My Grandpa’s Truck

‘The old truck’ by ecstaticist via Flickr.com

My neighborhood has many small used car lots.  Though I don’t particularly miss having a car, I still look with interest on the shiny, newly washed hoods and fenders.  Today an old truck caught my eye on the way to the grocery store.  I’d seen it before, back amidst its younger brethren, but today it had been moved up front.  It’s a dark red Chevy C40 with white trim, probably from the mid-1970′s.  From the outside, it’s in remarkably good condition.  A classic truck with a steel body and a bench seat and none of this extended cab nonsense.  It’s beautiful.  I have a fondness for old trucks, probably because of my grandfather.

My Grandpa was a good man.  My mom once said he wasn’t very good at business, which is why they eventually sold the ranch she and her siblings grew up on, but he was good in many other, more important ways.  As long as I can remember, he drove a truck.  The one I remember best is his black Chevy Silverado with the silver stripe.  The bench seat had been re-covered in some grey and brown fabric.  The steering wheel was big, but thin, with little finger notches.  It had a large silver toolbox behind the cab and a sturdy metal frame above the bed.  This is because for most of my life he worked as a carpenter, first in their small town of Ainsworth, Nebraska.  After they moved to Omaha, he worked for Habitat for Humanity as a job site foreman.   He organized work, taught volunteers, and did finish carpentry from then until he reluctantly retired at the age of seventy-six.

Habitat for Humanity finds small parcels of vacant land, usually foreclosed upon by the local government for non-payment of property taxes and donated. They build small, simple homes for families in need with the help of the volunteers and the family who’ll live there.  In Omaha, my Grandpa convinced them to accept not only land, but old homes as well.  They still built from the ground up, but also renovated and repaired many houses in the poor, older neighborhoods of Omaha as well.  The people in those neighborhoods got to know that truck and the man who drove it.  This provided a small extra measure of safety in neighborhoods that were otherwise considered rather shady.

My brother and I would sometimes borrow that truck to move a piece of furniture or a bit of lumber now and then.  It was an automatic, with the gear shift on the steering wheel, so even I could drive it.  It wasn’t too big and drove very well.  Grandpa was always there with it when my family moved or renovated anything of our own.  The two of them where a reliable pair.

After Grandpa died, Granny sold the truck to a lady I worked with.  My brother and I sighed with regret.  Had we the money, we might have bought it ourselves, not that either of us needed a truck.  That was almost a decade ago.

When we look on an object we immediately experience a sense of aversion, attachment, or, occasionally, neutrality.  This feeling is predicated by all our past experiences and our habitual patterns.  In a word, it’s our karma at work.  My karma include an old Chevy truck my grandpa drove.  Fond memories of Grandpa color over my memories of that truck.  They even color over other habits of thought, such as my aversion to automobiles as smog-making, traffic-jamming, wallet-sucking, time-stealing, mechanistic monsters.  Those pleasant memories are strong enough to color over my intellectual objections.

Now I look fondly on that red Chevy C40 in the lot near my house and think I’d like to have an old truck like that some day.  I have no idea why I’d need it, but I’d like to think I’d put it to good use.  This is karma at work.  I perceive the truck, I remember my past, and I feel attachment.  However, because I’m aware of the nature of karma, the nature of myself, and I’ve engaged in some forms of mindfulness and introspection, I know what is happening.  So rather than having an unexamined desire for this truck and becoming frustrated or saddened when I can’t fulfill that desire, I can merely examine the pleasant memories it brings up and let it go.  I keep going, just like Grandpa’s reliable old truck always did.

Moral Lessons from Star Trek

Ethics are inescapable.  I learned that watching Star Trek.  Now I’m learning it again reading articles like “Guidelines for the Chaplain’s Role in Health Care Ethics.”  One of those sources is far more entertaining than the other to say the least, but I’ll try to talk about them both.

There have been five Star Trek televisions shows to date (six if you count the cartoon) and eleven movies, but let’s forget the latter for the moment.  Each show was comprised of a “crew” of disparate individuals fulfilling various roles.  Over time it became clear that on each crew, no matter how different or unique they tried to make the characters, someone always served as the moral compass.

On the original series, there was “Bones,” or Dr. Leonard H. McCoy.  Bones was passionate, argumentative, even cantankerous, but he was also the conscience of the crew.  Kirk went to him for advice, to express his deepest fears, and to seek compassionate moral balance against Spock’s cold logic.

On Star Trek The Next Generation, it is the captain himself who is most concerned with ethics.  Captain Jean-Luc Picard had the logic and intelligence of Spock but the deeply moral sensibilities of Socrates. Although aided by the ship’s counselor, Deana Troi, with her empathy and expert knowledge of psychology, it is clear that he stands at the moral center of this crew.  Yet even he had someone he relied upon for guidance and to unburden his soul, Guinan, the ships bar-tender.  Upon watching episodes of The Next Generation again via Netflix after not having seen them since I was a teenager, I am amazed at how many of the conflicts and dilemmas faced by the Enterprise are not physical battles but moral ones.  This particular iteration of the show spent more screen time agonizing over ethical dilemmas than shooting at each other than any other version.

