Awakening Through Story: Buddhist Chaplaincy and the Power of Narrative
Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
The Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program
Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, NM
Trace Tessier
March 2012 - March 2014
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 2
Table of Contents
Abstract 3
Acknowledgements 4
1 Introduction and Motivation 5
2 Study and Learning – Literature Review 10 2.1 Applications of Story in Chaplaincy and in the Healing Arts 10 2.2 The Essence of the Contemplative Approach 14 2.3 Compatibility with Buddhist Practice 23 2.4 Healing the Distress of Modernity 27
3 Inner Chaplaincy – Spiritual Formation and the Articulation of a ‘Theology 35 of Ministry’
4 Outer Chaplaincy – A Pilot Project 40 4.1 Choosing a Narrative and Initial Insights 42 4.2 Deepening the Inquiry and Finding Closure 45 4.3 Reconnecting to and Conversing with the Sacred 49
5 Narrative Contemplation and Practical Chaplaincy – Identifying General 52 Principles 5.1 Unpacking the Format of the Workshop 53 5.1.1 Permission 53 5.1.2 Autonomy 55 5.1.3 Perspective 56 5.1.4 Validation 59 5.2 Future Directions – Narrative Contemplation and Elder Care 60
Appendix A (Workshop participants group photo) 64
Appendix B (Mollie’s picture) 65
Appendix C (Kelly’s excerpt from Same Kind of Different as Me) 66
Appendix D (Sandi’s list of friendship quotes) 67
Appendix E (Mollie’s short story) 69
Appendix F (Meg’s quilt) 70
Appendix G (Kelly’s poem) 71
Appendix H (Susan’s painting and life-story ‘rewrite’) 72
References 73
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 3
Abstract
The Buddha saw clearly the vital importance of cultivating the capacity to recognize, appreciate, nurture, and be nourished by the deeply mysterious, often painful, and yet strangely complete and harmonious nature of phenomenal existence; an invaluable endeavor both in the context of individual spiritual practice, and in terms of our fundamental engagement with the world as chaplains. Toward this end, I propose that contemplative study, active reinterpretation, and creative expression of our ever-evolving understanding of the narrative strains that call to us on an intuitive level gives rise to an intimate process that can be practiced in solitude or readily shared with others, and which in either case excels at creating and strengthening a profound sense of connectedness and wholeness. After highlighting and synthesizing relevant observations from the current literature, the potential of this approach will be investigated in two complementary and yet mutually supportive ways. First, I will argue that a direct and ongoing dialogue with the foundational stories, myths, and legends of Buddhism (as well as that of other philosophical and spiritual traditions), can be invaluable in clarifying, supporting, and enriching both one’s personal practice and one’s service in the world as a chaplain. Second, I will report on the results of a seven-week ‘pilot project’, during which time I guided five volunteers participating in a combination of tai chi exercises, mindfulness practices, and the contemplation and eventual reinterpretation of personally meaningful stories or other narrative-provoking experiences of their choosing; all culminating in individual creative expressions of their insights.
The format of this mini-workshop is then further unpacked in terms of four discernible stages; each of which is found to have engendered a fundamental and advantageous shift in our group’s relationship to the realm of story. Finally, I end by proposing several directions for potential future research along these lines, focusing in particular on the field of elder care.
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 4
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who helps to sustain the nurturing and transformative container of Upaya Zen Center’s Chaplaincy Training Program.
Special thanks especially to Roshi Joan Halifax, the architect and heart of the program, the inexhaustibly patient Program Director Maia Duerr, and Sensei Hozan Alan Senauke for his wise and grounded presence and teachings. Many thanks also to the amazing residents and staff.
I am also indebted to the many faculty members and visiting teachers from whom I have had the privilege of learning including: Irene Bakker, Stephen Batchelor, Joseph Bobrow, Brian
Byrnes, Ram Dass, Malka Drucker, Norman Fischer, Bernie Glassman, Merle Lefkoff, Laurie
Leitch, Noah Levine, Cheri Maples, David Martinez, Fleet Maull, Richard Murphy, Shinzan
Palma, Ray Olson, Peggy Patterson, Erika Rosenberg, Javier Sicilia and the Caravan for Peace and Social Justice, Kazuaki Tanahashi, Robert Thomas, Sarah Vekasi, and Pierre Zimmerman.
I offer my gratitude to everyone in cohort 4 for your welcoming presence and guidance, to my compatriots in cohort 5 for your generosity of spirit and companionship along the way, and to cohort 6 for your contagious enthusiasm. Special thanks to my program mentor Donna
Kwilosz for her unwavering support, wisdom, and kindness, and to the other members of our mentoring circle (Anya, Pamela, Ted, and Wade) for your insight and friendship. My deepest appreciation also to the members of cohort 6 (David, Gillian, Judy, Karin, and William), whom I have had the great fortune of serving as mentor, and who have taught me so much.
Finally, a very special thank you to my teacher Sensei Beate Stolte, who’s wisdom, encouragement, relentlessly questioning mind, and genuine kindness are constant inspirations to me; to the courageous women (Kelly, Meg, Mollie, Sandi, and Susan) who participated in the narrative pilot project; to my parents, family, and friends; and especially to my wife Lori, my best friend and the love of my life, for her enthusiastic support, friendship, and love. Thank you!
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 5
Awakening Through Story: Buddhist Chaplaincy and the Power of Narrative
1 Introduction and Motivation
“Stories…readily incorporate themselves into our felt experience; the shifts of action echo and resonate our own encounters—in hearing or telling the story we vicariously live it, and the travails of its characters embed themselves into our own flesh.” – David Abram
Everyone knows the feeling of being gripped by a compelling story. From our first bedtime story to campfire tales, epic poems, TV news magazine programs, the enviable obituary we hope to leave behind, and everything in between, at one time or another each of us has been captivated by a plotline, discovered that we were strongly identified with a particular character or scene, or simply came to recognize how we continually tell ourselves and others the story that is our life. Maybe it is a book, a film, a play, or a yarn told in a hushed voice by a conspiratorial grandparent that strikes some inner chord. Or maybe a storyline somehow subtly insinuates itself in the mind; inspired by a piece of music or art.
Regardless of the source or the medium, certain narrative forms possess formidable power to command our interest. Though the specifics of exactly what speaks to each of us may differ in terms of topic, genre, style, presentation, and a host of other factors, upon a little reflection each of us can probably list several stories that we consider to be deeply and personally meaningful – even if we cannot immediately put into words exactly why we feel this way. Far from simply being an interesting albeit harmless idiosyncrasy, such strongly felt identifications might hold the key to unlocking a deeper understanding of the unconscious metaphors and narratives that shape and inform our attitudes and relationships; both toward ourselves and toward others.
While we all have our own favorites, cherished in large part because of our unique experiences and individual temperaments, there is no denying the existence of certain recurrent themes that run through the myths, legends, fables, poetry, art, and song of humankind as a
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 6 whole. Not only does this observed commonality imply the possibility of creating healing and nourishing relationships through the medium of story-telling and story-sharing as it has been practiced since antiquity in the process of council (Zimmerman & Coyle, 1996, pp. 72 - 75). It also suggests that, as we glean insights about ourselves by deeply contemplating the stories that hold meaning for us, we are also learning profound lessons about our world and those with whom we share it. In this vein, David Loy highlights the unique capacity of stories to inspire, lend insight, remind us of those oh-so-important lessons that we already know but so easily forget, and do grave damage when we mistake them for reality, in his suggestively titled book
The World is Made of Stories (2010).
Yet there is also the ever-present danger that the stories we tell ourselves and others could easily become an escape mechanism; a means of avoiding the painful realities of our lives.
According to Zen teacher Norman Fischer, it was just this recognition that led the Buddha to devise the doctrine of ‘no-self’, not as he puts it, because the self does not exist, but because
“every story, by hooking us to its plotline and shaping us through its narrative structure, says far too much that is not true, and far too little that is” (2008, p. 15). It is important to point out, however, that this admonition forms just one small portion of an entire book dedicated to the transformative and healing power of story; in this case, a reinterpretation of Homer’s epic tale
The Odyssey as a roadmap of the spiritual journey.
In any event, we must acknowledge that the mistaking of our internal narratives for reality is, for most of us, a deeply ingrained habit. Fortunately, the Buddha also proposes a corrective to our automatic tendency to unquestioningly believe our thoughts: mindfulness. As meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg so clearly puts it,
Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what’s happening and
the stories we tell ourselves about what’s happening, stories that get in the way of direct
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 7
experience. Often such stories treat a fleeting state of mind as if it were our entire and
permanent self (2010, p. 13).
In this thesis, I propose that consciously, mindfully, and purposively engaging with narrative as a lens through which to better understand and appreciate our lives – and ultimately, like meditation, as something that wields a capacity to point beyond itself – offers another way of seeing through the veil that is cast over direct experience when we ‘mis-take’ our thoughts, concepts, and stories for reality. Elaborating upon this framework, I go on to consider how we as
Buddhist practitioners might learn to skillfully tap into the timeless current of humanity’s great narrative flow without becoming caught in a whirlpool of self-cherishing or self-denigration, being pulled out to sea by a riptide of worry or regret, or finding ourselves endlessly floundering on the shores of daydream and fantasy. Likewise, from the perspective of chaplaincy, I inquire into the ways that an increased appreciation for the role of story, grounded in meditative practice and complemented by a cultivated ability to identify and actively work with the metaphors which guide our lives, can inspire, inform, and enhance both our work as agents of change, and our relationships with those we serve. Said another way, this paper is an inquiry into how the intersection of various ancient and modern narrative forces can shape and inform the vision, motivation, and modes of worldly engagement of today’s Buddhist practitioner and chaplain, while simultaneously yielding a simple technique that invites people of any (or no) faith to embark on their own personal journeys of insight and discovery.
As a means of lending structure to this investigation, while at the same time rooting the discussion firmly at the crossroads of time-honored wisdom and contemporary knowledge, a substantial portion of this work will consist of an integrative literature review, presented in Sec.
2. Here I combine insights gleaned from recent research on the role of metaphor in shaping human understanding and behavior with key findings in such diverse fields as: critical and
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 8 contemplative approaches to reinterpreting mythic and religious texts, the science of cognition and the biological roots of knowledge, spirituality and its connection to the process of maturation, and investigations into the relationship between concepts, language, and the natural world – all of which will be seen to have surprising and informative correlates in the Dharma.
Whereas Sec. 2 is envisioned as the learning piece of this work, the following two sections are meant to illustrate, respectively, possible inner and outer chaplaincy applications of these ideas. Specifically, Sec. 3 considers the potential efficacy of contemplatively studying those myths, legends, and stories that call to us – both as practitioners and as chaplains – in a personal way. In addition to presenting some of my own thoughts arising from these considerations, this portion of the text will illustrate how a cyclic process of interpretive engagement with the foundational tales that shape one’s chosen spiritual tradition can prove invaluable in at least two ways. First, it can provide the inspiration, direction, and ongoing support that lend vitality and freshness to one’s personal practice. Second, it can aid the chaplain in (and perhaps even guide the chaplain through) an individual process of self-assessment and definition; culminating in what has been referred to in the literature as the articulation of a
“theology of ministry” (Fisher, 2013, loc. 339), and providing the impetus to deeply consider what one most wants to bring to the world.
By its very nature, this is a personal inquiry – one that is perhaps best engaged in directly and privately in order to receive full benefit. Yet, it is also conceivable that such an endeavor proceeds just as well, and maybe even better, when shared and accomplished with others. For, as
Norman Fischer contends, to contemplate something deeply, especially in the context of a group or community, is one of the greatest activities that we as human beings have ever devised (2012).
In either case, the required ability to ‘look deeply’ when engaged in such study implies the need for an underlying and supportive meditative practice in order to achieve best results.
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Conversely, this same observation can also be taken as a strong recommendation in favor of contemplative study and investigation as being an ideal complement to the type of pre- conceptual awareness one seeks to directly experience in meditation. Finally, the serendipitous concordance expounded in Sec. 2, unifying the seemingly diverse areas of knowledge alluded to above, suggests the possibility of developing a structured program, suitable for use in both individual and group settings, for relating to life-shaping stories and events in increasingly reflective and mindful ways. Such an approach would, first and foremost, be supportive of an open-ended encounter with one’s chosen narrative; holding out the possibility of an ever- widening and ever-deepening exploration. Yet, at the same time, it would include methods for marking and valorizing those realizations and breakthroughs in understanding that inevitably occur as the process unfolds. Ultimately, the resulting techniques might one day hold promise both as personal growth practices and as chaplaincy-type interventions.
As a tentative first step in this direction, I report in Sec. 4 on the results of a seven-week
‘pilot project’. Throughout this time I guided a group of five volunteers who participated in a combination of tai chi exercises, mindfulness practices, and the contemplation and eventual reinterpretation of personally meaningful stories/narrative-provoking experiences of their own choosing. The capstone of this mini-workshop was a presentation to the group of each individual’s creative/artistic expression of her1 personal insights, enhanced understandings, and meaningful encounters with forgotten or long-ignored interior landscapes; all facilitated by the power of narrative. In this brief period of time our group discovered that awareness brought to ingrained and previously unconscious thought and action-shaping metaphorical processes can encourage certain liberating shifts to occur – from reactivity to responsiveness, from a feeling that one’s life story is fragmented and incomplete to an ever-evolving sense of coherence and
1 All five workshop participants are females that have studied tai chi with me.
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 10 purposefulness, and from a generalized sense of resignation to a newfound appreciation for the vicissitudes of daily life – all by combining mindfulness practices with the willingness and cultivated ability to see old stories in new ways. Finally, in section 5, I attempt to identify a set of general principles arising out of the pilot project in support of chaplains who might wish to utilize narrative contemplation and interpretation as a possible intervention in their own work, and suggest several directions for future research along these lines.
