Myozen

Our relationship started, and developed as peers. It began in a book study. From the first time we met, I knew the instant you looked into my eyes that you could see the real me. It was terrifying. Not a single person from my past had ever looked at me the way you did. It was obvious that when you saw me, you looked effortlessly right through all my defenses. You weren’t interested in my defenses. It took me far too long to realize that you were the real deal.

You would go on to lead the spiritual center in which that book study took place. By then, I could tell that you looked at every person with whom you spoke the same way you looked at me. You always found exactly the right words to say to a person so that they saw the same truth that you did. Even when that truth was painful to hear, you had a way of making a person glad that they were hearing it from you. Your words were sometimes blunt, sometimes funny, but always the exact ones that needed to be spoken.

Even after you died, I frequently sought your advice. You always seemed busy, but not annoyed that I needed to speak to you. Despite the fact that at the time, I wasn’t attending the temple on a regular basis, you and Rinsen would often appear in my mind together as though you were talking. You would always take time for me, and never seemed bothered that I was interrupting. The two of you would pause and allow me to interrupt as if you were both expecting me, and Rinsen would patiently wait in the background. I would ask my question, and you would readily answer in a way that made it seem like you already knew what I was going to ask. You would always answer in such a way that made me completely understand at once.

Months went by like this. One day, I came to you with fear in my heart about the question I had for you. I asked you how long you would be there for me in this way. I had so hoped that you would tell me forever. I was sure that it was the only answer that I could get without having my heart broken into a million pieces. I was aggrieved about your death, but at least I still had you. You were still my mentor, still my friend. I could still see you any time I wanted. You were still there for me. I could still see your beautiful smile, and we could still laugh together. We could talk any time I wanted to. I had lost you, but not completely. I still needed my friend, I still had her. I asked you how long. You looked at me with the most compassionate look and answered by telling me that there was something I needed to see.

Your image in my mind slowly became my image. I begged for you to come back, but you did not. In that moment, I was alone. You, and Rinsen had both gone, leaving me with only myself. I felt the all too familiar feeling of abandonment. I was hopeless. It must most certainly mean that you had no more help for me. Perhaps I had bothered you too much. Maybe I was annoying you after all, and you were just being nice- but you couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe I was helpless, and not even you could guide me further. I had so many questions, and no one to answer them. The only thing about which I was certain is that you were gone.

I felt abandoned and alone. I noted the feelings of despair, and wanted to lash out at the world as I had done before when my friend was taken from this world years earlier. I wanted to drink myself to death so I wouldn’t have to feel your loss, your abandonment of me. How could you do this to me? How could you make me lose you twice? I have lived as “me against the world” before, and I knew it would only bring me more suffering. I knew my family needed me and more than that, it wouldn’t be fair to them for me to leave them. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I meditated on it for some time one day after another.

Surely you hadn’t left me, I told myself. You were testing me, and I passed! I didn’t drink myself into oblivion, I didn’t abandon all hope, and rail against the world because I was hurting, I’d done it! This must be what you wanted me to prove. Was it enough? Would you come back? Still you didn’t return. This must be some sort of lesson! I just needed to figure out what it was, and then you would come back to me. You were always good at showing people just what they needed to see. I meditated some more. Perhaps the lesson was that you wanted me to learn to rely on myself. I will. This thought did resonate with me, this must be it. Weeks of meditation went by. I was relying on myself more, and gaining confidence in my own abilities. I could see surely now that this must be the lesson.I hoped desperately that this newfound sight would bring you back to me.

Weeks passed without your return. I begged to see you. “I” wanted to see “you”. I cried, I meditated, I cried while I meditated. I’d seen the lesson so clearly, why could I not see you? Months passed, and I sat. I sat while missing you, I sat while cursing cancer. I sat wishing that I could be more like you, and at times, I sat wishing that I had never met you. One day, at the old temple building, a fellow sanga member was shedding a tear at the thought of us leaving. She, like myself, was excited about the new space, but also sad to be leaving the old one behind. Without thinking about it, I walked over to her, and offered her a kind word. She and I had never really spoken before, and I could tell that my act of pure compassion really struck her. In that one moment, I recognized in myself what I had always seen in you. This woman was moved by the smallest act of love in the exact same way that I had always been moved by your actions.

In that one moment I saw that I was you. You are Rinsen, and I am Rinsen. There is no I. No you, no he, no she, no they. Only we. You aren’t gone…”you” were never really here. I saw in that one moment something that I will never forget, we really are all one, there is no difference. I then had the opportunity to actually grieve your loss, and learned that it was the first time I actually had. The lesson is learned dear sister, I love you, and I will never forget you. Thank you for your practice. May the love that you showed me shine forth from me.