Ji Hyang Padma TRT 54 minutes [MUSIC] Hello, and welcome to Mindful U at Naropa. A podcast presented by Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I’m your host, David Devine. And it’s a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions — Naropa is the birthplace of the modern mindfulness movement. [MUSIC] David Devine: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Mindful U Podcast. Today, we have a guest joining us in the studio, Ji Hyang Padma. Ji Hyang currently serves as the director of the Masters of Divinity Program and Associate Professor, Wisdom Traditions at Naropa University. She's also a Zen teacher in the Soto Zen lineage of Suzuki Roshi, bringing a vast educational background with a Doctor of Psychology, from an Institute for Transpersonal Psychology from Sophia University. She's also a writer, a teacher, a practitioner, and facilitates various workshops. So welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? Ji Hyang Padma: Thank you. I'm very well. David Devine: And we have such a lovely day of winter, so it's really nice to be able to have such a fun conversation and also just experience this day together. So I was actually really interested in talking with you today because I produce another podcast and we talk about death and dying and this is a topic that you teach and you practice in. So it's really a interesting topic to dive into since I have a personal interest in it. So just to get started, your background is full of intentional spiritual directions and education with practice and devotion. I'm curious if you could share with the audience about where your educational path got started and what inspired you to follow it and what direction did you take while doing that? Ji Hyang Padma: My path started when I was in high school on a very ordinary autumn day. As I was waiting for the school bus, there was a car accident that happened on the corner straight in front of me. When that happened for a minute, I was frozen. And then right there, someone else who was a bystander called out, call an ambulance. I ran home because that was the day before cell phones and called the ambulance. But then after I had this question like, wow, I kind of froze on that point. I'd like to be able to do better. So I went through emergency medical technician training when I was 17 and began to work on an ambulance and see the reality of life and death and how death could just come in the middle of somebody's breakfast or emergency childbirth in the middle of the day. And it gave me this real burning question like, what do we do with that? The reality of suffering and the reality of impermanence, like what's the best response to that? So that path and that question continued as I went into college and I was reading a lot of American poetry by people like Gary Snyder or William Carlos Williams that were really inspired by Asian philosophy. And so I started reading Taoism and Zen. And the Tao De Ching, of course, begins by saying, "The Dao that can be told is not the Dao. You can't get it reading books." So I was practicing Aikido and martial arts and all the people that were quite good at Aikido practiced meditation as a way to help them to be present and grounded. So one thing led to another, I took a seminar on Zen and I started practicing and it improved my Aikido. But then I realized this isn't totally what it's about. There's something bigger that's going on. This is a journey. So I started practicing at Cambridge Zen Center and that began to help me to make sense of things and to relate to my own body and mind in a more intimate and focused grounded way. So I moved into the Zen Center when I graduated from college and I just took jobs that would support meditation practice. One of those jobs was at an acupuncture clinic for people with AIDS. It was early '90s, so that was pretty raw. And once again, I was in touch with the reality and the unpredictability of suffering and impermanence, and I wanted to be able to respond to that. So for me, the most direct response was to go and sit a 90-day meditation retreat in Korea. And at the end of that, I ordained as a nun in the Korean Zen tradition. So I came back from that. I worked at the Zen Center as a path of service, but I also wanted to give something back to my college. I thought, this is so great that I encountered Zen. I can't give an endowment that's going to be substantial, but I can give my practice. And right at that moment, Wellesley College was creating this new model of chaplaincy that we hadn't seen before, in which the space for the whole community was held by a team of interfaith chaplains working together, and they didn't have someone for the Buddhist part. So I stepped in and that became a vocation and a beautiful partnership that lasted for 14 years. And out of that, then I began to be of service to other colleges in the community, Harvard, United Ministry, Boston University, Babson College, Northeastern University, Tufts University, Brandeis University. And at some point I'm like, okay, this is so great. Now I've done university chaplaincy, but I haven't done what is called clinical pastoral education. So I went and I did a year of clinical pastoral education at UCSF Hospital, and that turned out to be a pandemic year. So I had another nice immersive experience, and out of that year, then decided to take the practice up a notch and find a way to mentor the next generation of chaplains. So that's how I'm here at Naropa. David Devine: Quite a journey.That's really great. It's interesting to think how a tragedy inspired this longevity of educational pursuits and just self-questioning in a way to be like you're questioning yourself into your education constantly and also falling more into compassion for others and finding your gift. It was really beautiful. Okay. Along that note, so now you're at Naropa. You said you've been part of the master's degree program for how long now? Ji