2 Study and Learning – Literature Review
2.1 Applications of Story in Chaplaincy and in the Healing Arts
“May you be happy, and, in being happy, spread happiness to others. May you be well, and, in being well, tend to those who are not well. May you be peaceful, and, in being peaceful, cultivate a more just and loving world.” – Rev. Danny Fisher
From what has been said so far, it is apparent that our first goal must be to glean deeper insight into what it might mean to formulate a coherent a vision of chaplaincy that is capable of incorporating narrative in a personally meaningful, nourishing, and inspiring way, while at the same time retaining a sense of broad inclusivity and openness. Although such an approach is by no means novel, it is perhaps only in the last two decades that inquiries of this type have garnered much attention. In fact, it was not until the 1960’s that the medical establishment as a whole even began to recognize the phenomenon of reminiscence, often exhibited to a high degree among the elderly, as a natural and healthy activity, rather than as a sign of senility
(Butler, 1963). Fortunately nowadays, in addition to broad-based seminal works on the key societal roles played by myth and legend in traditional oral cultures, the comparative study of which highlights humanity’s basic sameness and “compels us to view the cultural history of mankind as a unit” (Campbell, 1991, p. 3), one also readily encounters a multitude of focused studies detailing the successful application of story and remembrance in disciplines such as the healing arts and chaplaincy care. Some of the specific techniques investigated in these areas
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 11 include: the construction of ‘personal legacies’ (either scrapbooks or audio recordings of meaningful stories) which are found “to decrease caregiving stress and increase family communication among individuals with chronic, life-limiting illnesses and their family caregivers” (Allen, Hilgeman, Ege, Shuster, & Burgio, 2008, p. 1029), the development of
‘ethical wills’ (written statements that capture “one’s values, wisdom, hopes, and advice”) that show promise as a method for reducing suffering at the end of life (Gessert, Baines, Kuross,
Clark, & Haller, 2004, p. 517), and various methods for facilitating the telling of one’s life story that often lead to “catharsis, integration, meaning-making, and the enhancement of relationships” among individuals confronting death (Brady, 1999, p. 176).
Another novel intervention that culminates in the creation of a tangible record of one’s life story is dignity therapy; a psychotherapeutic technique that invites terminally ill patients to discuss those issues that are deemed most important, or that they wish to have recorded for posterity. The result is a final transcript of the sessions that can be bequeathed to a loved one. In keeping with the other studies mentioned above, the investigators involved in this particular project likewise conclude that “Dignity therapy shows promise as a novel therapeutic intervention for suffering and distress at the end of life” (Chochinov et al., 2005, p. 5520).
It is noteworthy that the transcripts of the dignity therapy sessions are available for and even encouraged to be edited by the patient, with the goal of arriving at a clear and cohesive final version. The vital importance of such overall coherence in our personal narratives has been studied in detail by James W. Pennebaker who notes that, in sessions consisting of writing exercises performed with people who have experienced traumatic events, those who experience the greatest benefits are those who do not simply write, but construct stories:
On the first day of writing, they would often tell about a traumatic episode that simply
described an experience, often out of sequence and disorganized. But day by day, as they
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 12
continued to write, the episode would take on shape as a coherent story with a clear
beginning, middle, and end. Ironically, participants who started the study with a clear,
coherent, and well-organized story rarely evidenced any health improvements…Just as
we are drawn to good stories in literature or the movies, we need to construct coherent
and meaningful stories for ourselves. Good narratives or stories, then, organize
seemingly infinite facets of overwhelming events. Once organized, the events are often
smaller and easier to deal with (Pennebaker, 1997, p. 103).
In other words, one of the most important uses of story is to help us to effectively deal with the fragmentation that we find in our lives and our stories; a sense of fragmentation that is often exacerbated by the contemporary, pluralistic society in which we find ourselves.
Yet this is not to say that the multitude of theories, beliefs, and opinions that interleave to undergird our modern worldview is inherently problematic. In fact, it is one of the great strengths of the Upaya chaplaincy program that a vast array of different strains of thought, involving ideas arising out of most if not all of the disciplines herein considered, are continually being woven together in ever-evolving ways; and always against a backdrop of sustained meditative practice. Thus, it is no surprise that some important work along the lines I am proposing has already been done within the context of this program. In particular, cohort three graduate Bruce Cowgill’s thesis, Completing the Enso, presents an inspiring synthesis of insights from the point of view of, as he puts it, “general systems theory, Zen Buddhism, shamanism, and neuroscience” to examine “the general domains of metaphor, archetype, embodiment, and voice as a means of sketching some of the features of the chaplain’s character and education” (2012, p.
2). In the course of this inquiry, he even manages to use the much-loved story Pinocchio and an example from the world of puppetry to skillfully illustrate metaphor’s power to fundamentally transform one’s way of being in the world (Cowgill, 2012, pp. 50 - 57).
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There is no question that the present work exhibits a good deal of overlap with Cowgill’s thesis concerning many of the areas of knowledge considered, and perhaps even among the motivating questions and goals guiding the two projects. Yet, in the end, two very different approaches are being taken right from the start; with each emphasizing certain insights while downplaying others, identifying those connections deemed particularly relevant by the author in question and, ultimately, arriving at conclusions that exhibit a fundamental interdependence between the questions being asked and the perspective of the questioner.
All of this turns out to be a powerful illustration of one of the most important claims put forward by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson in their groundbreaking study of metaphors and the roles they play in structuring human thoughts, attitudes, and actions – an observation that underpins a great deal of what follows. In short, they propose that metaphor is not simply a feature of language but, being more basic, actually underlies language itself. As they put it, “Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature…[and] plays a central role in defining our everyday realities” (Lakoff &
Johnson, 2003, Chapter 1). What this suggests is that metaphors not only determine, in large part, how we understand what we understand, but that they also constrain the range of ideas and concepts we are capable of understanding, as well as the insights about ourselves and our lives that we might conceivably experience; all dependent on the current state of our underlying metaphorical structure.
Further, because this pre-linguistic apparatus normally operates in the realm of the subconscious, the powerful influence it exerts on our attitudes, worldviews, modes of perception, and learning tends to go unnoticed. Only when such limiting factors are brought to light can they be transformed or abandoned, as necessary. Given this context, I suggest that contemplative engagement with story can help to uncover here-to-fore unrecognized and unquestioned
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 14 metaphorical assumptions; in other words, to learn something new and unexpected about ourselves and our world by working with, and perhaps altering, the very structures that shape our attitudes, understanding, and knowledge. It is to an investigation of those features of narrative interpretation, criticism, and study which are conducive to such discoveries and transformations that we now turn.
2.2 The Essence of the Contemplative Approach
“In short, it is by interpreting that we can hear again.” – Paul Ricoeur
Perhaps the most well-known etymology of the word ‘religion’ derives from a translation due to the early Christian author Lucius Lactantius (and later popularized by St. Augustine) of the Latin religare – “to reconnect” ("Religion," n.d., para. 1). But how is this reconnection to be accomplished, and to what might we endeavor to reconnect? These are important questions to consider, both from the point of view of individual spiritual practice, and in terms of how chaplains are perceived by the wider community as representatives of ‘faith-based’ traditions.
The world’s various religious inheritances, Buddhism notwithstanding, all include their own doctrines, mythologies, shared beliefs, and recommended techniques as proposed answers to these fundamental questions. However, in the present context, an earlier interpretation of the word ‘religion’, first attributed to the Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero, offers an intriguing alternative viewpoint. His proposed etymology, tracing back to the Latin relegere, yields instead the translation “to reread” in the sense of “go over again” or “consider carefully”
("Religion," n.d., para. 1).
Exemplifying the suppleness and incisiveness possible given such a shift in perspective,
Buddhist teacher and commentator Stephen Batchelor both extols, and then proceeds to demonstrate the virtues of an approach informed by this lesser-known etymology in his presentation of what he terms “a secular approach to Buddhism” (Batchelor & Halifax, 2013).
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By emphasizing the value to be found in a critical rereading of the earliest texts from the Pali
Canon, always with an eye toward questioning and reevaluating certain doctrinally held ideas in the light of our modern worldview, he arrives at an unorthodox and yet profoundly relevant interpretation of the ‘four noble truths’. Specifically, Batchelor contends that in formulating his most foundational teachings, the Buddha’s original intention was not, as it is often presented, to outline a description of the world and its rules of operation in terms of four articles of faith, i.e. the ‘truth claims’ that (i) life is suffering, (ii) craving is the origin of suffering, (iii) the cessation of suffering is Nirvana, and (iv) the eightfold path leads to the cessation of suffering.2 Rather, he sees the concerns of the Buddha as having been much more pragmatic; in effect, reinterpreting the four noble truths as set of four tasks to be practiced and accomplished as a way of living wholeheartedly in the here-and-now. These tasks are, to: Embrace suffering; Let go of craving;
Stop long enough to experience and valorize the cessation of craving whenever it happens to subside; and finally to Act (from this place where craving has subsided) in accord with the eightfold path – a formulation captured in the mnemonic ELSA (Batchelor & Halifax, 2013).
Such an exploration, which undoubtedly amounts to nothing less than heresy in the eyes of many adherents of the Buddha’s teachings, nevertheless highlights an ongoing movement that is crucial for today’s Buddhist chaplain to be cognizant of – the tendency towards secularization.
Identified as one of the most fundamental differences between the time in which the Buddha lived and our own era, it has been argued that “the scientific and social innovations that have restructured our world are the result of a shift from supernatural explanations to an empirical rationality that casts doubt on all religious beliefs” (Loy, 1997, p. 2). In this context “the contemporary world seems to have a decreasing need for increasingly dubious forms of
2 The four noble truths are offered here in a commonly encountered form that unfortunately does not do justice to their depth and subtlety. For an in-depth analysis from a more traditional perspective, please see His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama’s insightful book The Four Noble Truths (1997).
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 16 transcendence”, giving rise to “[a] dualism…between the natural and the supernatural [that] is generally alien to pre-modern societies” (Loy, 1997, p. 2).
Postponing for a moment a discussion of the vital importance of a chaplain’s ability to remain open to any and all beliefs or opinions about the appropriate way to interpret the four noble truths (or, for that matter, any religious doctrine), we find that the foregoing discussion also exemplifies a fundamental and far-reaching interdependence between one’s worldview and one’s way of encountering some of the more mysterious elements of existence. It might seem remarkable to someone raised in a scientifically and technologically informed society, where rationality is so highly regarded, to learn that not so long ago (on the timescale of human civilization), there simply did not exist any notion of, nor language around, the distinction between what we now commonly refer to as ‘natural’ vs. ‘supernatural’ explanations of events.
The contrast between these ‘primitive’ and modern depictions thus provides evidence both of a continual and ongoing shift in the direction of increasing fragmentation of worldview, and of the phenomenal power wielded by the metaphorical context in which a particular culture is immersed (and may not even realize it has imbibed) to shape what its members are capable of perceiving, thinking, understanding, and imagining.
Accordingly, with our interest piqued by this first encounter between the mysterium and our contemporary need for rational explanation, we reconsider the activities of contemplative reading and study from a somewhat different perspective; by pondering the potential efficacy of cultivating an attitude of ‘Beginner’s Mind’ i.e., a stance characterized by vastness, boundlessness, and self-sufficiency (Suzuki, 1993, p. 21 - 22). As Shunryu Suzuki Roshi puts it, in encountering and contemplating experience
You should not lose your self-sufficient state of mind. This does not mean a closed mind,
but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready
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for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many
possibilities; in the expert’s there are few (1993, p. 21).
Making what appears to be a very similar point, albeit in a more focused context, Norman
Fischer counsels us to “not simply assume that we will be able to understand what we are reading, at least not fully or in our usual way” when engaged in the contemplative study of the writings of Zen master Eihii Dögen (2012, pt. 1). Instead, we are encouraged from this point of view to allow insights to emerge on their own, as natural outcomes of our deep involvement with a particular narrative, rather than to constrain what we allow ourselves to think based solely on what happens to fit with our current worldview or system of beliefs, or to rely too heavily on rational analysis and logical reasoning. This is not to say that the rational mind has no role to play in this type of study; only that the narratives most amenable to contemplative investigation are often not trying to explain something as much as to help us directly experience their teachings for ourselves. Fischer nicely captures Dögen’s perspective on the appropriate way to relate to this perceived tension between intuition, rationality, and direct experience when he states that “The truth is not some transcendent epiphany. It is right here, right now. It is bigger than the logical mind, but includes it. It does not transcend or lie beyond it” (2012, pt. 5B). In other words, if we abandon our language and throw away our capacity to think logically, we are misunderstanding the Buddha’s teaching as well as our own lives. Yet, at the same time, we also need to be cognizant of and open to other ways of ‘knowing’.