On Star Trek Deep Space Nine, they left the starship behind entirely in exchange for a space station, but they could not escape the need for that moral center, this time filled by the reserved and aloof Dax.  Lieutenant Jadzia Dax is the member of a species called Trill, who pass sentient symbiotes with the accumulated wisdom of many lifetimes from generation to generation.  In essence, you get a beautiful, compelling woman with several hundred years of accumulated wisdom.  Moreover, she also fulfills the role of counselor and confidant to the leader, Commander Sisco.

On Star Trek Voyager, we see a partnership, creating a moral balance between Captain Janeway and Commander Chakotay, the second in command.  Janeway herself is supremely moral, but also driven by her duty to save her people after then are stranded in a far quadrant of space.  Janeway is a scientist and a humanist while Chakotay brings in a uniquely spiritual worldview as part of his Native American heritage, but also a certain tough practicality.  He often served as a foil against Janeway’s sometimes reckless drive to get her crew home no matter what.

Finally, on Star Trek Enterprise it is once again the ship’s doctor who stands at the moral center, Dr. Phlox.  Although the cheerful Phlox has a less central role than Bones, he is frequently the voice of reason and compassion.  This last iteration of the franchise is perhaps the least interested in morality, each episode being more or less a battle for survival, but nonetheless frequently deals with where the boundary is between what is right and what is necessary.  I sometimes wonder if this is reflective of it’s post-September 11th run. (The first episode aired on September 23, 2011, and the show finished in 2005.)

I offer this list not merely because I enjoy Star Trek (some versions more than others), but to demonstrate that even in the most fantastical of settings, ethics are inescapable.  And where there are ethical dilemmas, there is always a moral compass.  Interestingly, each person who serves that role is amazing different from the next.  Passionate, logical, aloof, tough, or cheerful, they all demonstrate the capacity to provide that extra little bit of conscience when things start going wrong, as they inevitably do.

In addition, I found a fun little video with clips from several of the iterations of Star Trek which explores the philosophical and moral question of whether or not the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, a classic Trekian dilema.

The chaplains article points out that “Advances in medical science and technology, the evolution of integrated delivery systems, and the changing economics of health care present benefits and ethical dilemmas.”  It lists principles for the chaplain to fulfill, duties and roles she should aspire to.  The principles outlined in the text at first seemed daunting.  You mean a chaplain has to do all that in addition to her work with patients?  It seemed like an extra burden, a second full-time job.

Then I thought a little about some of the models of a moral compass I had observed in my life.  (The ones who came to mind just happen to be fictional thanks to the ready availability of streaming media.  I tend to believe fiction often reflects basic human truths, so no matter.)  They did not go through the actions of providing moral guidance like making marks on a check list.  It was not really their “job.”  Rather it was who they were, their character (not in the fictional sense), that allowed them to stand at the moral center.

When we can cultivate our spirit in such a way, ethics come naturally and people will automatically look to us the way the crews (and script writers) looked to these people/characters (in the fictional sense).  Nor do we have to cultivate ourselves to be or act a certain way we think is expected or a “ethical guide.”  We need only have integrity in who we already are and cultivate a strong inner moral life in all our thoughts, speech, and actions.  In order to be genuine, ethics must be lived.  They are part of life.  That’s why they are inescapable.

Hard Questions

'LOVE&LOSS Redux' by kristinmarshall via Flickr.com

Questions of meaning are the fundamental questions of human life.  Why am I here? Who am I? Why is life so hard?  In their article “Professional Chaplaincy and Its Role and Importance in Health Care” the authors point out:

“The word Spirituality goes further and describes an awareness of relationships with all creation, an appreciation of presence and purpose that includes a sense of meaning.” (p. 82)

Yet in modern life we seem to so often neglect these questions.  In hospitals, chaplains seem to be tacked-on extras and the first to go when budget cuts loom.  Spiritual care is undervalued. How can this be so if these issues are really that basic to human nature?

I have two thoughts almost at odds with one another.  First, that spirituality and all its attendant religious practices and trappings is an immense source of strength and comfort.  We literally can’t get along without it.

“Persons find that their spirituality helps them maintain health, cope with illnesses, traumas, losses, and life transitions by integrating body, mind and spirit. When facing a crisis, persons often turn to their spirituality as a means of coping (Pargament, 1997).” (p. 83)

Second, that spirituality is hard.

“Losses such as physical and cognitive capacities, independence, work or family status, and emotional equilibrium, along with the accompanying grief, can seriously impact their sense of meaning, purpose, and personal worth. … Approaching death can engender serious spiritual questions that contribute to anxiety, depression, hopelessness and despair.” (p. 83)

Much of what we consider to be “our” spiritually, that which forms the value centers of our lives, never really was “ours” to begin with.  It was bequeathed to us by our cultures and families.  Most spiritual seekers will only barely begin to question the truths to which others have already clung.  On the one hand, this is incredibly useful.  We can learn from one another, our parents, elders, and teachers.  Many methods are thus “tried and true.”  On the other hand, it often leaves unexamined gaps in one’s worldview, gaps which become glaringly apparent in times of crisis or trauma.