Hyang Padma: 18 months. David Devine: 18 months. And how did you find yourself there? Ji Hyang Padma: Naropa has always been a beacon of light in the higher education world, holding out this vision of a holistic education through which mind, body, and spirit can be brought together because whenever people are on a learning journey that has authenticity, their heart is going to be involved, their spirit is involved. If we're asking this question about, how can I help someone or where do the sun, moon and stars come from? Or what happens when you die? Those are spiritual questions and they come back to, I think, an essential question, which is like, what is this? What am I? David Devine: What happens when you die? That is the question, right? Ji Hyang Padma: That is a question. David Devine: Yeah. I almost want to get into that, but it might be too soon at the moment, but that is something I definitely want to dive into. Not to just bypass the fact that you were in a monastic setting for 14 years. You kind of just glazed over it a bit. Do you want to just take a minute to speak about that? What was your experience like devoting yourself to scripture or spiritual endeavors? You know what I mean? Yeah. That's a big chunk right there. I'm sure you learned a lot. I'm sure you integrated a lot. Ji Hyang Padma: There were two, I think, essential aspects. One was community life. Monastic life is very much a process of learning in community, and it's different from our individualistic, independent American society in many ways. You have to let go of some of the conditions that you might be attached to. At home, you might decide that you're going to have a scrambled egg for breakfast, but if you're living in a monastic setting, you're having what's on the menu. And so all of that is a way to help us to let go of some of those preferences and the hard edges through which we protect ourselves from really being interconnected with others and the world. And that process of learning to live in harmony with 40 or 50 people in the same building, that's a spiritual practice. So that it has been a large part of my life—community building. And then another part is that the balance to community building has been going off on retreat. So there was one point in which after I'd been abbott of the Zen Center, I moved to Mountain Spirit Center, a retreat center in the high desert of California that's off the grid, just powered by wind and solar. And I would do three hours of chanting every morning. And it was just myself out there with the coyotes, a few lizards, cotton tails, mule deer, complete simplicity. And in the light of that, there's this chance to feel our oneness with the earth and with the animals and with something that is greater than ourselves that we might call Buddha nature. David Devine: I almost hear a different type of language being developed to speak with nature and with your heart and soul and scripture. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. David Devine: Yeah. Tapping in. That's beautiful. And that's like a long journey to develop. You're talking about communal and being around other people and having regimental experiences of like what's on the menu. And from this hour to this hour, we study this book and then we pray for this and then we might have some free time here and do what we want. It's like you don't necessarily get to just do what you want every day. It almost allows you to step into education a little bit more diligently. So okay, for instance, when I was reading about you, I noticed you teach a couple different classes. So they're called Introduction to Spiritual Care, Contemplative Communication and Spiritual Caregiving, Ethics in Spiritual Caregiving, and Zen Buddhism as well, which seems to be kind of like your direction. And what I was wondering, if you could give our listeners a brief idea or a description of what a student would experience in a classroom, maybe you can pick one or two of those classes and say I was an incoming student, what would I expect in ethics in spiritual caregiving and contemplative communication in spiritual caregiving? Ji Hyang Padma: Well, with the spiritual caregiving classes, the first in the sequence is contemplative communication. So giving people a chance to practice active listening, whole body listening. As the therapist, Virginia Satir said, when we're able to really see someone and hear someone, then we know contact has been made and that might be the greatest gift that we can give anybody. So we have to start with that kind of fundamental work of holding space, being able to be present without agenda, without knowing. Then out of that, something becomes clear and we can fine tune what kind of action we're going to take. Does the person need to do work in meaning making? Do they want to have a conversation about what matters most to them or what kind of legacy they want to leave for their family? Or is it really a matter of restoring some relationships? Do they have work that they need to do to open their heart, to create reconciliation in their relationships? Are there things that can happen between the chaplain and the care seeker that is going to actually help them to be more connected and relational to themselves and to the people in their lives? That's where we can say, even though the spiritual caregiver might be in their life just a short time, we can serve as a transitional secure attachment that then gives them confidence in their capacity for building relationships all across the spectrum of their life. David Devine: I noticed you put an emphasis on the idea of contemplative spiritual caregiving, and I'm sure there's a lot of courses out there that are like death and dying caregiving. What do you think is, from your educational teacher standpoint, is the difference between having the contemplative model compared to just the caregiving model? Ji Hyang Padma: I would say that that quality of having a