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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 Acknowledgements 1 Introduction and Motivation 2 Study and Learning – Literature Review 2.1 Applications of Story in Chaplaincy and in the Healing Arts 2.2 The Essence of the Contemplative Approach 2.3 Compatibility with Buddhist Practice 2.4 Healing the Distress of Modernity 3 Inner Chaplaincy – Spiritual Formation and the Articulation of a ‘Theology

of Ministry’ 4 Outer Chaplaincy – A Pilot Project 4.1 Choosing a Narrative and Initial Insights 4.2 Deepening the Inquiry and Finding Closure 4.3 Reconnecting to and Conversing with the Sacred 5 Narrative Contemplation and Practical Chaplaincy – Identifying General Principles 5.1 Unpacking the Format of the Workshop 5.1.1 Permission 5.1.2 Autonomy 5.1.3 Perspective 5.1.4 Validation 5.2 Future Directions – Narrative Contemplation and Elder Care Appendix A (Workshop participants group photo) Appendix B (Mollie’s picture) Appendix C (Kelly’s excerpt from Same Kind of Different as Me) Appendix D (Sandi’s list of friendship quotes) Appendix E (Mollie’s short story) Appendix F (Meg’s quilt) Appendix G (Kelly’s poem) Appendix H (Susan’s painting and life-story ‘rewrite’) References

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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.


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 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


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


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


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.


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.


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


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


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).


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


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).


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).


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


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


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


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


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


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’:


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.


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


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


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


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).


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


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).


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).


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


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


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).


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,


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).


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


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


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,


“[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


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


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


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).


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.”


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.


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”.


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.”


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


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


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.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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).


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


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


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.


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.


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.


Appendix A (Group photo)

Photo removed for considerations of privacy.

Group members from left to right: Meg, Sandi, Mollie, Trace, Kelly, and Susan


Appendix B (Mollie’s picture)


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.”


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


“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


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.


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.”


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.


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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