This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Welcome. And thank you all for being here. I especially want to welcome any new people that are here for the first time. Any new folks? Welcome. My name is Catherine, and I'm living here at the Zen Center for this year while I'm doing a one-year chaplaincy training program at a hospital here in San Francisco. I'd like to express my gratitude to Jordan, head of practice, and the director, Tova Green, for inviting me to speak to you all tonight.

[01:09]

And I'd also like to acknowledge and thank my teachers, Soban Catherine Thanis, who was my ordination, my root teacher, and my current teacher, Shosan Victoria Austin. And all my teachers over the years who have supported me and encouraged me and have helped me to grow and develop and have brought me to this moment. And I also especially am feeling a lot of gratitude tonight, especially on this day. Six years ago today, I was in a catastrophic car accident. which nearly took my life and did take the life of another person. And we did a memorial service for her this evening in the Zendo, Linda Banker. She was a single mom who had a son who had addiction issues for many years from about the time he was, I guess around 12, was when he got involved in...

[02:24]

a lot of different unhealthy habits and became a meth addict and at the time of my accident he was 21 years old and the great irony of it was was they were on their way to court ordered rehab for him and he had spent the night before partying as a lot of people do before they go into rehab and He had smoked pot that morning and spent the evening before drinking with friends, and he fell asleep at the wheel of the car. And she was the passenger, and I came head-on into the passenger side of the car, and she suffered major head trauma. And I was critically injured and airlifted to Santa Clara Valley Medical Trauma Center, where I... was unconscious for four days in the ICU, had to have multiple surgeries, both internally and externally, and I almost lost my foot.

[03:29]

But I almost lost my life, so I'm really grateful to be here. And what happened to me in that accident is really what I want to talk to you about tonight, is how to be, how can we be with the difficult times in our life. And for the work that I'm doing now as a chaplain in the hospital, how to be with suffering, it's the core of the practice that I'm doing now. So one thing that the accident did was it dramatically moved me from one track in my life to another track. And even though it was kind of where I was heading, it kind of put it all into high gear once I was able to literally be back on my feet and had recovered enough to move forward in my life.

[04:39]

So... So what I'm doing at the hospital is being with people who are in a really difficult place in their life, either very sick or they're dying or they've suffered some kind of severe trauma. And one of the qualities that is essential for doing compassionate work... Excuse me. happens to be one of the Brahma Viharas that is the topic of this practice period that Jordan is currently leading. So the Brahma Viharas, if you're not familiar with them, are the Four Noble Abodes, or the Four Immeasurables, they're also known as.

[05:42]

I know this is going to be repetitive for a lot of you, but for those who haven't heard about the Brahma-viharas, they are metta, which is loving-kindness, karuna, which is compassion, mudita, which is sympathetic joy, and upekka, which is equanimity. The venerable Sujya says, these four are attitudes towards both ourselves and other beings. They are also known as favorable relationships. They can also be extended towards an immeasurable scope of beings, and so are also called the four immeasurables. So there are practices and a process for working with these in order to cultivate them within ourselves. And generally we begin with metta, and then Karuna, and then Mudita, and Upeka. And they are all deeply related, interconnected, and are dependent one upon the other.

[06:45]

But to practice them, we usually begin with ourself. Because if we don't cultivate them for ourself first, then it's pretty hard to cultivate them for other people. So we need to extend loving kindness first to ourself before we can extend it to others. And it is said that equanimity... is based upon the first three. And the definition, one definition of equanimity is steadiness of mind under stress. So I think that's a pretty good definition of a state that is important to cultivate if we... want to be or intend to be with our own and others' suffering. And so in our practice, we actually practice stability in our zazen practice.