As alluded to above, this ability to see beyond our own preconceptions is also vital to chaplains since, ideally, “Chaplains help those they serve draw upon their own unique values, views and beliefs as beneficial resources—whether those same values, views and beliefs are held by the chaplain or not” (Fisher, 2013, loc. 92 - 99). Thus, if we can recognize and appreciate the metaphors, stories, beliefs, and other ways of knowing that are already in place in any given
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 18 encounter as valuable, preexisting resources, we will have already gone quite a ways toward both finding a common language, and coming to a better understanding of the situation. In this sense the cultivation of ‘Beginner’s Mind’ supports efforts to skillfully engage with the narratives that shape our own thinking and perception, as well as with those favored by the individuals and institutions which we serve as chaplains.
This is not to suggest that the critical style of reflection often employed in secular contexts is in any way incompatible with the openness of approach being recommended by
Suzuki Roshi and Norman Fischer; only that it perhaps results in a slightly different flavor of interpretation. Compare, for example, Stephen Batchelor’s explication of the seventh century
Indian scholar-monk Dharmakirti’s philosophical views on reality, emptiness, and meditation:
To be real, in Dharmakirti’s terms, means to be capable of producing effects in the
concrete world. Thus a seed, a jug, wind in the trees, a desire, a thought, the pain in
one’s knees, another person: these are what are real. Emptiness of inherent existence,
by contrast, is just a conceptual and linguistic abstraction. It may serve as a strategic
idea, but it lacks the vital reality of a rosebud, the beating of one’s heart, or a crying
child. The aim of meditation, for Dharmakirti, was not to gain mystical insight into
emptiness, but to arrive at an unfiltered experience of the fluctuating, contingent, and
suffering world (2010, loc. 563).
I for one would be hard-pressed to argue that, at least in this particular case, any of these teachers is saying something fundamentally different from the others. And yet each presentation has a distinctive feel, based as they are on personally unique combinations of life experiences and embodied metaphorical structures which, at first glance, may appear antithetical or incommensurable to one another. Taken together however, the preceding examples of diverse, yet mutually supportive and complementary ways of encountering a text, doctrine, tale, or
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 19 moment of experience with fresh eyes yield a broad foundation upon which profoundly transformative shifts in attitude and understanding become possible.
Importantly for our purposes, in the course of laying out a methodology that nicely combines these hallmarks of a critical, open-minded, and self-sufficient approach to the discipline of narrative interpretation, philosopher Paul Ricoeur extols the virtues of adopting a very specific stance, deemed crucial to the success of a reflective and hermeneutical encounter with myth, legend, and story, which he dubs a ‘second naiveté’ (1986, p. 351). Moving beyond our first naiveté, characterized by an unquestioning acceptance of religious text and lore as literal truth, while simultaneously avoiding the looming pitfall of a simple-minded, mocking skepticism that is incapable of shedding any further light, the second naiveté aims at “an interpretation that respects the original enigma of the symbols, that lets itself be taught by them, but that, beginning from there, promotes the meaning, forms the meaning in the full responsibility of autonomous thought” (Ricoeur, 1986, p. 349 - 350).
This recommended mode of engagement is to be envisioned as a cyclic process, one which we can choose to begin at any point, and to proceed with indefinitely; an ongoing encounter in which both story and interpreter continually coevolve as a result of their mutual interaction. In Ricoeur’s own words, this recurring pattern emerges because “We must understand in order to believe, but we must believe in order to understand. The circle is not a vicious circle, still less a moral one; it is a living and stimulating circle” (1986, p. 351). Hence, like the cycle of the breath, our ongoing attempts to reinterpret and continually seek new meanings in the stories that call out to us can have both a sustaining and a revivifying effect; on the tale as well as on ourselves and our larger world. As Jungian psychologist Marie-Louise von
Franz views it from the perspective of her chosen field, “The religious dimension in analysis is
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 20 nothing other than finding new meaning…that sometimes brings already existing religious ideas back to life, and sometimes transforms them” (Von Franz, 1993, p. 183).
The harmonizing influences of such cyclical modes of engagement are also well known among various indigenous and oral cultures. For example Navajos, who through particular rites wish to reawaken the hozho of their surroundings, must first establish this same sense of natural alignment and peacefulness within themselves. Then only does it become possible that,
After a person has projected hozho into the air through ritual form, he then, at the
conclusion of the ritual, breathes that hozho back into himself and makes himself a part
of the order, harmony, and beauty he has projected into the world through the ritual
mediums of speech and song (Witherspoon, 1977, p. 61).
Perhaps surprisingly, this same basic process of cyclical interaction can also be recognized as occurring in the minds of many of today’s cognitive scientists as they attempt to discern features of, and articulate theories concerning the nature of, the mind-body connection:
We reflect on a world that is not made, but found, and yet it is also our structure that
enables us to reflect upon this world. Thus in reflection we find ourselves in a circle: we
are in a world that seems to be there before reflection begins, but that world is not
separate from us (Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991, loc. 141).
And so it is that we never enter the circle naked, like a blank slate awaiting the wisdom of a particular narrative to simply be writ upon us. Even the commonly held assumption that there is something called ‘information’, residing ‘out there’ and waiting to be learned or discovered, must be looked at anew. For, “When we include in our reflection on a question the asker of the question and the process of asking itself…then the question receives a new life and meaning”
(Varela et al., 1991, loc. 478). All of our questing and questioning, all of our attempts at deeper knowledge, all of the conclusions we are capable of drawing at a particular time, are shaped and
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 21 conditioned by our current level of understanding; in turn dependent on our prior experience and learning, even on our biological and cultural evolution, ad infinitum. It is in this vast sense that we appreciate Ricoeur’s “We must understand in order to believe.”
But then, given this relationship between understanding and belief, how are we to cultivate the faith necessary to complete each full revolution around the hermeneutic circle?
According to Ricoeur, the interpretive process he has in mind requires “a kinship of thought with what the life [of the interpreter] aims at” (1986, p. 352). Thus, it appears that intimate connection with our aspirations, motivations, most pressing questions, and greatest doubts – to paraphrase Ricoeur, those things toward which we might most fruitfully orient our lives – when nourished and sustained by continual efforts to understand and appreciate ever more profoundly that which is most intuitively meaningful to us, can be more than enough to nurture faith and allow it to deepen our understanding.
Of course, this is easier said than done. The Buddha himself acknowledged the challenges inherent in the kind of deeply reflective life he recommends by vividly describing the practice of the Dharma as going ‘against the stream’ (Levine, 2012). For example, the four noble truths alluded to above, whether upheld as dogma or interpreted as four tasks forming the practical basis of a program for human flourishing, ask us to live in a way that is in some sense diametrically opposed to the direction that cultures, civilizations, and societies, as well as our own minds that have been strongly conditioned by these forces, tend to move.
One current that is particularly strong in our own day and age, which I suggest both arises from and actively supports the perverted exploitation of an ever-increasing sense of alienation among both individuals and larger societal structures, and which is in turn made possible by the aforementioned fragmentation of worldview, is that powered by the story of ‘progress’:
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 22
With the rise of the modern world, a distinctly modern faith—faith in progress—arose to
make sense of, and give ultimate meaning to the new notions and institutions that were
now dominant. Our deep reverence for science and technology was inextricably linked
up with this faith in progress. The universal enforcement of the nation-state was carried
out under the banner of progress. And increasing conformity with the rule of economics,
and intensified beliefs in its laws, are still shadows of this enlightened faith (Sbert, 2010,
p. 212).
In this light we can interpret the following quote by Norman Fischer as a telling commentary – both pointing out the tremendous cost to our sense of meaning and purpose, and suggesting a potential way through – on what happens when we trade a faith rooted in our deepest aspirations and most penetrating questions for one based on the prevailing metaphor of ‘more is better’:
Present-day society doesn’t offer us much in the way of vision. Instead of vision we have
consumption, in place of the journey we have the mortgage. We are enjoined to go to
well-lit, merchandise-rich stores to shop for our true satisfaction, rather than to
rummage around for it in the obscure corners of the soul…To sail out onto the sea of
stories, ride the inner waves of fear, courage, and endurance, so that we can come home
with some sense of joy and grandeur, we need a vision more meaningful than what the
mundane, present world has to offer (2008, p. 56).
And so, like the old adage ‘fight fire with fire’, we once again find ourselves faced with the possibility that the best way to remedy the effects of a narrative gone awry – in the present case, the loss of vision that results from being swept up by consumerism and the concomitant impact that this has on our aspirations for and actions in the world – is with another story; one that is thoughtfully and contemplatively interpreted or crafted.
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2.3 Compatibility with Buddhist Practice
“Wonder of wonders! All beings are perfect, whole, and complete, just as they are! But because the minds of men and women are turned upside down through delusive thinking, they fail to perceive this!” – Siddhartha Gautama, on becoming awakened
Of particular relevance to Buddhist chaplains is the fact, reported throughout the mindfulness/awareness tradition, that the “openness and sensitivity” experienced during meditation, which frees the practitioner (at least temporarily) from the constraints of conditioning “encompasses not only one’s own immediate sphere of perceptions; it also enables one to appreciate others and to develop compassionate insight into their predicaments” (Varela et al., 1991, loc. 1494). The proposal being put forward here is that contemplative reinterpretation of narrative, a technique which, as we have seen, is evidently well suited to the conscious shaping of one’s attitude and vision, provides yet another way of transforming intention and freeing the practitioner from the shackles of past conditioning and ego-driven behavior. Not only does this method offer an approach to study and learning that is a well-suited complement to meditation practice; it also holds promise as a stand-alone intervention for those individuals who, for one reason or another, find traditional meditation practice unappealing or discomforting.
Of course, we might reasonably ask at this point, “How does it work?” After all, if it is true that meditation, by teaching us how to loosen our grasp on conceptual thought so that “the mind’s natural characteristic of knowing itself and reflecting its own experience can shine forth”
(Varela et al., 1991, loc. 419), then why should we expect our deliberate engagement with mental constructs such as symbol, metaphor, and story to elicit anything but the opposite effect?
As it turns out, Varela, Thompson, and Rosch consider this question in a slightly different, and yet closely related context; that of the role of reflection in the analysis of direct experience. Their recommendation is a conscious shift, away from our typical mode of abstract
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 24 thought that often maintains little connection with our perceptual field. Instead, they propound an embodied and perceptually grounded activity in which “reflection is not just on experience, but reflection is a form of experience itself—and that reflective form of experience can be performed with mindfulness/awareness” (Varela et al., 1991, loc. 427). Applying this approach to our topic of narrative interpretation suggests that, to the extent that the (unavoidably abstract and often linguistically-based) contemplative process is nonetheless capable of leading to a direct experience of itself, the reflective/interpretive activity of the mind can be thought of simply as another object of meditation; albeit one that is now potentially well-endowed with symbolism, inspiration, and meaning.
In many ways, the method being recommended here is strongly reminiscent of that employed in the practice of phenomenology, which “seeks not to explain the world, but to describe as closely as possible the way the world makes itself evident to awareness, the way things first arise in our direct, sensorial experience” (Abram, 1996, p. 33). The main difference in the present case being that, what we seek to know through direct experience is the very activity of mind that engages with abstraction, symbolic thought, and story, as a way of accessing and becoming familiar with the linguistic and pre-linguistic metaphorical structures that encode so much of our conditioning.
This recognition of a possible connection between narrative contemplation, bare attention, and meditative insight can also shed light on the common experience of ‘getting lost in a story’; an occurrence during which, I would suggest, what we temporarily lose track of is our separate sense of self as we merge with our object of contemplation – be it novel, film, painting, or play. Of special relevance in this context, as we attempt to draw parallels with the foundational teachings of Buddhism, are those instances referred to in several different texts from the Pali Canon, when disciples of the Buddha become enlightened simply by listening to
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 25 the Dharma. Commenting on this phenomenon, Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal cites a passage from the Anguttara Nikaya that enumerates no less than five ‘bases of liberation’; only one of which, he notes, involves meditation in the traditional sense (2009). These five (listed in the order in which they are presented in the sutra) are: (i) hearing and experiencing the meaning of the Dharma, (ii) teaching the Dharma as it has been learnt and mastered, (iii) reciting the Dharma as it has been learnt and mastered, (iv) pondering, examining, and mentally investigating the
Dharma, and (v) meditative concentration (Sati Center Website, 2009).
From what has been said so far, we might be tempted at this point to lay particular emphasis on the fourth of these modes of engagement, sounding as it does very much like yet another description of the contemplative/interpretive process being promoted herein. While doing so would certainly be legitimate, it might also obscure the fact that every one of these different ‘methods’ requires a high degree of involvement and immersion on the part of the practitioner. Thus, it is perhaps more important here to simply acknowledge that, to the extent that our attention is capable of being captivated and focused by something; whether the Dharma, a contemplative object such as the breath, or a narrative within which we become absorbed, any of these may serve as a powerful vehicle for transformation.
Finally, as a way of bringing this portion of our study to conclusion, we consider a helpful illustration of some of the implications that such transformations have for the development of the ego-self. In attempting to clarify precisely this relationship, Varela,
Thompson, and Rosch make use of an evolutionary metaphor as a way of drawing attention to the enormous reach of karma (volitional action). Specifically, they assert that the traces left on the psyche by intentional volitional actions compose
one’s experiential ontogeny (including but not restricted to learning)…a process of
becoming that is conditioned by past structures, while maintaining structural integrity
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 26
from moment to moment. On an even larger scale, karma also expresses phylogeny, for it
conditions experience through the accumulated and collective history of our species
(Varela et al., 1991, loc. 1472).
