are more alike than different. The process we think of as bodhi, and the process we think of as birth and death, are really very much alike. They both take place within whatever form we already have.
For someone who is dying, form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Its clearly, plainly, just so. Their life and death become exactly the same thing. Their life is about dying. Their saying "yes" to life is about letting go of everything. Its what they have. When one moves into it with positivity, as opposed to having it ripped away in denial, it is practice. When one moves forward into dying saying "yes," that is life. Do you see? Life and death become identical. Form and emptiness are clearly identical. Saying yes to life is death. The same is true with supreme bodhi; it is exactly the same thing.
"Thus the dawning of the day of your home departure is the dawning of the day when you achieve supreme bodhi. And the dawning of the day when you achieve supreme bodhi is the dawning of your home departure. This is the day when your laymans body, just as it is, is transformed into a Buddhas body." This means the form of your own life. Whatever form it has right now, when you go into it completely, letting go of the previous moment and stepping into the next -- putting it on like a robe -- is the "eternal now" of home departure. Done completely, this is supreme bodhi. No opposition whatsoever to anything.
Now, there is a difference between doing this in daily life and in dying. When dying, birth and death, form and emptiness, come together with absolutely no opposition in a way that is apparent. When we dont die, which is what we do most days, birth and death still appear to be sequential. Yet we experience their non-opposition when we say yes to each thing that appears. To inhabit it completely, to take on the form of your life without opposition, is the same as Richen saying yes to everything being taken away. You move forward into your life, you say yes; you put it on. This is putting on the robe of home departure. Do you understand? In this moment there is no opposition between the first thought of enlightenment and supreme bodhi.
Postscript. Rinchen Dorje, aka Hugh Draney, died at 5am Tuesday, June 22 in the sitting room at the Dharma House. Domyo Sater was with him at the time. Ani Paldrön came immediately and read the appropriate Tibetan prayers, then funeral preparations were completed as described here. His funeral was the following Saturday at the Zendo, attended by his father and two sisters, and many sangha members. Some of his ashes will remain here in a small stupa made by Scot Teijin Grim. Hugh was a Navy veteran, and there was an internment ceremony at Willamette National Cemetery the following Monday.
by Jiko Tisdale
I spent a few weeks in Japan in late June, looking into the history of several of our female ancestors and visiting several of the temples associated with them. I have been studying Japanese a little with Daicho and Domyo and wanted a chance to test my nascent language skill, so I traveled alone most of the time. I was also visiting areas where relatively few Western tourists go. (This did not, however, mean no tourists: I found myself caught up in the vast summer tourist season of the Japanese themselves, occasionally in groups of uniformed schoolchildren several hundred strong.) Toward the end of two weeks, I was able to read parts or even a whole word on a sign sometimes, pay properly in stores, obtain the expected dishes at restaurants and discuss the weather with a taxi driver! Thats the limit of my skill so far, but its better than before.
I began in Kamakura, once a seaside village and then the seat of the medieval military government, the shogunate. Because of this association, Kamakura became a center for Rinzai Zen. Described as a "sleepy beach resort" in one of my travel guides, Kamakura seemed to me to be a small but busy city, complete with a crowded district called "Shopping Town" and many bus-loads of Japanese tourists visiting temples and gardens, just like me. June is also the rainy season, and it was hot and humid much of the time, even when it wasnt raining. I would like to return to Kamakura again; there are many beautiful temples there, and I was only able to see a few. And I didnt get to the beach at all!
I was able to see the beautiful grounds and cemetery of Tokeiji, founded by the ancestor we recite as Shidô; Yôdô and Shôtaku were also abbots there, and all are remembered for their poetry, which is still used as teaching verses. Tokeiji was one of the two "run-into convents," or "divorce temples" in medieval Japan. Women who were able to enter its sanctuary were granted divorces if they stayed three years. This was not always a matter of women escaping abuse, but sometimes of wanting to be free to join lovers or control property; Tokeiji was called "the place where men are deprived of their pride." Tokeiji is no longer a convent but famous now largely for its beautiful graves; supposedly many famous Japanese compete to be buried there. R.H. Blyth and D. T. Suzuki are among the many who made the cut.
Across the valley from Tokeiji is the large complex of Engakuji, founded in honor of the destruction of the Mongol invasion in the 1200s. It is a major tourist destination, though most of the original buildings are gone. Mugai Nyodai, the first woman in Japan to receive Rinzai transmission, now honored as the founder of the imperial convent system, trained here with Wu-hsüeh in the late 1200s. She seems to have completely slipped the memory of the current generation at Engakuji; while she is deeply revered in many Japanese convents, there is no mention of her there. I did, however, have a chance to watch classical Japanese archery practice at the dojo there, a form which is done extremely slowly and sometimes in pairs, sort of like synchronized swimming with arrows. Strange and lovely.
I then traveled to Kyoto and met up with a priest who has become a friend of Dharma Rain, Kensho Miyamae, and went to his temple, Kakudenji, north of the city, on the edge of rice fields. Kensho and his mother manage the temples congregation of about 150 people largely on their own. They are building a big new zendo and hope to invite foreigners to practice with them there.
Kensho and I traveled north to Yokoji, the first monastery founded by Keizan. No one practices in this beautiful complex now, but it is well cared for by a committed staff. I had a number of questions about Keizans female disciples and their sub-temples. To our great good luck, we met a monk that day who is helping a group of nuns re-establish Entsuin, the womens hermitage there. He showed me where its buildings had stood and we talked about what their lives had been like. To many of my questions, he gave the same answer I received from the scholars and historians I met with during my trip: "No one knows." We can guess that Keizans relationship with his disciples was intimate and warm from his writings about them. The fact that at least one of his female disciples was fully transmitted implies a long and close relationship as well, but how they lived their daily lives together is an unknown.
