Appreciate Your Life: Reflections on Interbeing

In this Wednesday Night Dharma Talk, delivered on the eve of the 15th anniversary of her twin sister Ellie’s passing, novice priest Jimon Lorene Flaming tenderly opens the bittersweet space of her sister’s life and death. Jimon traces Ellie’s path — a woman who lived entirely on her own terms, spending her life in nature, deeply embodied, trusting the flow of life — and the shock of losing not just a sibling, but a twin. Alongside grief came something unexpected — awe, mystery, and the falling away of everything but the present moment: “This is so big that I must go toward it. I must fully meet it and not defend against it.” Drawing on Maezumi Roshi’s Appreciate Your Life and Dogen’s teaching that “There is death in the midst of life, and there is life in the midst of death,” Jimon explores three threads: that unity is always abiding; how ideas and judgments create separation from reality; and intimacy as the heart of the teachings. Through the expression of her own intimacy with love and loss, Jimon invites us into the fragile, luminous ground where life is most fully met.