A similar sentiment is echoed by Lakoff and Johnson who, in considering the effects of those values upheld and imparted by a particular culture, also recognize the importance of some ongoing sense of cohesion among our metaphorical structures. As they put it, these values “are not independent but must form a coherent system with the metaphorical concepts we live by”
(Lakoff & Johnson, 2003, loc. 466). A contemplative approach to working with narrative therefore not only holds out the possibility of freeing oneself from the tyranny of unexamined and ingrained metaphors, including those instilled by the culture in which we live. It also suggests that such a practice can become a way of actively taking part in the ‘evolution’ of our ego-self, i.e. in the ongoing process of maturation.
This last is, in itself, no small matter, and forms a crucial observation for both the practitioner and the chaplain alike, as Norman Fischer explains in his book Taking Our Places:
The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up.
Spiritual practice…is in essence the practice of maturity. The spiritual path leads us to
the places we are meant to occupy in this world. Robes, chanting, ceremony, meditation,
text study, and all the rest may be valuable in their own right, but their real purpose lies
in the service of the path toward maturity. In spiritual practice we use these traditional
techniques and practices as vehicles to warmly connect us so that we can help each other
to find the true, lasting, and ongoing maturity that each of our lives requires…In the end,
secure happiness comes only with the solid feeling we have when we know that we have
become the person we were meant to be in this lifetime—that we have matured and used
the life we have been given in the best way we could (2003, p. 4).
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2.4 Healing the Distress of Modernity
“The question is, how can we unify the things that are analyzed by our consciousness, things that were never separate in the first place?” – Dainin Katagiri Roshi
If the process of spiritual maturation is, at least in part, an ongoing shift in the direction of an ever more inclusive recognition of and appreciation for the intrinsic wholeness of existence, then why does a sense of fragmentation seem to permeate life so completely, and on so many levels? We have, for example, already noted the ever-deepening entrenchment of the mythos of progress in our increasingly secular world – a development both fueled and sustained by our strangely deluding capacity to imagine ourselves as separate from and independent of our surroundings. While certainly a powerful and contemporarily relevant example, implicated as it is in the ongoing destruction of the environment and the ravenous consumption of the Earth’s limited natural resources, it is far from unique. Nor should it be taken as suggesting that such fragmentation of view is a strictly new development (although I contend that it has emerged as a particularly salient feature of the modern world), or even that it is limited in scope to cultural and societal issues. Rather, such behavior seems indicative of a fundamental misapprehension of our true situation; one that ultimately has roots in how we tend to relate to our concepts, metaphors, and language.
This insight, arising as it does in a secular context, is nonetheless perfectly commensurate with the Buddhist worldview. Indeed, some Buddhist teachers contend that consciousness is none other than “that which divides what is otherwise a seamless Whole” (Hagen, 2012, p. 158) by forming concepts “that divide and define the world in an effort to make things clear”
(Katagiri, 2000, p. 20). It thus appears that our situation as human beings, which requires that we repeatedly make use of and live according to “acts of distinction” (Maturana & Varela, 1987, p. 40), and in which we are permanently and unavoidably enmeshed, is inseparable from our
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 28 conscious awareness. Accordingly, the illusory appearance of fragmentation that consciousness necessarily engenders (often yielding practical utilitarian and functional benefits, as well as a sense of clarity and at least some degree of understanding) seemingly only becomes problematic when we forget, or simply remain unconscious of, what it is that we are doing. It is therefore all the more heartbreaking to have to acknowledge our dogged propensities; both to extend these acts of distinction beyond the limits within which they are effective and useful, and to continually mistake these imagined fissures in what is otherwise undifferentiated Wholeness as denoting essentially existent phenomena or objects. As Roshi Steve Hagen sums up our dilemma, “the physical and mental objects of consciousness, i.e., concepts—are merely appearances resulting from the working of consciousness. Our most grave, albeit our most common error, is to take these objects for Reality” (2012, p. 158).
Part of what makes this ubiquitous jumbling of concept and reality so compelling, perhaps even coming to seem indispensable in our lives, is the false sense of security it offers.
Enabling us to put off indefinitely the ‘awe-ful’ recognition of an element of inescapable uncertainty in human life, and simultaneously to turn a deaf ear to the fascinating call of that which is ultimately unknowable, our tenacious habit of confusing idea with essence can, paradoxically, result in a shaky sense of stability. Yet even this spurious feeling of groundedness, precarious as it is, comes at a price; a loss of contact with and growing suspicion of the sacredness of life:
In a culture such as ours, in which emphasis is placed on power and the profitable
management of nature, the “irrational,” uncontrollable aspect of the sacred is equated
with evil…it is anathema to the patriarchal dream of steady, chartable “progress”
(Edelman, 1998, p. 75).
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As we have already alluded to above (Sec. 2.2), throughout history, so-called ‘primitive’ peoples have consistently recognized no meaningful distinctions between natural and supernatural explanations of events. But with the rise of modern society, with its emphasis on science, technology, and rationality – undeniably responsible for countless beneficial and awe- inspiring breakthroughs in numerous areas of human knowledge – an unanticipated rift has also been introduced into our thinking. The result being a fragmentation of perspective that has fundamentally altered our relationships: to the numinous aspects of existence, to the natural world, to one another, and to ourselves.
As historian of religion Mircea Eliade understands it, “The first possible definition of the sacred is that it is the opposite of the profane” (1957/1987, p. 10). And so, contemplating the
Buddhist image of reality in which all is perfect, whole, and complete, we may ask how it is even possible to profane what is essentially sacred or holy, given an understanding that “To be holy is to be whole, to be one; holiness is unity, integrity, perfection” (Douglas, 1970, p. 68). For, if we can understand how this odd situation comes to be, and the confusion which brings it about, we can perhaps also mitigate our part in it.
Remarkably, in considering this question we come to appreciate a subtle interplay between the wholeness that underlies all of the conceptual distinctions created by consciousness, and the uncertainty and unknowability of the mysterium. Seemingly addressing this point directly, clinical psychologist Paul Pruyser states,
As long as the Holy remains a mystery, it is a tremendum. The moment it loses its
mysterious features it ceases to be holy; it is then a concept or a rational insight. Power
is always of its essence, for the Holy is not a concept but a symbol, charged with energy
(1968, p. 336).
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And so it seems that our desire to know, the basic human drive to understand ourselves and our world, and to dispel the murky darkness of uncertainty, is itself implicated in the process of desacralization; often taking the form of a conceptual carving up of reality that, ironically, we then try in vain to piece back together.
Fortunately, this same recognition also suggests another, by now familiar, way of engaging these symbols that are ‘charged with energy’. One that is conducive to healing our pervasive sense of fragmentation (in the etymological sense of the word health having derived, as does ‘holy’, from the Old English word ‘hale’ – meaning ‘whole’); that of narrative contemplation. Specifically, once again following Ricoeur, we find that interpretation “is the
‘modern’ mode of belief in symbols, an expression of the distress of modernity, and a remedy for that distress” (1986, p. 352). While the effectiveness of this remedy is, in turn, born of the fact that “hermeneutics, an acquisition of ‘modernity,’ is one of the modes by which that ‘modernity’ transcends itself, insofar as it is forgetfulness of the sacred” (Ricoeur, 1986, p. 352).
In addition to the crucial recognition that much of the distress of modernity arises from an increasing sense of alienation from aspects of life long held sacred, the above emphasis on symbols (as distinguished from concepts arising in consciousness, which as we have seen inevitably lead to a fragmented view of reality that is often problematic) is also telling.
Promisingly in this regard, while extoling their relational and unifying virtues, the French historian and anthropologist Jean-Pierre Vernant simultaneously illustrates various ways in which symbols touch upon, in a uniquely healing way, many of the main points we have herein been considering when he writes
In contrast to the sign, ideally univocal, the symbol is polysemic; it can become charged
with a limitless number of new expressive meanings…[S]ymbols possess a fluidity and
freedom that enable them to shift from one form to another and to amalgamate the most
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diverse domains within one dynamic structure. They can efface the boundaries that
normally separate the different sectors of reality and convey…the interpenetration of
human and social factors, natural forces, and supernatural Powers…[T]he symbol is
never at rest, never in a state of equilibrium. It possesses a constant impulse aiming
toward something beyond what it immediately expresses (Vernant, 1974/1990, p. 238).
In this context, the protean fluidity of the symbol can provide a viable expedient for seeing through and eventually leaving behind the false sense of security which accompanies our normally unconscious tendency to accept thoughts, theories, explanatory systems, personal narratives – even perceptions colored by these metaphors and schemas – as factual and true, rather than relating to them simply as tools that have proven themselves useful in limited domains. Of course, nothing presented above is meant to suggest that we should in any way give up trying to learn more about ourselves and our world; just that we honestly and truly let go of the idea of ever coming to some endpoint or final understanding. For, as we have seen, the hermeneutic circle requires just such ongoing attempts at furthering our knowledge in order to function.
Yet, at the same time, this same circle also shows itself capable of fundamentally altering how we perceive the very objects and relationships we are endeavoring to understand, since
All the different forms of language are a means by which we give substance to our
connection with one another. Through language and story, we weave ourselves into the
world. It isn’t so much that language and story confirm the ground of reality, but rather
that they constitute the ground itself (Halifax, 1993, p. 139).
In short, having been prompted by the recognition of the harmful effects of a fragmented worldview to consider novel and productive ways of relating to and engaging with our most
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 32 urgent questions, we find ourselves once again led to postulate a deep connection between narrative contemplation and the never-ending process of maturation:
There are answers to life’s most important questions, but they are never final; they
change as we change. Maybe true maturity is finding a way of keeping such questions
alive throughout our lifetime. For when there are no more questions, we stop maturing
and merely begin to age (Fischer, 2003, p. 25).
Thus, instead of simply abandoning the noble human quest for understanding and meaning out of fear of the fragmentation which results whenever we hold to our views and opinions too tightly, what is being proposed is that we instead gradually learn to keep in mind as best we can what it is that we are actually doing whenever we engage with the realm of concepts, as well as to cultivate and refine our skills in this arena.
These, however, are no small tasks, and seem to require that we embark on a completely different path toward ‘knowing’. One that, recalling Ricoeur’s view that the distress of modernity ultimately arises from a ‘forgetfulness of the sacred', has much in common with the act of ‘remembering’. Erich Neumann, in The Origins and History of Consciousness, hints at what may be required of us in this regard when he writes that “original wisdom is pre-worldly, i.e., prior to the ego and the coming of consciousness…Man’s task in the world is to remember with his conscious mind what was knowledge before the advent of consciousness” (1954, pp. 23
- 24). Yet even this ‘original wisdom’ would not have us completely turn our backs on our hard won conceptual understanding since, in coming to such recognition it appears that, at least in the realm of narrative contemplation, “[o]ur first task…is to let our imagination enter the mythical world—to “mythologize.” Our second is to “demythologize” and…make the earlier experience a dimension of modern thought” (Edelman, 1998, p. 49).
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This last statement serves as our clearest indication yet that the areas of human knowledge to which we have been appealing – science, secularism, progress, linguistics, and so on, as well as Buddhist thought when viewed from such modern perspectives – do not stand outside the narrative schemas we wish to contemplatively investigate and learn from like objective tools. Rather, these fields of study are, themselves, some of the metaphors that shape our worldviews most profoundly. Accordingly, their influence on our thinking must be taken into account in as conscious a way as possible if we are to alleviate the adverse effects caused by our giving these stories more credence than they otherwise deserve, and continually falling into the trap of mistaking ideas for truth, concepts for reality, and unnoticed or neglected subtleties for certainty.
Importantly in this regard, once a metaphorical structure is recognized as such, one of the most profound and remarkable insights in this entire field of study can be brought to bear. As
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson so eloquently describe the essence of their thesis,
It is as though the ability to comprehend experience through metaphor were a sense, like
seeing or touching or hearing, with metaphors providing the only ways to perceive and
experience much of the world. Metaphor is as much a part of our functioning as our
sense of touch, and as precious (2003, loc. 4367).
And so, in bringing this portion of the text to conclusion we note that, by recognizing many of the most vaunted (and often least closely examined) pillars of modern society as nothing more (or less) than metaphors with a remarkable capacity to shape our thoughts, perceptions, modes of understanding – our very lives and world – in a fundamental way, we can now more readily appreciate their impacts on our metaphorical sense fields and consciousness. For, according to Roshi Joan Halifax,
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The power of language, the force of words shape the landscapes of our minds. The
landscapes of our minds shape our environment. The world around us, culture and the
wilderness, make indelible impressions on our minds. A timeless conversation is going
on among all things, yet we seem to have selected out our next of kin as the only ones we
actually listen to (Halifax, 1993, p. 93).
Of course, at some point, in order to directly see and experience our lives and the lives of all beings as ‘perfect, whole, and complete’, we may find it necessary to employ narrative in a way that ultimately goes beyond itself; enabling us to temporarily drop all of our stories, including those concerning suffering and lack, even maturity and perfection. As Dainin Katagiri
Roshi expresses the necessity of, and the recommended approach to, this process
The highest level of human life is not to be found within our commonsense understanding
of things. Still, we cannot ignore or escape these views. So we have to understand our
commonsense ideas thoroughly, and then we must go beyond them (2000, p. 81).
