Today I attended the funeral of someone I have known for a long, long time. A strong man of faith, who gave much to the community. His death came suddenly, as death often does. As I cried with the grieving family, I remembered a verse from the Diamond Sutra we chanted this morning at the zendo:
Thus shall you think of this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream,
A flash of light in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, a dream.