When my son was born, I had been very active here at Berkley Zen Center. I had a Dohan spot one day a week. I had other, I'd been cooking a lot. And it had been my intention that my practice was, well, not primary, but fundamental. in my life and that it would continue. I would have a child and everything would continue along with that. And that is not what happened. As soon as my son was born, It was as if I just disappeared from Berkley Land Center.

[01:04]

All my jobs, which had temporary replacements in them, became permanent replacements. And I became completely focused on taking care of him. and what it was like to only get two hours of sleep at a time and what to do when a little one is crying and you don't know what they want. And it was changing in all these ways that I had not anticipated. And so I had to let go. But my practice here, and there was a period of time where I thought, I'm not a Zen student anymore. I'm a mom, and I'm pretty excited about that.

[02:09]

But I was also pretty sad, thinking that I couldn't be here. And looking back on that moment, I was more like in that story. that to be a monk, there were certain things that you do and don't do. To be a Zen student, there were things that I had to do and not do. And I had to be on a cushion, and I couldn't really do that anymore. And so that was my, at least in relation to my son, the first time he taught me about letting go. And so since then, I've had a lot of lessons about letting go and turning back to see what it is I need to let go and what I need to take up.

[03:19]

In meeting this moment with him Leaving. There are a lot of emotions that come up for me. I'm hard-bred and it doesn't come up. I'm proud of the good moments. I'm ashamed of the not good moments. I could have done better. I'm excited for him. I'm going to miss him terribly. There is joy in that I'm so proud of him and excited to see him go out into the world. I feel like there's little fissures and cracks in my heart as it breaks to see him go.

[04:36]

But as I let go, something that I feel is very important for me to do is to let go with love. Often when we let go of something, we're doing it because we, not because we want to. And so it's easy to feel mad. It's easy to feel resentful. It's easy to get caught up in the pain or the suffering. when we have to let something go. And I don't think this is always possible.

[05:38]

But for me, when I've learned all the times I've had to let go is that when I can do it with love, that's for me when I feel like I've reached big mind. the understanding that I have met this I have accepted it and whether it's painful for me or not it is It's something that I have radically accepted. I'm not there yet with my son, in part because of the unknown.

[06:57]

It's so scary. out in the world, not able to protect him, not able to share with him what's going on. And so for me, this is a reminder and kind of, I think why I'm thinking about it already is that it's a process. Letting go is not a switch that we flip. It doesn't happen just because we decide to do it. I remember one time Sojan Roshi talked about practice and how it's like going for a walk in the fog and at some point you just realize you're wet and you don't really know.

[08:04]

And so I'm starting my walk, wanting to take my time with this so that when we get to the moment, I'll be able to hold on to my wing and enjoying watching him fly on his own. And then in that same moment, I'll be taking up being able to sit again, being able to be in the Zendo. doing all things that I haven't had time to do because I've been wanting to attend to and care for him.

[09:20]

One of the things, I talked a little bit about this with Hozan and he said something that was very comforting. He said of all the things that you will have to let go of that we all do when we meet a moment like this. You will not ever have to let go of loving him. And I found that very helpful. My beginner's mind, Suzuki Roshi says, There is happiness in sorrow and sorrow in happiness. And that is where he refers to when we hold them both, we have attained big mind. This big mind or this letting go and taking up.

[10:34]

What's crucial I think is when we can focus on the word and that it hurts and it's healthy, it's needed and it's not always wanted or it's wanted desperately and it's not. It's not here or it's not present. It's not in the present moment. So the idea of this coin where we are letting go but also and we are taking up I find very helpful so that In some way it feels like there's more than one part to any experience.

[11:49]

It's easy at times to get caught up in the painful parts. But there's always an and. And. There's the people that love you and support you. There's the loss and there's all that came before you that you got to that made what you're losing so precious. There's what you learn, the way you've changed, the way you've grown. And so I don't know how to even imagine my life without him, but I will die forever.

[13:09]

going to look forward to the ways, the different ways that he will still be in my life. For hopefully a very long time. One thing about these talks is I always lose track of time, so I don't know if I've been talking for five minutes or a long time. Can you tell me what time it is? It's about 17 minutes before. 17 minutes before 11, okay. I have a few stories about letting go, so the ways that I've worked with letting go throughout the year. when he was, I think it was first, there was the experience where there was the, there was a shooting at a school on the East Coast, blanking on the name of the school.