The cultivated ability to see beyond and through our concepts and stories can then lead to the development of what Katagiri refers to as a “generous mind”, i.e., the capacity “to receive with no sense that things are either defiled or immaculate” (2000, p. 74). Fortunately, even this appears possible since, according to author and storyteller Rafe Martin, stories
are a technology, maybe the oldest and most powerful on the planet, real tools for inner
change that can help us see with our minds and hearts, awaken deep aspirations,
enhance our skills, revive the will to leave old and self-centered paths behind as we keep
on working to accomplish the way of the real, fully flowered human being (Reeves, 2010,
loc. 117).
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3 Inner Chaplaincy – Spiritual Formation and the Articulation of a ‘Theology of Ministry’
“There is a longing that burns at the root of spiritual practice. This is the fire that fuels your journey. The romantic suffering you pretend to have grown out of, that remains coiled like a serpent beneath the veneer of maturity. You have studied the sacred texts. You know that separation from your divine source is an illusion. You subscribe to the philosophy that there is nowhere to go and nothing to attain, because you are already there and you already possess it.
But what about this yearning?" ― Mirabai Starr
As Stephen Batchelor has described it, “The Buddha’s quest begins with certain questions” such as “Why are we born?”, “Why do we die?”, and “Why are we here at all?”
(Batchelor & Halifax, 2013). These questions are not particular to the Buddha. They were not first posed by him. They are in some sense timeless, and the longing they express signals the birth of the contemplative and reflective aspects of all human life. Investigating and grappling with these questions is arguably the fundamental impetus of all religious speculation, and perhaps as well an important driving force behind all philosophical and scientific inquiry.
Taking such considerations seriously must therefore inevitably lead us to confront the myths and metaphors which inform our basic worldview, however subtle or unconscious their influences may be. For, as Joseph Campbell so evocatively puts it,
myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour
into human cultural manifestation. Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of
primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams
that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth (Campbell, 1949, p. 3).
That special place, where existential longing and the imaginative/creative energies which are unleashed by and at the same time harnessed by mythic narrative, intersect, has long seemed to me a fertile ground for fundamental growth and self-discovery. Accordingly, I resonate strongly with the words of John O’Donohue when he writes
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Longing is the deepest and most ancient voice in the human soul. It is the secret source
of all presence, and the driving force of all creativity and imagination: longing keeps the
door open and calls towards us the gifts and blessings which our lives dream (1999, pp.
72 - 73).
From the point of view of spiritual practice, it seems that such longing is always and most poignantly directed toward that which we hold ‘sacred’, whatever the term happens to mean for each of us. Meaning that can perhaps best be elucidated and clarified by turning to those myths and legends that call to us in a personal way. For, as Jungian psychologist James Hillman explains it, “The basic answers to why in a story are to be discovered in myths…the selective logic operating in the plots of our lives is the logic of mythos, mythology” (1983, pp. 11 - 12).
We have already noted in our discussion of the hermeneutic circle in Sec. 2 that, for the process of contemplative study to bear fruit it is all-important to somehow tap into that which we already ‘know’, even if at first only on an intuitive level. If we can do so, then according to Paul
Ricoeur, the interpretive process (and the fluidity of understanding which it helps to engender) makes it possible for us to “communicate with the sacred by making explicit the prior understanding that gives life to the interpretation” (1986, p. 352). Unfortunately, as we have seen, this type of communication is proving more and more difficult in our increasingly materialistic and fragmentary world. One in which the ancient myths that once preserved and poetically expressed the metanarratives informing the relational worldviews of individuals, communities, and cultures have steadily given way to rational explanatory systems.
When a society’s agreed upon rules for storytelling, imagining, and meaning-making are wholly abandoned in favor of theoretical constructs characterized by an uncompromising stance of objectivity, or subtly influenced by an unquestioned yet steadfast commitment to mechanistic realism, the perspective which co-dependently arises leaves little room for the subjective side of
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 37 experience – for characters, plots, and the like. Seemingly commenting on exactly this aspect of modern thought, Buddhist practitioner and religious scholar John Dunne contends that the current popularity of the ‘cyborg’ metanarrative in films like Robocop and The Terminator expresses our deep-seated “fear that we are being slowly devoured by an impersonal rationalistic explanation of our cosmos”, and notes that the climaxes of these various tales always occur when
“the cyborg stops operating only through a rational explanatory system, and begins to incorporate emotion [emphasis mine]” (Dunne, 2012).
The appearance of the word ‘only’ in the above quotation is crucial. The takeaway lesson is not that we should shun valuable ways of knowing our world such as rational analysis, empiricism, or the scientific method. Only that we must also acknowledge that, as human beings, we require more than just explanations. We also need stories that engender meaning, connection, feeling, and purpose in order to experience life in a holistic and satisfying way. For as James Hillman provocatively argues, in contemplating the question “What does the soul want?” (1983), the answer which naturally arises is ‘It wants fictions that heal’.
Of course, what is being referred to here is not some naive or underhanded method whereby we consciously delude ourselves by telling ourselves and others things that we know to be untrue just to feel better. Rather, the approach is founded on a deep recognition and acceptance of the fact that none of our concepts, theories, or explanations can ever be true in any fixed, absolute, or literal sense. In other words, no matter how hard we try or how clever our intellection, the conceptual maps we draw can never completely capture all of the nuances of the territory.
Fortunately, it is here that the powerful symbolism of legend and myth can be most instructive – both as an aid in loosening the bonds of our tightly held concepts and unexamined ideas about how things ‘really are’, and as a much-needed invitation to imagine. For,
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 38
“[i]magination is the source of story and is fed by story. Without imagination, we cannot penetrate our psyches, nor will we allow ourselves to be absorbed by the world around us”
(Halifax, 1993, p. 110). Alternatively, the skillful use of imagination can reopen the lines of communication with the sacred: “This return to the middle realm of fiction, of myth carries one into conversational familiarity with the cosmos one inhabits. Healing thus means Return and psychic consciousness means Conversation” (Hillman, 1983, p. 80).
Such ongoing imaginative discourses with the formative texts and tales of various spiritual and philosophical traditions, while of inestimable value to the aspirant, are perhaps even more important for the chaplain – whose explicit role it is to serve others. This is true if for no other reason than that any such engagement will be sustainable over the long term only if performed from a standpoint that resonates deeply with the serving individual. It is primarily this need that I believe Rev. Danny Fisher is addressing when he writes, “[i]t is imperative that chaplains of all kinds each go through an individual process of ‘self-assessment and definition’”
(2013, loc. 297). He then goes on to suggest that, as regards the development of the Buddhist chaplaincy movement as a whole, the greater implications of this process naturally extend well beyond the individual:
Doing this inner work, and then articulating a theology of ministry (whether publicly or
only for ourselves), are necessarily very personal undertakings. But the latter work in
particular, which might be termed “Buddhist pastoral and practical theology,” can be
vital in terms of illuminating a path for future generations of Buddhist chaplains (Fisher,
2013, loc. 339).
Of particular relevance, both in terms of Upaya Zen Center’s innovative chaplaincy program, and more generally in our pluralistic and increasingly secular modern world, is
Professor of Religion Malcolm David Eckel’s observation that “As the Buddhist tradition has
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 39 changed and adapted to new situations and new needs, it sometimes has changed so radically that it is hard to know anymore what makes it ‘Buddhist’” (Eckel, 2001, p. 7). It therefore seems likely that a willingness to contemplatively investigate the narrative strains running through different inflections of Buddhism may prove indispensable for today’s practitioner and chaplain alike; enabling each to more clearly articulate his or her own individual relationship with the tradition at whatever level is deemed appropriate. Professor Eckel himself suggests the potential efficacy of this approach when he asserts that “we can find our way best through the complexity of Buddhism if we see it as a series of stories” (Eckel, 2001, p. 7).
Such a process of self-assessment and definition via narrative contemplation also seems to offer the chaplain an ideal opportunity – and arguably one comprising the perfect complement to the development of a personal ‘theology of ministry’ – the impetus to consider deeply what one most wants to bring to the world. A chance not to be taken lightly since, according to
Jungian analyst Helen M. Luke,
Each of us, as we journey through life, has the opportunity to find and to give his or her
unique gift. Whether this gift is quiet or small in the eyes of the world does not matter at
all—not at all; it is through the finding and the giving that we may come to know the joy
that lies at the center of both the dark times and the light (Parabola Magazine website,
n.d.).
And yet, as necessary as these inward glances and attempted refinements of understanding and purpose are purported to be, I have also come to feel that such explications should not be forced. Rather, they should be allowed to emerge naturally, as an integral part of the exploration. In other words, if I have come to understand anything as a result of completing this work, it is that adopting an open-ended mindset is essential to contemplative learning and study. And this is perhaps nowhere truer than when trying to make sense of one’s own
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 40 spirituality since “[t]he spiritual life is not about beliefs in mysterious or miraculous things. It’s about learning something immense and profound, something greater than any idea you can have”
(Katagiri, 2000, p. 84). Thus, in the present context, one important function of narrative contemplation is to let the myths and metaphors that speak to us come alive through the imaginative interpretive process, and in turn, to breathe new life into the world:
The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives. For the
manner in which we tell ourselves about what is going on is the genre through which
events become experiences. There are no bare events, plain facts, simple data—or rather
this too is an archetypal fantasy: the simplistics of brute (or dead) nature (Hillman,
1983, p. 23).
4 Outer Chaplaincy – A Pilot Project
Whereas the previous section is meant to show how contemplative engagement with the myths and stories considered central to Buddhism can provide structure and context for one’s own inner chaplaincy work and ongoing spiritual development, as well as for articulating a personal understanding about how practice and worldly service interrelate, the current section focuses instead on possible outer chaplaincy applications. Specifically, it reports the results of a seven-week pilot workshop, during which time I guided a group of five volunteers in an experiential investigation of the potential healing effects of interpreting personally meaningful narratives, and culminating in some form of creative expression of any insights arising from this process. Each participant has graciously granted full permission for her story to be shared.
In order to find volunteers for this project, I simply offered a free workshop, described as
“an investigation of the healing power of story” to anyone who was currently studying tai chi with me. Five people, all women ranging in age from 47 to 79 (group photo in Appendix A), signed up to meet at my home for seven consecutive weeks. The first hour of each meeting was
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 41 dedicated to our practicing and refining the Yang-style tai chi long form together as a way of becoming more present and embodied. This was then followed by another hour to hour-and-a- half which consisted mainly of meditation3, a council-style check-in and sharing opportunity
(Zimmerman & Coyle, 1996), and finally a more free form group discussion.
Having been deeply inspired by Norman Fischer’s book Taking Our Places, which tells the story of him both mentoring and learning along with a group of four adolescent boys as they embark on an inquiry into what it means to become mature adults, I tried as best I could to adopt the same open-ended approach which he employs (2003). As a result, the form and process of our time together was, to a large extent, allowed to take shape more or less organically. I saw my job as facilitator to be mainly one of creating a safe space for whatever needed to arise in the context of our group – trying to provide just the right amount of structure to allow each person the freedom to focus on her own story, and at the same time to benefit from the stories of others.
In addition, I also frequently shared what I was learning at the time about the material forming the content of the literature review in Sec. 2.
The basic format I proposed for the pilot project, and that we all decided to adopt, was a four step process (unpacked more thoroughly in Sec. 5) in which everyone would: (i) begin by touching in with their deeper intentions and motivations for coming to the workshop, and identify a narrative which seemed relevant or inspiring in that context – even if, at first, only in some vague, intuitive sense, (ii) immerse themselves in their chosen story in an inquiring and contemplative way, (iii) attempt to interpret in their own words the import of the story for their lives at this time, and finally (iv) try to capture, in some artistic or creative expression, the essence of any insights or understanding arising out of the experience.
3 During our first meeting I gave the group some basic meditation instruction and sent each of them home with a CD recording (my voice) of guided meditations. Each participant agreed to try as best they could to maintain a daily meditation practice for the duration of the workshop. We began each of our subsequent meetings with an approximately 20 minute long seated meditation (guided and/or silent).
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 42
4.1 Choosing a Narrative and Initial Insights
At the end of our first meeting I asked each participant to identify one narrative (or something that worked to provoke a narrative in her) with which she would like to work over the coming weeks. When we next reconvened, we were all impressed by the wide range of different genres, media, and topics chosen by our small group. Sandi, for example, was immediately drawn to a movie she had seen many times called The Man Who Would Be King (Warner Bros.,
1975); having always been inspired by it as a story of, as she put it, “loyalty, trust, and friendship”. However, upon subsequently learning that the film was based on a short story by
Rudyard Kipling (1994), and finding the book to be much different – “filled with greed, lust, and betrayal” – she began to have second thoughts. But in the end, she decided to stick with her choice and to “see where it might lead.”
