Sushila Blackman’s Graceful Exits

Stephan Downes:
Hi, I’m Stephan Downes.

Adam Rizvi:
And I’m Adam Rizvi.

Stephan Downes:
This is Letters to the Sky. A podcast about the metaphysical iconoclasts, philosophical visionaries, and religious leaders of the world.

Adam Rizvi:
Whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual, neither, or something in between, we invite you to take a deep dive with us down metaphysical rabbit holes, and learn to see your life from a new perspective. Hallelujah.

Stephan Downes:
Hey, hi Adam.

Adam Rizvi:
Stephan Downes, how are you, buddy?

Stephan Downes:
I’m good. Please don’t tell people my last name though.

Adam Rizvi:
Okay. Okay, Mr. Downes. I promise, I won’t ever say that again. You know on the website, when we do our transcript?

Stephan Downes:
You just used only my last name.

Adam Rizvi:
That’s right. Mr. Downes, I’m sorry.

Stephan Downes:
Did you mean to do that? Because you’re the kind of person who would do that unintentionally.

Adam Rizvi:
That’s true. I am.

Stephan Downes:
I need to know this, was that on purpose?

Adam Rizvi:
It was actually on purpose, yeah.

Stephan Downes:
You’re getting better.

Adam Rizvi:
You trained me well. The website transcripts of every episode are now up and they have your full name on there. And I’m working on getting your middle name up there as well too, with your address and your social.

Stephan Downes:
Please take those down right now.

Adam Rizvi:
It’ll take me a while, but don’t worry about it.

Stephan Downes:
Okay. Well, we have an awesome show everyone and sorry for the delay. I know a while ago we promised one a month, and we have so far not met that once. Although, now that we just released one and we’re doing another one right now, so this will be more than one per month.

Adam Rizvi:
I think on average, we might still be good. On average.

Stephan Downes:
Okay. Whatever you say Adam. Well, first of all, I want to shout out. We got some lovely emails to our email address, which is letterstotheskypodcast@gmail.com. And we got a lovely email from Kate and a lovely email from Kathy. And we just want to let both of you know, if you’re listening to this, that we really appreciate that. And we appreciate everyone who contacts us and reaches out. We love to hear from you. We love interacting. It’s so wonderful because right now it is Adam and Stephan just doing this for fun.

Stephan Downes:
And we also, on our discord, it’s pretty low key right now just because we’re just starting out. But today, for example, I announced that we’d be recording on the book we’re doing today, Graceful Exits. If you are on the discord, especially, it’s a great way to stay updated with what we’re doing, telling you which book we’re going to do next. And when we’re recording, just to keep you guys involved. So please join that. And the link for that is on our website.

Adam Rizvi:
Yes, it is.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah. Well, Adam.

Adam Rizvi:
Let’s chat about the book.

Stephan Downes:
Okay. Okay. I guess. We’re doing a book called Graceful Exits, and the subtitle is How Great Beings Die. It’s a really beautiful book. Adam, why don’t you tell us a little bit about it?

Adam Rizvi:
I didn’t realize this till the very end when reading the book, but then I went back and I read the back cover, which is odd because that’s usually the first thing that one does. But in my case, I had to read that back cover at the very end. But the back cover actually says that the author Sushila Blackman was a student of the Hindu master Swami Muktananda and was present at his ashram in India during his death. A few months before she completed Graceful Exits, Blackman learned that she had advanced lung cancer. She died a month and a half after finishing the book. I didn’t know that. The whole way through the book and at the very, very end, she actually has an afterword where she talks very poignantly about her personal experience, receiving the diagnosis.

Adam Rizvi:
And at one point, she actually says that she felt called to gather the stories of Zen masters, Hindu masters. I mean, these are meditation and spiritual masters who’ve practiced their own perspective path and then died in very unique ways and oftentimes hilarious ways. And she just felt to compile this. And then only later on, received the diagnosis after feeling some chest pain, I found that was super synchronistic, that she would feel that urge to compile a book like that and then finish it literally weeks before she died.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah. I mean, that’s a really fascinating timeline. And then also at the end of the book in author’s writing, there’s a footnote that mentions that just some of the… We’re going to get into it, but the book is full of crazy stories about great saints or enlightened masters leaving the body and how aware they are of it. And then at the end of the book, it mentioned that Sushila, when she passed away, she passed away consciously. She was obviously a student, a very deep student of the work and had her own… Was able to practice as she left the body, which is incredible. We are so grateful that she collected these stories because it’s such a precious repository.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. And incidentally, this book happens to be published by Shambhala.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah. We read a lot of Shambhala books.

Adam Rizvi:
Yup. Yup.

Stephan Downes:
Is that good?

