Flexible and Enjoying

In February, 2021, I was working away on my written materials for my board certification second committee appearance. By early March, it became clear that my essays were not going to be ready to send in for the April deadline, as it is best to send them in at least a few weeks before the actual date. In any event, I decided that I wanted to allow myself a period of observing my clinical practice with a particular focus on the things my mentor had pointed out. I thought it would be good to deepen my understanding of what my growing edges truly are and see what happened when I tried new things, which seemed like something that should not be rushed. My mentor agreed, and a welcome sense of ease set in.

While preparing my application, I had planned to read all the chaplaincy books I own that I have not yet read, plus reread the ones I thought might be particularly helpful, but in the course of three months, I managed to read just one slender volume, so I abandoned that idea. With no deadline looming, I picked up one of the many Sue Grafton murder mysteries sitting on my shelf, and my life suddenly seemed significantly improved.

Similarly, rather than having a flute lesson every week and aiming to practice 30 minutes a day—there is only so much lousy shakuhachi playing a person can be expected to listen to—meaning myself—I decided to have a lesson every two weeks, and practice just 15 or 20 minutes a day, which would also save money.

My flute teacher sent out an email to several of his students in which he used Dr. before my last name. I wrote to the group:

Dear Sensei,

Thank you so much for the upgrade, but I’m afraid I am not a physician. (I am a hospital chaplain at [this hospital] and [that hospital].)

You probably figured that since I can get a sound out of the shakuhachi only intermittently, I must excel in some other area. Alas not. :-)

I look forward to meeting your community one of these days.

Best,
Bugwalk

Practicing the shakuhachi, I found myself more often thinking about where air could fill a real or imaginary area rather than how to make a sound, and it was more relaxing, a form of meditation. At one lesson, my teacher said, “We are flexible and enjoying.”

In mid-May, there was a thrilling breakthrough. I had been practicing two little songs with twelve notes apiece for weeks and weeks. I had two horrible lessons in a row, especially the second, where I never produced any sort of sound. I began to think I would have to find a teacher in San Francisco I could meet with in person—I just was not getting this over Zoom. Or maybe I should just give up. I consulted Tom, who said, “No, it’s coming along. Keep at it.”

And then, during a lesson one day, I suddenly and immediately produced a clear, beautiful, round sound. I played songs one and two with ease. My teacher asked me to play songs three and four, which I easily did. He said, “You can skip five through seven. Play song eight.” I sight-read it, and then he said, “You’re done with this page.” Very encouraging.

In April, 2021, I saw Carol-Joy in person for the first time in more than a year! We had lunch at Toast, sitting outside, and then played cards at her place.

Around that time, I was the co-teacher for a class on the brahma viharas, which in Pali means the Divine Abodes: loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. (“Sympathetic joy” means to feel happy for the good fortune of others and is said to be the most challenging of these practices.) I worked with two different CPE students to teach metta (loving-kindness) and upekkha (equanimity). The students were delightful to collaborate with, and writing and delivering short talks on those topics was very helpful to me. Since then, I do at least a bit of metta practice every time I meditate.

In May, 2021, Tom and I went to visit his family in Sacramento for the first time since COVID.

At work, I often see the abbreviation OLT for a liver transplant or OHT for a heart transplant, but never OKT for a kidney transplant—why not? Well, it’s because the O stands for orthotopic: “straight place,” meaning that the new organ is put in the same place where the previous such organ resided. This is typical for heart and liver transplants, but not for kidneys, because the old kidneys are not removed; the new kidneys go on top of old ones. (A person might get one new kidney, or two, or get two aging kidneys in hopes they will take the place of one robust kidney.)

I did ask J. to be my Zen teacher, with some trepidation that it might be a big time commitment, but he said he thinks of it more as a spiritual friend relationship, rather than a teacher-student relationship, and he said he would be happy for us to have that kind of relationship. He said he would like for us to talk at least every six or eight weeks, which sounded perfect.

I told him a bit about what was happening in my life, including challenges that are not mine to share here, but affect me, and he had some very helpful words: to keep opening to what is here and to allow it to teach us. “Don’t squander even this!”