Mollie, the eldest of the group, surprised herself by choosing an image of a bridge on a birthday card from her son (Appendix B). Having “never been a big fan of Japanese art”, she nevertheless found herself drawn to its symbolism: commenting that she has “been trying to move from one shore to another for a long time”. Sharing that she had been too afraid to ever learn to swim, she further observed that “since I can’t make it to the other shore via the water, maybe the bridge is my path.” Yet she also recognized that even this route is a challenge for her, both physically – having had both hips replaced in the last few years, and mentally – having been
“teased for walking funny as a child.”
Though you would never guess it simply by chatting with her, Mollie confided to us that she had become “self-conscious and meek” as a result of being taunted about her gait. And so, even though she once said to me after a tai chi class, “I’m walking and I’m vertical. To hell with what other people think!” in the container of our group she admitted to feeling that she has
“always struggled with authenticity and excessive worry about what others think.”
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 43
This sense of a struggle with authenticity rang true for our entire group, and became (like friendships and relationships in general) an important theme for many. Meg, for example, chose to revisit web-hosted television footage of the ‘Little Rock Nine’ – those first few individuals bussed in during initial attempts to desegregate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. While reminiscing about watching these events unfold on TV as a young girl, and about how she had been simultaneously dumbfounded, inspired, and shamed by their courage, she gradually began to perceive a connection with her own subsequent struggles as a lesbian. It was also during one of our meetings that she announced her recent engagement to her partner of more than thirty years, and shared that what she really wanted was “to be able to enter the marriage with my whole person, not just parts of me, in an authentic way.”4
Considerations of friendship and authenticity were also found to be significant for Kelly, who chose to revisit a book that had been extremely important to her about ten years ago – a few paragraphs having prompted her to move from the corporate to the non-profit world, and to a much more satisfying and fulfilling life of service – but one that she had not picked up since.
She read the excerpt (Appendix C) from Same Kind of Different as Me (Hall, Moore, & Vincent,
2008, p. 106 – 107), which she had once found so meaningful and transformative in her professional life and business relationships, aloud to our group. It speaks of false friendships, or at least ones that are not highly valued, cherished, and worked at, in terms of the metaphor of
‘catch and release fishing’. She told us how, upon first reading those lines, she had come to the decision that she would no longer spend her life in a work environment that encouraged the fostering of fake friendliness for the sake of selfish gains and profit motives, and at the expense of true relationship.
4 Meg and her partner were married on November 17th, 2013.
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 44
As the workshop continued she also began to speak about how, as a result of revisiting the book in the context of our workshop, she had been struck by the realization that, not only had she once made her living by catching and releasing others. She too had been “caught and released all throughout her childhood.” Having had a mother who was unable to care for her, she had bounced around between many different households; the realization giving her an even deeper appreciation for the preciousness of human connectedness.
The final participant, Susan, initially had a difficult time settling on a single narrative theme. She felt drawn to investigating the story behind what brought her to live in the southwest, but recognized that many different valences of this topic were calling to her. These included: her early relationship to her “cheapskate father, who did not want to be tied down to any particular job or means of support”, the pull of Native American spirituality and its relationship to the land, and the laid-back lifestyle of the place. In an attempt to help her narrow her focus, I asked her if she could recall the very first time she felt drawn to a life in the southwest. The next time our group met she told us how, after thinking about the question, she
“had a flood of memories about her father.” She also began to realize that, although she had been put off by, and had felt deprived as a result of, his thriftiness during her childhood, it had also instilled in her a sense of safety and security that she has been endeavoring to reconnect with for a long time. Further coming to understand that she has become quite a bit like him as regards the manner in which she lives, it dawned on her just how much of his influence was behind her being drawn to a simpler way of life. As she put it during one of our group meetings,
“I spent the first half of my life trying to escape my childhood, and the second half trying to get back there”.
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 45
4.2 Deepening the Inquiry and Finding Closure
As the workshop continued and each participant became more thoroughly immersed in her chosen narrative, further insights as well as more general aspirations and overarching senses of meaning began to emerge. As we neared the end of our time together, everyone worked to creatively express whatever they had come to understand as a result of their contemplations, and presented the fruits of their labors at our last meeting. Additionally, in the spirit of the rites of passage ceremonies of many cultures, and similar to the tradition of presenting one with a
Dharma name when the Buddhist precepts are conferred, in order to mark the occasion, valorize people’s insights, and provide some sense of closure I decided to surprise everyone by offering them each a name that expressed how I had come to see them during our time together.
Sandi, to whom I gave the name “Benevolent ambition, intrepid resolve”, had become enthralled by the subtle interplay (“both the good and the bad”) of loyal friendship and fervent opportunism found in Kipling’s tale. She ended up compiling a long list of inspiring quotes
(Appendix D) as her mode of expression, which she later posted in her home to serve as a reminder of the preciousness of friendships. She mentioned in particular how she was both awestruck and deeply moved by how far one particular character in her chosen story was willing to go in the name of friendship, inspiring her to commit to reconnecting with and working to sustain long neglected relationships. She expressed her newfound aspirations to me in an email after our workshop had ended: “When I was still working, I let my job and customers take precedence over friendships and I lost two people who were really good friends – without a chance to tell them a final goodbye and how much they meant to me. That was a hard lesson to learn. Now I reach out regularly…I can’t undo what happened in the past, but hopefully I can prevent a repeat.”
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 46
Mollie (“Glides across bridge”) gradually saw her field of view broaden as she spent more and more time contemplating her picture; shifting her attention first from the bridge to the water, then to the life within the water, the birds in the air, the people on the bridge, and even to
“those unseen, beyond the horizon.” She spoke to us about feeling the need to shift her focus
“from ‘me’ to ‘all’.” She also confided that, though she doesn’t like “being seen as old and feeble”, like it or not, she knows she is on a bridge that is leading to the end of her life.
A musician and composer, she told us how these contemplations had inspired her to start playing some of her old compositions that she never pursued. Having long labored under the self-judgment that her work is “not good enough”, and causing her to be afraid of putting herself out there, she says she is now beginning to realize that they are “pretty good.” Perhaps Mollie will decide to pursue these compositions, having “always dreamt of a life in the arts.” Or maybe she’ll decide to move on to other adventures. For, as she says in Journey to a Whole Heart
(Appendix E), a touching and very personal short story written as her artistic expression for the workshop: “She began to realize that in order to have a whole-hearted life, one must confront one’s fears, know that many others are sharing in one’s experiences, and making their own journeys…for once the missing pieces of our hearts are found life becomes a continued journey—of growth, to our connection to the divine.”
In a similar fashion, Meg also began to see herself as having long been searching for some direction on the next leg of her journey; feeling that, at seventy, she has already “learned, earned, and returned.” At the same time, she acknowledged a nagging sense of fragmentation and incompleteness in her story as she spoke about how she had always had grand ambitions to
“do something big”, and yet was now feeling a strong urge to “step away from society” in order to better tend to those aspects of life long neglected during her working days. As both a scientist and lover of nature, she expressed regret at how she had taken a job at Los Alamos National
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 47
Labs in order to “change it from the inside” but instead ended up “selling her soul.” As a lifelong advocate for civil rights, she felt shame at having “chickened out” of participating in the
March on Washington.
Yet as she spoke it also became clear, first to the rest of us, and then by way of the group’s reflections, to Meg herself, that there was more to her story. That, through many one- on-one encounters, she had indeed worked to try to change hearts and minds during her time at
Los Alamos. And that for several years she had braved hatred and intolerance by volunteering to teach black children in 1960’s Georgia. In short, our group helped her to see that her low profile but continued efforts certainly amounted to ‘something big’.
The name presented to Meg at the conclusion of our workshop, “Gentle courage sews harmony”, was inspired both by these reminiscences and by the stunning quilt which she stitched for her creative expression piece (Appendix F). Heavy with meaning, the quilt brings together the three important streams in her life that she is working to assimilate: the white and black cloth representing her ongoing interest in and engagement with Civil Rights, the rainbow colors symbolizing her life as a lesbian, and the green depicting her love of the natural world.
Committing herself at the end of the workshop to “practicing kindness and patience”, her resolve is woven into the very fabric of her artistic expression; embroidered on her quilt as the mantra
“Living in peace with myself, friends, and weeds.”
Kelly continued to find more and deeper meaning in the ‘catch and release’ fishing metaphor, at one point speaking of her realization that we must “catch the whole person”; not just our first impressions of those we’ve just met, nor the well-worn stories we’ve constructed about people with whom we’ve long been acquainted. Talking of the need to drop the labels so easily assigned to others, she seemed to have experienced a profound recognition of the danger
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 48 of, in her words, “solidifying people and refusing to let them change, thinking I have them figured out.”
Kelly’s workshop name “Leads with heart” was taken from a line in a poem, The soul that knows your name, which she wrote as her creative expression piece (Appendix G). The poem was inspired by a friend of her’s – a woman with cognitive challenges who became a
Special Olympian competitor in Tae Kwon Do under Kelly’s tutelage – one whose openness, enthusiasm, and warmth of feeling she felt best exemplified the genuineness and authenticity she had come to aspire to as a result of her narrative contemplations. About a month or so after the workshop had ended, Kelly emailed our group to share some good news. Having found out that
Special Olympics Montana (with whom she had worked several years ago) was preparing a banquet to honor their ‘Athlete of the Year’, she told us how she “took courage from [her friend’s] example and faith from our group and submitted the poem as her nomination.” Kelly then joyfully informed us that her friend had been unanimously selected as the winner, and that she would be making a surprise visit to the banquet to present the award personally. She ended by writing “I am deeply grateful for the support and encouragement from our group that gave me the confidence to be vulnerable and authentic on behalf of a very special friend. Thank you again for a life changing experience.”
Finally, Susan (“Dwells in Gratitude”), feeling all her life that she “had nothing growing up”, and “living with resentment” for her frugal father, came to realize that she had actually “had everything as a child.” Having been struck by a quote from A Reasonable Life (a book she was inspired to revisit as a result of her contemplations) which reads “every time we give a child a toy, we prevent him from inventing it” (Mate, 2000, p. 145), she was moved to express gratitude: for growing up close to the land and surrounded by animals, for opportunities to invent and create her own fun, and for the important life-lesson that happiness is a choice.
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 49
Having been inspired to ‘rewrite’ her childhood, Susan sent me a written distillation of what she had discovered about herself and her life as a result of the workshop, and also expressed these insights in a painting (both included in Appendix H) which she shared with the entire group. The earth tones representing her until now unrecognized efforts to “bring nature into the home”; the symbols at the bottom denoting respectively, seeking, peace, and rain; the crops symbolizing nature, the corn and pottery speaking her affinity for Native American spirituality, and the simplicity of the painting mimicking her efforts to simplify. As she expresses this part of her journey in the retelling of her life’s story entitled Desperately Seeking
Susan
I gravitated toward Native American art and customs because I felt a spiritual
connection to their nature worshiping ways and needed to find that “spirit" world of
earth, trees, sky, water, and animals that I had lost touch with. I needed to reconnect with
the solidity of the earth, absorb the life giving energy from the Sun and trees, feel the
cleansing strength of flowing river water, and speak to the animals and nature’s spirits
as they guided me towards a renewed life (Appendix H).
4.3 Reconnecting to and Conversing with the Sacred
For my part, much of the guidance I gave during our workshop discussions was informed by Paul Ricoeur’s notion that engaging with the hermeneutic circle of narrative contemplation can help us to reconnect to and communicate with the sacred. So as not to unduly influence anyone’s process, I tried my best not to impose my own ideas about what the word ‘sacred’ might be referring to, hoping instead that any such insight would arise individually for each participant in a personally meaningful way. That this approach may have been at least partly successful was suggested to me by my spiritual friend and mentor Sensei Beate Stolte in a
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 50 private conversation during which I described to her the main results of the recently completed pilot project.
At one point during our discussion, she enthusiastically brought to my attention some recent work by Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse who has collected and recorded the epiphanies of patients on their deathbeds in the book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Simply stated, the common themes emerging from her observations are (Ware, 2012):
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Sensei Beate’s input helped me to see just how remarkable it is that most if not all of the themes Ware identifies as being of utmost importance to those facing the end of their lives played significant roles in our group’s discussions and contemplations. In sharing these post- workshop observations (as well as Ware’s list) with the group, I found that each participant’s response echoed this sentiment. Their reactions were perhaps best summed up by Mollie, who wrote back to me “This is truly amazing! I think that in the work we did this summer some of these regrets will be alleviated. We all seemed to be searching for a more authentic life and the ability to express feelings honestly.”
In many respects it is surprising how difficult it can be for us to show ourselves, and those aspects of our lives which we find most important, motivating, inspiring, and precious, to others. After all, one might expect such topics to be foremost in our hearts and minds, and always on the tips of our tongues; ready to burst forth at the slightest invitation. Yet the reticence alluded to by Mollie seems indicative of a struggle with authenticity that is familiar to
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 51 us all. A struggle poignantly captured by Hermann Hesse in the epigraph to his novel Demian:
“All I really wanted was to try and live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me.
Why was that so very difficult?” (1919/2000, p. 1).
When considering this oddity of our human nature and the courage with which it was met by the women in the group, I can’t help but think of Stephen Batchelor as he speaks of the
“sublime beauty of the world; that which is simultaneously both fascinating and terrifying”
(Batchelor & Halifax, 2013). Perhaps this phrase also suggests that mysterious quality of life which is capable of holding both happiness and sadness at the same time. Making it appear forever perilous to reveal too much of ourselves, and so to expose both our uncertainty and our heartsickness. For me, nothing captures this living paradox more vividly than some words of
Milan Kundera at the end of his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being:
On they danced to the strains of the piano and violin. Tereza leaned her head on
Tomas’s shoulder. Just as she had when they flew together in the airplane through the
storm clouds. She was experiencing the same odd happiness and odd sadness as then.