Adam Rizvi:
Is there a reason you’re laughing, Stephan?

Stephan Downes:
Nope.

Adam Rizvi:
Just for those of you who didn’t listen to the first two episodes, I think is when we’d mentioned this, Stephan has contacts, he’s got connections.

Stephan Downes:
Thank you, Adam.

Adam Rizvi:
I’ll leave it at that. All right. As I was reading this, I had a feeling that this was going to be a massive quote off. Pretty much every now and then we have our quote offs. I feel like this episode is going to be a huge quote off because the stories are compiled very nicely and they’re very short, they’re sweet, they’re powerful. Very interesting. For the longer stories, I feel like we could summarize, but really for the short ones, might as well just be fun to read it. Okay?

Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. Absolutely. For those of you who haven’t read it, the book is laid out in very short chapters. I mean, they’re not really chapters, they’re snippets basically ranging between a few lines to a page and a half. And then overall, isn’t a very long book, but it’s just a lovely little collection of all of these stories. So, I think there’s a lot to say about the specific stories. And then there’s a lot to say about the overall topic of spiritual practitioners and death in the spiritual path. Without any further ado, Adam.

Adam Rizvi:
I would love to start us off with-

Stephan Downes:
Take it away.

Adam Rizvi:
Perfect timing, Stephan, you are nailing this.

Stephan Downes:
One of these days, I’m just going to teach you to wait. And it’s going to be silence for a minute as we both wait each other out, everyone’s going to think the podcast had problems.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. I was watching-

Stephan Downes:
Take it away, Adam.

Adam Rizvi:
I was watching WandaVision, which is this new Marvel TV show. And there’s a point in there where the show skips and then it replays a scene. My hand was holding the remote control and I thought I might’ve accidentally pressed something, but no, that was actually part of the story. So similarly, all the F ups that we do here, it’s just all part of the show.

Stephan Downes:
Beautiful. Beautiful.

Adam Rizvi:
Okay. Speaking of the show, I’m going to read our first story. And this is a story about Zen master Taji. Senior disciples assembled at his bedside as Zen master Taji approached death. One of them remembering the master was fond of a certain kind of cake had spent half a day searching the pastry shops of Tokyo for this confection, which he now presented to him. With a wan smile the dying master accepted a piece of the cake and slowly began munching it. As he grew weaker, his disciples inquired whether he had any final words for them. “Yes.” The master replied. The disciples leaned forward eagerly so as not to miss a word, “Please tell us.” “My, but this cake is delicious.” And with that, he slipped away.

Stephan Downes:
Oh man, that’s my hero right there.

Adam Rizvi:
I know, man. When I’ve told people about this book, I always referred to that story and master Taji, because on so many levels, there’s a lightness to it, which I think is needed. Right? I mean, if we make death… Okay, I’m going to say this, not to take away or undercut the gravity of losing a loved one. And I certainly have. And so I know what that feels like in the moment, the same time, I would say that all of the masters here in this book are trying to tell us something. And they’re trying to tell us that death isn’t real, not in the way that we think it is. If we think that we are the body, this physical thing, when that dies, and of course that’s the end, it’s over.

Adam Rizvi:
But if you are able to go to a place where you realize that who you really are is something far deeper and something that doesn’t end, and you can call it what you will, there’s many names for it, but it’s this idea of goes back to a perennial conversation topic that you and I have, Stephan, which is identity. What do we identify with? And I think the masters would say, if you don’t identify with the body, then you can enjoy a piece of cake when you die and laugh at death. And just go through that transition with a grace, that is just stunning. Hence the title of the book incidentally.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. Obviously we’ll be talking more about death, but I really appreciate what you said initially, Adam. And this is for all of our listeners. We know that death is a really very sensitive topic for some people. We got to end… Just as you know for me, I lost my brother at a young age and Adam you’ve lost a close family member and you also work in the ICU, and you speak to families who their loved ones are going through transitions every day. And that’s your job. We’re going to be laughing and there’s funny stories here.

Stephan Downes:
I want listeners to know that we know that these are funny stories and we have our own relationship to death as spiritual practitioners, but if you are someone who you’re still feeling the loss of someone very strongly, we get it. And we felt that too. We hope you can balance both of those feelings, that kind of the humor and awareness that great spiritual masters bring to death as well as their reality that losing loved ones hurts like hell, just disclaimer. All right, cake. Okay. So do you have another one for us? Oh, I got a book on [crosstalk 00:11:22]

Adam Rizvi:
… along the same lines I think. I’ll just read this one. And then if you’ve got any, Stephan, jump into the ring.

Stephan Downes:
I like it when you quote things.

