Empty Hand Zen Center

On January 3^rd 2010 Craig died in my arms at home, surrounded by our family and wrapped in love. He had lived with brain cancer for exactly three years. How can I describe a life that was so well lived- lived with fullness and deep devotion to others? How can I distill the essence of Craig here in a few short paragraphs?

I can tell you that he was an incredibly active man with places to go. Craig was born in Needham, MA in 1952.  He attended Boston University and graduated in 1978 with a BA in Urban Studies and Economics. He received an academic scholarship to study Urban Planning at Rutgers University and graduated magna cum laude with an MS in Urban and Regional Planning. For the last seven years he was the Commissioner Of Development for the City Of New Rochelle, and committed to, as well as excited by, his career. He invested deeply in the many groups he was involved in, both professional and in his personal time, including his growing practice at the Empty Hand Zen Center. He had four sons and a daughter that he loved dearly. Craig could run like the wind. He read daily. He listened to NPR religiously and loved music. He talked politics, debated, joked wickedly and hilariously and laughed often. Craig adored chocolate ice cream, the ocean, biking from the George Washington Bridge down to the site of Ground Zero and back again, driving his car and taking adventures. He could endlessly walk through art exhibits and galleries and also appreciate cities and large monuments of urban stone and cement. He was an extremely intellectually gifted man and critical thinker.

Well known in his professional life, Craig received many honors, awards and citations for his service to the people for things such as historical preservation and the work he did to further affordable housing. However awards and acknowledgements were not the things Craig thrived on. He preferred working in the public sector and what was important for Craig was his service to others; personal acknowledgement was not the point. He constantly reminded himself that he was not important, rather he told me that his purpose in this lifetime was to do for others at the outset; to awaken with selfless acts in the forefront of his thinking and planning, to do whatever was needed to help heal or provide for another. As he endeavored to do these things, he also found great healing. He believed strongly that we are all one, there is no differentiation and so we are all connected to one another. As he healed himself and supported others the ripples of these actions would continue outwards through all of humanity.

Craig understood and embodied that all that is truly meaningful and sacred in our lives is about love. His illness and death drove that point home more than anything else. We can lose everything material and physical that we are attached to in life, yet it is the love that we give that matters the most. Love is what is really inside all of us when we arrive on earth and what is left when we leave our physical bodies.

Craig was a prolific journal writer and besides documenting his runs- 100 mile months that he so enjoyed- the animals he often met along the way, as well as the Northern Lights he once was able to observe awestruck, he also documented his journey into awareness and growth. As his cancer worsened Craig lost his ability to write with his right hand and taught himself to write with his left. Eventually he could no longer journal so he put down his feelings and thoughts in left handed haikus for as long as he could.  Looking back at his writings I can see that he had started his spiritual practice back in 1990 and his Zen practice began in the year 2000. Craig found the EHZC in 2003 when he moved to New Rochelle and started sitting in earnest then, making his practice the context for his life in which he could grow and where he could learn to be present and to open his heart until it was of limitless dimensions.

He believed in his connection to goodness and just simply unconditional love. He often told to me to believe that we are surrounded by love.  When things went wrong he would say, “It’s all good.” Yet he was a realist, and he had no doubt that the world could seem random, and that pain, suffering and attachment were the human condition.  He wrote once that he had been at a retreat at Garrison Institute where Nonin Chowaney had also been giving a dharma talk. Craig recounted in his journal the quintessence of what he came away with after that weekend and what he would put into effect in his life: that enlightenment can come and go like the flowers and disillusionment crops up like weeds. Because of that he realized his commitment to the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path would have to be constantly renewed.  Craig understood that perseverance, patience, and practice was the path he would need to walk towards awareness, while looking deeply inwards and experiencing fully the pain, the joy and the peace that it can bring.

In October 2005 Susan presided over our beautiful wedding ceremony in NYC incorporating Zen Buddhism seamlessly into a ceremony for many non Buddhists. Everyone found it incredibly moving, funny too, when Craig pretended that we bumped our heads together as we bowed to each other.  In March 2009 after we found that Craig’s brain cancer had spread and that it was very likely that his time in our physical world as we know it would then be short, we renewed our vows at the Zendo in New Rochelle, the first wedding to be held within those walls.

Craig received Jukai in November 2008 and was given the name Kyusen (Enduring River). He was the first in his class to give a “Way Seeking Mind” talk to the sangha, and he spoke of  Kyogen’s “Man Up A Tree” koan. “This is life,” Craig wrote in his preparation. “We are both in the tree and the questioner. There is no other. I want great meaning and I stand there beneath the tree staring and thinking that this great suffering will distill truth. I am suffering the agony of life, the agony of choice and I am speechless. Indeed, what is one to do”?  Perhaps this haiku Craig wrote left handed will provoke some thought about that issue:

It’s life on life’s terms

Nothing withheld – all given

Don’t give up- let go

All too quickly as Craig’s brain cancer became more advanced Craig lost his ability to do all the things he loved and valued in life and which until then had given his life so much meaning. First as his hand and arm became paralyzed his writing suffered and then failed.  Craig’s leg started to become weak so his running stopped, then biking stopped, then walking. He had to give up his beloved car and the freedom of driving.  His ability to speak began to fail and finally to even tell jokes. He became unable to say but a few words, and lost most of his sight. Craig did mourn these losses deeply-  but his continuing practice of non attachment helped him as the physical parts of his life were stripped away- gracefully he accepted and surrendered to his experience until only the bare spirit remained in his wounded body- his spirit of love, giving, patience, and goodness was what was left. He truly lived in the moment and his understanding of what was meaningful in life deepened immeasurably, it became all about communicating his loving strength to others so they in turn could find their own inner strength and love.

Even at the end of his life every day he received visitors, hugged them with whatever strength he had left in his one arm, encouraged his friends to talk and seek within themselves for what was important and how to live their lives. He made it his purpose in life to show his love in every way that he could- to continue to grow, to transform- and he shone with the light of a million stars from within. He was luminous and all that beautiful pure light surrounded us as we sat with him and lived with him. It was not about death- it was about life! Until he could no longer speak anymore he said “I love you to everyone”, and then he showed us all his love with his eyes, his expressions, and his entire beingness even from his death bed for as long as he could open his eyes.  Caring for Craig, and his allowing us to care for him so completely and intimately, also became a lesson for us all in acceptance, presence, giving and unconditional love. We were all connected.

Throughout his process of dying Susan, Dennis, Glynn and Craig’s Dharma brothers and sisters continued to visit. Craig could often be seen in deep contemplation with Susan as she sat with him and they looked into each other’s eyes, or with Dennis leaning forehead to forehead and communing deeply without the need for words. During his last days Susan was in almost constant attendance and sat and breathed in tandem with Craig. On the day he died, when Craig was no longer outwardly conscious, we all gathered around his bedside and chanted sutras and dharanis. I could see Craig breathing in rhythm to the Sho Sai Myo Kichijo Dharani, the chant to remove hindrances.

 I will leave you with one of Craig’s last haikus:

Life is Terminal

Blossoms fall and weeds grow wild

Enjoy the ride dude

We want to thank the entire Sangha for your continued prayers, visits, thoughts and the healing energy and care you have showered on Craig and our family. It enriched Craig’s life and gave him spiritual guidance and support so that he could transition peacefully as he was gathered and held in your loving embrace. It has been a bittersweet, but never the less, beautiful lesson for us in being present, accepting life as it is, and in the experience and connection of a loving community.

From Craig Kyusen King's 49th Day Memorial Service, February 27th, 2010