Replanting the Garden

It was early September 2023, one of those peak times of the year at Zen Mountain Monastery in the Catskill Mountains, when summer is both savored and remembered, and the magical display of fall’s colors is just appearing on the ridgelines. One of our elder monastics had left for a brief vacation two weeks earlier and had not returned to the monastery. While visiting his family, it became dramatically clear that some recent gaps in memory and comprehension were more than simply “senior moments.” In short order, a brain tumor was diagnosed, then surgically removed. The operation was successful, but the cancer was glioblastoma: something to be shrunk, excavated, managed, or accepted. Either way, it would return before long. Months. It would move swiftly, lethally. There were treatment options, but they were vague and couldn’t be discussed until more information was gathered. Meanwhile, our beloved monk would be returned to us as soon as the hospital discharged him. Recognizable, but different.

His dharma name was Yukon, meaning Playful Perseverance, and he was still Yukon. That said, the cancer had dramatically impaired the language-processing region of his brain. A garrulous and engaging fellow who had overseen our monastery’s garden and greenhouse for many years, he was now robbed of his primary tools for connecting with others. This aphasia, to use the technical term, was severe, leaving him with perhaps 10 percent of his vocabulary. Removing the tumor had arrested the damage, but not even time—were we to have such a luxury—could repair it. His near-encyclopedic knowledge of plants was now inaccessible, along with just about any other noun; no person, place, or thing could be named. No food, nor flower, nor herb. Beyond language, the brain trauma caused its own disorientation. He would need almost round-the-clock supervision, in case of what, we weren’t yet sure.

Shugen Roshi, our abbot, gathered the eleven remaining monastics and suggested that one of us step into the role of primary caregiver, coordinating medical appointments, prescriptions, and acting as a liaison with family, who happened to live less than an hour away. After some awkward glances among us, I said, “Well, I’ll do it.” I’d never been involved in anything like this before, but how could I not throw in my lot? I owed him so much.                                      

I remember the first time I entered the Zen Center of New York City. I was greeted by a soft-featured man in his mid-50s with a shaved head and broad ears wearing black monk’s robes and a kind, bemused expression of warmth and keen interest. There was no one else around, though a small group of residents and regulars would soon gather for the 6:30 p.m. sit. Having begun my practice with a predominantly Asian and immigrant sangha several years before, I’d met fellow convert Buddhists—often searching for something other than what our upbringing had offered us—but Yukon would have been the first “home-leaving” monk that I could culturally identify with. In fact, like me, he had been raised Jewish, and, as I would discover over time but somehow knew instinctively in that first encounter, he elevated the characteristic of nebbishness to a Zen art.

Nebbish, like many Yiddish terms, leaves room for some interpretation. Essentially, it refers to a person (usually a man) whose cozy familiarity endears him to others. It’s also used as a pejorative for someone without ambition or prospects—perfect for a monk whose task is simply to bow and serve. For newcomers like me, this particular monk’s mischievous humor and effusive kindness were the perfect introduction to Soto Zen, and part and parcel of the refuge many of us were seeking from the hard-edged city just outside the temple doors. 

I’d never been involved in anything like this before, but how could I not throw in my lot? I owed him so much.

As I began to spend more time at the Zen Center and also at the monastery, the question of monastic discernment rose up in me like a chronic fever. It sometimes required painful self-examination, and although I’ve been ordained for several years now, in some ways it still does. But during those heady years when my formal practice was still taking shape, Yukon was there at every turn to remind me, in his irreverent way, that not knowing is just fine. I appreciated the insight. More difficult to swallow were all the ways he insisted I not take myself too seriously. It was a lesson that could be outright infuriating, and was ultimately most likely lifesaving.

Twenty years passed, and we’re now in the midst of a resplendent fall. It’s harvest time, under the guidance of our youngest monastic, who went from garden assistant under Yukon to simply gardener in the blink of an eye.

