108zenbooks

Tag: chaplaincy

January 5, 2011

fair to middling

What precisely is the middle way?… (To find it) you have to stay conscious.

One Continuous Mistake, Gail Sher

This postcard has hung for years, pinned to the frame of the window in my study.  Each time I look at it, I feel a mix of fear and calm tumbling through my abdomen.  I wonder sometimes what she’s doing walking down the center line of highway.  At other times, I envy her courage and trust in herself – whatever rounds that bend, she will meet it with equanimity.

There’s a lot of weight place on equanimity in practice.  It is often seen as the lodestone in treading the Middle Path.  Conventionally, equanimity is explained as an even-handed presence to all things arising.  It is the practice of non-discrimination, non-preference, the absence of desire for things to be one way or the other.  I’ve never been much of a fan for equanimity although I do try to cultivate it, a bit like knowing a bowl of hot oatmeal will do good on a cold day but chocolate would be so much better.

Lately however, threaded through my readings for chaplaincy and just plain interest, is a nuanced understanding of the Middle Way.  I think I have taken (and perhaps it is unavoidable given the way it’s verbalized in teachings) the Middle Way as the Mean or Average of the extremes.  Living the Grand Mean, as some statisticians might put it!  Little wonder it has felt like pabulum and has contorted my sense of right and wrong, beneficial and harmful actions.

In Bhikkhu Bodhi’s mind-boggling anthology of the Buddha’s discourses (In the Buddha’s Words), the Potaliya Sutta addresses the pitfalls in sensual pleasures.  (No real meaning in picking that one; the book falls open at random.)  Potaliya asks the Blessed One how to “cut off (the business transactions, designation, speech, and intentions)” of a householder.  The sutta runs along several allegories of letting go, cutting off the attachments through right understanding of their nasty consequences.  Then the Buddha says,

Having seen this thus as it really is with proper wisdom, he avoids the equanimity that is diversified, based on diversity, and develops equanimity that is unified, based on unity.

Bhikkhu Bodhi’s notes explain that “diversity” means the five cords of sensual pleasure and “unity” means the fourth jhana or level of consciousness.  But that isn’t what struck me.  “Equanimity that is diversified” versus “equanimity that is unified” suggested that equanimity itself is not a singular concept.  Balanced practice or the Middle Path is not about “absence of equanimity” versus “presence of equanimity.”  It is the quality of the state of equanimity.  I’m struggling with this concept and attending to the way equanimity is diversified – scattered across all the pleasures, distractions, wanton ways (oh Yes!), equally loving all the things I hate.

Further along in my reading on pastoral ethics (and I so wish that had something to do with meadows and bodice-ripping), this point arose: the challenge of doing good and not doing harm does not lie in the absolute statements of “help… but at least do no harm.”  It is in the middle space between right and wrong.  In Gentle Shepherding: Pastoral Ethics and Leadership, Joseph Bush, Jr. writes:

(E)thics is not solely a matter of philosophical abstraction from life.  Rather, ethics makes contact with life itself, but it does so utilizing the philosophical and theological resources that are accessible to us “in the middle.”

In other words, we are challenged at points that are pivotal in our lives.  Joseph Bush suggests that the middle is where  we are trying to determine what to do, how to act, how to respond beyond the context of what is absolute good or bad, right or wrong.  To push the point a bit further, while we acknowledge the right thing to do, we struggle with what we should do.  Among the many models he discussed, one impacted my thinking most because it broadens the need for practice and deepens the intention.  It categorized actions that we are, as spiritual practitioners, obligated to cultivate:

Do no harm
Prevent harm
Remove (the potential for) harm
Do good

The two middle dimensions of practice he presents are the messy middle ground of being for me.  They call for a willingness to step forward and act with discernment and an inability to know the real outcome.

Sher talks about becoming Olympians of middle-way points.  And it’s not easy because equanimity is more quickly diversified than my mutual funds.