Adam Rizvi:
I’ll have a one sided quote off, that doesn’t work. All right. This is story 44 on page 72. Master Yin Feng addressed the assembly as follows, “Masters in many places have died either sitting or lying down, these I have witnessed myself. Did anyone ever pass away standing?” A member of the assembly replied, “Yes. There was someone.” The master asked, “Was there anyone who was standing upside down when he took his last breath?” The congregation answered, “If so, we have never heard of it.” The master then passed away, standing upside down, with his robe still miraculously draping his body.

Adam Rizvi:
When his followers made their plans for carrying his body to be cremated, it was still immovable and people streamed in from far and near to see it. The master had a sister who was a nun. Happening to be in the vicinity, she came right up to him and scolded, “Old brother, for ages you’ve been flouting the law, and you must even puzzle people after you are dead.” She gave him a shove with her hand and he wobbled and fell flat on the ground. At last, he was cremated and the ashes were collected and put into a pagoda. Isn’t that awesome?

Stephan Downes:
It is awesome. I like that there’s a bunch of stories in here about masters coming back from states of death soon after all outward signs were there that they were dead and either a student or a relative, either scolding them somehow or begging for them to come back, and the master coming back for a short time and then passing away again. And there’s lots of stories like that in this book. And they’re wonderful. The thing overall in this book that really struck me about all of the masters here was just the amount of awareness they brought. And I think, you pointed to before, obviously it’s a question of identity. And that gets to the heart of, I mean, the spiritual path, and then death is used in so many spiritual paths as a catalyst for awakening.

Stephan Downes:
In Buddhism, it’s contemplating death. Frequently and constantly and having that contemplation of that understanding that we don’t know when we’re going to die, we have no real knowledge, we might say, okay, well, most people live to their past ’60s and ’70s and some of their ’80s and ’90s and some over 100. But we really don’t know. We don’t have any knowledge. And so the contemplation of that death leads to changing our relationship with death. And whether or not, regardless of what tradition these masters are from, they all shared this similar understanding that death is not what we all think it is. And in this, they’re making light of it. They’re like death is just another thing to do. And he’s like, “Has anyone done it standing upside down? Okay, I’ll do it.” It’s like having breakfast for these great masters.

Stephan Downes:
Adam, this is something that I know you’ve heard a lot, too. Quite a few anyway, quite a few of the stories in this book, the masters spoke about how much more work there is to do outside of the body as opposed to in the body. And I’ve always been curious about what that means. I totally take it that these masters are aware and unconscious in other states and that enlightenment, free is one of having to be reborn, but I’ve always been curious about this other type of work that goes on outside of the body. It’s not necessarily related to the book, but I just wanted to mention it here.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. It’s a great transition. Speaking of synchronicities, incidentally, last week, I was on a podcast with a friend and colleague of mine Dr. Julia.

Stephan Downes:
You’re cheating on me?

Adam Rizvi:
So sorry that you’re having to hear this way.

Stephan Downes:
Dr. Julia, he’s mine.

Adam Rizvi:
Dr. Julia Mossbridge. She has a podcast on Insight Timer that I join every now and then, although she graciously called me a co-host at one point, for those of you who are interested, it’s called the Essential Medicine and it’s on Insight Timer. So Julia has a lot of colleagues. She’s got a lot of friends and one of her friends is a psychiatrist in Ontario, her name’s Roselyn Wilson. I actually had a conversation with both her and Dr. Wilson about death. And one of the things which I think relates to what you were saying, Stephan is, there is a humanistic way of dealing with death, which is we deal with the raw emotions in the moment, the psychology of losing someone, the grieving process, but there’s a metaphysical side to things.

Adam Rizvi:
When we talk about identity, there are those who are listening to this and they may see that, okay, yes, when you die, you’re no longer the body, you dissolve back into your constituent elements and the body becomes part of the phenomenal universe. The way that Alan Watts would say, “We are basically the ocean becoming a wave and momentarily, the wave thinks it’s separate.” Right? But the wave was always the ocean to begin with. It just dissolves back into that awareness. That’s one way of seeing things. There’s also this metaphysical aspect, which if it hasn’t been an experience for you, then it’ll remain conceptual. Which is this idea that, when you die, consciousness and awareness itself does continue. The sense of awareness, the sense of I exist does continue.

Adam Rizvi:
Now, that’s potentially controversial for some people, but I would point you to a lot of work that’s come out. Leslie Kean’s Surviving Death, Mark Gober’s, the End of Upside Down Thinking, I think I pronounced his last name correctly. These people really compile a ton of information, all of the near-death experiences that people have experienced. Eben Alexander’s book, Map of Heaven and his experience speak to this idea of something continuing after you die. And I think Stephan, and that’s what you’re talking about is, these masters, their body may end, but there’s some part of them that does continue and that part is the part that can continue the work so to speak. Serving others, helping others, existing on another plane, if you will.

Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ve been looking for a quote here while you’ve been talking. It was one of my favorite teachers is Shunryu Suzuki, a great Zen master who moved from Japan to the States and he died of cancer. It says, “Zen master Shunryu Suzuki called his students together, as he laid dying of cancer and said, when I die, the moment I’m dying, if I suffer, that is all right. That is suffering Buddha, no confusion in it. Maybe everyone will struggle because of the physical agony or spiritual agony, too. But that is all right. That is not a problem. We should be grateful to have a limited body like mine, like yours. If you had a limitless life, it would be a real problem for you.” And this is, I think really beautiful. It actually shares a story as wellness about when the Buddha left the body.

Stephan Downes:
The Buddha is the central figure in this religion and a completely awakened master. And when he passed away he said, “This is my final teaching, always remember impermanence.” I know it’s slightly different from what you were talking about, but I think these are the stories I love because they are stories that really deal with impermanence. I mean, cake is also great. I mean, it’s about impermanence in its own way, but I really love these stories that are just about the inconsequentialness of death. It’s just impermanent, just like everything else and how seriously we take it.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. I’m going to read a quote actually from one of my favorite teachers, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. I always have a smile on my face whenever I see his photo. This is the quote, “When death finally comes, you will welcome it like an old friend, being aware of how dreamlike and impermanent the phenomenal world is.” And then while we’re at it, let me share another quote of his, another Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche quote, because he’s just amazing. Okay. “Even if death were to fall upon you today, like lightning, you must be ready to die without sadness and regret, without any residue of clinging for what is left behind, remaining in the recognition of the absolute view, you should leave this life like an eagle soaring up into the blue sky.”

Stephan Downes:
Oh, I love that. Oh, man. I love Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. He’s so good.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah. It’s so wonderful. And so getting back to… I just want to talk about building that awareness. For you, have there been any particular practices or moments in your life when you’ve really gotten a piece of what these masters are talking about in some way?

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah, that’s a great question. The first place that my mind goes to was when I was in high school and I had, I guess, somewhat of a near-death experience. I think I might’ve shared this with you, which is that I was rock climbing with my sister above the Potomac River in Virginia. And I had anchored the top rope on the top of the cliff and threw the rope down. Then I hooked myself up to the ropes and I started to repel down. My sister was already down at the bottom and the rope had not been done properly initially, so that when it was hooked up and thrown over, it was unequal. I started to repel down and one end of the rope actually slipped through the harness and the whole thing came undone. I was about 55 to 60 feet above the ground.

Adam Rizvi:
It was a really high. Yeah. And what happened in that moment is my mind went blank and everything slowed down. Everything got very slow. I started to fall, my foot got caught on… a couple of times on some shrubs along the cliff. And it turned me horizontal so that I was falling sideways as opposed to head first or leg first. And right at the very end, my foot and my arms got caught on some other shrubs and small rocks on the edge. Presumably that slowed my fall enough, where when I landed, I had a very small hairline fracture and nothing else. I mean, I was totally shaking from the shock of it, but I wasn’t seriously injured. But in the moment, or while I was falling, everything became very, very peaceful, very peaceful.

Adam Rizvi:
I was fully aware of the fact that I could die, but it’s like I didn’t even have time to be afraid. It was just a great sense of peace. I didn’t, of course, tap into that part of myself that I knew would continue onward or at least not consciously. But what I was aware of was a deep sense of peace. I think this is what these masters feel. I certainly get the impression when I read these stories. No one’s agitated, or anxious, or afraid when you read these stories. There’s a deep sense of peace and acceptance of what is and so much so, that there’s a lightheartedness and a playfulness on top of it.

Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, wow. I had a similar experience also with climbing rocks. I wasn’t climbing rocks. I was scrapping up boulders when I was in middle school, up on St. Mary’s Glacier in Colorado. And there’s a boulder bigger than I was, tall wise. I was probably like five foot, I don’t know, five, two or something like that at the time. And dislodged it somehow, I was the middle of this boulder field. And it rolled back on top of me. And I remember like, “Oh, this is it. This is how I die.” And I fell in front of the boulder as it was rolling. And I just so happened to fall between two other rocks and the way I was… So the boulder rolled over my hips and the way I had fallen was just enough so that the boulder hit the rocks that I was laying between.

Stephan Downes:
It still hit me, but not enough to break anything. But it rolled over me and I could feel it. And I definitely remember even now having this moment of really, I was calm. I was fully aware of what was going on. And I was just watching it. And again, I didn’t have any awakening experience around it, but there was definitely this different level of consciousness as death was approaching, so to speak. And I think, not to diminish the awareness of these masters, but I think there’s some tie there of the awareness of death, and the awareness of the moment of death and it happening and developing that presence with it.

