As a River of Light

Recently, I experienced a profound shift in my
relationship to Thầy’s teachings on continuation.
“No Birth, No Death” was the topic of one of the
earliest talks I heard Thầy give in person. After
that, I continued to come and practice at Deer
Park Monastery, and this teaching was very
present in my life. Yet for a long time, I understood
teachings about continuation and ancestors
primarily in terms of generations and lineage. I
honored my parents, grandparents, and teachers
(especially Thầy) as my ancestors and recognized
myself as their continuation. I also honored my
students, nieces, nephews, and godchildren as my
descendants and saw them as my continuation. I
experienced a new level of insight into the nature
of continuation when my life partner was dying of
cancer in the fall of 2022.
I was present with Jade through her illness
and journey until she died in our home just
before the autumn equinox. On the day before
she passed, we received a mailing from the
Thích Nhất Hạnh Foundation thanking us for our
financial contributions. The mailing included
the “A Cloud Never Dies” bookmark with a quote
from Thầy. That morning, Jade was in and out of
consciousness. I had been singing and reading to
her, so I read the quote aloud:
A cloud never dies...
When conditions are sufficient, a cloud
transforms into rain, snow or hail.
The cloud has never been born and will
never die.
This insight into signlessness and
interbeing
helps us recognize that all lives continue in
different forms.
Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed,
everything is in transformation.
There is no real death because there is
always a continuation.
As I read, a deeper insight into continuation
arose in me. Jade and I had been together for
more than half of my life, and I was aware that
my sense of self was completely intertwined with
Jade and with being part of a happy and healthy
couple. Now all that was changing. For months,
my life had orbited around loving care and being
present for Jade in her illness, and now it was
clear that her body was transitioning out of life
as we knew it. I wasn’t sure who I would be on
the other side of her transformation. As I read the
quote, I spontaneously sensed at a much deeper
level—less mental and more visceral—that even
though we are of the same generation, I am also
Jade’s continuation. Our thirty years together have
shaped me, and we deeply inter-are. I became
curious about how Jade would continue to
manifest in me moving forward.
I realized that soon my caretaking responsibilities would be transformed. Not into nothingness,
but into taking care of Jade through taking care of
her continuation in me. During Jade’s illness, I had
been very mindful to take good care of myself in
order to stay healthy and available as her caregiver.
In that moment of insight, I made the commitment
to keep caring for myself because I could see that
As a River of Light
Alisha Solan, after caring for her dying partner,
experiences deeper insight into continuation.

even after her transformation, I would still be caregiver of her continuation. So in caring for myself
I also take care of Jade. Even during grief’s more
difficult moments, that insight has been a comfort
and a motivation for loving self-care.
In our time together, Jade taught me many
things. In particular, I would like to share one insight she taught me a few months before she
died. While I was away one day, Jade had listened
to an online recording of Thầy talking about the
Avalokiteshvara chant. At that time, she was experiencing a great deal of pain from the cancer. She
explained that Thầy spoke of the Avalokiteshvara
chant as particularly powerful in helping to alleviate pain. So she had tried the chant and was
surprised at how much it helped when so many
other things had not. “The Venerable was right,”
she said. “It is important to practice, because life is
short and death comes unexpectedly.” She pointed out that once one is ill or weak and suffering, it
is harder to benefit from practices that require a lot
of effort, such as a new or undeveloped practice.
Many other mantras, visualizations, and practices
did not have the “same juice.” They were not as
helpful as those she already knew more intimately
and experientially in her body.
The Avalokiteshvara chant was rooted deeply
in her body and memory from our years as part
of the Deer Park Sangha. It also carried the
beneficial collective energy of the Sangha. We
usually attended Christmas Eve and New Year’s
Eve events at Deer Park, and part of the festivities
included a candlelit walk up the mountain to the
Avalokiteshvara statue in the Circle Garden. In
the garden, the Sangha would stand and sing the
Avalokiteshvara chant as we placed our candles in
front of the statue. It was a beautiful and moving
communal ceremony.
On the day when Jade chanted at home, she
said, it did not feel empty or alien as some of the
other things she had tried. Instead, as she chanted,
she could touch the ancestral stream of all those
who have chanted to Avalokiteshvara. And she
could feel the continuation of the energy and presence of the Sangha in her body from the memory
seeded and nourished on all those nights walking
up the mountain together, going as a river of light
to sing before Avalokiteshvara as part of the Sangha body.
Namo’valokiteshvaraya.
You can listen to the chant on the Plum Village YouTube
channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZkjX_c4hm4
Alisha Solan, pictured left with Jade, Generous
Creativity of the Heart (pronouns she/her), has
been practicing in the Plum Village tradition
since 2009. She lives in San Diego, California,
US, and regularly attends retreats and Days
of Mindfulness at Deer Park Monastery. Alisha
is a professor who teaches communication
studies to help students be more mindful in their
communication and relationships.
Jade Solan, pictured right, Grounding Breeze
of the Heart (pronouns she/her), wrote poetry
during retreats at Deer Park Monastery before
her death in the fall of 2022. She received
transmission of The Five Mindfulness Trainings
in 2013.