From the Abbot One of my dearest, oldest Dharma sisters, Margot Loines Morrow Wilkie, passed away at the age of 101 on the full-moon Mandala Day of August 21. She and I met at New York Zendo in the late ‘60s, and worked with Peter Matthiessen on the first brochure about Dai Bosatsu Zendo as it was under construction. Margot was a remarkable Dharma practitioner, from her early days as a student of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi at San Francisco Zen Center, to her time with Soen Roshi, and then, for the rest of her life, as a disciple of Domo Geshe Rinpoche, who established a retreat center just down the road from DBZ, and who passed away on the eve of 9/11/2001. The departures of Ippo, Kiyuu-san, and Margot just before and after O-Bon have given added poignancy to the meaning of that sacred ceremony. In that spirit, I thought I’d share some of what I said in my Dharma Talk that evening We could say that the three most important aspects of O-Bon are gratitude, motivation, and vow. Gratitude for this precious human birth and with it, all the care and concern we have received from our families, teachers, friends, and spiritual guides in all realms and directions—from the moment we were born, so much has been done for us. To requite such incalculable kindness is what we are here for, not only this evening but each day of our lives, dedicating ourselves to living with clarity, grace, and generosity. Gratitude that we have met with Buddha-dharma, the teachings manifesting right here now, even when we don’t recognize them for what they are. Gratitude that we are able to come to this inspiring place of life-transforming practice—blessed by mountain spirits, by the cosmic forces that guide and support us, and by each other—how fortunate our karma! When we feel deep gratitude, we recognize our responsibility to endless dimension universal life. Our motivation to awaken becomes the guiding force in our lives. With the insight that comes from dedicated practice, we can understand that there is no barrier between what we call life and what we call death. The radiant power and warmth of the compassionate heart is boundless. Thus we can meet with and offer nourishment to all beings in the six realms. Segaki means making offerings to those in the Hungry Ghosts realm, which we do with our O-Bon feast and the symbolic foods on the Segaki altars. These Hungry Ghosts refer not only to those who have passed on, but to a condition we have all experienced right here in this human realm. The Hungry Ghost condition is one of habitual selfishness. When our sense of insecurity causes greediness for something—anything—to satisfy the feeling of inner lack, and when we continually seek elsewhere, we become victims of our own craving; in the midst of water, we cry in thirst so imploringly. (see next page) the zen studies society With our upside-down views, we cling to self-centered, fearful, judgmental mind. I love Pope Francis’s response to a journalist’s question about gay priests, ““If someone is gay and seeking the Lord in good faith, who am I to judge?” I have made it my guiding mantra: “Who am I to judge?” Humility and the willingness to be vulnerable and to acknowledge our own shortcomings are needed in order to counter this Hungry Ghost condition, and the arrogance that perpetuates suffering. It’s our upside-down views that cause us to experience the very definition of O-Bon, which comes from word Urabon: hanging upside down. Acknowledging our own greed, anger, and folly, we can have the motivation to do the work of real change, substantial and transformative change, radically accepting what is difficult and taking up what is restorative. Turning from the old patterns, we can begin to live fully in the recognition that life is short, mystery profound. Jikyo-san has been leading our meditation program for men incarcerated at Auburn Prison for a number of years now; she just held a two-day O-bon retreat there. Every now and then the leader of the Beginners’ Mind Sangha writes to me. Here is an excerpt: “O-Bon supports me in two ways: 1) Reminds me of life’s impermanence; 2) Allows me to engage the suffering of death and connect it to a shared humanity. Life is short. Realizing impermanence creates an antidote to prison environment. Prison encourages me to shut down as a way to cope with the stressors of noise, lights, threats of danger, etc. Impending impermanence keeps opening me up, to be vulnerable. In essence this moment is all I have—do I cultivate it or waste it? Recognizing death in its multiple dimensions helps me to recognize my own and others’ humanity in our shared suffering. That includes the suffering I created when I caused a death. Through the rituals of O-Bon I’m given an opportunity to reflect on my relationship with the departed and share my loss with others who are sharing their losses….” So just as the way of a bodhisattva is to face upward to receive Supreme Enlightenment and downward to save all beings, the significance of O-Bon goes in both directions: examining ourselves and our daily activities, renewing and strengthening our motivation, we receive spiritual sustenance; and realizing how huge our debt is to this web of life, we make offerings symbolic of our gratitude. Understanding that every thought, word, and deed has endless resonance, we can feel how precious this convergence is. We can appreciate that just as we are, there is nothing we lack. Taking part in the O-Bon ceremony is a profound way to change the mind from ego-driven to vow-driven. We are here to realize and actualize our Bodhisattva Vow to free all beings from suffering. When we drop our assumptions about who we are, what we deserve, and what we need; when we remove the cataracts of self-absorption from our eyes, and we see into the truth of this moment, our vow can function clearly and naturally. On August 7 we lost a great bodhisattva of Dai Bosatsu mountain, Kiyuu-san Yokoyama. At our O-Bon feast we ate the fruits of his labor. His astounding generosity, great effort, keen understanding, and caring heart will continue to inspire us not to waste a single moment of this precious life, a single drop of this vast ocean of Dharma. May he and all spirits throughout the universe enter into the radiance of This Mind, beyond space and time, flowing without end.
