Journal of Sacred Work

Editor’s Note: The following meditation was written by Diana Gallaher. Diana works for the Tennessee Justice Center – Erie Chapman

When one piece of
china hits another piece of china, they easily break.
If one of the pieces
were soft, both would be all right.
Let’s keep hearts
soft.
-Poem by Aida Mitsuo, quoted in Women Living Zen by Paula Arai 

While I was in
Divinity School at Vanderbilt from 1999-2001, I lived with my 90+ year old
aunt. Margaret was an amazing woman,
having attended Vanderbilt University in the days when they had a quota on the
number of women that could be enrolled in the school. She taught history in the public school
system in Nashville for years – North Nashville High School is where she taught
most of her career. I loved and
respected her. But after living with her
a couple of months, I said to a friend, only half-joking, “I understand now why
some caregivers get impatient with elderly people.” It can be difficult…

That first semester
in Divinity School, I took a class on Women in Buddhist Traditions taught by
Paula Arai. Professor Arai’s principal
area of study is Japanese Soto Zen nuns.
   Monastic life for these nuns is austere and difficult. They live an extremely disciplined life that
includes a constant state of sleep deprivation, a meager diet (especially by
standards here in the United States), exposure to the extremes of weather (when
it is cold, the monastery is cold, when it is hot, the monastery is hot), and
long hours of work and study.
   Which one of the
things listed above do you think the nuns identified as the most difficult
about their monastic lifestyle? The answer is none of them. Rather, the nuns said that it is the
invariable interpersonal conflicts that arise that is the hardest thing about
living in monastic community.
    The nuns have an
understanding, however, of these interpersonal bumps, dings, and crashes as an
opportunity for spiritual formation. Instead of just complaining, or giving up, or any number of unhelpful or
potentially harmful responses, the nuns seek to respond in ways that cultivate
compassion and wisdom.
    They liken the
opportunity afforded in these interpersonal clashes to a mundane, concrete
experience in their lives. The Japanese
yam is hairy like a coconut. When it
comes out of the ground, the yams are full of dirt. In order to clean the yams before cooking and
eating, the nuns put them in a bucket of water and bump them against each
other. The result of the bumping? A bucket full of clean yams.

   Against our
American culture where many of us never have to clean our produce beyond a
quick rinse under the kitchen sink faucet, Paula Arai offers another analogy. How are rocks polished? You put them in a tumbler, they hit against
each other, the sharp edges are knocked off resulting in mutually polished
stones. The key term here is mutually.
    How does one
cultivate compassion when the person before you is getting on your very last
nerve? As the Vietnamese Zen nun, Chan
Khong says, you first try to understand from their point of view by “getting
into the skin of the other person.” Understanding the point of view of the other
means you are more likely to respond with compassion rather than judgment. Self-reflection on how my actions are
affecting the other person is also necessary. Responding with compassion and wisdom to alleviate suffering is the
goal.
    Getting into my
aunt’s skin, I experienced a woman who was living with a sharp mind but a body
that was more and more failing her. She
could not leave the house, even to get the mail, without assistance. She was lonely and she missed all the family
and friends, including her husband, who had already passed. Perhaps more than anything, she was bored.
    She was not living to
aggravate me. We were two beings living
together when in fact if either one of
us thought we had a viable alternative we
probably would have chosen it. I tried
to live the ideal that I learned from studying the Soto Zen nuns. But I did not always respond with compassion
to my aunt. In fact, frequently I responded with avoidance, frustration, and
anger.
    I continue to
strive to respond with compassion when interpersonal conflict arises. The opportunities to practice cultivating
compassion are endless. The Journal of
Sacred Work helps hold me accountable to self-reflection on how my actions
impact others.
   Sue Monk Kidd, in a
wonderful article titled “Live Welcoming All” in the Christian journal, Weavings, wrote of an experience that
exemplifies this kind of mutual knocking off the sharp edges. She tells of an experience after giving a
workshop on women’s spirituality in which an attendee angrily approached her
saying, “People like you make me sick.” While her first response was anger, Sue Monk Kidd “takes a moment to
breathe, to step back, and become as empty as I can.” In that moment, she understands that the
attendee is reacting from a place of fear. She takes him aside and tells him that she will listen to whatever he
wants to say. Ultimately, the man
apologizes. He gradually came to the
understanding that they were more than their differences.
   The sharp edges
were knocked off. The heart was
polished. Mutually. 

-Diana Gallaher

Note: The concept of
“polishing the heart” comes from Paula Arai from her study of Japanese Soto Zen
nuns.