Worse yet, even those who have stared squarely at the gaps may not have even attempted to bridge them.  This is because, as the second point states, spiritual questions are hard.  What is the meaning of life?  That’s the most cliché and at the same time most profound of the questions, isn’t it?  And even though I study the subject, sometimes I just want to throw my hands up in the air and say “How the hell should I know?”

I too fall back on the truths to which others have clung, Buddhism chief among them.  Religion is a form of “received wisdom.”  We all have many forms of received wisdom from our cultural and family heritage.  But it’s all just mythology until we start to internalize it and integrate it into not just the way we look at the world, but into our own motivations and actions.

Sometimes we do this so early in life that we just go about like automatons, busy with the technical aspects of living, too busy to look at those hard questions.  After all, thinking that hard makes my head hurt.  So who’d want to do it if they didn’t have to?  But eventually we all have to, because we all get hurt or sick.  We will all die.

That’s when we run into a curious thing.  Our life seems to pause.  Our normal routine breaks down and everything changes.  The article calls this a “loss” of our capacities or independence.  It rightly pointed out that such a “loss” can cause grief and make a person question their “meaning, purpose, and personal worth.”  It makes it sound as though asking the hard questions is a bad thing.

Yes, there’s a lot of suffering in grief, doubt, and hard questions, but it’s also the only way to find the strength to give meaning to adversity.  Someone said in one of my classes that the best way to help someone cope with the death of a loved one, a bad accident, a serious illness, or a trauma was to help them find meaning in it.  I thought about it long and hard and in the end I think they’re on to something. When I look back to the people I’ve lost, I’ve looked not to their absence, but what their presence meant in my life.

As chaplains, all we can do is shine the flashlight under the bed so people can discover what they’re searching for.  We turn the painting upside down so as to see it from a fresh angle.  We help people understand that the hard questions are also the good questions and that a “loss” can also be a gain.  As much as number two is true, that spirituality is hard, so is number one, that it is absolutely necessary.

Almost In the Navy

“So we’ll try to get you into MEPS next week.”

“Next week?”

“Either on Tuesday or Friday, but Tuesday is better.  We need to stay on top of this if we want to get you commissioned by April or May.”

“Okay…That would be okay. …That’s fast.”

Somehow it’s still surprising when something I’ve aspired to for over a year now becomes a concrete reality.  I’m so used to having big dreams – constructing buildings, planning cities, writing novels, traveling the world – and no expectation they’ll reach fruition.  Joining the Navy is a big dream, but this time it just might happen.

The work of the military chaplain resonates with me stronger than the work of chaplains in other settings.  What in my disposition and background leads me to contemplate military service?  What karma is this, I wonder?

My father still tells stories of my grandfather’s service in North Africa during WWII.  He died when I was fourteen following a long battle with Alzheimer’s.  I remember him as a large, bald, genial man who enjoyed gadgets and electronics.  He lived on the outskirts of their small Nebraska town so he could have a seventy-five foot radio tower in his backyard.  My grandfather’s stories, often accompanied by photographs and post cards, revolved around building similar towers, flying as part of a bomber crew, and keeping a pet lion cub.  There were no stories of combat, blood, or death, though we all knew they existed.  Then there was Ivan, my grandfather’s older brother, who died in Europe.  Ivan’s is an unknown story.

Otherwise, we were not a family inclined to the military.  My uncle served in the National Guard before I was born.  Others barely avoided the Vietnam draft.  Despite the rural origins of most of my extended family and the higher rates of service from those areas, as far as I know, none of my cousins even contemplated enlisting.

Then I took a job, almost by chance, with the Military Science Department at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.  I didn’t even know what the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) was.  The rest of the staff was active duty Army, Army National Guard, or veterans employed by the Department of Defense or General Services Administration of the federal government.  I was the only genuine University employee and the only real civilian.  Not just any civilian, but a liberal, vegetarian, tree-hugging, pacifist, Buddhist civilian.

I had my doubts when I took the job, but it turned out to be a very positive experience.  Although chaplaincy was not even on my radar at that time, it was obvious to me that these were good people doing a hard job to the best of their ability.  They were deserving of care and support, so I gave them all I could, as a secretary and a person.

My only other knowledge of the military came from the tales told in popular culture.  My mother’s favorite show then (as now) was MASH, about a military hospital during the Korean War.  Another frequent guest on our television was Hogan’s Heroes, set in a WWII POW camp.  Both were unlikely settings for comedies.  Beyond that, were the dirt and blood depictions of movies like In Harm’s Way with John Wayne and modern films like Black Hawk Down.  As horrible as they were, I always found something admirable in the capacity of human beings to endure and carry on, not just to fight and kill, but to protect and save the lives of those around them.

Navy Chaplain on an aircraft carrier, from Navy.com

When I think about my influences I often wonder two things.  First, am I strong enough for military service?  Not only physically, but mentally and emotionally.  If necessary, could I endure even a tiny bit of these trials and horrors long enough to help a single person?  Could I be a voice of morality, compassion, and reason amid the trauma of combat and post traumatic stress disorder?  Second, am I romanticizing this entire notion?  Do I have a realistic idea of what military chaplaincy entails?  For the first, I often have grave doubts.  For the second, I know my expectations will inevitably fail to be realized in experience.  This is a simple truism.

