Zen Blog

Nothing is permanent, so everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting or otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week.

Interest in Buddhist Chaplaincy Has Increased During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Interest in Buddhist chaplaincy has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Religion News Service. Hospital patients and their families have needed more help managing anxiety, sorrow, and grief, especially because physical proximity to patients has been restricted. Brent Beavers, a Buddhist hospital chaplain in the San Francisco Bay Area, said he was often a patient’s only human contact besides doctors and nurses. The Buddhist approach to chaplaincy has attracted interest particularly for its contemplative approach and calm acceptance of sickness and death. 

Right now, the Association of Professional Chaplains only counted 23 Buddhists among its 5,000 active chaplains, but Buddhist chaplaincy training programs at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado have seen larger numbers of applicants since the pandemic began, including from non-Buddhists. Jamie Beachy, director of Naropa’s Center for Contemplative Chaplaincy, said that the capacity to be warm-hearted while also being confident and stable while navigating suffering will become more urgent as world crises seem to be intensifying.

Japanese Buddhist Nun Completes 36-Mile Walk in Honor of Indigenous North American People

Japanese Buddhist nun Jun-San Yasuda completed a three-day, 36-mile walk from Little Falls to Fonda, New York in memory of the suffering wrought upon North America’s Indigenous people after the Mayflower’s landing 400 years ago, Buddhistdoor Global reported. Several people joined her, chanting “Namu-myoho-renge-kyo,” the title the Lotus Sutra, while they walked.

Yasuda has been what she calls a “peace walker” since 1978, when she participated in the Longest Walk, a 3,107 mile walk from San Francisco to Washington DC, to protest a series of bills before Congress that threatened Native American treaty rights. None of the bills were ultimately passed. Her Thanksgiving walk was in solidarity with native people, focusing on being mindful of the history of the land that she and her fellow walkers set foot upon.

Mahapajapati, the Buddha’s aunt and foster mother, represents the quality of the fierce feminine: deep compassion and a maternal, nurturing kindness, matched with the qualities of perseverance, grit, tenacity, and courage. 

The Buddha’s story goes that Mahapajapati and her sister Maya, who was the Buddha’s mother, were married to the same king or clan head, Suddhodana. As far as we know, Maya died very soon after Prince Siddhartha’s birth, probably from complications of childbirth, and Mahapajapati took him in and raised him along with her own son.

I always imagine what that must have felt like for Mahapajapati, to have these twin events of the loss of her beloved sister and at the same time being handed the responsibility for raising her young nephew. I wonder how she was able to engage with her grief. 

Mahapajapati is often understood in the Zen tradition as this great nurturing force, what’s sometimes called robai-shin, or “grandmotherly mind.” But she’s not only known for that—she’s also the founder of the bhikkhuni order, or the sangha of Buddhist nuns. The story goes that Mahapajapati asked the Buddha to ordain women three times, and he said “yes” only after the third ask. (In mythic language, three can be understood as “many.”) Traveling from her home to Vaishali in present-day India, where the Buddha and his sangha were staying, she asks the Buddha to join the holy life, but he declines to fulfill her request the first two times. The third time, or perhaps after many attempts, she brings a group of other women with her. Again, she implores her stepson: “Please, we’d like to join the sangha.” And again, he says no. She returns outside the gates of the sangha to greet the group of women, all of them exhausted after walking long distances, with bloodied feet and dusty robes, and they begin crying and wailing.

Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and trusty attendant, hears their cries and asks Mahapajapati what is going on. She tells him, and he is apparently so moved by their plight that he goes and takes a stand. He pleads their case to the Buddha—but again, the Buddha says, “No. It’s not going to happen.” However, Ananda doesn’t take no for an answer.