Before figuring it out you must want to figure it out.  After figuring it out you must demonstrate the courage to say “no” to the forces all around you that will tempt you away.  Universities, corporations, the media, spiritual authorities, even friends and family will push you to squelch the part of you that knows.  A tremendous amount of consciousness is required to stay with your hard-earned understanding. (Sher, pp.28)

Thank you for practising,

Genju

6 comments
December 30, 2010

walking the wards

This porcelain lady has played the silent koto for at least three decades.  I had bought it for my mother as a birthday present; she collected “curios.”  At the last minute, I decided the potential of her rejecting the gift over some imperceptible flaw was too much for me to handle so I kept it.  An act of emotional cowardice perhaps but I’ve never really regretted it.  There is something about her intense and eternally focused dedication to her art that steadies me every time I see her on my shelf.  This morning, her hand fell off.  And I’ve been sitting here wondering how she’s going to manage.

Yesterday, I gathered up my jelly-like resolve and headed down to the hospital for a solo trip on the wards.  The Reverend Bosses are away although the newest Chaplain was hanging out.  We chatted for a while and I discovered how hard it is to convey Buddhism in bite-sized bytes to a non-Buddhist.  It highlighted the fact that in my professional circles, I don’t tend to share or have the opportunity to share about my spiritual practice.  Ironically, we talk tomes about mindfulness.  Mindfulness-this, mindfulness-that, and isn’t it all interesting about MB-everything.  But the topic of Buddhism and personal paths seem a conversational no-fly zone.

Armed with my trusty identity badge (I finally have a badge with a picture that doesn’t look like I’m in sore need of a bath!), I headed off into three floors of mental health units that made me regret not bringing bread crumbs so I could find my way back out.  I must have been quite the sight: ten steps forward, stop, look back, remember where I came from, don’t trust the directional arrows on the wall, proceed another ten steps.  Being directionally-challenged, I seriously dislike this form of not knowing.  Next time, I’m taking my Garmin wrist GPS.

In the last post, I mentioned that my goals for Chaplaincy have been trashed – more or less.  It’s one of those things where serendipity and desire met leading to a new path that landed me in a mental health hospital rather than the comfortably known environment of police and military service.  This is all new for me.  I had no illusions that my professional role as psychologist would allow any soft landings and I was/am determined to not reach for that set of robes.  But I didn’t count on the long-trained reflex that would have me dragging them into view.  In a conversation with a nurse, it didn’t take long for the ego to feel a need to establish credentials and haul out the sequined moon-and-stars, empire-waistline, sateen gown.  I think awareness kicked in quickly enough that only the hem and petticoat flashed.

Over in the long-term facility, I searched out a patient I had met on previous visits and wanted to check on.  “Hi, I’m Lynette.  I’m the Chaplaincy Intern?”  (Oh dear God, do you have to sound like a telemarketer!)  OK, so this is new too.  I am politely told where to go (next floor up) and as I head to the elevators, the young person sitting by window calls out.  “Hey!  Who are you?  What are you doing here!”  I suddenly realize I’m doing that “on a mission don’t make eye contact in case someone needs you outside your office” walk I learned in my previous internships.  Look up.  Make eye contact.  Be grateful someone woke you up.  She smiles; I smile and introduce myself, sounding less like a telemarketer and more like I’m a happily lost soul.  We talk at length about Monkey’s Journey to the West and she asks me bring back some books because “Buddha is awesome.”

In our conversation that wound from her holiday gifts through tears about life as it is in this moment and laughter about the antics of Monkey, I noticed a need to ask about her diagnosis, her treatment, her labels.  None of that mattered a damn in that moment and would only have served to separate us.  But my monkey wanted to know because the usual things I can reach for to create protection and an illusion of wisdom are not within range.

So today, when my Lady of the Koto lost her hand, I understood what I’m up against.

Thank you for practising,

Genju

3 comments
December 16, 2010

koan kollapse

Today, I head into my Chaplaincy internship at the local mental health hospital.  It’s a place I’ve managed to avoid for a couple of decades – personally and professionally.  But I know some good people there and the Spiritual Care folks have given me a chance to dig deep into my practice.  I think this might be the edge where, as roles and realities collide, koans can be actualized.  But first, I have to get past the robes I wear.