The sadness meant: we are at the last station. The happiness meant: we are together.
The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness
(1984, pp. 313 - 314).
To finally recognize the ever-present possibility of experiencing joy, peace, and gratitude in the context of our precarious lives; to find love and intimacy worthwhile ventures in the face of inevitable separation, loss, and death; to embrace the deep happiness that is made all the more precious because of the unreliability and unsatisfactoriness of its container; perhaps this is the greatest of all awakenings.
And so it appears that our small group, engaged over seven weeks in a process of meditative contemplation of meaningful stories, unguarded sharing, and mutual support, was
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 52 somehow able to more deeply enter the flow of a perennial conversation that is common to, vitally important to, and yet simultaneously disquieting to and easily lost track of by, all of humanity. As such, and to the extent that Ware’s assessment of “the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives” and the deep wisdom they have to share with us as a result (Steiner, 2012) is accurate, it seems not too great of an exaggeration to call such revelations ‘sacred’. In sum, it is my hope that all of us in the group, as a result of our time together, have come to experience our lives just a little bit more like Susan did when she was inspired to write, “I can feel life surrounding me, real life, not manufactured by our modern world” (Appendix H).
5 Narrative Contemplation and Practical Chaplaincy – Identifying General Principles
Much of the material that makes up the earlier parts of this thesis, in particular the literature review in Sec. 2, is philosophically oriented; the motivation in large part being (i) to provide a point of reference and some sense of orientation in a field that is both vast and subtle, and (ii) to lay a foundation for future research, study, and application. While great deal of merit can be found in such investigations, which often lead to new ways of viewing previously unquestioned assumptions, and consequently, to novel approaches to well-known problems, such analyses by themselves are of limited practical utility. Thus, in an effort to distill some simple, useful, and widely applicable principles to serve chaplains interested in directly employing narrative contemplation as a healing tool, I will in this section elaborate more thoroughly upon the format used in the pilot project; always with an eye toward determining how its structure may have helped facilitate the deepening of the participants’ inquiries. For the sake of clarity, these observations will be loosely organized into four categories (permission, autonomy, perspective, and validation) that, in hindsight, I see as roughly correlating with the four stages encountered in the workshop as outlined above (formulating intention and vision, immersion, interpretation, and
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 53 creative expression). It is my hope that the procedures and principles highlighted in this closing section will provide chaplains with an entry point to working with narrative that is both general enough to be useful in many different areas of service, and flexible enough to be tailored to one’s specific situation and needs. Finally, I will conclude this work by offering a few preliminary thoughts about specific directions for future research on the application of narrative contemplation in the field of elder care.
5.1 Unpacking the Format of the Workshop
5.1.1 Permission
I began our first meeting by inviting the participants not to immediately choose a narrative with which to work, but rather to start by considering what they each valued, honored or appreciated most in life. As an aid to the inquiry, I offered up some questions during a period of guided meditation that I felt might help clarify this part of the process, such as: “How do you go about nurturing those elements of your life that you hold most dear as you go about your day?”, “How often and how easily do you lose track of the aspects of life that you feel give it meaning and purpose?”, and “What would your life look like if you could find a way to remain in closer contact with your most cherished motivations and aspirations?” Only after touching in with these deeper strains of being were the women taking part in the workshop encouraged to consider questions such as “What are some of the stories you continually tell about yourself?” and “How do they accord with your aspirations and values?”, and then to see if any stories came to mind that seemed particularly relevant, inspiring, or enlivening.
Broadening the inquiry further, everyone was next asked to think back to some of the challenges they had faced and overcome in their lives, or that they might imagine having to face in the future, and to try to bring to mind any stories that they see as being helpful in difficult times. Finally, stressing as best I could that there are no correct or final answers to these
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 54 questions, I asked each person in the group to see if they could identify one meaningful narrative that seemed appropriate to work with for the duration of the workshop.
Surprisingly, when I look back on this part of the pilot project, the sense I get is that everyone was involved in a process that might best be described as a tentative granting of, and accepting of, permission of one sort or another. Although this process unfolded in a different way for each of the participants, in each case it was instigated by that initial invitation to choose a narrative with which to work. Some struggled to give themselves permission to look deeply – whether at unprocessed past experiences, their feelings about their current situations, or their aspirations for and vision of their lives – an activity not readily valorized and even subtly discouraged in our society. Others wrestled with the trap of familiarity, drawing strength from the format and purpose of the workshop itself in order to revisit old and worn out stories in imaginative and creative ways. And all of us, to one degree or another, relied on the council format employed and on our agreement to confidentiality, so that we could openly share with one another in the knowledge that there would never be any need to justify or defend.
Meg is a wonderful example of someone who courageously accepted the challenge offered up in this context. Following the aforementioned guided meditation performed during our first meeting, we went around in a circle to see if anyone had any initial thoughts about a story they might wish to contemplate. Meg spoke about wanting to “get organized” in her everyday life, mentioning various tasks and projects on her ‘to do’ list which she wanted to accomplish, and then said to me “but I don’t think that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for.”
As best I could, I tried to make it clear to everyone that I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but rather, hoping to co-create a space in which we could all look more closely at whatever called to us. The next time we met, Meg spoke to us about wanting to use our time together to look at aspects of her life she has long shied away from facing; announcing her
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 55 decision to revisit lifelong struggles and doubts through the lens of archived footage of the Little
Rock Nine.
5.1.2 Autonomy
Once everyone had selected a topic with which to work, the next stage of the process
(immersion) asked the participants to spend some contemplative time each day with their chosen themes. Starting each session with a period of meditation if possible (either silent or using the guidance on the CDs provided), everyone was encouraged to engage with the medium of their story (or narrative provoking piece) in whatever way was appropriate, i.e. reading, watching, listening, gazing, etc., and to consider keeping a notebook or journal in order to record any insights that might arise.
In the first stage, the focus of which is on formulating intention and vision, the dominant procedural theme that emerged was that of establishing a personally acceptable relationship with permission and consent. Conversely, in the immersion phase a realization that permission was somehow unnecessary, or perhaps more correctly, the awareness that no one but oneself could grant oneself permission or give consent, gradually came to the fore. In other words, there was a perceptible shift in the direction of increased autonomy as each participant came to see that she was ultimately and solely responsible for her own experience.
Interestingly, rather than being able to point to any formal structural agreement or specific aspect of the format to account for this particular facet of the workshop, it seems that the openness of approach adopted for our time together was itself most directly responsible for the arising of this sense of autonomy and self-reliance. In addition to creating an environment where everyone felt supported in nurturing a developing skill at finding (and making) meaning from the raw materials of narrative strains and life experiences, our ‘everything is welcome, but nothing is
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 56 required’ attitude, allowed each of us to find that individual level of participation that felt supportive and healing rather than overly threatening.
This latter aspect of the pilot project format was especially important to Sandi, who, after the workshop had ended, commented about how she had surprised herself by continuing to come back week after week, rather than simply quit, as she was repeatedly tempted to do. She willingly acknowledged that this was “definitely not her sort of thing”, and (if body language is any indicator) had experienced obvious discomfort and resistance during much of the workshop.
And yet, the autonomy instilled through the openness of our approach enabled her to participate in a way that she felt provided an acceptable and workable amount of challenge. In this respect, her previously quoted words about sticking with her narrative to “see where it might lead”, can equally well be taken as an accurate description of how the noncompulsory nature of our discussions allowed her curiosity to repeatedly help her overcome her reservations.
5.1.3 Perspective
In the next major phase of our workshop, I encouraged everyone to try to express in their own words what their chosen stories had come to mean to them personally. Or, if a chosen item
(such as Mollie’s picture) did not come with its own obvious and ready-made narrative, to try to give it one. Some of the questions that I offered up to the group as potential aids for this part of the process were: “What memories does my story bring to mind?”, “What lessons might it hold for me?”, “What was it that made me choose to contemplate this topic in particular, and not something else?”, and “Why do I find it so (compelling, irritating, saddening, inspiring, etc.)?”
Then, in an effort to inspire connections between these ruminations and everyday life, I asked them each to consider “How might I live differently if I were to truly ‘get’ what my story is trying to tell me?”, “What would it cost me to live this way?”, and “What will it cost me if I don’t?” Finally, I suggested that it might prove useful for everyone to write something that
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 57 captures their current understanding and insights, as well as any new questions that have arisen
(or open ones that have become more pressing) as a result of the inquiry.
As it turns out, this ‘interpretive’ stage of the workshop, far more than any other, can be well characterized by various shifts in perspective that were beginning to be experienced by our group, both on an individual basis and as a whole. In hindsight, some of these shifts in viewpoint may be seen as natural outgrowths of the results of preceding stages (though as we will soon see, others cannot so readily be understood in this way). For example, given what has already been said about everyone having found a greater sense of autonomy during the immersion phase of the workshop, it might not be too surprising to learn that each participant began to express a growing sense of ownership of, and connection to, her chosen narrative.
Similarly, there was also a perceptible movement of each woman’s telling of her tale in the direction of ever greater wholeness and continuity, as each strove in the interpretive phase to
‘make her story her own’.
The effect of this newfound sense of ownership and coherence could also be felt in group discussions that showed how these women had come to perceive anew certain aspects of their lives, as well as how the experience of the workshop was beginning to inspire changes in attitude and behavior. Such a shift in perspective is well exemplified by Susan, who not only came to speak increasingly lovingly and admiringly of her ‘frugal’ father, his Spartan lifestyle, and the ways in which these forces had shaped her childhood, but also, and as a result, found herself for the first time embracing and deeply appreciating the life of simplicity she now lives. Likewise, the connection that grew between Kelly and her narrative inspired her first to express her love and admiration for a dear friend in a poem, and then to manifest those feelings in the larger world by submitting the poem as her friend’s nomination for Special Olympian of the year.
Finally, there was perhaps no greater individual shift in perspective expressed in the workshop
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 58 than that experienced by Mollie, a woman who never learned to swim and is terrified by the prospect, but who’s perspective had widened so much in our time together that the heroine of her short story Journey to a Whole Heart finally, and after much struggle, makes it to the other shore not by crossing the bridge with which she began her contemplations, but by entering the water below.
Mollie’s creative expression piece also illustrates how the most profound shift in perspective arising from the interpretive stage of the workshop cannot be seen simply as a natural consequence or outgrowth of the autonomy that had previously been established.
Instead, an overarching sense of what might be called the ‘interpenetration’ of the participants’ various stories, as well as the new points of view they engendered, began to emerge. In a palpable sense, it was as if one larger metanarrative, within which each individual tale naturally found its place, was being authored. One in which we all started seeing ourselves in one another’s stories; finding common ground amidst our doubts, joys, struggles, and mistakes, and out of which the previously mentioned themes of friendship, authenticity, integrity, and the like, that were becoming increasingly important to our group, began to take center stage. In other words, while still maintaining the sense of autonomy and responsibility that had previously arisen, we all also began to feel and understand that our narratives and interpretations overlapped in vital ways, and all held meaning for one another—that regardless of how personally identified each of us might be with our particular tale, there was an important sense in which they were not really ‘our stories’. In trying to capture the general feeling that arose during this part of the workshop, I can do no better than to quote Mollie as she writes, “She stepped into the water, and was helped by the swimmers to stay afloat. As they traveled across the water, they helped her learn to swim and to float; they also shared their stories, and she began to realize that she wasn’t alone in searching for a whole heart [emphasis mine]” (Appendix E).
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 59
5.1.4 Validation
In the wake of this growing sense of the ‘melding’ of our various storylines, everyone was next asked to try to express, in some creative medium, whatever personal insights or new understandings had arisen for each of them throughout the course of the workshop. In an effort to provide some context for this last phase of the pilot project, I shared a quote by Zen teacher
Albert Low, which I felt poetically articulated what our group as a whole was in the process of discovering: “Creativity is the result of unity within ambiguity.” Against this backdrop, I offered a few questions for the women to consider, including “When I think about what I am taking away from this workshop, how does it manifest in my awareness, i.e. as visual images, words or sounds, music, felt sensations, or a combination of several of these?”, “Are there any specific people, places, or events that I strongly feel should be included in a creative expression of my insights?”, and “Are there any seemingly independent themes that I have hit upon that might share some deeper underlying unity?” The overall goal of this final stage was to leave each participant with something tangible to revisit: as a reminder of our time together, as a source of validation and affirmation, and as a springboard for future contemplations.
While my main motivation for having offered each of the participants a ‘new name’ upon completion of the workshop was to instill everyone with a sense of affirmation and closure, I have since discovered that other, more immediate sources of validation were already at work.
