Tag Archives: chaplaincy

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fair to middling

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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

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walking the wards

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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