No, I’m not talking about the Buddhist robes.  Psychologists get to wrap themselves in robes too.  Big, heavy, layered masses of psychic authority and kevlar-heart.  At least that’s how I was trained and, while I value the necessity of boundaries and authority, I like to strive for lapsing skillfully when required.  So I think this layer of doctrinal authority will be the first to set aside in the cultivation of the relational.

No, I’m not talking about working with the patients. They have fewer delusions and more keys to doors than I do and are skilled at moving snow with pine needles.

The professional hierarchy in institutions is obvious.  But the power structure is not.  See? I really was paying attention during the brief years I spent interning in a community general hospital and learned quickly that you always bring cookies for the folks on the front lines.  Appreciation and empathy being a rarity, it wasn’t the cookies as much as the opportunity to share a laugh over them that nourished the relationship.  On such ground, I can be open again to the question: which koans will surface, expand, and collapse?

Unmon said, “Look!  This world is vast and wide.  Why do you put on your priest’s robes at the sound of the bell?”

Why, indeed?  Why?

1 comment
December 15, 2010

koan konfusion

One of the struggles during Rohatsu was the question of continuing with the Chaplaincy program.  There’s definitely a lot of ego involved in the decision, which ever way it goes.  The typical way to approach this is to set up the scales that will weigh out the options.  If I were my patient, that’s certainly what I’d suggest.  And I definitely (knowing the kind of patient I am) would not expect compliance.  Which is good because the point of suggesting an exercise is not to get compliance but rather to see if comprehension can bubble to the surface.  But that requires a level of subtlety and trust in the unobservable process of mind.

Like a koan.

Jay Haley, master of prescribing the symptom and a mystic of paradoxes, would have made a great Zen master.  He would have sent me out of his office with the injunction that I was NOT, absolutely NOT to make any decisions – no peas or carrots decisions, no red or green sweater decisions, none.  Life would be reduced to one gigantic ball of indecision that I could neither swallow nor throw up.  Luckily, I could never afford Haley as a therapist and have to settle for me.

I’m more of the School of Sledgehammer Therapy.  Don’t get me wrong, I can do the subtle stuff: so what do you notice when you consider the possibility of going back for a second year?  But very quickly, as I watch my mind careen and collide against rapidly expanding if-then flowcharts in my skull, I lose patience.  Subtlety and support go out the window and the Big Stick of Reality comes out.

In this case, reality is not an actuarial count of yeah and nay.  And that makes it tough.  Reality is that comprehension requires indecision.  Unable to tolerate indecision, I take refuge in the intellect.  What symptoms could I prescribe to get under the intellectual grip of the problem?  10, 000 prostrations (not a bad idea; Enkyo roshi spoke of bows being good for a narcissist)?  Copying 108 sutras in Pali (sure; got all the time in world to do that for the next three months).  Circumambulate the Shwe Dagon Pagoda (not likely; the barn will have to do)?  Sit another 7 day sesshin (hah!  and develop another obsession with red toenails)?

Thankfully, I know me too well some days.  The decision will not surface as the endpoint of an intellectual exercise.  It certainly will not emerge through introspection or being open to the universe (all that does is have my brains fall out anyway).  Like the morning star that pierced Shakyamuni all the way through to the ancient layers of his being, comprehension will surface and work its magic in its own time.

In the meantime, a few prostrations, sutra copying, mindful trekking through the woods couldn’t hurt.

2 comments
November 18, 2010

take the stairs

Zen and a Part of Life.  I like these stairs in the Museum of Modern Art.  Visiting the Museum was the one thing all my friends had in common when they responded to my question: NYC – what to do?  Like all museums, it requires more lifetimes than this one to get through and more brain space in which to store all the visual and tactile sensations.  But I like these stairs.  They go places without moving.