I find myself much of the time at Yukon’s bedside in a special room at the monastery designed for hospice care. He is, in fact, the first monk to be living out his last weeks and months in what we call the Jizo House. This brown two-story, red-roofed building was constructed just three years earlier on the site of a previous cottage of the same name. Its rebirth came with a multipart mission: to design an accommodation space that would be more accessible for retreatants with mobility issues, and to allow for older residents and monastics to age into a bit more comfort and convenience. (Most monastery residents live in simple cabins, a short walk up the mountain.) The cornerstone of that forward-thinking vision is this room with a wheelchair-accessible bathroom and double glass doors that open up onto a blue stone patio and native plant garden, plus a view of the main building. How fortunate. A fatal diagnosis is never well-timed but, apparently, building projects sometimes are.

“All those people. Are they . . . what’s happening now?”

“You mean everyone here for the retreat?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re in the zendo.”

“And we’re . . . I mean they . . .”

“They’re doing their thing and we’re here doing our thing, just resting. That’s all you need to do.”

“OK.”

The tumor’s impact on Yukon’s brain didn’t stop with aphasia. It was apparent the moment he returned from the hospital that his personality had shifted, was shifting, would continue to evaporate. Everything was growing more and more subtle, more subdued and accepting. He was disoriented at times, but it was often difficult to ascertain the extent of that disorientation. He seemed to be taking everything in a wobbly stride. In fact, that whole first month following his surgery, Yukon appeared reflective but generally in good spirits. After a week of recovery, he started joining us in the zendo, and even sat a fair amount of that month’s meditation intensive. However, he wasn’t comfortable around people when we weren’t in silence. Not being able to say much in response to their well-wishes ran counter to the verbosity of his former life. But when it was just monastery residents—and especially when we were in silence—he was happy to follow the schedule to the degree he could. One longtime resident, after her first shift with Yukon during that time, said to me, “It’s weird. It’s like, he’s Yukon, but he’s suddenly more monkish.”

The Buddha suggested five things to always bear in mind about mortality. They strike at the heart of his own quest, grappling with the apparent futility of living in a fleshy package of planned obsolescence. Several years ago I started bringing these remembrances into my meditation, beginning each morning by silently reciting them to myself with my own slight elaborations. 

I am of the nature to grow older. I cannot avoid aging. I am aging even now. 

I am of the nature to become ill. I cannot avoid illness. Sickness is within me even now. 

I am of the nature to die. I cannot avoid death. I am dying even in this very moment. 

All dharmas are impermanent. I will be separated from all that I cherish and identify with, including my own skandhas (elements of identity).

My actions are the ground that I walk on. Karma is my only inheritance.

Six weeks before his unexpected diagnosis, Yukon and I were driving farther upstate to co-officiate a funeral and he mentioned the five remembrances as something he wanted to bring out in the service. I told him I chanted them every day. He turned to me excitedly and exclaimed, “Really? I do too!” At 74 years old, his enthusiasm for the dharma was ever youthful. It was as though I’d told him that we shared a favorite song, one he’d thought to be obscure.

But, to me, it was unsurprising that Yukon would include teachings on impermanence in his personal liturgy. For the past decade, at least, mortality seemed to be one of his favorite topics. He reveled in the starkness and the clarity of accepting what is true—the circle of life. Of course, he saw it every day in his gardening. Like many gardeners, he was a devotee of compost. He adored the wonder of regeneration and relished our discomfort when he said he’d be happy to just fall down dead one day beside the chard, marigolds, tomatoes, and sunflowers, and just decay right there into the earth. 

During one dharma talk he’d delivered during a sesshin (silent meditation retreat) three summers earlier, Yukon added a tangent that, at the time, seemed rather whimsical, if not macabre. “I fantasize about when I’m dying in that little hospice room that we’re making across from the garden in the new Jizo House,” he said. “I fantasize that I have the mind to put on my robes real quick and to kind of crawl out there and lay myself down to die in the garden. That would be so great, you know? What a way to go.” These thoughts were not idle, but they were also less shocking when you heard them brought up in conversation time and again.

One afternoon, the two of us were standing in the garden with a young monthlong resident. Yukon was gleefully showing off his comfort around dying, crowing about how it would be up to young monks like me to care for him when he got old and senile, and how he was looking forward to that time. It was probably a little perplexing to our young guest. To me it was eye-roll-inducing. “We never know how many days we have left,” he continued, grinning ear to ear. “In fact, I could go sooner than you think.”

“Really?” I asked dryly. “Is that a promise?”

Yukon roared with laughter. This was our way together. He loved to push buttons, and loved it even more when the other person knew how to push back.

