Sati Center for Buddhist StudiesSupporting the study of Buddhist teachingsSati Center Training in Buddhist Chaplaincy (long introduction) |
For people interested in offering Buddhist spiritual care, the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies offers a year-long training called An Introduction to Buddhist Chaplaincy. The training focuses on the kind of one-on-one care-giving which, in English speaking countries, is often associated with chaplains; i.e., people who offer spiritual care in hospitals, hospices, and prisons. Because chaplains regularly meet with people in personal crises, chaplaincy is a powerful form of service and, for Buddhist practitioners, a challenging situation for their practice.
Chaplains and others who offer spiritual care need a strong grounding in their own spiritual lives. For Buddhists this means having both a strong personal practice as well as a solid grounding in Buddhist teachings, stories, and history: the Dharmalogical equivalent of Theologicial training.
To provide a Buddhist context for chaplaincy, the year-long program is structured around the paramis, the list of the ten perfections from the Theravada Buddhist tradition. In Sanskrit, the equivalent word is paramita, though the traditional Mahayana ten perfections differ a little from the Theravada ones. Either list is helpful for supporting chaplaincy; both highlight the qualities of heart and mind that support and express compassion. In both the Theravada and Mahayana Buddhist traditions, these qualities of character and inner strength must be present to some degree for anyone engaged in the Buddhist Path. In Theravada countries, if one reaches an inner obstacle to spiritual growth, teachers often advise the development one or more of the paramis.
The ten Theravada Paramis are: generosity, virtue or ethics, renunciation (letting go), wisdom, strength (energy, perseverance), patience, truthfulness, resolve (determination), loving-kindness and equanimity. None of these is by itself a parami. Each becomes a parami when it is intimately tied to both compassion and liberation.
Liberation and compassion, like two hands washing each other, function together to develop us spiritually and to purify us. Compassion is concerned with the welfare of others; it includes empathy and a desire to free people from suffering. Liberation is concerned with our own welfare; it is the process of freeing ourselves from our own suffering by overcoming the forces of fear, greed, hate and delusion. In the Sati Center chaplaincy program, we understand that a Buddhist chaplain's work is informed equally by compassion and liberation, recognizing the importance of not choosing one over the other. Buddhist chaplaincy is a response of compassionate concern. At the same time it is not self-sacrificing.
Chaplains must not ignore their own welfare. Self-reflection and insight are needed so that the actions of a chaplain serve both others and self. Chaplains need a strong commitment to be mindful and present for themselves, and the personal skills to handle their own attachments and resistances.
The beauty of the paramis is that an individual's path to liberation is found through a compassionate response to others. It is an integrated approach that avoids the dangers of being only self-concerned or only self-denying. In our training we teach our chaplaincy students to always ask him or herself simultaneously: what is the compassionate response?; and, where is my path to liberation in this care-giving experience?
The Buddhist practices of mindfulness, presence and mental stabilization tend to sensitize the heart. They open and cultivate love and compassion. Some people find that this motivates them to respond to the suffering of others. Others are already responding to suffering but feel the need for greater mindfulness and inner stability in order to engage in spiritual care. Developing the paramis supports both of these conditions.
The curriculum of the year-long chaplaincy training program is organized using the ten paramis, constantly relating chaplaincy work back to the fundamental Buddhist principles of compassion and liberation. The emphasis on the paramis helps develop the strengths of character of the Buddhist chaplain. Under the category of particular paramis the program includes introductory training in such areas as hospital and hospice chaplaincy, prison chaplaincy, the ethics of spiritual care, grief and critical incidence counseling, rituals, cultural competency, inter-faith chaplaincy, etc.
Through all these topics runs the pivotal issue of the understanding of compassion. The early Buddhist tradition assumes compassion: any mature person would respond to suffering with kindness, care and compassion. In this early tradition the main reason given for a compassionate response is seeing others as oneself. In the later traditions more developed rationales and trainings for compassion appear. Teachings in Mahayana Buddhism often unite compassion with emptiness: the most profound understanding and realization of emptiness is inseparable from the arising of compassion. A common teaching in the modern Buddhist world is that compassion is the natural response of an open heart. Down through the ages the various Buddhist traditions have shared a view that compassion is integral to spiritually mature human heart.
A key aspect of the chaplaincy training is each student's volunteer chaplaincy work. Our students have had placements in hospitals, prisons, hospices, convalescent homes, and, for one student, with a local police department. It is in these situations that compassion, wisdom and the paramis of the chaplain are most developed. In three years of offering the Chaplaincy Training the Sati Center program has been as very fortunate to have many wonderful students who have brought their own warm and compassionate hearts to engage in the training.
The Sati Center's chaplaincy training program is taught by Jennifer Block (Public Education Director and Chaplain at Zen Hospice and a trained chaplaincy supervisor), Paul Haller (abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center), and Gil Fronsdal (founding teacher at the Insight Meditation Center).
It is possible to receive graduate credits for the chaplaincy training program through the Institute for Buddhist Studies in Berkeley.
A Buddhist Chaplaincy training program modeled on the Sati Center program is now being offered in New York City. For information see www.zencare.org.