I like these stairs too.  They are somewhere in NYC’s Chinatown, I think.  I was on the upper level of a double-decker tourist bus, cold and not paying too much attention.  They are a part of life lived which is why I like them.  No pretensions – just stairs that will take you from up to down or vice versa as the situation demands.  I want a life like that.  Functional and with potential.

For one of my field trips, I decided (well, actually Roshi Joan told me to) visit a homeless shelter.  Luckily, one of my colleagues works in just such an organization.  So we made a date to meet, do a walkabout and have lunch with the Chaplain at the shelter.  It was all very intimidating but Roshi J. was right in asking me to push the edge of my comfort.  Funtionality and potential are fragile and easily fractured points of our lives.

I find my way into the building and was asked to wait inside the reception section where I watch a bank of monitors.  Scenes flash of the street corners, back alley, Chapel, dining hall, and waiting room.  People mill about and the Chapel fills slowly.  I learn later that attendance at Chapel (it’s a Christian-based organization) is required for a lunch ticket.  My friend, M., comes to get me and after a quick description of the shelter, we do the walkabout.

We climb several flights of stairs, winding our way through the dorms and health units.  The shelter houses 221 men and at night there will be many “sitting sleep” in the waiting room.  It’s the nature of the homeless situation across the city; all the older shelters are overflowing and even the new ones are rapidly filling to capacity.  I recall the man standing at the reception divider.  He looked like any number of men who might work in my building filled with health care professionals – catastrophe is equanimous.  M. and I weave through a press of bodies gathering for lunch.  They serve 1200 meals a day, the cook tells me.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served for the residents and at 3PM there is an open dinner for the public.  1200 meals each day.  He invites me to join him for cooking lessons; I accept. The dining hall is packed and the food smells and looks delicious.  People eat and leave the building; no one is allowed to stay during the day.  The shelter also trains people in skills they can use when they transition out: cooking, administration, trades skills, anything that will lead to self-sufficiency.  There are drug rehab programs and work placement programs.  The shelter is a life retreat center where the capacity to live with not knowing is cultivated and one must re-enter the marketplace.

The hospice is 9 years old and full; we peek in from the edge of the nursing station.  In the Chapel are panels engraved with the names of all those who have passed away in the care of the shelter.  I recall that while waiting in the reception room, the family of one of the hospice patients came to the desk and asked where to find him.  They had been told he was here, they said.  They smiled with relief when told he was upstairs and they were shown the way to the unit.  My brain can’t process this or the back story about living and dying disconnected from those who love me.

I have a teaching story I tell my patients that is meant to demonstrate how quickly our minds can take us to a catastrophe.  When something happens that is difficult to manage, I immediately write a story about my demise which culminates in living under the Rideau Street Bridge in a cardboard box.  People resonate with this fear.  I joked recently that my catastrophe had become worse because the Rideau Street Bridge was now closed off so homeless people would not collect under it.  Now I have nowhere for my cardboard box, I say.  Suddenly, it’s neither a catastrophe nor a comfortable teaching story anymore.

The Chaplain is a round-faced, jovial man who is curious about Buddhism and what it means to be a Buddhist.  We talk about honouring the sacred in people and, like Hakuin, offering they need to sustain faith and hope.  Their transitions up and down the stairs of their lives are teaching stories for all of us and we share our the belief that our role as care givers is only to bear witness to their strides – whatever the direction.  He enjoys his life as Chaplain, all the while aware of the thin membrane of chance that separates him from the people who come to the shelter.  He talks about the Buddhist men in the shelter and points out that his “service” is just a short piece of music and a few words about self-forgiveness or living well as best one can.  Twenty minutes and no more, he says, the spirit cannot be fed when the body is too hungry.  I share about original goodness and self-compassion.  By the time I have to leave, he’s talked me into offering service once a week.

I find my way through the maze of people and corridors, texting Frank who is supposed to pick me up: Coming out now.

He replies: Here I is.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

Thank you for practising,

Genju

7 comments
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