Adam Rizvi:
What you’re talking about immediately made me think of one of the stories. I think what both of us are maybe alluding to, is this idea of meditation in action. These two experiences perhaps were not consciously done that way, but there is an experience of going to a place of peace and stillness, which you could argue is meditation, but you’re in that space while the world is going on. While you’re driving, while you’re at your work, while you’re talking to someone even, or in my case while I’m in the hospital and taking care of patients. This idea of being in that place in action. So with that in mind, I want to read one of the death stories of, I think, a favorite of ours, you and I, master Hakuin Ekaku he is… Stephan, I think we need to do an episode on him.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah, we do. We need to do Wild Ivy.

Adam Rizvi:
Wild Ivy. Yeah. This guy, just for everyone. He is in large part responsible for the resurgence of Zen as we know it in Japan.

Stephan Downes:
One of the schools in particular, I think it was Soto. I’m going to have to check that while we do this. Hold on. I don’t want to-

Adam Rizvi:
Sure, you check. [crosstalk 00:26:41].

Stephan Downes:
Keep talking. Unless, I’m wrong, it’s Soto unless you hear otherwise.

Adam Rizvi:
Okay. So this guy, master Ekaku, you just imagine. I mean, this is how I imagined him. A hobo with-

Stephan Downes:
Hold on. It’s not Soto. Just kidding. I was very wrong. Sorry. Sorry, everyone it’s Rinzai. He was very critical of Soto. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. No, thank you.

Stephan Downes:
Technicality. No one knows I’m talking about, that’s fine.

Adam Rizvi:
Stephan, we’re experts here, right? Are we pretending to be real scholars or something?

Stephan Downes:
You are. Okay. Sorry. I’m sorry. I interrupted your story.

Adam Rizvi:
I think you need to apologize one more time.

Stephan Downes:
I’m sorry.

Adam Rizvi:
So master Hakuin Ekaku, this guy, I imagined him to be a hobo. Messy clothes, he smells bad. And every time you talk to him, he’s always in a bad mood and he’s yelling at you, unless he’s not. He paints amazing calligraphy paintings. He’s a total artist, but he’s wild. He’s a wild man. That’s what I love about him. I think he’s a true iconic lass, but he goes on these tirades against the hypocritical Zen Buddhists at the time who only give lip service according to him to the traditions of their ancestors. And it’s just fun to read his tirades.

Stephan Downes:
Awesome.

Adam Rizvi:
Awesome stuff. Okay. Here’s the story.

Stephan Downes:
Go for it.

Adam Rizvi:
Hakuin Ekaku revered as one of the greatest teachers and artists in the history of Japanese Zen, lived in semi-retirement for the last three years of his life. In the winter of 1768, he was examined by a doctor who, as he felt Hakuin’s pulse remarked, “Everything seems all right.” Hakuin grumbled back, “Some doctor, he can’t even see that in three days I’ll be gone.” At dawn on December 11th, Hakuin a woke from a peaceful sleep, let loose a terrific shout, rolled over on his right side and died. After his cremation Hakuin’s ashes were said to be the lustrous color of coral and as fragrant as spice. His final piece of calligraphy was his life statement, a giant character for, “midst” M-I-D-S-T with the inscription, “Meditation in the midst of action is a billion times superior to meditation in stillness.”

Stephan Downes:
Yeah. It was exactly like my experience. Thank you. Yeah, exactly. No, I like that though. Yeah. Yeah. That was definitely one of the tenths of his life as he was really critical of people practicing Zen who just meditated all day without any action behind it. Here’s the other Zen master Sojun Ikkyu. This is a story about another person, but master Ikkyu is in it. And if you don’t know, I don’t actually remember reading in this book, but one of the supposed death poems of Ikkyu was really funny and about his bowels moving as he leaves… It’s like, now I’m going to… This is not it guys, I’m sorry but paraphrasing here. “Now at the moment of my death, my bowels move a final offering to the lord of worlds.”

Adam Rizvi:
That’s so hilarious. I hadn’t heard that before.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah. Yeah. Here’s where it gets tricky. So one, people don’t really know if that was actually it, there was a couple of poems that could have been his death poem, which is a tradition in Zen to write a death poem. I believe that the word he used in Japanese translates to Brahma, for the lord of worlds. And so either he’s criticizing Hinduism, his last bowel movement is a horrific offering to Brahma or it’s legitimately the… It’s an offering as in the non-duality that this is an offering like anything else would be.