I’ve studied military chaplaincy to gain a better picture of the work.  The more I read the more I know it is work I’m called to do.  The more I doubt.  The more I know it will be nothing like what I expect.  But the more I know I have to try.

Care From The Heart

'Unknown, Oct 2010' by Yunchung Lee via Flickr.com

The Association of Professional Chaplains (APC) sets written Standards of Practice by which hospital chaplains abide, as well as those in many other institutional settings.  Naturally, this includes Buddhist chaplains.  I wonder, however, if every chaplain who reads this document feels as though something is missing.  I’ve written about the danger of “professionalizing” chaplaincy before, and these standards seem to suffer from it.  Mostly, they suffer from a loss of heart, the living motivation that drives chaplains to care for others.

The Standards are helpful in knowing what our profession entails and how we should carry it out.  However, it is an extremely technical document and completely glosses over the main task of the chaplain: building relationships.  If one simply reads the standards by their titles, ‘Assessment,’ ‘Delivery,’ ‘Documentation,’ and so forth, they could easily refer to writing the engineering specifications for a new kind of catalytic converter.  Some imply human contact, such as ‘Teamwork’ and repeated use of the word ‘Care,’ while others, such as ‘Quality Improvement’ and ‘Research’ imply almost the opposite.

All in all, this document is a cognitive approach to understanding the work of the chaplain.  Meanwhile, the work chaplains do has an extremely broad affective, or emotional, dimension. This, most importantly, revolves around our ability to build a relationship with those to whom we offer care.  Moreover, I fear the technification of jargon used to describe the chaplain’s job may somehow mislead or diminish the chaplain’s true work.

In short, no matter how helpful and precise, I don’t like it.  The work of caring for hearts and souls loses something in translation to legalistic code.  For example, the first standard states:

STANDARD 1: ASSESSMENT

Assessment: The chaplain gathers and evaluates relevant data pertinent to the patient’s situation and/or bio-psycho-social-spiritual/religious health.

INTERPRETATION

Assessment is a fundamental process of chaplaincy practice. Provision of effective care requires that chaplains assess and reassess patient needs and modify plans of care accordingly. A chaplaincy assessment in health care settings involves relevant biomedical, psycho-social, and spiritual/religious factors, including the needs, hopes, and resources of the individual patient and/or family.

A comprehensive chaplaincy assessment process includes:

• Gathering and evaluating information about the spiritual/religious, emotional and social needs, hopes, and resources of the patient or the situation
• Prioritizing care for those whose needs appear to outweigh their resources

MEASUREMENT CRITERIA

• Gathers data in an intentional, systematic, and ongoing process with the assent of the patient.
• Involves the patient, family, other health care providers, and the patient’s local spiritual/religious community, as appropriate, in the assessment.
• Prioritizes data collection activities based on the patient’s condition or anticipated needs of the patient or situation.
• Uses appropriate assessment techniques and instruments in collecting pertinent data.
• Synthesizes and evaluates available data, information, and knowledge relevant to the situation to identify patterns and variances.
• Documents relevant data and plans of care in a retrievable format accessible to the health care delivery team.

EXAMPLES

• Basic: Demonstrates familiarity with one accepted model for spiritual/religious assessment and makes use of that model in his/her chaplaincy practice as appropriate.
• Intermediate: Demonstrates familiarity with several published models for spiritual/religious assessment and is able to select an appropriate model for specific cases within his/her chaplaincy practice.
• Advanced: Demonstrates familiarity with several published models for spiritual/religious assessment and is able to teach others in their use.

We do not “gather and evaluated relevant data pertinent to the patient’s situation and/or bio-psycho-social-spiritual/religious health.”  Rather, we learn about the patient by listening to their troubles.  By listening, I don’t mean with just our ears either, but with every sensory perception, including our mind and heart.  We discover the person, their cares, their strengths, their fears.  People are not “data.”

Relationships figure more prominently in the complete explanation of Standard 1.  But should we really have to go to such great lengths to explain what is mean by “gather and evaluate relevant data?”  In this explanation, “data” is used almost as often as “patient.” This is not meaningless semantics.  There are no meaningless words.

“We are what we think / All that we are arises with our thoughts,” According to the Dhammapada, verse one.

Let us do a thought experiment.  What if we go into a room and try to enact these Standards of Practice thinking we need to begin by “gathering data?”  Now, what if we go into a room thinking we need to “discover this person?”  How does that alter the nature of our mind and heart?

While the contents of the Standards of Practice are helpful and obviously the result of long, thoughtful, and reasoned discussion, I strongly believe they need to be rewritten to reflect the reality of a chaplain’s work.  We are not lawyers or technocrats or “data gatherers.”  We are spiritual caregivers.  We should have the conviction to describe our work in the language of spiritual care.  I believe doing so will better prepare and guide chaplains in carrying out that work and better inform the public as to the nature, and importance, of what chaplains do.

Compassion is Not an Emotion?

I ran across an interesting thought today.  We watched a documentary by James Zito called Compassion and Wisdom: A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (2004).  It featured several different Buddhist teachers from the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions speaking about the meaning of the bodhisattva.  About two-thirds of the way through, the documentary advanced an interesting idea, which I paraphrase here.