[07:53]

And in the establishment of stability, we create the conditions for all four of these qualities to arise. And it's kind of like, it almost is like they're going back and forth. We establish stability in order to establish stability. So, for example, one way, and this is a very important practice to me, especially because I have, besides my accident, I have experienced a lot of trauma in my life. And the trauma was always running me. so for example tonight you know I've given Dharma talks before but I've never given a Dharma talk here it's always been I practiced at Monterey and Santa Cruz and Center and you know on a good night we might have 10 or 15 people so to be in a venue such as this and the mothership and with such a large crowd is you know it's

[09:06]

quite anxiety-producing. And so the last, well, ever since Jordan asked me to give this talk, I've been practicing with this. And how do I establish equanimity in the midst of being nervous and scared and, you know, at moments terrified to give a Dharma talk in the Buddha hall? So that's one example. Another example, of course, is the accident, which was huge. And I remember my teacher, Catherine, was coming to see me a lot in the hospital. And, you know, I had recently about, let's see, the accident was in 2005, and I was ordained as a priest in 2003. And I remember... asking, you know, before that I was always asking her about, you know, like, well, what is the training of a priest? And this was one of the questions. And so a few days after I woke up and was transferred into the post-surgical unit out of the ICU, we had a conversation and I said to her, well, you remember that question I had about, you know, what is the training?

[10:24]

And I said, I think this is it. that this is the real training. It's to be in our life in the midst of great difficulty or minor difficulty, minor irritation, whatever it is that's coming up, the practice is to how to find the ground to be in it. So this, as you might imagine, is very important in the work of a chaplain. So this program that I'm in has been a really amazing and intense experience for me. And again, I want to express my gratitude to Zen Center for allowing me to come and be here while I'm doing this program. It's been a very supportive environment for me to be in to do this work, to be able to sit every morning, although sometimes I don't sit in the morning.

[11:27]

Sometimes I just need to take care of myself because I've had a rather difficult situation that I've been involved in. But to have that stability as an environment to support compassionate work has been really very important to me, and I'm very grateful for that. So thank you very much. So as a chaplain, the role, as I understand it, is to accompany those who are in pain and suffering to offer spiritual and emotional support and to provide a healing and compassionate presence. And this has been the training that I've been involved in. And so one of the things that we are asked to do in our role as chaplain residents is to be on-call, be the on-call chaplain for a 24-hour period.

[12:36]

And so my very first experience as the on-call chaplain, I got a call at about 5 o'clock, which is when everybody else is going off duty. And then I become the chaplain for all four hospitals of California Pacific Medical Center, or the on-call chaplain becomes the chaplain for all four hospitals. So my very first on-call was to come over to the Pacific campus and to the cardiac care unit, which is an intensive care unit for cardiac patients, although this particular was not a cardiac patient. Excuse me. And what had happened was a 40-ish-year-old woman, a Japanese woman, here visiting from Japan with her husband, who is American, Caucasian-American.

[13:40]

And they lived in Japan and had been here visiting with his family. And the day before they were packing and the day before they were heading back to Japan, and she collapsed in the hotel room and had had a massive brain hemorrhage. And so they immediately brought her to the hospital, to the emergency room, and she went into the ICU. they kept her on life support until her parents could be emergency flighted from Japan. So when I got the call, she had died a couple hours earlier, and the parents had gotten there in time to be there to remove life support. And the request was for a Buddhist service at the bedside. And so...

[14:42]

This is my first, you know, request, you know, to be present and to show up. And, you know, I just, it's like, okay, here it is. You know, you've got to step into this. And that kind of the sort of almost... sort of freaky synchronicity of it was, was here, I happened to be wearing, you know, Samoy, the pants and jacket that we wear. And I didn't have a Rakasu with me, but I carry one with me now always. But I was sort of like the blend of these two families, you know, a Zen priest, a Caucasian-American who has some... familiarity with Japanese culture. I had studied Japanese as part of my academic program so I could speak a little Japanese, not much, but enough to introduce myself and say hello to the parents.

[15:45]

And when I walked in and I bowed and introduced myself in Japanese, their eyes just were like, whoa, where did you come from? And I just had to step into the situation and be present and be with my own fear and nervousness and really wanting to do the best that I could for this family who were in such grief and in such pain. The whole thing was so gut-wrenching. And for me, too. And so how do I be in the midst of this, hold it together, without falling apart myself. So this is part of why developing the stability that practice affords us is so important because, you know, it's not like we're just going to be able to go in there and be calm and, you know, okay, I'm here, I'm the chaplain, you know.

[16:53]

It's like there's all this stuff going on inside myself at the same time. And still, you know, the image that I came up with after that was like, it's like being the tentpole, you know, holding up the tent so that this process of grief and saying goodbye can happen and still, you know, hold the space for that to happen, hold my own feelings and emotions around it, and do all that with some measure, hopefully, of grace. and presence. So Joan Halifax, she's at Upaya in Santa Fe, and she also has a chaplaincy training program, and she talks about Upeka as the perfect partner of compassion, or equanimity, as the perfect partner of compassion.

