Remembering Jishu

Bernie talked all the time about Indra’s Net, the Buddhist representation of the interconnectedness of all things. It was a metaphor for what Bernie called “the Oneness of Life.” This was the heart of his teaching. Enlightenment for Bernie was “the realization and actualization of the Oneness of Life.”

Intellectually, I understood what he was talking about. My image was the famous butterfly in China: when the Chinese butterfly flaps his wings, he impacts the weather in Texas. I liked the idea.  I could never see that it impacted my daily life very much.

Yesterday, at the Peacemaker Community’s online gathering to remember, Roshi Jishu Holmes, co-founder with Bernie of the Peacemakers, Peter Cunningham recalled them as binary planets. He remembered them referring to themselves as “BernieJishu.”  Binary planets travel through the universe rotating around each other.

We think, of course, of the moon rotating around the earth, but Peter had recently read that even the earth and the moon are in a binary relationship. It’s just that the earth is so much bigger than the moon that we only notice the moon’s motion.

That image stirred memories for me and the thought, “I wish Jishu had heard about the binary relationship of earth and moon.” Jishu never appreciated how much Bernie rotated around her. For Jishu, Bernie was the earth, maybe even the sun. He was always her teacher. In the zendo, she always called him, “Sensei.” In privacy, at home, she called him, “Sensei honey.” In the last years of her life, Bernie and Jishu worked consciously to achieve mutuality. “Co-founding” the Peacemakers was a very intentional departure from their formal relationship of subordination at the Zen Community of New York and The Greyston Foundation. Jishu always had her own gravity. She just didn’t see it.

Two moments stand out in my memory. The first was when Jishu quit her job at Greyston. That decision had been brewing for a while. It was probably part of the-wife-of-the-boss syndrome. She wasn’t getting the respect she deserved, although Bernie was no longer technically the boss. He’d turned the reins over to Chuck Leif and stepped back. Bernie was the “founder” but he was still full-time at Greyston. And to many people, he was still the boss.

When Jishu quit, Bernie was appalled. He wanted her to rescind her resignation. He had a million arguments. “You should get another job first. You don’t want to be without medical insurance.” None of his arguments were working. Bernie figured they would have to get away to talk about it. They’d go on vacation, to Hawaii for some time alone together and for some Zen dentistry. On the beach, Bernie would convince Jishu to rescind her resignation.

When they returned two weeks later, Bernie announced that he too would be leaving Greyston. They would remain in Yonkers, and together Bernie and Jishu would begin the work of co-founding the Zen Peacemaker Order. That was the force of Jishu’s gravity at work, but Jishu didn’t see it.

She still didn’t see it two years later. It had become clear that as long as Bernie remained in Yonkers too many people, including local politicians, would continue to see him as the main guy, would continue to go to him rather than to Chuck. It was time for Bernie and Jishu to leave town. But where would they go? The search for a new home base had narrowed to two alternatives. Bernie favored Santa Barbara. Jishu wanted Santa Fe.

Jishu and I were standing in our Staten Island driveway. She’d come out the night before to officiate at my Shuso-entering ceremony. We were talking by the car – I was going to drive her to the airport; she would fly to Santa Fe to meet Bernie – when she told me that this was a purely pro forma trip. “Bernie wants Santa Barbara.”

When they returned to Yonkers, Bernie announced that they would be moving to Santa Fe. Jishu had no idea of her gravitational power. Bernie didn’t either. Not really. Until Jishu was gone. Only days after they’d arrived in Santa Fe, before Jishu had finished unpacking, she died of a massive heart attack. Bernie reeled for a year, struggling to regain his balance.

Maybe now, I’m beginning to feel Indra’s Net. It’s been 27 years that Jishu’s gone. This year Bernie will be gone 7. The binary planets metaphor is working for me far more powerfully than the Chinese butterfly. Maybe we only become aware of the power of the other “planets” in our moments of great loss.

I’ve gotten older in the last 27 years. Jishu was the first person my age to die who I was close to. Death has become a more common occurrence, the reminders of the interconnectedness of life all too common. And yet there is a gift in this too.

What was Bernie talking about when he talked about the interconnectedness of all things, of the oneness of life? Intellectually, I understood, or thought I understood, what he was talking about. The “oneness of life” actually left me cold. It had too much of a new-agey feel for me. Bernie seemed to feel it, but so many others who claim “the great compassion” for people suffering in the far corners of the globe can give me the creeps. So often, they are sending money to faraway refugee camps but doing nothing to welcome immigrants to their own communities.

“Indra’s net” feels passive, too abstract. I don’t have to do anything. I can smile when I think that I’m reflecting the the light of nameless jewels beyond counting. The connections are far more powerful when I count my losses: Bernie, Jishu, Mom, Dad, John, Linda, Joe, Don. I’m still connected to them, but the gravity has shifted.

And those shifts have changed my relationship to the living. I feel the connections differently. I don’t take the gravity for granted. How often these days, I text when I haven’t heard from a friend my age, “Just let me know you’re okay.”