Grieving Nana

Dharma talk at Potluck Sangha on Sunday, June 29, 2025

The theme of this month's practice is Virya Paramita: the perfection of energy and diligence, the perfection of continuous practice. As many of you know, I lost my grandmother just over a month ago on May 23rd.

When I was asked to give a talk, I thought about this very present and embodied grief in the context of continuous practice. What does continuous practice look like in the face of grief, in the face of losing something or someone that is beloved to us, that is sacred, that is precious? In the case of Joanne and Kathy's presentation a few weeks ago, this might be the loss of land, of tradition, of ritual, of homeland that is so meaningful and core to who a person is. Losing my grandmother is both the loss of a person who I loved and considered precious to me and the loss of someone who has shown me such incredible kindness and care and love.

And so, as I open this talk, I want to share a photo of my grandma, Janice Miyoko Fujii Young. Here she is on her wedding day at age 19 after graduating from high school in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was a second generation Japanese American born and raised in Hawaii, and married my grandpa Henry in 1960. They had three kids, and my mother was the eldest daughter. 

My grandmother quit her job to raise me for a year when my brother Daniel was born with severe health problems. My grandparents doted on me as if I were their child. They took me to parks and museums and fed me all my favorite meals. 

I'll share one memory from my adult life. A few years ago, my grandparents journeyed from their home in Livermore to Green Gulch Farm, where I had moved. They told me over a simple lunch of greens and rice and tea how proud they were of me after I had left my high-paying tech job and a relationship in San Francisco. At a time when I had reason to doubt myself, my grandparents affirmed who I was. That acceptance has meant so much to me. 

Now I want to talk a little bit more about continuous practice as described by Thay in the Heart of the Buddhist Teachings and in Understanding the Mind, his guide to the fifty verses on consciousness by Vasubandhu. He summarizes these teachings in his famous drawing of the circle and the store consciousness and the mind consciousness.

The summary goes something like this: Water good seeds in the basement, or store consciousness, such that they come up into the mind consciousness, or the living room. When nourishing or wholesome seeds are present in the mind consciousness, continue to nourish them so they remain.

Conversely, do not water the seeds that are not nourishing, that cause suffering. Allow them to remain in the store consciousness. If they do arise in the living room, embrace them with mindfulness so that they can be acknowledged and seen and soothed, and eventually return back to the store. That to me is the continuous practice in a nutshell.

I want to describe my practice with grief in the context of Thay’s guidance on continuous practice. In the days after my grandmother passed, I was beset by grief, bursting into tears regularly, crying on my kitchen floor. 

The first step was to make space for the grief itself, to create a container capable of holding this ocean of grief. I was scheduled in the days after my grandmother's passing to go to a retreat at Deer Park with 50 other Wake Up friends, aspiring to the OI. 

I had looked forward to this retreat all year. But when the time came, my body collapsed and I realized that what I needed was solitude and quiet, trees, an opportunity to be with myself and to write and grieve.

I canceled my flight and Deer Park reservation, and drove up to Guerneville for three days. I was in a redwood forest, able to walk outside and touch the earth, to rest in a hot tub, and to make art. I turned off my phone, and put tape over the clocks. So I was truly immersed in and sensitive to my own experience. 

That healing space helped me to be with the depth of my love. And looking back, creating this space was a practice of cultivating good soil for wholesome seeds in the store consciousness to emerge.  I want to share some of the art, music, and insight that arose over those three days.

One thing that I really struggled with after my grandmother's passing was that I didn’t see her body after she died. I was with her the evening of her passing, I held her hand and sang her songs. I told her how much I loved her and that we’d be okay. I placed my hands on her body and felt our deep connection. And then I left, and was sleeping when she passed later that evening. I did not see her body again. None of my family did. Given the wishes of my grandparents, there has been no ceremony to pay our respects. I felt a lack of closure in some way, grasping for one more moment to say goodbye. 

Art and music allowed me to be present with her during this transition. The first day, the song, I am Sending You Light by Melanie DeMore arose in my body. 

I am sending you Light
To heal you, to hold you 
I am sending you Light
To hold you in Love

It was a meditation, a mantra that hummed in me as I practiced sending my grandmother light, light emanating from my hands, light emanating from my family and from the earth, as she made her way out of the earthly realm. 

This meditation felt deeply moving and healing as if I was completing a ritual that was meant for me. The song moved through me, arising from my store consciousness, because of the space that had been created to listen, to feel my own compassion and care. And here is the art that I created in that space of meditation. 

The second day, I perceived that I had been able to help facilitate my grandmother’s passing. My next exploration was considering the ways in which my grandmother would live on in me.

I walked around in the trees and I asked myself, I asked my grandmother in myself, are you in the trees, Nana? Are you in the maple leaves? Are you in the water? What can I look at and think of you? And the response that came was striking. You know, there's not one physical thing. I'm in your joy. I'm in your love. There's a Plum Village song that goes: 

Your joy is my joy, My joy is your joy
Your joy is my joy for sure. 
This is the song in my heart, 
sing along sing along sing along. 

That became my theme for the second day. Your joy is my joy. Your love is my love. Here it is in art.

The gifts my grandmother has given me throughout her life, her deep acceptance of who I am, the feeling of being loved, the recognition that I belong in my family, these gifts have already manifested in me. There is no real separation between the giver and receiver. 

Her love is my love. Her joy is my joy. And that was a deep felt understanding of interbeing or interconnectedness that arose without being forced. From the store consciousness, from my own knowing. 

The third day, I woke up with some anger in my heart towards a loved one over their behavior after my grandma’s passing. I sat quietly with myself and meditated on this anger, on the rage that was emerging and I asked myself, what is at the core of this rage? And the core fear was that I wouldn't have enough. I wouldn't get enough love or enough stuff. 

The meditation for this third day was to be with that rage and acknowledge the root fear of not being loved or not receiving love. And to recognize the vast and expansive gift of love that I have already received throughout my life from my grandmother, my parents, my partner, family, friends, Sangha. And so the meditation for the last day of the retreat was, you are so loved. And to really practice with that abundance of love as a conscious antidote to a fear of scarcity. It’s like what Thay writes in the Heart of the Buddhist Teachings about “changing the peg”: inviting a wholesome mental formation to arise in place of one that leads to suffering. 

Here is “You are so loved” in art.

As I wrap up, I want to name two things. One, simply acknowledging the love that I have for my grandma and our interbeing nature is its own continuous practice, a celebration of love that acknowledges grief while steadying the mind. 

Two, I recognize that family dynamics and old wounds can emerge at these inflection points when a family is changing. This time is actually a beautiful opportunity to transform some of that old pain. To be with the hurts of past versions of self and to consciously invite in the healing of my heart.

I want to end by sharing my hope for the healing of my family towards greater vulnerability and connection. As I mentioned earlier, we have not yet had a formal ceremony for my grandma where I could pay my respects. But, a few days after the redwoods, I bravely took on a new role, inviting my family to a meal at my house in honor of my grandmother. For the first time, I shared my Buddhist altar with my family, my grandma’s photo next to Avalokiteshvara. We shared memories and cooked my grandma’s favorite foods. 

It is my hope that these shifts towards love, over time, become transformation at the base. I will close there. Thank you very much for listening, and for helping me to honor my grandmother.