[17:57]

Equanimity is the stability of mind that allows us to be present with an open heart no matter how wonderful or difficult conditions are. It is said that the boundless qualities of loving kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy stem from equanimity. What kind of mind and heart can stay strong and open and not fall prey to conditioned reactions? Can we grieve fully and not cling to our grief? So, um... This is why practice is so important to me, and I couldn't do this work without having a base in stability, in calmness, in order to be a calm presence in the midst of great suffering.

[19:12]

But the way to do this is that we have to cultivate this for ourself first. So this relationship between tranquility, calmness, shamatha to insight or vipassana, so tranquility and insight and the relationship to the cultivation of the Brahma-viharas are very, for me, very strongly and deeply intertwined. And it has been said that the deepest expression of the Dharma is an appropriate response. In chaplaincy, this is also the most important thing, is an appropriate response. And this comes from emptiness or the knowledge of the interdependence of the present moment, which is insight. So it's not about doing, or not necessarily about doing, it might be, but...

[20:20]

It could also be just sitting in silence with someone or holding their hand, having eye contact, or crying with them. But for me, I think it's really about that I see their pain, and they know that I see their pain. So again, to quote... Oh, excuse me. No, I wanted to bring in Pema Chodron here on this thought of how emptiness is connected to this practice. She says, in working with the teachings on how to awaken compassion and in trying to help others, we might come to realize that compassionate action involves working with ourselves as much as working with others. Compassionate action is a practice, one of the most advanced.

[21:24]

To relate with others compassionately is a challenge. Really communicating to the heart and being there for someone else, our child, spouse, parent, client, patient, or the homeless woman on the street, means not shutting down on that person, which means, first of all, not shutting down on ourselves. This means allowing ourselves to feel what we feel and not pushing it away. It means accepting every aspect of ourselves, even the parts we don't like. To do this requires openness, which in Buddhism is sometimes called emptiness, not fixating or holding on to anything. Only in an open, non-judgmental space can we acknowledge what we are feeling. Only in an open space where we're not all caught up in our own version of reality can we see and hear and feel who others really are, which allows us to be with them and communicate with them properly. So in this work, emptiness...

[22:34]

I really liked what she said about not trying to get ground under our feet. For me, this is letting go, letting go of my own self-concerns. So when I walk into a room, I don't know what I'm going to encounter when I walk into that hospital room. So being able to let go of preconceived ideas not trying to have this ground under my feet of knowing, of being willing to be at sea if I have to be at sea, if I'm flailing around, to be flailing around, but to do it mindfully, to notice that I'm flailing around, to notice that I'm lost in the moment, and to be open to that. because sometimes the pain and the suffering that I'm in contact with is almost unbelievable.

[23:43]

Just today, for example, over the last few days I've been with a patient who I actually haven't had the chance to speak to her because she's been heavily sedated. She's someone who, from a young age, had congenital heart problems. And she was at UCSF and they were doing a heart valve replacement. And she went into major cardiac arrest on the operating table. They were able to save her, but the damage to her heart was so severe that now it went from a valve replacement to a heart transplant. And they transferred her to CPMC because that's one of the specialties at CPMC is transplants. And so when I came into the situation, she was in the ICU, which is one of the units I cover. And her family were the people that I was interacting with and supporting.

[24:48]

And I was there during one of the doctor's consults, and it looked like there was a good chance that they were going to get a heart for her. And then yesterday when I came, they said that they had a heart for her. And at 4 o'clock yesterday, she was scheduled to go into surgery. So I've been thinking about her, you know, that whole time overnight. I chanted for her. I told Vicki about it. She was chanting for her. And so I came in this morning, you know, all excited, thinking she got her heart. Of course, not forgetting about the person that donated the heart. And I got in there and went to her room, and she was unconscious, and talked to her nurse, and I said, how did it go? And he said, she didn't get it. And I went, what? And she didn't get the transplant.