[14:42]

Someone went in and it was a first grade classroom and ended up killing several children. And that was, my son was the same age as those kids. And I couldn't begin to fathom what it was like to have that happen. And I remember it was the day after that that a number of parents outside the school we had walked our children in. And I looked around and all these parents were crying and I was too. Trying to imagine what it would be like if this was the last time that we ever saw

[15:44]

And I tried to imagine what it was like to say goodbye. And although I've never had that experience, Hoping I never will. I'm really grateful. I haven't so far. But when I... Something shifted that day for me. And it was the first time I started to see my son as something kind of separate from me. Because up until that time, in a way, I felt like we were...

[16:52]

I loved the koan, not one, not two. And it has felt that way in many ways for me. But as of that day, I felt more like we were two, not so much one anymore. And that was another moment of being in the fog. From the time he was in my belly until then, And in appreciating what his life was separate from mine, in hindsight, what I took up was this sense of

[17:53]

trusting him that he could be in the world and he could be, it wasn't even around success or failure. It was around just being able to thrive, being able to be curious, being able to learn. being able to grow, being able to change. And that he was gonna do this separate from me. And that he was taking up something that I was not. And, you know, in first grade, what are they taking up? They are taking up making friends. They are taking up, I think it was multiplication, subtraction, addition. They're taking up creativity, play. But he would, in his way, was letting go of me.

[19:02]

And I think it was certainly harder for him because I thought of moments when He had to take up letting go of me when he didn't want to. When he had to take up me going to work, me leaving him at school. But he did learn to take that up. And it was hard for him, I think at times. And so when I think back on that moment, in a way I feel like it's my turn now. It's my turn to take up. And I'm sure he'll go to work and maybe come back and visit me sometime or there'll be times that we can be together.

[20:17]

Thinking back on how there are things that change and that they can feel like a little death, an ending, something that won't get picked up again. I think when we also focus on what we do, take up. Because there is always something that we take up. That are in our lives. The taking up of ourselves. And that's been

[21:27]

the part for me now that has been the most interesting. But I had to put down a part of myself when he was born. And there are aspects of myself that I don't feel like I have really picked up again in a while. And so this idea of taking up me and my life is also something that I'm starting to think about. And I am finding that I'm a little excited about it. And part of that is I'm looking for I'm looking forward to being here in ways that I haven't for a long time.

[22:32]

I'm looking forward to getting to know myself in ways that I haven't really had time to get to know myself. But what I'm finding more is that I'm certainly not the same person that I was then. And taking up in the same way that we let go, I think happens gradually as well. You know, when I think about taking up, and as the way Suzuki wrote, sorry, as Sojin Roshi talked about it, between taking up and caught getting caught up and the taking up is the meeting of the present moment and I think alignment with big mind and I really don't

[23:55]

want my taking up to be caught up in suffering. I don't want to focus on what my life is not. I want to focus on what it is and what it can be. And as much in the present moment and in big mind as I'm able to do. It can be very humbling every time I feel like I have a sense of what a moment is. it turns a little bit and I can see all the things that I missed about it.

[25:00]

There was so much more to see. And so as I'm doing that, I'm really kind of feeling like it's a bit of an adventure because there is more and more for me. to discover about myself, my life, that I haven't really been noticing as much as I could. So I think . I'm sure there's lots of questions . Okay, well, so I will pause there for questions. Thank you. It reminded me of my own going off to college.

[26:36]

I had a very close relationship with my mom, and I know that she probably felt, I think, the kind of anguish that I really hear right on the surface of your emotion. I want to acknowledge that. And so my question to you is, you know, putting things down is hard. That's core to our practice, right? and accepting impermanence and change. And you talked about taking up something different. And I'm wondering where the joy of that is, because I feel like there must be some joy in this as well, right? You know, letting go, taking up something new should have joy. And so the real question is, I think, When I look on my relationship with my mom all those years ago, going up to college, four years ago now, our relationship went through multiple metamorphoses.

[27:44]

We arrived at a very adult relationship, much more separation, but also different levels of respect and care and understanding. I wonder when you think about taking things up, how you think about taking up a changed relationship? When I think about taking up, what I want to say is what we will take up, but it won't be we. Who knows what he will take up? That will be for him to decide. What I want to take up I want to take up more space so that he is not encumbered by my grief that

[28:57]

There's enough space so that we know where each of us begins and each of us ends and where there can be a choice for what we share and what we don't. There can be space for meeting and there can be space for leaving. And it's my hope that that space will make room for authentic sharing. So that's my hope. Thank you. I like your question. Margo? Hi. Thanks for your talk. In the beginning of your talk, you briefly touched on

[30:01]

letting go as a kind of a different form of taking control of the self. But I'm actually wondering what it looks like to surrender even control of ourselves, or what your experience with that is, that kind of just complete surrendering of the self. Surrendering, I hadn't really turned that phrase or that word in my head, but to let go and to surrender has a quality of grief or loss.

