Below is the personal remembrance that I gave at Greg Dilley's memorial this past Sunday:
The founder of Nichiren Buddhism, Nichiren Daishonin wrote to one of his followers upon hearing that the brother of that follower had died, "...until now I thought it was something I had dreamed, a mere dream, an illusion. I doubted that it could be true - a mistake, a false report, I thought." This is exactly how I felt when I heard the new about Greg Dilley’s passing.
I have known Greg for about five years now. I still remember the subject line of his first email to me: "Zen Heretics are destined for Hell!" I remember sighing and debating whether to just delete it or give in to my curiosity to see what this bit of over the top rhetoric was all about. Fortunately, my curiosity got the better of me and I opened it to find that Greg was just pulling my leg. The email actually contained a serious offer. Prior to receiving that email I had been blogging on a Nichiren Buddhist website with several other Nichiren Buddhist bloggers, but that site had come to an end for various reasons. Greg decided to step in and give the bloggers from that site a new forum called fraught-with-peril. He wanted to know if I wanted to join them. And that is how Greg recruited me for one of the many endeavors by which he successfully brought people together.
Greg’s dream, as I understood it, was that this would be a forum wherein the many different voices of the online Nichiren community could come together and be heard. That dream was fulfilled, and fraught-with-peril continues to this day with bloggers covering a wide spectrum of the Nichiren Buddhist practitioners in North America of various affiliations and non-affiliations. Greg really took to heart Nichiren Daishonin’s guidance concerning the unity of all those who uphold the Lotus Sutra and chant Namu Myoho Renge Kyo:
"All disciples and lay supporters of Nichiren should chant Namu Myoho Renge Kyo with the spirit of many in body but one in mind, transcending all differences among themselves to become as inseparable as fish and the water in which they swim. This spiritual bond is the basis for the universal transmission of the ultimate Dharma of life and death." (WND 1, p. 217)
Now it is 2008 and fraught-with-peril is still going strong and seems to be widely read. I occasionally discover that our blogs are referenced by other Buddhist blog sites on the web and even by those associated with Tricycle. I am honored to be part of it, and very glad be part of the community that Greg brought together.
After fraught-with-peril was up and running I had the opportunity to actually meet Greg and his family in person at the San Jose Nichiren Buddhist Temple for our New Years service and party in 2005. For the next few years we would meet like this at New Years, and each time I really enjoyed the chance to talk with someone as enthusiastic, engaging, and concerned as Greg was in regard to the teaching, practice, and growth of Nichiren Buddhism. My wife got a chance to meet Greg this past New Years and she was very impressed by him. She told me that she had found Greg and Nancy to both be very warm-hearted and such good listeners. On that occasion, Greg even had a photo album from his last visit to Japan. It turns out that he had been in Chiba, Japan and had visited Hondoji Temple, which is a very important temple in Nichiren Shu, and some Shinto shrines in the area. The funny thing about this was the head minister of Hondoji is actually the son of the founder of the San Jose Nichiren Buddhist Temple. I later found out that Greg had been visiting the San Jose Nichiren Buddhist Temple back in the late 80’s and early 90's, long before I showed up there. So it would appear that Greg had a great causal affinity with the lineage that I am a part of. It is funny that we met online first, but I like to think that the causes were such that it was inevitable that we would meet and become friends as fellow disciples of Nichiren Daishonin.
Only two weeks before Greg’s passing, my daughter and I headed out the door to see a movie in Japan-town in San Francisco. As we ran down the street I ran right by Nancy and Kaela. My daughter, though, looked back and pointed them out to me. I called out to them and found out that Greg and Leila were looking at a Zen rock garden just nearby. We got to spend a few minutes saying hello and taking about the various goings-on at fraught-with-peril and then made plans to talk later some more. Little did I know it would be my last chance to see him, and how strange that Greg just happened to be in Japan-town San Francisco and that I would just be passing by where he was at that moment. I have my daughter to thank of course for being so observant. Looking back on this it really makes me appreciate how precious each moment really is that we have with friends, family, and loved ones. I am told that one of Greg’s favorite lines from the gosho was this one: "time passes as quickly as a white colt glimpsed through a crack in the wall." (WND, p. 99) This is how fleeting our time here is, and our moments with each other. This is something else that I think Greg deeply appreciated, or so it seemed to me from the brief occasions that I had to be spend time with him. I certainly value those moments, as did all who met him at the San Jose Temple and the online fraught-with-peril community.