I find myself standing between giants -
Dōgen of Japan (1200-1253)
     founded a monastery and a school
Stonehouse of China (1272-1352)
     left a monastery founded a thatch hut in the mountains.

I stand between knowing and not knowing Zen 
always more questions than answers.
Dogen tried to explain Zen
Stonehouse began living Zen.
Both sat in Zen meditation
recognizing the boundlessness of emptiness
following the Zen inside them.
I too sit, following the Zen in me
our Zen is the same
no matter how different.
They are Zen giants. I am me.

I've taken a retreat from sangha
allowing room for questions to emerge -
trouble for sure!
Is it not better to stick with one teacher or the other
put blinders on and stay out of the in-between?
No. It seems I'm not built that way.
I try to change but then ask, why?
My Zen is who I am.

I will go back to sangha
having listened to my body
my need to still and in stillness
recognize my loss my age
my desire and need to live peaceably 
between the rules that dominated my earlier life
and the freedom my Zen life is in me now. 
Masters Dogen and Stonehouse -
living teachers in me from the distant past
privileged to stand between them
learning from and inspired by both.
What will come of this dubious collaboration
remains to be seen.

I have written of my wife's death 
her last days moments words.
What I have found difficult to write
was the grace with which she met her end.
Her deep reservoir of inner strength
for which her faith had prepared her
shown clearly in her face her words
her calm acceptance of the ultimate injustice -
"It's not fair! Why me?" 
These words were unspoken by her
such was not her way.
In her dying moments she was lucid
exhibiting no anger anxiety fear
only a calm awareness that her end was near.
She said to us, "I love you all."
and at the very end, "goodbye."

In those moments she gave us a gift 
only one on the liminal edge of life and death can give -
relief from our own fears of suffering and death.
She took our anxieties with her
leaving us with profound astonishment
at how she whom we knew and loved
could bear so well
what we fear so much.

Reading Stonehouse in the cool morning
I'll never be a hermit as was he
Mad Park Hermitage is enough for me.
He left monastic life behind
an abbot with elk tail whisk*
choosing mountain over monastery.

"I was a Zen monk who didn't know Zen
so I chose the woods for the years I had left."*

His years as monk and abbot
duties and endless tasks
coming to know he did not know Zen.
He went to the mountains
built a hut and sat
beginning to fully realize Zen life.

In retreat now I consider
the meaning of "big sangha"
rules money tasks
organization Board of Directors
all the unnecessary rest of it
coming to see that these
do not help me know Zen.

The unnecessary "business" of big sangha
with 501c3 taxable income reduced
legal liabilities protected 
buildings to pay for and maintain
robes to buy cushions to clean
need not be the way of sangha.
Though SSZ numbers may increase
so too will complexity and problems to solve.
The complexity and myriad issues
unrelated to just sitting
are not what I desire.
Were I young perhaps so
but I left that path long ago.

I cannot retreat to a mountain hermitage
as did Master Stonehouse
I can however resist the accretions
that have attached themselves like barnacles
to the rock of zazen.

Taking my "retreat" I was sure to return
resume my place as one
who knew where things were
how things were done.
Yet, if ours is a model of the modern
growing and maturing sangha
I no longer believe it is for me.
Still, I will sit with my sangha community
pondering how things might better be.
My concerns will not leave me alone.

My retreat has opened Buddha's box 
releasing more than I bargained for.
My words express my recognition
of what has been in front of me
unable to see it for what is was or is -
big sangha is a complex and costly enterprise
that does not well serve 
the simplicity and grace of Zen
to just sit and serve as sangha in the world.


_______________________________________________
*The Mountain Poems of Stonehouse, translation and commentary by Red Pine, Copper Canyon Press, 2014, pps. 9, 41, 61.

When old hermits of China
abandoned monastery life
heading up to the hills
they took time with them
then forgot all about it
...days last forever...
...years are all the same...
measuring time at all
was a task for seasons or the moon.
Alas! Our times are not the same.

A wise friend suggested six months  
as gift a thing to open
I've accepted it
not knowing what will be inside. 

Following Carol's death 
common wisdom and persons told me 
take time a year or more
no need to rush no big decisions
you've suffered a loss
you must grieve mourn.
A year seemed arbitrary to me
the arbiters of time did not know me
I thought I knew what I needed
that I was different.

Yet ignoring wisdom is not wisdom
it may as well be arrogance ignorance 
in my case a little of both.

Still, six months is also arbitrary
time pulled off the top of her head
no matter 
I see now how I let wisdom pass me by
ever merciful she has come to me again
I've another chance 
to still wait listen.

I will heed my friend
six months
end of October
sesshin at Upaya
skillful means indeed. 

I've always been an anxious kid
nervous since a child
following rules to not get in trouble
terrible in studies 
did not miss a day of school
eighth grade through senior.

Fortunate to marry a lovely woman
accepting me with my gifts faults
good career enforcing the rules
right down my alley!