The experience of emptiness is the catalyst for compassionate activity towards all sentient beings.  Compassion is not an emotion – it is unwavering, indiscriminate, and limitless.  We should not mistake the transitory, contingent emotions of pity, empathy, sympathy, or even love and attachment for true compassion.

I find this thought very interesting and compelling.  After all, how often do we refer to the “feeling” of compassion?  Upon doing some preliminary digging, many Buddhist teachers, from Thanissaro Bhikkhu to Sakyong Mipham, refer to compassion directly as an emotion, although a beneficial one.

Yet it seems right to me to say that compassion is not an emotion, in an ultimate sense.  There is some suggestion that emotions arise from ego, but even ego-less buddhas manifest compassion.  Perhaps we, in our unenlightened state, can only manifest compassion in a limited, temporary way.  As we continue in our practice to cultivate even greater and greater compassion it moves beyond our feeble attempts into a true state of being, something we “have” or “are” rather than “feel.”  I am coming to believe that often we do mistake pity, empathy, and sympathy for compassion.  These emotions are selective, which allows us to feel for those similar to or more unfortunate than ourselves, but compassion excludes no-one, not our enemies or even the wealthy “one-percent.”  Compassion includes the one-hundred percent.

I may do some more digging on this idea is the future.  For now, it’s just an interesting thought.

Protest sign from Occupy Toronto (photo uncredited) via blogto.com

OR

Protest sign from Occupy Toronoto photo by woodrow walden via blogto.com

 

Relationships and Stolen Rum

I’m full of shit.  I’ve been aware of this for some time.  Anyone who knows me in real life is undoubtedly not surprised.  I talk all about ‘others.’  Helping ‘others.’ Putting ‘others’ first.  Being with ‘others.’  When, truth is, I don’t really know how to be with one other person.

Also, rum … for some reason seems oddly stronger than whiskey at this moment, my preferred drink of choice.  Whiskey, that is, not rum, for what now seems like obvious reasons.

From someecards.com

I am seven months into the first serious relationship of my life, odd as that seems for a thirty-one year old to admit.  When we’re together, I think this is right.  But when we’re apart, I think that is right, too.  I feel comfortable being a couple.  But I feel comfortable being by myself.  And the one makes me doubt the other.  It feels good to be together, and somehow easy, even when we disagree.  But when I’m alone, I wonder if I’ve been too critical, if I’m just playacting at a relationship for the sake of the experience, if this will last.  When we’re together again I feel reassured by how well we get on, how much we love each other, and I wonder why I ever worried.  Sometimes we talk about our relationship.  I try to check in to make sure I’m not missing something.  Sometimes we don’t.  But this cycle keeps repeating.

The hardest part is the future.

I’ve always been able to live my life the way I wanted to.  I have a plan for the future.  The plan changes, sometimes drastically, but I always have a plan.  What to study, where to work, where to live, how to live, and so on.  These plans have always been risky and I’ve accepted that.  After all, any failure was my failure.  Any pain was my pain.  I could rearrange my life freely without having to wonder how my new direction would impact anyone else.  That is no longer so.  I realize now the plans I’ve made are not only risky, but also require serious sacrifice and commitment.  And it’s no long just my sacrifice and commitment I’m asking for.  That’s scary.

Sometimes those plans are nice.  We both like the same kind of places, small cities in cool climate with real trees.  But I fear I’m going to take too long getting there.  We’re already thirty (ish) and I’m looking at the Navy and then a PhD who knows where.  That’s a lot for any one person, let alone two.  He has a definite wish to live close to his family.  I understand and respect this.  But what about my family?  What about my plans to retire to a little ranch in the Sandhills and write books?  And his plans to live next to the ocean and learn to surf?  Is there enough in me to compromise?  To figure it out?  To work at it?

And what about all those stupid romantic myths that say when you find the right one you’re just supposed to ‘know?’  I never ‘know’ anything.  I doubt everything.  That’s why I’m a freakin’ Buddhist and not a Bible-thumping Methodist.  It’s in my nature to question.  Does that mean I’m relationship handicapped?  Or is all that ‘soulmate’ crap really crap?  Or is everyone different?  I kinda figured relationships were work and if you decided you wanted to be in one you damn well worked at it, soulmate or not.  But sometimes I wonder if I’m too selfish for even that.  I want my Navy, my PhD, my ranch in the Sandhills.  But I want to give him what he wants, too.  I want the compromise, but I don’t know what that looks like.  Where’s my freakin’ plan?!

So that’s why I’m full of shit.  And rum.  Not even a lot of rum.  Like, less than two fingers.  And yes, I stole it from my housemate.  Sorry, Harry.  Why do you have that much alcohol in the freezer?  If I’m too selfish to handle really being there for even one other person, how an I supposed to help the other six point seven billion?

Anyway, I don’t know what to do about it.  Just keep going I suppose.  Keep my eyes, ears, mind, and heart open.  Are all relationships like this?

Disclaimer: Written on rum.  Posted while sober.

Waiting Room

'Waiting' by Bondseye via Flickr.com

“What should I be doing now?” I thought to myself.  ”What would a chaplain be doing now?  How can I chaplain to this family?”

