Theology of Ministry Statement

[The framework for this theology of ministry statement is inspired by the theology of ministry statement available from the Franciscans’ Holy Name Province.]

As a chaplain, I seek to offer compassionate spiritual care and counseling to people of all religious faiths and traditions, as well as those with no such beliefs at all. It is my hope that with each individual case, I am able to best serve the patient’s spiritual needs without imposing my own personal beliefs and ideas onto the situation. As a chaplain, it is my duty to do all that I can with integrity to care for the patient using their own spiritual frame of reference. I believe, as the Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh does, that:

    No single tradition monopolizes the truth…We need to join together and look deeply for ways to help people get re-rooted…When we are caught in notions, rituals, and the outer forms of the practice, not only can we not receive and embody the spirit of our tradition, we become an obstacle for the true values of the tradition to be transmitted. We lose sight of the true needs and actual suffering of people, and the teachings and practice, which were intended to relieve suffering, now cause suffering. Narrow, fundamentalist, and dogmatic practices always alienate people, especially those who are suffering. We have to remind ourselves again and again of our original purpose, and the original teachings and intention of Buddha, Jesus, and other great sages and saints.

That said, my inspiration for this is the bodhisattva vow that I have taken. In the Buddhist tradition, a bodhisattva is one who makes a practice of helping others towards enlightenment. The compassion of a bodhisattva transcends any sort of self-other dichotomy, though: a bodhisattva experiences any being’s suffering as his or her own and acts accordingly. In the Vimalakīrti-Nirdesa Sutra, Vimalakīrti, a lay bodhisattva afflicted with a mysterious illness, expresses this idea well when he says:

    My sickness comes from ignorance and the thirst for existence and it will last as long as do the sicknesses of all living beings. Were all living beings to be free from sickness, I also would not be sick. Why? …For the bodhisattva, the world consists only of living beings, and sickness is inherent in living in the world. Were all living beings free of sickness, the bodhisattva also would be free of sickness. For example…when the only son of a merchant is sick, both his parents become sick on account of the sickness of their son. And the parents will suffer as long as that only son does not recover from his sickness. Just so…the bodhisattva loves all living beings as if each were his only child. He becomes sick when they are sick and is cured when they are cured. You ask me…whence comes my sickness; the sicknesses of the bodhisattvas arise from great compassion.

In the Bodhicaryavatara, Shantideva articulates the wishes of a bodhisattva beautifully when he writes:

    By the merit collected from [my Buddhist practice], may the suffering of all sentient
    beings by dispelled.
    May I be the doctor, medicine and nurse for all sentient beings throughout the universe
    for as long as they remain in sickness.
    May a rain of food and drink dispel the sufferings of hunger and thirst. During the aeon
    of severe famine may I myself become food and drink for all.
    May I become an inexhaustible treasure for those who are poor and destitute. In
    accordance with sentient beings’ needs may I become whatever they desire and always be at their disposal.
    Without any sense of loss I shall give my body, possessions and the virtues of the past,
    present and future for the benefit of all sentient beings.     [1]

If, as all Buddhist doctrine posits, the awakened heart of a bodhisattva is inspired by the realization that sentient beings are interconnected, with no real separation of self and other at the absolute level of reality, then I must do what I can to develop and cultivate wisdom and compassion–hence my bodhisattva vow.

Furthermore, I will make a commitment to prepare myself for the task of attending to others by continuing my education, being open to change, and listening deeply.

WORKS CITED:

  1. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Meaningful to Behold: View, Meditation and Action in Mahayana Buddhism: An Oral Commentary to Shantideva’s A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life (Bodhisattvacharyavatara) (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1980), 81-3.