Adam Rizvi:
Before you read your story, I think it’s funny, Brahma, pardon my French. It gets shit on a lot in the history of the Hindu tradition. There’s even a story of how I think Shiva turned into this pillar of fire. Vishnu turned into one of his avatars to search for the end of one of the pillars. And then Brahma turned into one of his avatars and flew up on a bird or as a bird to the top of the pillar. Neither one of them could find the end because she was infinite and endless, but when they came back to report to Shiva or to whomever, I forget the details of the story.

Adam Rizvi:
Vishnu was like, “I couldn’t find the end.” But Brahma was like, “Oh, I found it.” And totally lied and made up a story about finding it. And then when the pillar of fire turned back into Shiva, surprising them both, she was like, “Yeah, Brahma, you’re full of shit. Vishnu, you got it.” And for that, so the story goes, there are major schools that worship Vishnu and major schools that worship Shiva, but none really that worship Brahma.

Stephan Downes:
Really? Wait, wait. Really?

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. That’s how the story goes.

Stephan Downes:
There’s not like a… There’s got to be-

Adam Rizvi:
There probably is. There probably is. But realistically, there’s so many secs version of Shiva worshipers secs, way, way more. But what I was told in college by Dr. Mueller-Ortega, shout out, I was told that story to explain why there are so few secs of Brahma worshipers.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah. I’d always wondered that because my experience is more with the Shiva lineages and then more recently the Vishnu lineages. I didn’t know that, again, we’re completely generalizing and oversimplifying, but there weren’t as many Brahma lineages. That’s fascinating. I always wondered about it because I’d never really heard about them. I just know that Shiva and Brahma got beef and all about sectarianism. So I eat that shit up. Okay. Okay. I’m back to my story here. Okay. So Ikkyu, who’s the gentlemen who… the Zen master I just butchered his death poem.

Stephan Downes:
So as Ninakawa lay dying, Zen master Ikkyu visited him. “Shall I lead you on?” Ikkyu asked. Ninakawa replied, “I came here alone and I go alone. What help could you be to me?” Ikkyu answered, “If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and going.” With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smiled and passed away.

Adam Rizvi:
Oh my God, I’m smiling over here. That is like a delicious dessert. That’s like nectar to hear that story.

Stephan Downes:
It is. It is. Why does buddhism do that? Why does it got these like one line is, that just go beyond duality. It’s so beautiful. Yeah. That was a story about a master actually using someone’s death experience to awaken them in some fashion. I just so blown away by what these masters are capable of.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. No coming and going. For those of you, if you didn’t quite catch that, master Ikkyu, go out and buy the book and it’s on page 109, and this is actually worth contemplating, meditating on. I’m not sure what people’s practices are, but in Japanese Zen, there’s this idea of koans, which is you hear a story or a phrase and you contemplate on it. You just put your mind there. And the act of doing so, will take you to deeper and deeper truths of that particular phrase of story. And for me, this is one of those things, very much worth contemplating. What does master Ikkyu mean when he says, no coming, no going. That’s super profound and needs to be sat with. That’s what I would say.

Stephan Downes:
What does it mean, Adam?

Adam Rizvi:
This is one of those things you just got to let sit.

Stephan Downes:
Damn, I slept trying to get you. It’s so frustrating.

Adam Rizvi:
It’s so frustrating, but actually a hint, the answer, at least as far as we’re aware of is I think in the beginning of our second episode.

Stephan Downes:
Oh man, I don’t even remember that. Why are you going to do that to me?

Adam Rizvi:
You got to get back and listen to your own episodes.

Stephan Downes:
I want the answer. Wow. Wonderful. You hear about it less with the Zen masters in this book. Zen masters they’re either totally like the cake story, the standing upside down story, something a bit irreverence or a bit nonchalant and then with the Tibetans stories, the Tibetan masters, you have these amazing stories of post-death practices. So in Tibetan Buddhism, there are practices that one does. If one’s aware enough or one has done enough work beforehand, become a strong enough practitioner, at the moment of death and the practices to help guide one’s self to different levels of consciousness. And specifically there’s an opportunity there to reach enlightenment.

Stephan Downes:
If one recognizes the nature of reality itself while when it’s going through that process. And this is why if you’ve ever heard of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, it deals with how to recognize those states. And so there’s lots of stories in here of these Tibetan masters, who they pass away and either their bodies don’t decompose, or one of my favorites, the story about the rainbow body. And Adam, I know this is a favorite topic of yours. So I would love you to talk about this. If you don’t mind.

Adam Rizvi:
Okay. I’m so glad you’re a genius, man. I think you telepathically picked up on me. I wanted to move into the Tibetan death stories. So well done, too.

Stephan Downes:
Do you also want Thai food right now?

Adam Rizvi:
I want pho, that’s more Vietnamese.

