A poem

As we transition between years, I am drawn to a poem written by the late Abbot Zenkei Shibayama of Nanzen-ji temple in Kyoto. It was quoted in "A Raft from the Other Shore" by Sho-on Hattori.

"A flower blooms in silence, falls in silence.

And never returns to its stem.

Ina moment, at just one place,

It forgoes all its life,

The voice of a flower,

the reality of the flower stem.

There the happiness of eternal life

is shining without regret."

Sho-on Hattori comments, "as there is eternal life in a moment of blossom, so do we strive to realize the eternal wisdo in the "moment" of our life."

As people in hospice merge their spirits to help others, their compassion builds the "tree" of humanity, as leaves build a tree. Jewish mysticism reflects on this interconnectedness as the "Tree of Life."

Hattori reflects that Buddha (could we not say the leaders of other great spiritual movements as well) observed the sorrow or darkness of this world that we live in, and looked across to the distant shore of spiritual light, and "showed all humankind the means of crossing the ocean of darkness to the realm of light on that shore."

In facing difficult moments, I cannot scientifically prove "the other shore." But we can talk about it. Last week I was faced with a suffering woman, whose husband had forgone dialysis, and who was unconscious and rapidly declining. She was drenched in suffering, what to do, what to say?

I asked her, "What would your husband have said he believes will happen to his spirit when his body dies?"

And she stopped crying, and answered me, "Doctor, he believed with all his heart that he would be going to a better place."

She had found a "raft." And we were able to talk. Not about suffering and not about the dying process and not about the labs but about him, and who he was, and what he believed. And it mattered.

"The voice of a flower,

the reality of the flower stem.

There the happiness of eternal life,

is shining without regret."