Tag Archives: chaplaincy

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faith

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It’s good to be home.  We landed back in Ottawa last Tuesday night after driving along winding blue-line roads that blinding rain rendered sleek and sinuous.  It was a fitting close to 7 days of intense work with the Trauma Resource Institute (TRI) that took us from Fort Drum to Saranac Lake, NY.  After completing the first part of the trauma resiliency training last year, Frank and I were asked to join them for training in the coaching phase of TRI.   This brought us into a tight circle of highly competent people facing the challenge of how to deal with the psychological wounds of war as the US veterans return home from Iraq and Afghanistan.  The sad truth is that where we have never had enough well-trained, informed professionals who could deal with the aftermath of carnage, we now have even fewer with a much higher demand for them.  This is as true of the US as it is of Canada where the extent of our wounded not as overwhelming but the available services is proportionally just as meager.

In Fort Drum, we helped train military and local Chaplains in the skills of dealing with Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.  It was a fascinating experience at many levels, not the least of which was the tricky process of honouring religious beliefs about the origins of mental distress while teaching an approach that placed the physical/physiological nature of distress front and center.  Although all the Chaplains were Christian, this is a delicate balance I’ve run into with Buddhist teachers as well.

There is a deep part in us that wants to believe that if we simply believe, it will be enough to take away the suffering.  I would truly like to think that is true in all circumstances of suffering.  It would be lovely if 108 prostrations will take my mother out of her wheelchair and restore her ability for self-care.  If only 10, 000 Butsu chants fingered along a strand of mala beads would bring back lost loves, heal rifts, and back-fill ideological schisms.  What if 84, 000 doors all lead to one Truth: just believe and it will be well?

Although my faith in psychological interventions needs well-adjudicated data, my faith in my spiritual path really doesn’t.  And I wonder if I’m being judgemental to wish more people of the spiritual ilk knew that difference.  I’d like to say it’s because Buddhism is different but I’ve heard too many teachers say things about people returning from death’s door that make me cringe.

On the other hand, maybe I’m just jealous.

This stumbling towards nirvana is tough work.  And some days I miss those multiple prayers to St. Jude (the patron saint of the impossible) or St. Christopher (the patron saint of lost things – before he was de-sainted).  I think I will start a novena to Manjushri; I’m in need of someone to wisely wield a few swords. And for good measure, I’ll go practice a few moves myself!

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sweet nothings

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The deadline for our Learning Reflection Papers has crept up on me.  Has it already been one month since the Core Chaplaincy Training retreat?  On Sunday, I pounded out the LRP on the segment delivered by Dr. Merle Lefkoff on Complexity, Spirituality and Compassion.  The Science of Surprise and black swans appearing when you least expect.  The Theory of the Black Swan (authored by Nassim Nicholas Taleb) is of an unpredicted and undirected event which is then rationalized by hindsight.  It reminds me of one of the most powerful books written in Psychology by Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails.  Following one of those planetary catastrophes predicted by messages from aliens, Festinger and his research pals noticed that the failure of the event lead to some interesting backwards engineering – or forwards propping.  In this specific case, the group who had predicted the end of the world gathered to wait for salvation.  When the predicted end didn’t happen, they announced that it was because they had gathered, full of faith in the aliens’ intention to destroy Earth, that the aliens had changed their plans.  Thus was born the concept of cognitive dissonance – how we change past thought history to cope with things not going the way we expected.

I used to sneer at this kind of cognitive reverse engineering.  As I did at sweet whispered nothings which had the effect of derailing a hot date in my youth.  These days I’m finding it harder and harder to see the line between things I don’t expect and things I didn’t predict.  Ultimately, they both have to do with a form of blindness.  I don’t expect things because I’m blind to the causes and consequences of my actions.  I can’t predict things because I haven’t yet allowed the data into my consciousness.  Either way, the blindness has its own consequences.

What does this have to do with practice?  May be nothing.  I might be procrastinating on writing the next LRP on the shadow side of the paramitas.  Or, maybe I’m starting to consider the metaphoric Black Swan Event when I come up against moments that turn out to be acts of generosity, virtue, patience, love, stability and wisdom.  I understand that Taleb meant events of global and cultural consequence however missing such unpredicted and undirected moments in our practice lives can also have wide-reaching impact.  And, I fear that when the realization hits of the true nature of the act I received, my backwards rationalization may not do service to myself or the other.

Would mindfulness be enough to notice the growth of a Black Swan?  Taleb, in his 2010 revision, added a section on how to avoid Black Swan Events (getting fired may be a Black Swan Event for the employee but guaranteed it wasn’t for the corporation).  So perhaps, the sweet nothings I disregard or the assumptions I make about intentions and a common humanity could stand a bit of scrutiny.

Thank you for practising,

Genju