[25:50]

And I said, well, what happened? And so her mother was there, so we moved away. And it turned out that this woman, she's a 40-year-old, she's a pediatric nurse, and she'd had some psychiatric problems back about seven or eight years ago, and she had tried to commit suicide. So on the basis of that, they denied the transplant. And, I mean, my heart just sank. I couldn't believe it, you know, and her family there, the hopes, and it was all, you know, from one day to the next, everything had changed. So this is like what I'm talking about. It's just like, how do you be with this? So unless we have established this relationship, stability and groundedness within ourselves, to be with our own pain and to know our own pain, it's so hard to have the space and the openness to take in something like that.

[27:01]

And it was really hard for me. It was really hard for me then to go on to another patient after talking to her mom. And so I just, I had to stop. I had to go and just sit quietly for about an hour to just take it in and to digest it. So again, another quote from Joan Halifax that's relevant here. Equanimity is the capacity to be in touch with suffering and at the same time not to be swept away by it. It is the strong back that supports the soft front of compassion. These interdependent qualities are the foundation for effective work with suffering. Equanimity allows us that radiant, calm, peace, and trust that receive the world and at the same time make it possible for us to let go of the world. So again, just to emphasize how important for me this practice is to allow me to be with my own and others.

[28:13]

When I was in the hospital recovering from my accident, one of the things that I became acutely aware of that I had understood kind of intellectually on a cognitive level from the teachings and from listening to people was the fact that suffering, while uniquely experienced by each of us in our own particular way, universal and it's not personal it's the human condition and our suffering is other suffering and other suffering is our suffering and as I was lying there in the hospital and of course I was on a lot of drugs but even so I just became really acutely aware of the whole hospital as this repository of suffering and I think I was on the fourth floor, and I think the trauma center and the ICU were on the floor above me.

[29:21]

And I was brought in by helicopter, and I could hear the helicopter coming in pretty much on a regular basis, you know. And it was almost like that helicopter, you know, the beating of the... the rotor blades was almost like the beating of a heart. I was just, you know, I was lying there and I would hear that helicopter come in and that beating. And it was almost like I could just feel like this whole place just beating with the suffering of, you know, I was imagining, you know, all these rooms and in each room were one or two people that were in some state of deep distress. And I just felt so connected. to everybody in that. And it was really like it's us. It's all of ours. So that has also helped me to be with others' pain. Because even though my condition, although it could have been fatal, it wasn't.

[30:27]

And I'm often with many people whose situation is They have a terminal prognosis. But at least I know what it's like to be in that bed. I know what it's like to have all control taken away from you, to not know what's going to happen, to be with the uncertainty. So going through... and being with our own difficulties can be transformative. One of the books that we've been working with in my chaplaincy program, and I know, Joan, you've been working with this book, too, is Miriam Greenspan's Healing Through the Dark Emotions. And she talks about emotional alchemy. And Let me read you a little bit here.

[31:30]

So emotional alchemy is the transformative and healing possibilities that can arise when we actually go into our experience and know deeply our own experience in order to move through and beyond. And through that process, there's transformation and healing as possible. She says, emotional alchemy is the conscious flow of emotional information and energy. Each dark emotion has its own particular quality of energy and its own kind of flow. Emotional flow is not about letting it all hang out and acting in whatever way we are impelled, but about tolerating the energy of grief, fear, and despair in the body and allowing the wisdoms of these emotions. allowing the wisdom of these emotions to unfold. The flow of emotional alchemy is not a passive, powerless process, like lying down in emotional waves and drowning, nor is it a hyperactive controlling process, like erecting a dam to prevent the water from coming through.

[32:41]

Emotional flow is a state in which one is connected to the energy of emotion, yet able to witness it mindfully. We ride the wave of emotion on the surfboard of awareness. When we do this skillfully, emotional energy in a state of flow naturally moves toward healing, harmony, and transformation. You don't have to force the alchemy of the dark emotions. It happens when the conditions are right. One of the things that has been a challenge for me in this work is to go deeply into someone else's pain. And it's what my supervisor calls the pit. You know, going into the pit with somebody to, you know, the role of, one of the roles of the chaplain is to accompany the person in their pain and difficulty. And... You know, it's hard to go into the pit with somebody, you know.

