I spent a good year, a really good year, saying goodbye to Prince George. The first 8-9 years that I lived in Prince George I didn’t like living there. If I had left then there would have been nothing to say goodbye to because I had not said hello.

At first when my Zen teacher Eshin would tell me in the midst of sesshin turmoil, as I desperately tried to escape my life as it was, “your life as it is Judith, your life as it is . . .” I hated that. I hated my life, and kept wanting something better. Better than where I lived, better than my job, better than my house, better than my family, better than the people around me. Nothing seemed adequate. I was so miserable I couldn’t see straight.

Eventually I got the point of what my teacher was saying and started diving in and enjoying my life even though circumstances were what they were, and not what I wanted. Amazing! It is possible to do this. So the last few years in Prince George were much happier for me. Finally I said hello to where I was.

Because I had said hello, there were goodbyes. This last year I was aware that I was doing everything for the last time. From hugging my fellow yogis, Zen practitioners, room mates, colleagues and students; to driving my car one last time, locking up the house for the new owners, one last sitting with the Prince George Zen group; each last time was vivid, fun and full of feeling. I could go back to Prince George, but it would be a different place. Inevitably some people will have left or died, and new people will have arrived. My place in it will never be the same again. But there are no regrets. It was time to leave, it feels right to have left. Saying goodbye enhanced my last year as I said hello to what I was leaving.

As we don’t know the time or manner of our death, everything we do may very well be a last time. If we savor everything with this in mind, life takes on a new edge. Inhale that scent: see, taste, touch, feel, think, every sensation is actually a last sensation. Everything we do is for the last time. We are never in the exact same place twice. There is no time to waste resenting anything. Simply enjoy, and as you say hello also say goodbye. Goodbye to the last moment is also hello to the next.

Sometimes we don’t like something; like gummy oatmeal, grief, or a difficult person. Then it is hard to say hello. Sometimes we like something; like beer, joy, or a best friend. Then it is hard to say goodbye. Either way we need to say both: hello and goodbye.

Our senior teacher Joshu Roshi; during a TV interview at his 100th birthday celebration was asked the secret of his long life. He said something like “immediately forget everything. . . and a new state of consciousness will arise.” He didn’t mean amnesia!

Before you say goodbye you have to say hello, and before you can forget something you have to know it. Say hello and say goodbye, know and forget, embrace and through embracing - release. This is Buddhist letting go: an endless hello and goodbye.

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