AC: One of the things that has
been so interesting to me was demonstrated with the very first guest who was here,
and I’ve never forgotten it. And he was a man who lived as a hermit,
essentially, on a beach in a shack which he put together with materials that
he’d found. And he was, at the end of his life, being taken care of by a circle
of essentially strangers who had to walk in to his home in order to get
there—there was no road. And he had no electricity and no plumbing. His
electricity was a big extension cord, but he had no plumbing. And the one
friend who was trying to coordinate his care at the end of his life was
desperate, desperate . . . uh . . . The rains were coming; it was September.
The friend was leaving town for a couple of weeks; he couldn’t keep this circle
together. And he’d heard about Enso House just . . . I don’t know really quite
how. And we weren’t ready to accept anybody. We didn’t have any insurance; we
didn’t have . . . We weren’t ready. And it happened at the same time as the
sesshin was happening at Tahoma, and the Roshi was here, and I . . . This
friend came to me in a desperate state, and I went and met the man in his bed and
came back and told the Roshi about it and said, “We need to do this.” And there
was really no hesitation with the whole board even though everyone was exposed ‘cause
there was no insurance. Anyway, this man was brought here, and he was mute. He
didn’t speak. And I don’t know if he didn’t speak because he had an organic
problem; I don’t know if he’d had a stroke necessarily—he was suffering from
lung cancer. But he was completely quiet and he had absolutely alert and awake
blue eyes. He could see what was happening. And he got here, and he closed his
eyes, and he didn’t open them for a couple of days. And he didn’t say anything.
And I would be in the room with him, feeling that he was furious that after
having been brought out of his space and put in a . . . Holiday Inn [chuckles].
And it was . . . really distressing to me, ‘cause I felt this so strongly. And
then Chisan, the Roshi’s translator, came over and sat with him for half an
hour and came out of the room and said, “He’s so grateful. He’s just so
appreciative.” And what it made me see is that this is all . . . this whole
experience is projection essentially. That really not knowing what is happening
is really the basis of everything that happens here. [gentle laugh] And a projection of our own interior . . . uh
. . . life, you know? So that’s one thing
I find really helpful for me personally, to be reminded of that, that I am
creating my own . . . um . . . interpretation, and trying to make sure I see
that all the time so that I can stay open to what’s really happening.
That’s one thing. Another thing was this guy Rinsan
was talking about, was a fairly young man, who was really adamantly opposed to
his dying. It was just not gonna happen. And it was happening. And he
was angry, and he was aggressive, and he was sure of himself. And sure of
himself in that he was not . . . this was not going to happen to him. And he
was too physically weak and on too many incredibly powerful analgesics to
safely move around the house. But he was still determined to do that. And at
one point, my concern . . . I was just concerned all the time that this man was
gonna fall. And he stood up and . . . He was wheeled in a wheel chair across
this room, and he suddenly stood up and was gonna walk into the dining room.
And as he stood up, the wheel chair went out from behind him sort of, and I
pushed it under him, and I said, “You can’t do that!” And he got really mad at
me. And I pushed him into the dining room, and I said, “You just can’t do that.
You’re going to fall. It’s too scary.” He said, “No! You are the one who
needs to calm down [general laughter] and cool off.” [laugher continues] He
said, “You need to cool off!” . . . [pause] . . . True. [more laughter]
AC: He had . . . he
had colon cancer, and he had an obstruction of his bowel. He was here for five
weeks probably, and not able to eat without incredible pain that required
doubling the amount of intravenous narcotic that he was getting continuously. And
in spite of that, he was determined to eat. And that was another really
difficult thing, to watch him roll himself into the kitchen [laughs] and open
the refrigerator [general laughter] knowing that once he swallowed something,
we would have to dial up . . . dial up his narcotic and deal with excruciating
discomfort. And he was a rock-n-roll drummer . . . a rock-n-roll bassist who
had played with a lot of people on the island over his life as a musician. And he
really wanted to have a . . . He wanted to gather all the musicians he’d played
with together. And they all showed up, some of them on motorcycles, and they
brought a coolers of beer, and they set up a whole trap set and two mikes for
singers, and, you know, mikes for the guitars and amplifiers, and we moved
everything around, and there was like Led Zeppelin music, you know, coming from
this dining room. And then he was too weak to play, himself. He couldn’t hold
his instrument. But he had a chair pulled up, and he sat in the chair, and
someone gave him his bass, and the room got totally quiet, and he plucked off
this song, and sang, “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” [laughter] And
everybody just like melted. That was pretty amazing.”
Cypress Trees in the Garden: pp. 124-132.
Cypress Trees in the Garden: pp. 124-132.
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