[33:42]

And will I ever come out if I go down in there? And so I've been working with my own reluctance and not bouncing out. You know, of course, this is only appropriate if the person... is willing and wanting to go there. So that's another thing that is important, is the discernment of whether it's appropriate to go with somebody into that. And one of the ways that I've coped with my reluctance is to go into the helper role to problem solve. And this comes from a deep desire to alleviate their pain and suffering. But in the end, it's really not helpful, and it's kind of actually disempowering to the person. So again, this working with my own feelings about what's going on has been really important in order to actually be with somebody else's deep grief or feeling deep, you know,

[34:54]

difficult feelings and to hold the overwhelm and to find that spaciousness, to hold my own feelings as well as the other person's. And I think what's really apt is the Zen hospice care precepts, which are welcome everything, push away nothing, bring your whole self to the bedside, Don't wait. Find a place to rest in the middle of things. Cultivate don't know mind. So I try to keep these close. And our practice helps us to open up this spaciousness, the place to rest in the middle of things. So in the midst of the difficulty, it's possible to find that place to rest, to find that spaciousness.

[35:54]

And recently, one of the students here gave a way-seeking mind talk, and he talked about this experience that he had of this kind of spaciousness. And he had this experience of it as a kind of bliss state that he didn't want to leave. And... And that's a wonderful thing. And sometimes in practice we have those kinds of bliss experiences. But the spaciousness that I'm speaking of is not just a blissful state, but it's rather a container for the whole emotional spectrum. So it doesn't mean getting rid of what's happening, but actually allowing it to come forward. And in the allowing and the being with it is the... for transformation and healing, and I think for me this is what equanimity is about.

[36:59]

So I think I'm getting close to running out of time. So I'll just mention one more experience and end with that. Another patient that I saw was a man in his 30s, and he had AIDS, and he was dying. liver failure and he had requested to see a chaplain and I had tried several times to see him but he was always asleep or it wasn't a good time and finally I got to see him and it was on the day he was going to be transferred to a hospice and when I came in his partner was with him and it was a very loving The partner was lying on the bed with his arm around him, and it was just really sweet and very touching. And then his partner left to go do some things that needed to happen so he could make the transfer to the hospice.

[38:02]

And we sat and we talked, and there was something about this man that he had come to a state of complete peace with what was happening to him. with his death. And I was just so moved by... He had such a loving presence about him. And when we looked into each other's eyes, it was like he was looking at me with such love. And he knew, he said, I'm going to be okay. And I really believe that he... knew that, that it was not just positive thinking, that he really knew that whatever happened, he was going to be okay. And I think it's because he had realized who he is. And there was such a feeling of light in the room.

[39:05]

It was like the room really was vibrating with light. And what I felt with him was this deep, deep connection, that there was this There's no separation between us, and all there was was this love. And I think that's really what it's all about, is coming to understand who we truly are, our deep connection with each other, that really it's about love. So... And that's the healing. That's what's possible, I think, the transformative experience. When we go into our own grief and pain and to be with others, this is the transformative experience. And I think, for me at least, that's why I practice. And to heal, to find our wholeness, and to know that we are okay.

[40:11]

Whatever happens, we're okay. We're going to be okay. Ajahn Chan points to the practice of equanimity when he suggests that we cultivate a mind that knows how to let go. When we can let go a little, we have a little peace. When we can let go a lot, we have a lot of peace. When we can let go completely, we have complete peace. Equanimity practice cultivates a mind that knows how to let go. So, again, just... To love and be loved, Mother Teresa says that's what we've been created for, is to love and to be loved. But in order to love and to be loved, we first must know and love ourselves, discover who we truly are. And from this knowledge, we can be available for others. And knowing who we are, we can let go of ourself and other. This is our practice. This is our bodhisattva vow.

[41:12]

So I'd like to end with a poem. And this is by the mystic poem, Ghalib. It's called, Joy is Entering the River. For the raindrop, joy is in entering the river. Unbearable pain becomes its own cure. Travel far enough into sorrow, tears turn into sighing. In this way, we can learn how water can die into air. When after heavy rain, the storm clouds disperse, is it not that they've wept themselves clear to the end? If you want to know the miracle, how wind can polish a mirror, look. The shining grass grows green in the spring. It's the roses unfolding, Gali, that creates the desire to see. In every color and circumstance, may the eyes be open for what comes. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[42:15]

Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:35]

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