Who am I now since she died?
The shadow of who I've always been
rises from my past through body
trying to tell me something:

     high blood pressure
     poor sleep
     skin inflammations
     peripheral neuropathy
     essential tremors 
     memory lapses

so long mistaking these 
as signs only of getting old
perhaps so but not only that.

Friends said words to me
about my loss my age
I listened.
One who knows me knew my wife
her death my moving too fast
she knows about such things saying
six months you need six months
six months I did not take following my wife's death
not an order just a friend
words something like a gift
saying I need time
to find out who I am now
unbounded by rules expectations.

Taking time 
kinder to myself
no rushing into the next thing
as something I should do
I have time and why not?
Because. Just because.
My friends have told me so
in kind loving voices
take the time you need
weeks months six months more
we'll wait for you
until then
be still
sit listen heal
it's all you have to do.

Eleven years retired from the working world
grateful I could do so knowing many cannot. 
On my own now with time
I consider retirement of another kind
from a burdensome sense of responsibility
imposed from without
to a liberating one rising from within.
 
I desire to let go of obligatory responsibilities
that cost me more than what may be bought for the price
let go the importance assigned to values 
that I no longer value so highly
that do not serve me so well in my advancing years.

I wish to know what life may be 
when necessities of responsibility are mediated 
through my well informed heart and mind
arbitrated not by the hard masculine
but by wisdom sourced from the enabling feminine
where my heart may live free 
my mind at ease.

Why write about this now
as I remember my wife in renewed ways?
Perhaps because in my haste to go
and the ensueing whirlwind of the past few years
I neglected what I never should have.
I don't want to make that mistake again.

Passing our old home
I don't see anyone I know
things have changed and the air feels warmer
my heart suffers from the loneliness of the season
the pond is choked with wild bamboo
the courtyard is overgrown with unfamiliar plants
the wind scatters fading flowers
birds return to darkening hills
in the past we enjoyed this together
how strange to be recalling those times
her room in the eastern wing is closed
I can't bear to look at the things she left
her calligraphy brush and writing kit
her perfumed scarf still damp
tools she left in her chest
pieces of silk she cut with her knife
I collected these things to bring back
but bringing them back would just cause more grief
parted forever from the joys we shared
why keep the traces she left behind
words can't express something so dark
and to that distant place I can't go
but the past and present I think are one
and time soothes heartache and sorrow.*

---

This is, of course, not my poem, but that of Wei Ying-wu (737-791). He was a government official during the T'ang dynasty. He is considered one of China's greatest poets.

I add his poem due to the sense of kinship I felt when I read this poem and several others he wrote following the death of his wife. His writing that "...the past and present I think are one..." is both a sentiment and a truth that I've thought of in these last few weeks. My wife is gone yet the past and present are one. Trying to explain further is beyond me.

---

*In Such Hard Times, The Poetry of Wei Ying-wu, translated by Red Pine, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA, 2009.

The necessities of mourning found me
as I hid among unnecessary ways
found a way to break through
my dim and defended thinking
finally surprisingly I heard its sound
ringing inside as a solemn bell
sounding through me touching my loss
tolling my being old and alone.

How will I manage in these years
take care of myself in uncertainties
diminishing health and mental capacity
what else I try not to imagine
her daughters and granddaughter 
will think of me worry about me
I need think of them
who have no obligation towards me
yet they are good they care
they would help me as they can
this too found a way to reach me
so unexpectedly as I'd begun
to mourn my wife her death
and being alone 
they live with each other in me
I took a step one I am able to take
at seventy-three years
to prepare for one more home
living with others
who share my age and many my loss 
together we can find the way for us
though as of yet I know none of them.

Ritual - careful thoughtful beautiful
healing practice of remembrance

I bring back to body and mind
our intimacy
remaining in me as one
to be carried held
as once I held.

Eihei-ji ritual offering 
incense from bowl
to forehead
brazier
curling smoke
incensing old rafters in sacred space
gassho bow
simple solemn silent ritual
she with me

Early days sitting evenings
calming incense fragrance
curling wisps of smoke
filling my room

To mourn her well
incense to forehead 
candle flame
smoke rising to fill the room
gassho bow 
feel her presence 
watch the curls drift.

There are thresholds we cross
when our mortal lives 
bump up against mysterious 
numinous realities
when paths we knew vanish
we find our feet on strange ways

thresholds - interstices
between matter and spirit
time and timeless
we come to our moments of reckoning
our assumptions beliefs knowledge 
finally to see they were all of them wrong

we may fear or welcome them

as priest I was called to the hospital
family wanting last rites for mother
I walked in the room 
black clothes white clerical collar
I was told she was comatose
my presence brought a terrified anguished cry
she knew her time was at hand 
she was meeting her threshold moment
she knew what my presence meant

in her last moments
my wife lived and breathed 
on the threshold of living and dying
watching and listening to her
we knew she was with us
as she was moving away from us
a time came when we no longer knew 
when she was still with us
when she was gone
though breathing still

I saw her on her mortal threshold
too often considered with fear and dread
that was not her way
she had prepared
she was ready
she smiled
said goodbye
crossed over.