Stephan Downes:
Oh, my God. Do you know how much I love pho? When we moved up, we moved away from this restaurant, swear to God, the best pho ever. I mean, that I’ve ever had. Never been to Vietnam. Oh my God, I can’t wait till this Corona virus is over so I can go back there five days a week and eat as much pho as I’m legally allowed to. Okay, I also want… I think we’re still connected because I have this low level, the state of wanting pho that never goes away. Even if I just ate pho, I want to go back and eat more pho. Okay, sorry. [crosstalk 00:37:37] There you go buddy. There you go buddy. Go.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. Yeah. I bumped into a guy who had a T-shirt that I just loved. It said, “Oh, pho sho. Oh, pho sho.” It was really good. And I had a picture of a bowl of noodles. Anyway, with that said, got to get serious now.

Stephan Downes:
I can’t stop thinking about it. Go ahead though, go ahead.

Adam Rizvi:
Okay. This is on page 46 death story 19. It’s a little bit longer, but it’s worth it. According to the doctrine teachings of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, advanced practitioners can end their lives in a remarkable way causing their bodies to be reabsorbed back into the light essence of the elements that created them. A manner of passing that is called the rainbow body. In 1952, there was a famous instance of the rainbow body in the East of Tibet witnessed by many people. The man who attained it Sonam Namgyal was a humble person, an itinerant stone carver of mantras and sacred texts. Some say he had been a hunter in his youth and had received teaching from a great master.

Adam Rizvi:
No one really knew he was a practitioner. He was truly what is called a hidden yogi. Sometime before his death, he would go up into the mountains and just sit, silhouetted against the skyline, gazing up into space. He composed his own songs and chants and sang them instead of the traditional ones. No one had any idea what he was doing. He felt ill, but strange to say, became increasingly happy. When the illness got worse, his family called in masters and doctors. His son told him he should remember all the teachings he had heard and he smiled and said, “I forgotten them all anyway, there’s nothing to remember. Everything is illusion, but I’m confident that all is well.”

Adam Rizvi:
Just before his death at 79, he said, “All I ask is that when I die, don’t move my body for a week.” When he died, his family wrapped his body and invited lamas and monks to come and practice for him. They placed the body in a small room in the house, and they could not help noticing, that though he had been a tall person, they had no trouble getting it in as if he were becoming smaller. At the same time, an extraordinary display of rainbow colored light was seen all around the house. When they looked into the room on the sixth day, they saw that the body was getting smaller and smaller. On the eighth day after his death, the morning on which the funeral had been arranged, the undertakers arrived to collect his body. When they undid its coverings, they found nothing inside, but his nails and hair.

Stephan Downes:
So there are lots of stories in Tibet about masters sustaining the rainbow body, which is such a unbelievably fascinating phenomenon. Wow.

Adam Rizvi:
There’s actually a great series of videos. I think it’s a documentary made by a Catholic father, a priest named Father Tiso, who was so fascinated by this, that he actually went and documented several cases of rainbow bodies, as well as prior stories that had been stored in the Tibetan literature of rainbow bodies. And so Father Tiso actually was one of the first ones to bring this phenomenon to light. And it is quite fascinating because for those of you who are interested, you can Google this and YouTube it. There are pictures of people as recent as the 1960s and ’70s who have died and they take photos of the body, one day after the next, and the body literally shrinks. It maintains its proportions, but it shrinks and shrinks until it gets to the point that it looks like a doll.

Adam Rizvi:
It’s so bizarre. It looks like a small doll. And in some cases, as in the case of this man, Sonam Namgyal, the body will dissolve altogether and only hair and nails remain. But there are other stories where it’s not complete. And then a miniature body remains. And they often take that and they put it in a shrine and they surround it and there are glass windows, people can come up and take a look at it, devotees and whatnot. But I find this one of the very many instances where one has to question the nature of reality. That’s what it does for me.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. When you read these stories and you’re in these traditions, you really get the breadth of the gulf between normal everyday… the worlds that we inhabit, our careers, our families, our hobbies, and then the depth of the spiritual practices that go into being able to consciously leave the body in a way like this and to do these practices. These aren’t one-off events. I mean, obviously this book is picking the best for the book and everything, but these stories are throughout history of these masters leaving the body in consciously in miraculous ways.

Stephan Downes:
I’m coming back to where we started, which is just, it really does point to the illusionary nature of reality and specifically the illusionary nature of our identities, right? We take death so seriously. We think it’s such a momentous event, and here comes along someone who dies standing upside down, or someone who achieves the rainbow body, attains the rainbow body and literally dissolves their matter over a period of days until only the hair and fingernails are left and I’m just blown away by how far a “normal” life is.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. If there is a takeaway that’s worth taking away from this discussion, it’s this idea that none of these masters just happened to stumble on the abilities to do what they’re doing. All of these experiences and events were preceded by years of stable practice, where they were doing what we call the work, which is you work on yourself, you work on what’s inside the struggles, the fears, the hates, all the parts of you that lead to suffering. They worked on that. And that does take practice. And to that end, I want to share a story by Kalu Rinpoche just to stay along the Tibetan theme. And for those who are Tibetan practitioners out there in the audience, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Kalu Rinpoche. He is a paragon of excellence and humility in the world of Tibetan Buddhism.

