suffering is part of the package

Look up a definition of Buddhist teachings and you’ll read about its emphasis on suffering. Enought already, you say;  I’m looking for happiness, for ways out of what Zorba the Greek calls “the full catastrophe” of life. The beauty of Buddhist practice is that calls suffering by name (as pain, aversions, disappointment, loss, dislikes, preferences, etc.) [...]

to be honest

I recently alluded to avoiding a decision for fear of displeasing others. It’s an old dilemma, this pleasing behavior, going way back to abusive relationships during childhood and apprenticeship years. Now that the decision is clear and has been communicated, I’m immensely relieved … and amazed how difficult it is to jump the shadows of ancient conditioning.
At issue [...]

everyday interspirituality (eh?)

I stuck my head in the door and the patient’s daughter beckoned me to the bedside. “Would you like to meet mom?” she asked. As I moved within her field of vision, the patient rose from the bed as if pulled by puppet strings. Our eyes met and I assisted her in lying down again. [...]

same old, same old

The thing about clichés is that they hold an element of truth. Yet we use them lightly, dismissively. “Everything changes” is one of them. Just recall something that happened yesterday, or last night, this morning, a minute ago. It’s gone! The ego re-invents it as memories, keeping it alive by telling and re-telling and so we [...]

just another day

Today was an exceptionally busy day at hospice. Several admissions, shuffling beds to give single rooms to near-death patients who had been in double rooms, complex family meetings, getting to know new patients and their families, and so on. I’d expected it to be a slow, even awkward day to find rooms empty after three patients [...]

this much i know to be true

Our sunday poem is by Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz:
The word Faith means when someone sees
A dew drop or a floating leaf, and knows
That they are, because they have to be.
And even if you dreamed, or closed your eyes
And wished, the world would still be what it is,
And the leaf would still be carried down the [...]

like still waters

A family is gathering at hospice: adult children, spouse, siblings flying in from abroad, long-time friend, in-laws arriving by ferry. The impending death of a loved one brings them together; they put their lives on hold to witness the ending of another. As a caregiver, I am honoured to be included, for even the smallest moments, [...]

people pleasing

The words holy, health, healing, and wholeness have common roots in Old English. We know intuitively that they’re connected: that our body is holy ground, that we continually wish to heal from various injuries, and that there’s a wholeness comprising body, mind, and spirit. ”We all stand in need of healing,” writes Esther de Waal–
For most [...]

feels like sunday

… but it’s only Thursday, or already Thursday. Time’s such an elastic entity. A couple of patients have been with us (at hospice) for several weeks, about to die any day. And yet they motor on: one sleeping like an angel for days on end, and the other drifting in and out as if travelling [...]

a miracle in every moment

This weekend was my third time as student of Kazuaki Tanahashi. A slim man in his mid-seventies, he travels the world to teach, is a peace activist, and translator of ancient texts (especially the works of Dogen, the 13th century founder of the Soto branch of Zen). Kaz is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, and director of A [...]

simply put

 
To die is poignantly bitter,
but the idea of having to die without having lived
is unbearable.
~ Erich Fromm (1900-1980), social psychologist,
psychoanalyst, and humanistic philosopher.
image: Gustav Klimt, ”Death and life” (1916).

nursing a bad heartache

Holly Williams is the daughter and granddaughter of the Hank Williams’. I heard her for the first time on NPR this morning and one of her lines went straight for my heart: I’ve paid my dues, honey, you can keep the change. I feel as if another chunk of grief has fallen away, another layer of longing-for-what-is-no-more slipped off [...]

4 noble truths (a survey)

 
Shakyamuni (Gautama Siddartha) was born some 2500 years ago in what is now Nepal. Called the Buddha by his followers (Enlightened One), he taught the Four Noble Truths:
1. Life contains dissatisfaction (suffering).
2. The origin of suffering is attachment.
3. The cessation of suffering is attainable.
4. There is an eight-fold path to help end suffering.
Click here for a brief [...]

not done grieving

For most of yesterday my thoughts were with a certain patient who’s dying, who may already have died (see last two days’ posts). Last night I lit an extra candle, this morning I meditated an extra period, then asked my monastery friend to add her name to the morning chant list of people who are ill or have died within the last 49 [...]

what the dying teach us

Still reeling from yesterday’s bedside visit (and unaware of the patient’s current condition), I seek to situate my experience in a broader context of living and dying. Rodney Smith, who trained as a monk in Thailand and has been a hospice worker and meditation teacher for many years, writes as follows:
The dying teach us that we [...]