We ran from a typhoon further north, where we briefly visited Keizans other monastery, Sojiji (now known as the Soin, since the main Sojiji is now in Yokohama) and stayed at an onsen (hot springs resort) in the little fishing village of Wajima, where we watched the typhoon soak the coast until it left for sea.
When I left Kenshos hospitality, I returned to Kyoto to meet with an art historian and a translator. This was the day Rinchen Dorje died; his sudden decline just as I left Portland cast sadness faintly across the entire journey. I had a vivid dream the night before: he sat cross-legged on a kind of pillow throne, and one by one, various members of the sangha came to say goodbye. Everyone was crying but Rinchen, who smiled. When it was my turn, I stepped up and said, "It looks like I made it back in time, after all!"
The next day, after seeing an e-mail from Gyoshi announcing his death, I visited a temple called Sanjusangen-do, the home of "33,000 Kannons." It is an odd and beguiling place, with a long, narrow Buddha Hall, rather than the typical square. It dates from medieval times. One enters at one end and walks slowly in front of 500 life-sized gilded, carved Kannons, each with eleven Buddhas on a crown and 42 arms. (Each arm is able to save 25 worlds.) In the middle is a giant golden Kannon with a thousand arms, and on her far side is another 500 identical carved Kannons. They are guarded by 28 life-sized Bodhisattvas, most in the Fudo style, with swords, dragons and sharp teeth - quite fierce and realistic. Altogether, when you count all the worlds they can save, it is actually more than 33,000, and walking down the long hall in front of this vast audience of serene compassion, I felt as though I could see them all. It was here that I lit incense and a candle to ease Rinchen on his journey. I hadnt realized that this temple is popular for memorials to the dead. A few minutes after I lit his candle, a priest began the long, daily chant to the dead.
Then I traveled south to Nara, the first permanent capital of Japan, to follow Empress Kômyôs path. It was at her suggestion, in the early 700s, that the system of sodo (training) temples was begun in Japan. I was able once again to visit Todaiji, the enormous temple founded by Kômyô and her husband, Emperor Shomû. Todaiji is still the largest wooden building in the world and its Vairochana Buddha, the largest bronze statue in the world; they are truly spectacular. I especially like watching the schoolboys try to squeeze through the narrow hole which, in true Blarney Stone fashion, guarantees enlightenment to those who can. Then I can buy Buddha key rings from the monks.
One of the best parts of my trip was a day I spent south of Nara in a small town called Asuka. This is largely a rice farming area now, but before Nara was established, in the years between 400-700 A.D., Asuka was the site of many imperial palaces and is now considered an important archeological area. It is lushly green and moist, with thick bamboo and cedar groves and wet, reflecting rice fields on every side.
Asuka is where the very first truly Japanese Buddhist temple was built -- Toyura-dera, founded by Zenshin, the first Japanese person to be ordained. In 588, at the age of seventeen, she and two other teenage girls traveled to Korea to train for two years -- an arduous journey that must have required tremendous persistence and courage. Near the site where Toyura-dera stood is Asuka-dera, where the oldest Buddha statue in Japan is kept. Its rather an ugly, dark thing as Buddhas go, but at 1400 years old, I would be, too. That day, in the rain, I was the only visitor at the small temple and perhaps in the whole town.
I returned to Tokyo a day early in order to go to the national museum. The museum as a whole is delightful, filled with the beautiful arts and crafts in which the Japanese have excelled for many centuries -- easily a days worth of viewing. But I was especially moved by the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures, perhaps the most spectacular museum exhibit Ive ever seen. This new building, itself an architectural beauty, houses irreplaceable Buddhist objects and statues in spare displays. Most are from the explosive Nara art period and are some of the most exquisite Buddhist objects in the world. The sheer accumulation of Buddhist art I was able to see on this trip has stayed with me; the combination of technical skill and devotion combined in many of these pieces in such a way that the presence of those who made them and used them seems quite near.
Once again, I was reminded of the ways Japanese Zen differs from American, and of all we have to learn from each other. The Japanese ordained people Ive met always express their surprise and admiration for the depth of practice and passion for the Dharma that American lay people exhibit. They, in turn, carry a depth of embodied Zen form and grace I admire and envy. Ive learned a lot of details about our women ancestors in the last year, and as we finalize the sutra books, will be making some changes in the lineage.
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by David Choten Robinson
"In the end we can only make our pictures speak."Vincent van Gogh
My brother van Gogh,
those last days in Auvers,
abandoned books,
ideas,
instead turned
to the fields of wheat,
to the crows swinging on clear ribbons
in a sea of purple and black.
As to what came nextlook!None of us knows why.
The question anyway is flawed, at least
unnecessary.
The wheat was cut,
gathered in heaps to thresh;
the canvasses rolled out, and
the endless task engaged.![]()
Submit!
The newsletter is put together in the first week of every other month. Submissions are very welcome: short or long articles, which can be on any point of practice, including travel, research or personal experience; descriptions of events we've had; the occasional poem or drawing.
Send your items to: newsletter@dharma-rain.org, or by regular mail, or drop it off in the newsletter slot in the Center house office.
News now has its own, separate page. Click here to go to the archived News Page for September-October 2004. More photos of Kenryu's ordination ceremony!
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