I never came up with an answer, which was probably for the best.  We’ve been warned not to chaplain to family for good reason.  These people weren’t precisely my family, but they were close.  They were my boyfriend’s family, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

The Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula has a very nice waiting room down the hall from the intensive care unit.  It is reached via a series of clean corridors and down a wide stair in a bright atrium.  The atrium is tall, with the back wall patterned in white art deco squares, and contains several tables and chairs on the lower level.  The sitting area is along one side, tucked cozily beneath a lowered ceiling and filled with a variety of comfortable couches and chairs done in soft beige, sea-foam green, and dark wood.  Sprawled throughout the sitting area was a close-knit clan of the descendants of the woman now in ICU following open heart surgery, along with one totally unrelated Buddhist chaplain-in-training.

So what did I do?  Not much.  I chatted, knitted, read, napped, and played games on my phone.  I held my boyfriend’s hand and patted his knee.  I offered to fetch coffee or munchies.  I listened to every update from the ever-rotating number of family members who went every twenty minutes or so, two at a time, to check on Grams.  They relayed news from the doctors and nurses as well as personal observations and managed to keep a fairly upbeat attitude despite the circumstances.

I never did “chaplain” in even the remotest sense of that word, but I don’t feel like my presence there was wasted.  I don’t know that being there helped anybody, but it certainly didn’t hurt (except maybe Chloe and Orion the cat who had to give up their bed for two nights).  I just waited, like everyone else.  I was there.  It wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it’d be.

Defining ‘Excess’

Islam does not endorse aestheticism nor vows of poverty frequently found in other religions.  It is the duty of a Muslim to work hard and be prosperous so that he (traditionally) or she can care for family and give to charity.  What is given to charity is often quoted as a simple percentage, but in reality is defined as “the excess.”  (All this I have been told by my professors, so if I’ve been a trusting fool, please school me.)  We could learn something from this as lay Buddhists, I feel.  But just what is ‘excess?’

In material terms, excess if fairly easy to define.  It’s having more than one can use – more water than one can drink, more food than one can eat, more land than one can farm.  These are simple physical limitations.  However, in modern terms prosperity is measured in money.  How do we know when we have too much money?  After all, we can always spend more on an ever increasing number of goods, services, and entertainments.  Even if we become obviously prosperous, there is always the proverbial rainy day.

As I type this, I sit in the ICU waiting room of the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula where my boyfriend’s Grandma is recovering from open heart surgery.  (Shout out to all the wonderful hospital staff looking after her and being so kind to her family.)  Open heart surgery is expensive.  Retirement is expensive.  The future is uncertain, so clearly we need to set aside funds to provide for these things.  Aside from conspicuous wealth ala Buffet or Gates, what then is ‘excess?’

'Lily's Blue Sweater' by Aine D via flickr.com

Oddly enough, we can all point to it when we see it, each according to our own particular predilections.  Today I saw a dog walking down the street on a bright, sunny, fifty-degree day wearing a warm doggie sweater in a climate that never sees snow.  In my opinion, that is excess.  I’m sure the dog’s person would disagree.  Can we even find an objective definition?  I am dubious.  Perhaps all we can do is find a definition of excess that takes into account the subjective perceptions of humanity.  After all, no one wants someone else, perhaps someone they’ve never met who is as different from them as two people could be, placing arbitrary limits on his or her life.  Rightly so.

That still begs the question.  What is ‘excess?’

I puzzled over this for some time as my boyfriend and I discussed the purpose of giving to charity, how much to give, what (time, effort, money), and to whom.  I stated I would give the excess, whatever I didn’t need.  However, we’d already recognized the fact that the lifestyle I live and will likely continue with is somewhat more frugal than most.  My bar for ‘excess’ was thus quite a bit lower than his, but just how low depended on how each of us defines the term.  This depends necessarily on each of our world views and the purpose we feel money (and time and effort) serves in our lives.  We talked about self-care, the role of joy, the interconnected nature of global suffering, and how to judge efficacy and impact.

“Why shouldn’t I use that ‘excess’ to buy something to make myself happy?” he asked rhetorically.

That prompted my current brainstorm.  Because, see, I don’t believe that things can make me happy.  I do, however, heartily admit that lack of some things can, does, and will make me miserable. Many social scientists have looked at this question before, of course, most notably Maslow.  To me it comes down to safety, security, and comfort.  Once these three things are assured at a basic minimum level, “happiness” then becomes an entirely internal matter.  (Meaning it is more dependent on the cultivation of mental and emotional qualities such as wisdom, equanimity, contentment, etc., than external circumstances.  This has also been demonstrated in scientific and academic study, though I lack the ambition to dig up the citations at present.)

Of course, that merely extends the question to what is a ‘basic minimum level?’  This is where the subjectivity shows itself.

Safety can be defined as personal physical safety – the assurance that I will not be subject to physical harm or loss of property due to crime or disaster.  That seems fairly simple and objective, but requires the cooperation of a great many other people to ensure.