One of these was simply our coming to see that others in the group shared many of the same thoughts, fears, doubts, wishes, and so on, that we ourselves did—the discovery of which can be viewed more or less straightforwardly as a natural outcome of the ‘interpenetration’ of our stories that came to fruition during the previous stage. Another powerful source of validation came from the stories themselves—that sense of connectedness that arises when it dawns on you that another human being was inspired through their own life experiences to pen the very story
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 60 within which so much personal meaning has been found, and accompanied by the realization that many others have also deemed it worthwhile and necessary to preserve, sustain, or otherwise protect and spread its message. Finally, one of the most influential pieces of corroborating evidence, making it clear that we were not alone in finding deep meaning in things like the importance of friendship, authenticity, happiness, and honest self-expression, was the observed overlap of these themes with those identified in Bronnie Ware’s exposition of ‘the top five regrets of the dying’.
5.2 Future Directions – Narrative Contemplation and Elder Care
In the earlier parts of this section, we identified four specific attributes that support one’s ability to fruitfully engage in and benefit from a process of narrative contemplation (permission, autonomy, novel perspective, and validation), each successively emerging within a particular stage of the pilot project: formulating intention and vision, immersion, interpretation, and creative expression, respectively. If, in closing, we lastly consider how chaplains wishing to incorporate such techniques into their daily work might go about tailoring this approach to the particularities of their specific areas of service, several questions readily come to mind; each signaling a possible direction for future research.
For example, one could adapt this work to situations in which chaplains may reasonably expect to encounter those they serve only infrequently, or for very short stretches of time, or perhaps only once. Under such conditions, it might make more sense to work with just one of these attributes, permission or validation for example, depending upon where a particular individual appears to be located in the midst of his or her story, and according to what seems most supportive and healing at the time. Alternatively, one might seek to develop a simplified heuristic model within which the entire progression presented above could be condensed; one
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 61 that, while potentially limited in comparison with a longer term intervention, can nevertheless be readily bequeathed to a person for use in time-constrained situations.
This last consideration also points to another promising line of inquiry; that of seeking increasingly effective ways to cultivate and nurture a growing skill in working with narrative, both in oneself and in others. This, in turn, may require figuring out how to best engender a lasting sense of permission to look ever more deeply – thereby ensuring continued access to the entirety of the hermeneutic circle – so that in the end the chaplain is no longer needed. In other words, we might study how to encapsulate the methods described above in the form of an
‘appropriate technology’, i.e., an intervention or tool that ordinary people can use and benefit from without becoming dependent upon a system over which they have no control.
On a more personal note, having found myself increasingly drawn to working with the elderly, first as a volunteer tai chi instructor at a local senior center and more recently with the
New Mexico Long-Term Care Ombudsman program5, I am quite motivated to discover how narrative contemplation might be adapted in ways that can favorably address the unique challenges faced by this particular population. In addition to the more general considerations outlined above, some of the specific difficulties to be overcome in this regard are those factors that can hinder one’s willingness and communicative ability to share in the realm of story, such as: impaired sense faculties (degradation or loss of hearing, speech, vision, etc.), limited mobility (through injury, weakness, atrophy, or paralysis), and overriding senses of loneliness, boredom, depression, and unworthiness (often exacerbated by a lack of stimulation, the effects of medications, or feelings of isolation and abandonment). Finally, perhaps the single greatest
5 The New Mexico Long-Term Care Ombudsman program is a federally-mandated, state-run program through which volunteers regularly visit their assigned nursing homes or assisted-living facilities to (i) provide residents with regular companionship, (ii) ensure everyone is being treated humanely and that their legal rights are being respected, and (iii) advocate for the residents’ needs and wishes.
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 62 obstacle to working with narrative in this population is that of dementia, and the detrimental effects it has on memory and the cohesiveness of one’s experience.
These factors, in concert with the structures and attitudes prevailing in even the best nursing homes and assisted living facilities, can also readily undermine each of the characteristics that, as we have shown, support one’s ability to relate to story in a wholesome way. This may happen, for example, through the fostering of an environment in which residents feel it necessary to obtain permission for just about anything they wish to do, by finding one’s autonomy and self-sufficiency severely limited (whether by facility rules or by one’s own body and mind), by discovering that changing one’s point of view is difficult when every day is experienced as a virtual carbon-copy of the last, and by continually finding validation and affirmation of one’s basic humanity and worth hard to come by. And yet, on the bright side, these observations also suggest that narrative contemplation may turn out to be the perfect technique for addressing these and related issues.
Although at this early stage of the inquiry I cannot foresee the specific form that a well fleshed-out response to these and other challenges will take, I am confident that any such intervention will include at least one key aspect – that of open and attentive listening. Even within the context of my limited experience, I have found that simply lending someone who may have no one else to talk to a sympathetic and interested ear can have wondrous effects on attitude and mood, and also works to slowly engender trust, companionship, and a growing willingness to share stories and life experiences. Remarkably, this often holds true even if a particular individual does not remember who I am from one visitation to the next; an observation which makes it clear that the obstacles we have been considering, while formidable, are not insurmountable.
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 63
And so it is my hope that others will also be inspired to tackle these and other challenges, and to advance this work in whatever ways feel most appropriate, useful, supportive, and healing. It is in this sense that I offer this thesis with the sincere wish that it help, in some small way, to bring to fruition the vision of physician Robert N. Butler, a pioneer in the field of healthy aging, to “facilitate the opportunity for a person to achieve resolution and celebration, affirmation and hope, reconciliation and personal growth in the final years” (2002). My only caveat being that we, at the same time, support one another in waking up to the fact that we need not wait until our final years are upon us to share in these fruits.
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 64
Appendix A (Group photo)
Photo removed for considerations of privacy.
Group members from left to right: Meg, Sandi, Mollie, Trace, Kelly, and Susan
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 65
Appendix B (Mollie’s picture)
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 66
Appendix C (Kelly’s excerpt from Same Kind of Different as Me)
I’d forgotten that when I told him that all I wanted from him was his friendship, he’d said he’d think about it. Now, I was shocked that anyone would spend a week pondering such a question. While the whole conversation had slipped from my mind, Denver had clearly spent serious time preparing his answer.
He looked up from his coffee, fixing me with one eye, the other squinted like Clint
Eastwood. “There’s somethin I heard ‘bout white folks that bothers me, and it has to do with fishin.” He spoke slowly and deliberately, keeping me pinned with that eyeball. “I heard that when white folks go fishin they do something called ‘catch and release.’”
Catch and release? I nodded solemnly, suddenly nervous and curious at the same time.
“That really bothers me,” Denver went on. “I just can’t figure it out. ‘Cause when colored folks go fishin, we really proud of what we catch, and we take it and show it off to everybody that’ll look. Then we eat what we catch…in other words, we use it to sustain us. So it really bothers me that white folks would go to all that trouble to catch a fish, then when they done caught it, just throw it back in the water.”
Denver looked away, searching the blue autumn sky, then locked onto me again with that drill-bit stare. “So, Mr. Ron, it occurred to me: If you is fishin for a friend you just gon’ catch and release, then I ain’t got no desire to be your friend.”
Suddenly his eyes gentled and he spoke more softly than before: “But if you is lookin for a real friend, then I’ll be one. Forever.”
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 67
Appendix D (Sandi’s list of friendship quotes)
“There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.” - Paramahansa Yogananda: 1893 – 1952 Indian Yogi founder of Self Realization Fellowship and brought Yoga to US
“An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.” - Buddha: founder of Buddhism
“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.” - Aristotle: 384 BC – 322 BC Greek philosopher
“A friend to all is a friend to none.” - Aristotle
“Be slow to fall into friendship, but when you are in, continue firm and constant.” - Socrates: 469 BC – 399 BC Greek philosopher
“Be a friend to thyself, and others will be so too.” - Thomas Fuller: 1608 – 1661 English churchman and historian
“A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.” - William Penn: 1644 – 1718 English entrepreneur and philosopher - owner/founder of Pennsylvania & Delaware
“Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his.” - Benjamin Franklin: 1706 – 1790 founding father of United States - “Friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.” - George Washington: 1732 – 1799 1st US President
“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” - Abraham Lincoln: 1809 – 1865 16th US President
“Friendship with one’s self is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.” - Eleanor Roosevelt: 1884 – 1962 American First Lady – four terms
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 68
“The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover that someone else believes in you and is willing to trust you with a friendship.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson: 1803-1882 American poet
“Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.” - Elbert Hubbard: 1856 - 1915 American writer, artist, philosopher
“When you choose your friends, don't be short-changed by choosing personality over character.” - W. Somerset Maugham: 1874 – 1965 British playwright and novelist
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” - Dale Carnegie: 1888 – 1955 American writer and lecturer on self-improvement
“It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.” - Zora Neale Hurston: 1891 – 1960 American writer and folklorist
“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.” - Bernard Meltzer: 1916 – 1998 American radio talk show host
“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing... not healing, not curing... that is a friend who cares.” - Henri Nouwen: 1932 – 1996 Dutch Catholic priest – wrote 40+ book, including The Prodigal Son
“There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.” - Sylvia Plath: 1932 – 1963 American poet and novelist
“Never leave a friend behind. Friends are all we have to get us through this life--and they are the only things from this world that we could hope to see in the next.” - Dean Koontz: 1945 - American fiction author
“People come in and out of our lives, and the true test of friendship is whether you can pick back up right where you left off the last time you saw each other.” - Lisa See: 1955 - American fiction novelist
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 69
Appendix E (Mollie’s short story)
Journey to a Whole Heart
A woman went to an older, wiser man for advice. “A piece of your heart is missing,” he told her. A piece that is essential for you to have a fulfilled life. You will need to go on a journey in order to find it. The journey will require great courage, for much of it will be over water.” He knew that the woman had a great fear of water, of having her face or her head submerged; she had never learned to swim.
The woman knew that she had to make the journey, to find the missing piece of her heart.
When she went to the water’s edge to begin her journey, she saw, to her relief, a bridge over the water she had to cross. The bridge was narrow, and not very sturdy, but there were many people walking on it, and the bridge did not collapse. She thought, “This is a way to get safely across the water,” and she stepped on it. Crowds of people were walking, running, cycling across the bridge; some even had carts that they pushed or pulled, and all were going in the opposite direction of the woman. She found herself being pushed and shoved; several people shouted at her to get out of their way, or that she was going in the wrong direction. She began to be afraid of being knocked down and trampled by the rapidly moving crowd. Finally, she saw the end of the bridge, where she could step down on dry land. But the exit was locked with iron bars; there was no way off the bridge. Weeping with frustration and exhaustion, she turned around and retraced her steps back to the beginning of her journey. Stepping off the bridge where she had stepped on with such hope, she wondered if her heart would always be incomplete.
As she stood, wondering what to do, she heard voices calling to her from the water. There was a small group of swimmers who had seen what had happened to her. They, too, were on their own journeys to find their whole hearts, and they sensed her fear, and her need to continue her journey. She stepped into the water, and was helped by the swimmers to stay afloat. As they traveled across the water, they helped her learn to swim and to float; they also shared their stories, and she began to realize that she wasn’t alone in searching for a whole heart.
When they reached land, the swimmers said good-bye, for their journeys would continue in other directions. As the woman continued on, she met other people who were searching for their own hearts. They shared their stories, and even when the woman traveled alone, she felt supported and upheld by the seekers she had met.
She began to realize that in order to have a whole-hearted life, one must confront one’s fears, know that many others are sharing in one’s experiences, and making their own journeys. She also realized that places that seemed safe were not only not safe, but could stop one from finding the missing piece of heart simply by keeping one rushing around, being too busy moving in the wrong direction to be the whole-hearted person she was meant to be. She had needed to follow the crowd in order to leave the bridge, but she needed to be willing to take the first step into the water. The safety came from overcoming the fear. And the journey continued; for once the missing pieces of our hearts are found life becomes a continued journey—of growth, to our connection with the divine.
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 70
Appendix F (Meg’s quilt)
Symbolism: black and white cloth – racial harmony, rainbow colors – tolerance for all sexual preferences, green – the natural world.
Embroidery reads “Living in peace with myself, friends, and weeds.”
AWAKENING THROUGH STORY: BUDDHIST CHAPLAINCY AND NARRATIVE 71
Appendix G (Kelly’s Poem)
The soul that knows your name
In a world full of busy-ness, anxiety and strife Few people have the honor of meeting someone who truly changes their life.
Someone who offers unconditional love is a rare find A true friend who brings out life’s joy, who is loving and kind A friend who accepts you for who you are, not for what you do Someone who loves you purely just because you are you
Who gently reminds you to take time for today To let go of worry, hurry and doing; to learn a new way To practice forgiveness; love, laugh and just “be” To trust what you feel, not just what you see To share all you have, not separate what is yours and what is mine To commit to being a friend for life not only when there is time
We all have things we need help with; unique special needs Let us love each other, not only with words, but also in deeds. Whether the difference is ability, orientation, religion or race Make a connection; lead with compassion and grace
Create a sense of family, a bridge; a place where we belong Celebrate the things that are right, don’t focus on the wrong Build a place where we always feel at home When we need to be loved and not feel so alone
Embrace the one who knows who you are, and what you are about Who recognizes you from the inside and not just the out
The one who remembers we are less different than the same The one who leads with the heart, the soul that knows your name.
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Appendix H (Susan’s painting and life-story ‘rewrite’)
From top to bottom: (i) Clouds, (ii) Sun, (iii) Corn and Pottery – Native American Spirituality, (iv) Crops – Nature, (v) Symbols – “Seeking”, “Peace”, and “Rain”.
Desperately seeking Susan
Text removed for considerations of privacy.
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