Taikaku Reibin Zenji (28 January 1933 - 2 January 2021)
Today we celebrate the anniversary of the death of the founder of our Temple, the first Abbot of Muhozan Kosenji, Peakless Mountain Shoreless River Temple, Robert Livingston, Taikaku Reibin Zenji.
It has been one year and seven days since the morning of January 2nd, 2021, when he entered nirvana.
What is nirvana? Many people mistakenly think of nirvana as bliss. But it really means “extinguishment.” The flame is not only out, it is out cold. All that was the Robert we knew has entered the Void, or I should say “re-entered” the Void. The light is not just gone, but any notion of light and dark ever having been has evaporated. Life is no more. Thus suffering is no more. Discontent is no more. Longing is no more. Anxiety is no more. No more is no more.
And when one is old and has lived a full life after 87 years, this extinguishment is not such a bad thing. Robert would sometimes lament getting old, but he would more often say that it was better than the alternative. But who knows? As Robert always said, “Come to zazen, climb into your coffin. Leave zazen, climb out of your coffin. What’s the difference? Nothing to fear.” Perhaps zazen gives us a glimpse of nirvana. A glimpse of what it is like when fear and desire, when complication and simplification, when the drama and slapstick comedy of our lives are no more.
Yet Robert himself is not extinguished. He lives on in us, in our practice, in this temple, and in our zazen. Now we are his eyes and ears and nose and mouth, his straight spine and his head pressing the sky. Just as the Buddha told his disciples that they were his flesh, his bones, his marrow.
Now we celebrate the anniversary of Robert’s passing with this sesshin. I often imagine him gazing out on our aching backs near the end of sesshin as though we were a range of mountains, and then, at the party afterwards, gazing out at us, with amusement and satisfaction, and perhaps a little pride.
He would be happy, I think, to look out at you as I am now, sturdy in your zazen. He would be happy, too, to know that we will have a new bodhisattva and a new monk today. He always took special joy in ordinations, and I think he would be especially pleased at these two new members of the sangha today.
After all, what more could he possibly ask for in the way of eternal life than for these two to be part of this great lineage, the lineage of Somon Kodo and Mokudo Taisen and Taikaku Reibin?
To honor this lineage, and the anniversary of Robert’s death, I invite everyone during this morning’s Hannya Shingyo, to offer shoko just as I do every day at the altar, by bowing at the head of the tatami, stepping to the left, advancing to the altar, stepping to the right, bowing, taking a pinch of shoko incense and dropping it on the charcoal ember, before returning to your zafu. We will repeat the Hannya Shingyo until everyone has had a chance to offer shoko.
By offering shoko to Robert’s ashes — ashes to ashes — we pay respect to his life and his life’s work, and to the perpetuation of his life in our practice.
There were times when we heard Deshimaru in Robert’s voice when he chanted the Hannya Shingyo. And there are times when I hear Robert’s voice in mine while chanting. There is nothing supernatural or superstitious or sentimental in this. It is just the way it is.
Please concentrate on your chant today with a focus on your hara. There’s a Buddha in our belly. Let it out. It might be Robert.
— Richard Collins
Robert Livingston, circa 1978