Security is the assurance of some form of stability and/or predictability – that my life will continue in a fashion that I can depend upon and plan for accordingly.  Loss of a job, sudden end of a relationship, death of a loved one (particularly on whom we depend) collapse of finical institutions, government systems, and war are just a few examples of threats to our security.  Money and material prosperity can do a great deal to ensure security in the face of tragedy.  This is why people buy insurance, after all, and why insurance companies claim to sell “peace of mind.”

Finally, comfort can be defined as a lack of meaningful hardship – by hardship I don’t mean inconvenience, annoyance, or effort.  I mean back-breaking labor, lack of time for family or self-care, lack of what we in the first world consider basic necessities like electricity and telecommunications, not to mention the even more basic provision of clean drinking water, sanitary sewer, and healthy food readily available.  I personally find further comfort in simple things like coffee machines, computers, soft couches, comfortable beds, warm homes, and cuddly animals.

Comfort, I believe, is the most prone to excess.  For example, a ‘comfortable’ house does not need a formal living room and a ‘family’ room or a formal dining room and a ‘breakfast’ room.  One of the other will do just fine.  However, some people feel they ‘need‘ both.  This is where we run into problems in my estimation.  We confuse want with need.  There are a few things I do need for basic comfort and those things are far fewer than I already posses.  There are other things I want because they enhance my comfort level.  Then there are things that I want because I like them and they may bring me pleasure, but, in the long run will have no impact on the comfort or happiness of my life.  That is the excess.

But again, how do we figure out what things will or won’t contribute to our comfort? (Or our safety and security?)  I believe we can only do this through a process of deep, ongoing introspection and experimentation.  The second part is key and the step we all too often overlook.  After all, no mater how long we think about it, more likely than not we’ll end up with justifying our desires.  It’s how we’re wired and trained since birth.  Our karma will win out, barring spontaneous enlightenment.  (Which is why Buddhists practice the Dharma rather than just think about it.)

The best way to determine what truly has an impact on our quality of life is to try living without it.  I believe everyone should take a stab at this kind of experimentation at some point in their lives.  I don’t mean for a week or two, or even a month, or even a summer.  At least a year is necessary, in my estimation.  It takes a year to get over our mental whining about how deprived we are and silence all the reassurances that we’ll soon get back whatever it was we gave up.  In a year, we start to adapt to this new way of life, take it for granted, and forget all the whining and reassurances.  Personally, I recommend three years, just because karma and consumer culture are pernicious weeds that grow back quickly.

As my personal example, I don’t really miss having a car.  I do miss eating out.  Not having a car is occasionally inconvenient, but is far outweighed by the time, money, and worry I save.  Whereas, cooking is the bane of my daily existence and not a chore I enjoy no matter how much I’ve tried to talk myself into it.  Had I the money, I would (and have in the past) reduced my cooking to a base minimum.  I  derive great comfort in spending that regained time in more enjoyable and productive pursuits (for me), like writing or spending time with friends or traveling.  Some people, I’m sure, would much rather keep their car and cook every day.  That’s okay.  Just so long as they don’t take it for granted or do it from habit alone.

So then, excess is that money which no longer has any ability to contribute to my happiness.  It cannot buy me safety, security, or comfort beyond what I already possess.  I could buy more insurance (assuming I had the money), certainly, but would I feel more secure?  I could install a house alarm, but would I feel safer?  I could buy the most expensive mattress made, but would I sleep one minute longer or one bit deeper?  Unless we do the experiment, it is easy to buy into the assumption that it will.  And the people who sell these things will go out of their way to convince us the answer is ‘yes.’

In oder to define excess, it is necessary to play with our lives – to try different things, different ways, modes, and even places of living, to look deeply into our personal, familial, and cultural karma.  We shouldn’t do this just when we’re young, but continuously as a process of ongoing cultivation and renewal.  Each person’s answer will naturally be different, but I think everyone will find that the external things that truly contribute to their happiness will be fewer than they might’ve thought.

That only leave one more question.  What do we do with the excess?  I don’t know about you, but I look forward to finding out.

2011 Roundup

‘Mustang Roundup’ by chantal forester via flickr.com

2011 saw the birth of Dharma Cowgirl, a phoenix from the ashes of its progenitor, Buddhist in Nebraska.  (Well, not exactly, but it’s a nice thought, no?)  So what caught people’s attention this year?  Not much, but that’s okay.  It’s nice being small.  No pressure.  It’s why I always get ‘B’s.  However, there were a few posts that stood out, some for slightly odd reasons (is ‘Calvin and Hobbes’ + ‘religion’ really that popular a google search term?), some because they were shared by other blogger friends (thank you!).

So here they are, in oder of popularity, the most read posts of 2011:

1. Marx and Buddhism

Buddhism and Marxism are both “deeply concerned about human suffering,” “agree that there is no creator God, or eternal soul,” recognizes interdependence, and understand some form of karma, both individual and social for Buddhists, and at least social for Marxists. (Brien, p. 35)

However, Buddhists diverge from Marx in their understanding of the causes of human suffering.

2. Shifting the Center, Part I

Over the course of a thousand years, from when Buddhism entered China in the first century of the common era to the Song dynasty (960-1279), the spiritual and physical emphasis of Buddhist monasteries gradually shifted.  The emphasis originally placed on the historical Buddha gradually changed to an emphasis on the ‘metaphorical’[1] buddhas of the past, present, and future and finally moved to the ‘living’ buddhas, the buddhanature of all people, the monks and nuns and, specifically, the personage of the abbot as enlightened master.  This change in spiritual emphasis was reflected in a corresponding architectural change.