[31:02]

So that when you surrender that you're coming to the absence of something. And I don't know if when we talk about emptiness all the time and yet It's emptiness of anything permanent. And so when we surrender, as I think you're referring to it, it's the letting go of something that we had wanted to nail down or hold on to or that stayed. And so for me, back to the walking in the fog is that it's fluid it changes there is something but it's moving and it's coming and it's going so that there being there but it's never the same thing and so at any moment you look up

[32:33]

And what is it now? What's here now? It can be 10 million different things. I mean, it can be an infinite number of things. And it can be a range of emotions. It can be an absence of something, which is still something. And so it's meeting that moment to find out what's here right now. what is not here right now. Does that speak to it? Yes, thank you. Okay. Luminous Heart. Hi, Marie. Thank you for sharing your heart with us, which is what I feel you've been doing. Your talk just brought back so very many memories. My daughter's now 42, but when she was 16,

[33:35]

I started writing everything down. I wrote a whole book of poetry called Deconstructing the Nest. I kept going over this release. And part of what came up for me in that process and comes up again in listening to you is at the very first moment of birth, there's already a letting go. You're no longer in charge of full womb protection of your beloved. They're now out in the air and breathing on their own and already that's a that's a letting go and you referred to I think your son's kindergarten time but all the way through all those experiences where you had to release I felt certainly felt it too and let go and facial makeup that drove me out of my gourd and all the different stages and phases of growing and developing and allowing and drawing lines as necessary, but it's an extraordinary, extraordinary process.

[34:44]

What came up for me, especially in listening to you, is that what grew in me and has been so, even through some tough times with my young adult daughter, a deep faith and trust in the bond that has been connected in all the loving that has gone in between you and that that that will find its form and ways hopefully always just in different forms so yeah that's what i want back back to you thank you Carrie? I think that the Zendo is muted and we can't hear what's happening.

[36:24]

Can you hear now? Yep, thank you. Okay. So Gary is talking, Gary Artem is talking about his memory of his own experience when he went off to school. Yeah, anyway, I'm looking at it from your son's point of view. Right. And I felt really sad. And I felt really a lot of strong emotions. But then when I left, I felt this exuberance. Lean on yourself. I just wanted to share that. Thank you. Yes? My question is about the most tragic and heartbreaking and maybe painful letting go in our lives.

[37:36]

So those parents at this school shooting, grief of letting go. But what is there for them possibly to take up? Well, as long as we are alive, we have a life to take up. And there may not be clarity around motivation of why to take it up. And as long as there is life within us, we have life to take up.

[38:41]

And I mean, that was, in some ways it sounds strange, but in the moment when that happened, what I realized is I would be still alive. if my child was not, and in a way that was shocking. And there may be, at least for a while, no joy in it at all. And there are moments, there's a big mind moment where we don't find joy. Just because it's big mind doesn't mean it will hold every experience. And so maybe it's that we support others.

[39:48]

Maybe it's that we just have to work at remembering to breathe. Maybe it's that We go into our garden or whatever gives us any source of comfort. But that we take up whatever we can. It doesn't seem like there's any more questions. Thank you, Marie.

[40:53]

Great talk. I'm wondering, with the lung leaving, do you have another one left? I do. A few years. I'm sure that for my other child, which I will of course enjoy immensely. I don't think he will kind of fill in or take the place of the other.

[41:54]

And then it will be another rendition. I think he will miss his brother, even though he probably will not say that. I think he will. And In a way, I'll have to help him take up his own whatever he's taking up without his brother there, what it's like to be alone with his parents for the first time ever because he's always known a household with his brother in it. So, we'll be taking up a new configuration only to let that one go a few years later and do this all again in a new way, in a different way.

[42:58]

But it's all part of the impermanence that we are flowing through and just having a lot of, we picture our lives as a river These moments are going through a lot of rapids, it feels like to me right now. So there's just a lot of change and a lot of bumps and a lot of big motions and movements through these rough waters. But I think immense comfort to me as I cope with my grief. And then who knows what I'll do once he's gone. Maybe I can coax the other one to come back and live with us for a little bit. Touche.

[44:04]

Thank you very much.

[44:08]

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