Winter closed in with a foreboding hush as our operation at the Jizo House expanded to accommodate the need. Yukon’s strength and coordination were deteriorating as sleep—or some kind of liminal state—became his default. Hospice was called in, though, for a time, the wonderful case nurse could do little more than cheerlead our efforts, outfit us with a “comfort pack” of various medications, and gently remind us Buddhists that dying is a natural act, not to be feared or fought, least of all by the caregivers. Meanwhile, there was no shortage of sangha members desperate to lend a hand however they could. Over his many years at the monastery, Yukon had become the mirthful heart of the community, making an impression on even the briefest of guests and deeply impacting countless others. But even as I traded shifts with his two devoted nephews and a few others in an inner circle, and even as other monastics got involved to help keep things organized, Yukon’s overall care was my responsibility. I felt like the hub of the wheel, along with my charge, grateful for all the spokes that held us in place, even as the relentlessness of the spinning wore me down. 

Caregiving for one’s fellow monastics is so basic to the path that the Buddha addressed it in detail. This was a community, he insisted, not a band of free agents. Furthermore, everyone in the community was due their dignity.

“Bhikkhus,” he said. “You have no parents that might take care of you. If you don’t tend to one another, who then will tend to you?” That was his play at logic. Next came a gambit: “Whoever would tend to me should tend to the sick.” In other words, if you have any respect for me as your teacher and the leader of this community, you will view any sick compatriot as equally worthy of care. He went on to enumerate how to determine exactly who is responsible to whom within the order of monastics, assuring that no one is left unaccounted for in the circle of care, regardless of their personality, popularity, or position.

But the Buddha didn’t stop there. He acknowledged the challenges of caregiving and highlighted different qualities a caregiver should possess, including having the right intention and the ability to set aside any squeamishness. As with any demanding endeavor, some training is required. He offers a discipline (sila) in the form of his commandment, and discerning wisdom (prajna) in the form of his specific instructions. Beyond the realm of pragmatism, here the Buddha is defining his community as a locus of compassion: We rise to the occasion and help each other simply because it is the right thing to do. His teaching extends the compassion toward those who may find themselves for whatever reason unable to carry out the duties of a caregiver. He is in effect excusing such monastics from the service though not from the ethos.

On more than one occasion, lying helplessly in the hospice bed, Yukon expressed concern about the toll this might be taking on me.

“How is it? You . . . all this . . . not time . . . work.”

We’d become accustomed to a guessing game dynamic. I wagered, “You mean, am I still finding time to take care of myself and my other responsibilities?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m good,” I promised, though it felt like merely a half-truth. “Things get taken care of. And anyway, I’m to be envied because I get to hang out with you.” He relaxed and smiled gamely, trusting. 

Over the winter, the monastics started gathering together at Yukon’s bedside at least once a week for a quiet liturgy service. Even without the energy to open his eyes, he’d try and mouth the words to our chanting before seeming to remember that he didn’t need to make any effort at all. At the end of the service, as each person whispered a farewell, Yukon would whisper back, “Hey. Hey. Love you.” Perhaps now, he was less monkish, but he was still teaching in his own way.

Yukon succumbed to his illness on the final night of February, with a terrible windstorm churning the mountain all around us. He took his last breath with little fanfare as I sat at his bedside along with his sister and a nephew. After the ups and downs, the hopes and disappointments, the struggle was over.

To paraphrase Thich Nhat Hanh, for better or worse, we are the continuation of those who came before us—our ancestors, our teachers, all our relations. Hundreds attended Yukon’s funeral, both in person and online. All, I suspect, were hopeful that they would be able to continue the earthy, messy cultivation he so generously exemplified. For me, that continuation included the care he had himself extended to the dying as a hospice volunteer at the height of the AIDS epidemic, the care he showed to younger practitioners (myself included), and to all the plants and living beings with whom he came in contact.

At that first meeting back in New York City, two decades earlier, I told him a little about my practice, fledgling as it was, and said I was simply there to check out another center. “We never know where a life of practice will take us,” Yukon said. “But so long as we encounter a true teacher and the teachings, we’re in good hands. How fortunate is that?” All these years later I can only add: in each other’s hands, how fortunate indeed.