Peggy - Zen Retreat, part 8

As we returned to our cushions to begin the service for Peggy I began to quietly cry. I didn't know Peggy at all, but i suspect that being so close to any death brings out feelings with every other death you've ever experienced. At that point I was so open after having experienced a week of meditation and the beautiful New Years Eve service and celebration that there really wasn't anything stopping my feelings from coming through. Roshi began by speaking, addressing her comments to Peggy. At one point she let out a loud wail that was part of the ceremony (we had a memorial service the year before and she did the same thing at the same time). The ceremony involved a lot of different chanting and then once again everyone formed two lines, but this time we headed to the alter where two by two we each burned incense.

While the bass drum beat out its' complex sycopation, we all chanted:

KAN ZE ON
NA MU BUTSU
YO BUTSU U IN
YO BUTSU U EN
BUP PO SO EN
JO RAKU GA JO
CHO NEN KAN ZE ON
BO NEN KAN ZE ON
NEN NEN JU SHIN KI
NEN NEN FU RI SHIN.

The chanting started out subdued, but in each subsequent chorus there was a little more energy in the chant.

After everyone had burned incense and returned to their cushion, the service was ended. Someone placed Peggy's meditation bench on the floor along with a bud vase with a single flowering branch. We then made a circle around it and began to share. With the exception of "Charlie", no one single person seemed to know Peggy all that much, yet so many people had very vivid memories of exchanges they had with Peggy, strangely enough, many of them in elevators with Peggy holding on the person's arm and intensely engaging them with her eyes. As people shared their individual stories, a vivid picture of the person that Peggy was began to materialize in the circle. I heard one person later sum her up as "old school, New York salty ex-nun...you would have loved her!" Charlie shared that he had known Peggy for over a year and Peggy had been given 6 months by her doctors over 2 years ago. She would tell anyone who would listen about how she was cheating death. She also used to tell Charlie that she wanted to die in the Zendo on her cushion, and that she wanted Charlie to be there when she did.

The empty bench stood as a silent witness to all of this, and as a powerful statement of the immediacy of life.

I have never before experienced a funeral service for someone who had died only 1 hour before. I guess very few people have. It was so real and connected. But more than that, I have never witnessed nor have I ever heard of a more beautiful death. Girlfriend knew how to make an exit!