Tag Archives: chaplaincy

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dharma & drama

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It’s a travel day again… going home from the Chaplaincy Intensive.  I feel as wobbly as the enso and think maybe there are slithers of dharma dribbling out my ears.  There are slivers of drama embedded in my system too.   

I have yet to process all of it and may never.  Zen Brain was a challenge to digest.  Scrambling from Jim Austin’s tour de force of ego- versus allo-centric processing to Susan Bauer-Wu’s immensely compassionate and wide-hearted program which takes on the once-iconclastic MBSR, I cheekily suggested the retreat should be renamed: Zen-Fried Brain: yummy morsels served with dollops of compassion.

Jimmy Santiago Baca and Fleet Maull surprised me.  Not so cheekily, I quipped that the “Dharma of Ex-cons” was going to leave me having to explain to my employers – yet again – why I was hanging out with the Dark Side.  But apparently, that’s where the Dharma is at its most transformative.  I’ll have very much to say about the two amazing teachers in the following weeks.

Fleet continued his teachings with “Dharma on the Edge” and suffice to say that we aren’t talking about just a double-edge of the Wisdom Sword.  And, I learned that there are many things that can fade and pass on if I’m willing to bear witness to the process rather than engage in old stories about victimhood.  Fleet said at some point that our work is about burning away our hooks that grab onto others or that allow others to grab onto us.  There was much smoke from these burnings – which likely explained the watery eyes.

Somewhere in this timeline, Aitken Roshi passed on to continue his work with us through another realm. Gate, gate, parasamgate.

I quit the program a three times in the 10 days.  Once when I felt my powerful victim-self, once when I stepped into my powerful aggressor-self, and once when I felt my powerful rescuer-self.  It was good to meet them – again and this time with a fully embodied presence.  If you recognise Karpman’s Drama Triangle in this, you win a chance to fix me.  There will definitely be much more of the conjunction of the Drama Triangle and the Dharma Tetrad in posts to come.

Finally, a heartfelt “Thank You” to my blogger sangha!  When I had a chance to read them, your posts reassured me that the world outside this cauldron was still there, going on, and there was a place for me to land when I got out of the boiling.

Thank you for practicing,

Genju

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is there an app for this?

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I’m crunched for time.  In two days we leave for Upaya and the Zen Brain retreat.  It promises to be another intense set of rounds with neuropsychology’s heavy hitters: Al Kazniak, James Austin, Amishi Jha.  Retreat participants received a set of articles via email by many of the  presenters and I’ve muddled through them.  It’s not that the topic is overly difficult; probably the most valuable skill my education gave me was the ability to scan a research paper, get the gist of it, and ear-mark it for future reference if it was applicable.

Now, that’s the sticky point: applicability.  The further I get into practice, the more my romance with research on meditation has faded.  It’s not that I have lost respect for the researchers and philosophers who try ever so hard to connect the practice of mindfulness/meditation to something substantive that may lead to good health via new interventions.  But there you have it: the convolution and expanse in that sentence alone makes me take a deep breath and ask: how is this helping me understand and live Dharma?

Of course, some of these folks – Evan Thompson, John Dunne, Al Kazniak – could expound on the telephone book backwards and I would defend that as Dharma.  But I’m partial to brilliant minds with charming smiles.  Hence my very successful 30-year marriage to He-Who-Tolerates-All-Things-Genju.

After Zen Brain and a three-day excursion around Santa Fe, I dive into the second retreat of the Chaplaincy with Fleet Maull and Jimmy Santiago Baca teaching us to live “Dharma at the Edge.”  Last week, I met with a hospital Chaplain and we discussed the intensity of being with those who are dying.  For two hours we dug into what it means for a family member to not look away from the suffering of a loved one, to make life-and-death decisions on their behalf, and what being a supportive advocate means in that context.  I was infected with her enthusiasm and her commitment to living her livelihood.  I’m glad I met her before I set out on this second phase because I am having a hard time folding aspects of this process into my practice.  Again the question arises: how is this helping me understand and live Dharma?

Yesterday, the answers was to download my garden as an app.  Over the next 10 days, who knows?

Thank you for practicing,

Genju