Adam Rizvi:
This particular story is probably well known to you. Kalu Rinpoche tried to sit up by himself, but had difficulty doing so. Lama Gyaltsen, feeling that this was perhaps the time supported Rinpoche back as he sat up, and Bokar Tulku Rinpoche took his extended hand. Kalu Rinpoche wanted to sit absolutely straight. But the attending doctor and nurse were upset by this. So he relaxed his posture slightly. Nevertheless, he assumed the meditation posture, his eyes gazed outward in meditation gaze, and his lips moved softly, a profound feeling of peace and happiness, settled on the room and spread through the minds of those present. Slowly Kalu Rinpoche’s gaze and his eyelids lowered, and the breadth stopped.

Adam Rizvi:
“Before we know it, our life is finished and it is time to die. If we lack the foundation of a stable practice, we go to death helplessly in fear and anguish.” Kalu Rinpoche. His message it seems is the necessity of the foundation of a stable practice. And that could be anything really, I wouldn’t take this to mean, “Okay, now you got to follow Tibetan Buddhism and do all of that.” But whatever your practice is, do that and do it consistently. Go deep into that particular practice. But it has to be stable and it has to be done regularly. That seems to me… When I finished this book, I was very much touched along those lines. I do have a relatively stable practice myself. I meditate daily, but there’s something that this book did for me that was just like, “All right, let’s take it up a notch. Let’s go deeper.” The sense of commitment just got deeper.

Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. It had the exact same effect on me. I was so inspired and it was definitely one of those books. There are a few books that I’ve read that just really inspire me to take it deeper, to continue practicing, to stick with it. And this is definitely one of them.

Adam Rizvi:
Any other stories you care to share, my good friend?

Stephan Downes:
Nothing really coming to mind. It’s just a really solid book and it’s short, too. What is it? Give me a second. Give me a second, 149 pages with the afterword. And it’s just really powerful. I’d recommend anyone if you’re listening and you haven’t read it yet. And you’re someone who has liked this conversation, I’d pick it up and keep it close and look at it frequently and let the lessons of the book and the stories themselves both inspire you and challenge you to keep death in mind as the… What is it? People who speak Latin, say [memento mori 00:48:00]. Is that true?

Adam Rizvi:
Memento mori.

Stephan Downes:
The Western version, remember death. Yeah.

Adam Rizvi:
We’ll have a esotericism episode at some point too, where the idea of memento mori comes up, I would love to do that.

Stephan Downes:
Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. I think I’m satisfied.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. Sushila Blackman, Ms. Blackman, if you’re out there and you’re listening, I know she has since passed on, but I feel that we were able to do some justice to the work that she created. And I don’t think she would have realized that there would be two random guys talking about her book and sharing her work to others. And for that, it makes me happy because it doesn’t seem like she wrote this necessarily to be a bestseller. She really was just processing and facing courageously her own mortality. I’m so grateful that she did it because she created a sense in us of deepening our practice and hopefully an opening in others who are listening this.

Stephan Downes:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Adam Rizvi:
On that note, sir, thank you very much.

Stephan Downes:
Thank you.

Adam Rizvi:
Yeah. For those listening, email us, letterstotheskypodcast@gmail.com. We so love getting emails from you. If you have a book that you would love us to talk about and read, or a particular iconoclast that is worth discussing, shoot us an email. Also, you can go to our website, letterstothesky.com and we have a contact form there that you can fill out.

Stephan Downes:
Yeah, absolutely. We definitely want to hear from you. We love it. It’s so wonderful to know that this isn’t a complete vacuum.

Adam Rizvi:
It’d be okay if it was, too.

Stephan Downes:
I mean, yeah, we’re still doing anyway. All right. Well, I think, I don’t know that we’ve decided on what book is next. Originally, we were going to stay in line with some Western esotericism just to keep going down that. We’ve had a couple episodes on it now. Adam and I go back and forth between, do we stick with one topic for a while or do we jump around and cover a wider area? I know over time we’ll get there, but I don’t know if we’ve decided on that yet. If you do have a suggestion, let us know. We do want to hear from you.

Adam Rizvi:
All right, Stephan.

Stephan Downes:
All right. I will talk to you next time.

Adam Rizvi:
See you, buddy.

Stephan Downes:
Bye.