3. Buddha Cat and the Existential Watermelon

A classmate pointed out that existentialism is like the first two of the Four Noble Truths.  Life is suffering and suffering is born from human desire.  What we want, what we don’t want, what we call ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are merely mental fabrications.  Meaning, and thus desire, is assigned, not inherent in the world.  But the existentialists stopped there.  They stood on the foundations of Western religion and philosophy (built on assumptions of ‘human nature’ and divine predestination), which had always assured them that life had greater purpose and meaning, that this watermelon was the best, only truth, and felt that world shake.  They freaked.

4. Talking Back to Bullies

Buddhists are generally assumed to be pacifists and generally I find most are peaceful people even when they eschew the label.  We spend a lot of time talking about love, kindness, compassion, and not harming others.  This might lead one to believe that Buddhists aren’t very powerful, that they seek not to be powerful, or that if they are, they exercise it only in the best of ways or not at all.  It might lead one to believe that all Buddhists get along.

Yet in the end, Buddhists react in many of the same ways to power as everyone else, regardless of whether they have more or less.  Those with more power exercise it as though they deserve it and those with less defer for the same reason.  Very often there is not much wrong with this paradigm.  Those with more power may also have more experience, more wisdom, more knowledge, in which case they may also know best what is to be done.

5. 101: The Four Noble Truths

Finally, we come to it at last, where the Dharma is reduced practically to blasphemy through application of the K.I.S.S. principle.

1. Life sucks.
2. Life sucks ’cause we want stuff.
3. Life don’t gotta suck.
4. There’s a Path for that.

6. The Monk and The Mercedes

Tommy was seven  when the last American troops pulled out of Vietnam in 1975.  His father was an officer in the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam.  He was jailed when the communists came to power.  Tommy became the man of his family, consisting of his mother and three sisters.  This was a precarious position for a boy who might grow up to follow in the footsteps of his father and oppose the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.  In order to protect his life, his mother got him false identity papers and his aunt, a Buddhist nun, arranged for him to be sent from his home in Nha Trang to her monastery as a novice.  Tommy remembers being woken up early in the morning for chanting and meditation.

7. Wendi Adamek’s ‘The Mystique of Transmission’

This book primarily concerns the Lidai faboa ji(Record of the Dharma-Jewel Through the Generations) composed sometime between 744 and 780 CE by the short-lived Bao Tang sect of Chan at the Bao Tang Monastery in Yizhou, Jiannan (Sichuan), regarding their master Wuzhu (714-774).  The manuscript was long lost, though known about and quoted in other sources, and only rediscovered in the Dunhuang caves in 1900.  The book “has been called a fabric of self-promoting fictions,” and was largely regarded as such from its beginning.  However, that does not mean its influence was not and perhaps is still felt on the larger fabric of Chan literature,  “In this study I argue that the fabrications in the Lindai fabao ji are not simply inaccurate Chan history but faithfully reflect a temporary crisis in the meaning of spiritual transmission.”(pages 3-6)

8. Renunciation, Part I

The Pali word most frequently translated as ‘renunciation’ is nekkhamma. Per Access to Insight,nekkhamma means “Renunciation; literally, ‘freedom from sensual lust.’ One of the ten paramis,” or ten perfections of character. The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary defines it as “giving up the world & [sic] leading a holy life, renunciation of, or emancipation from worldliness, freedom from lust, craving & desires, dispassionateness, self – abnegation” and lists a number of sources within the Pali Cannon. Renunciation is equated with “secluded from sensual pleasures” in the Petakopadesa 7.72, although this sutta is considered supplementary in Sri Lanka and Thailand, but fully part of the Tripitaka in Burma/Myanmar. In addition, the word nekkhamma appears in relation to vitakka, or directed thought, where renunciation is a type/object of vitakka, such as resolve to renunciation or nekkhamma-sakkappa.

9. “Professionalizing” Chaplaincy

In addition, I find that the professionalization of many disciplines is being carried out for egocentric principles – not because it is in the best interest of those whom the profession serves, but because it is in the best interest of the professionals.  …  As a legal mechanism, it often gives the professions some form of self-regulatory authority, such as through state recognized licensure standards which disadvantage diversity (of educational path, not race or ethnicity necessarily) and low-socioeconomic individuals.  In other words, professionalization functions to exclude more than to protect.  I would not want to see chaplaincy or the job of ethicist subject to such restrictive and self-defeating processes.

10. Many Sides of Struggle

Three

“As I think about the work of the chaplain, I struggle with feelings of inadequacy.  How can I possibly meet the diverse needs of my clients?  I have such great respect for chaplaincy  and feel that much rests on my shoulders that I am ill-equipped to handle.  How direct and assertive should I be in order to be an effective pastor and counselor?  What if I get in over my depth?  How can I tell when I have done enough?  I want so much to do the right thing and to be a healing, compassionate influence, yet I have doubts about how effective I can be.”