Orange County Buddhist Church

    I would like to share with all of you, a personal experience shared with me by a dear friend who lost his wife recently in Oregon.  Our friend is Roy Hasebe, a long time farmer in Ontario, Oregon.  His wife, Jamie, has been battling cancer for the past two years. 

    In the last weeks of Jamie’s life, she was cared for at a nursing home in Ontario.  Roy, as a farmer, would visit Jamie first thing in the morning, before going out to the fields to do his farm work. 

One day when Roy went to see Jamie on his usual morning visit, when he entered her room, she immediately extended her arms up in the air.  In Roy’s defense, I have to admit that we men are not the most perceptive of human beings.  Sometimes we do not know exactly what it is our wives are trying to communicate to us.  Roy thought that Jamie wanted to sit up in bed, so he began to pull her arms to help her sit up.  Jamie could not always speak well in her later stages of her cancer, so without saying any words, Jamie sort of waved him off, trying to say that was not what she wanted. 

    Roy then recalled seeing how nurses would help patients sit up in bed by bending over, having the patient put their arms around the nurse’s neck, and then the nurse would gently pull the patient up in bed.  Roy thought that was what his wife wanted, so he leaned over her at her bedside.  To his surprise, Jamie put her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her, in a warm embrace.  He realized now what she had wanted.  She wanted to give him a hug.  Roy said that his wife held on to him in that last embrace, for over 15 or 20 minutes.  He said that he will never forget that last embrace with his wife.  Days after that she was not physically able to give him a hug or embrace him.  She passed away some days after that final embrace. 

    Ayako Suzuki, a follower of the Nembutsu in Japan who also died of terminal cancer, wrote a book of poems titled, “After the diagnosis of cancer.”  In that book there is one poem that I think reflects the same experience that Jamie had.  It goes as follows:

            Now as I sit here, talking and laughing
            with my husband and children,
            I realize that we have done so
            for maybe thousands of times.
            But when I reflect
            that there might not be tomorrow,
            I feel like embracing them all.

    Everyday we have dinner with our families and we think nothing of it.  We talk about current events, or what’s happening with our kids in school, or what took place at work that day.  It’s just another day.  It’s just another dinner.  For Ayako Suzuki, however, each dinner with her family is something to be cherished, something to be savored, even more than the delicious food.  When she thinks that there might not be tomorrow, her heart and mind wants to embrace her entire family.  For Jamie, never knowing if that morning visit by her husband might be her last, her heart too wants to embrace her husband and family.

    In another poem, Ayako Suzuki writes the following:

            I will do it.
            I have to do it.
            I will do it for you.
            I have lived thinking this way.
            But now that I am in this position,
            where others must do things for me,
            I begin to see a world in which
            my children, my husband, and all others
            allow me to live.
            I used to worry and have a heavy heart,
            about what will happen to them when I am gone.
            But now I see my children and husband,
            all embraced
            within the great hand of the Buddha.

    Ayako Suzuki’s heart and mind is one that embraces her husband and family.  But at the same time, her heart has been opened up to a greater world, the world of truth, the world of enlightenment, in which she sees not only herself, but all beings encompassed in the great hand of the Buddha, embraced within the great compassion.    This realization is the greatest peace, it is the greatest comfort for her as she faces the end of her life.  This realization opens her heart and mind to something beyond even her own life and death. 

    Ayako Suzuki and Jamie Hasebe, in facing their own terminal illness, had their hearts and minds opened to a world of truth, the world of Namuamidabutsu.  This heart is a vast, open heart.  It is not dark or dreary, but is bright and radiant.  It is not closed or limited, but is open and boundless.  It is not selective or prejudiced, but is broad and seeks to encompass all. 

    Ultimately, life and death is resolved in the world of truth that we call Namuamidabutsu.  For Ayako Suzuki, the peace of mind that she receives from the Nembutsu stems from the fact that she has touched on a truth beyond her own limited, physical life.  Instead of grieving that she cannot be with her family physically, she knows in her heart that she is truly one with her family, spiritually, in Namuamidabutsu.  Not only is she one with them, but her heart and mind too is embraced within the great hand of the Buddha.  Therefore, amidst her deep sadness and sorrow, she discovers great joy and peace.  Within a final embrace, one can discover the embrace that will last for all of eternity.