listening heart is fundamental. When we come from that place, that gift of presence is already a healing, is already a ministry. Whereas if we have even really good tools, if we're using different techniques as a way of fixing someone or ministering down to them like, "Oh, you have an issue and I'm going to help you. " In some subtle way, that could be objectifying. Whereas if we continue to practice to get out of our own way, then we'll be able to respond to the moment with clarity and compassion. David Devine: It starts with listening and being open to understanding what the person needs are before imposing your like, "Oh, I have so much to teach you. Let me just show you all the ... " And it's like, "Eh, well, maybe they're not ready for that, or maybe it's not what's needed in the moment." So that's a really interesting standpoint to take. So studying and practicing spirituality or religion for personal practice is something a lot of people do, but developing a practice to support and guide others is something I've never really thought of. So it's like some people actually pursue it in a deeper sense to help others. Hence, you were thrown into it without really knowing. You're just like, "Huh, I'm interested in this, " and kept going, so you auspiciously found it. You know what I mean? So what I'm curious is, what inspires others to pursue a path of deepening and studying spirituality and religion in a way that is for sharing and guiding others in difficult times? Is there a difference? Because I kind of have my own practice, but it feels sheltered in a way when I look at it with the lens of people take higher educational pursuits to become better at it so they can share it. Ji Hyang Padma: It's a journey, and very often it's motivated by people's own healing journey. So many of the people who have been leaders in trauma-informed care like Gabor Mate or Peter Levine actually have been very candid about how their own life experience led them along that way. So for people very often who have really had an empathetic nature, who have been sensitive and maybe have done that work to understand themselves a bit and had this yearning to go and continue. The beautiful thing about spiritual care is that with every time that you have an encounter, it's mirroring back something. I always learn from the person who I'm caring for. And then when I teach this and I have the mirroring back from the students as well, for me, I find that my spiritual growth is just accelerated and I'm so grateful for that. David Devine: So you said you yourself have learned from patients or people you've worked with. Would you let us know maybe some things you have learned? Ji Hyang Padma: That's such an interesting question. There are some patients through which I've seen how important it is to be able to say that, "I forgive you. I love you. " To be able to come together despite differences and to do the hard work of letting go of whatever that obstacle that has been in order to start anew, the work of forgiveness, as they say in the damapata, the wise ones know that we are always facing death. Knowing that they set aside all resentments. So that's one of the ongoing learnings. And then there are other times when I just have a conversation with someone that mirrors back. For instance, if a care seeker came to me the other day and was asking a question about whether they should rearrange some schedule in their life in order to accommodate another person. And what I mirrored back was that I saw that they were already very accommodating and they didn't need to be the most flexible part of the other person's system, that in some ways the boundaries could be good. And I reflected on that for myself afterwards and I thought, yes, it is so. We are totally here to be compassionate, but we can't be compassionate unless we also have a kind of clarity about who we are and what we're doing. David Devine: Yeah. I'm sure there's been times where you're hanging out with friends or family and you're being insightful and you give them some information, but in your mind you're like, "I could do that too." Ji Hyang Padma: Yes. David Devine: "I could be more compassionate." And I also do love the fact that you're talking about Buddhist practitioners are always in a way facing death and not holding resentment because the things that I asked you and the answer you gave me made me understand that it's not that you're learning how to do fluid dynamics or aeronautical flight simulations. It's not like hard facts. These are interpersonal, emotional, psychological, dealing with other people, dealing with yourself type of teachings that are learned through experience. And so it becomes so much more real when death is near your door because you're just like, wow, okay, I need to love more. I need to say sorry. I need to forgive. I need to be open. I need to accommodate, but I also need to have my own boundaries. They need to understand I'm there for them. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. And I think that in some ways we are all always facing deaths because we don't know. My Zen teacher, Zen Master Sung San, used to say, "There's two kinds of people in the world. Soon die, later die." He said, "We all think we know which category of that we're in, but actually we don't." David Devine: It's true. Wow. Okay. And we will never know. No. You never know. Okay. It just happens. Ji Hyang Padma: There's a show that was on in the '90s called Six Feet Under. It was a series that followed a family of undertakers and every episode began with a cold open in which somebody unexpectedly met their demise and that was a great teaching. David Devine: It's almost like the unexpected should be expected. Ji Hyang Padma: Yes. David Devine: So how does someone prepare to develop the skills to support and guide others along their journey? Because I'm sure if I have my own practice is different from having a practice I know I'm going to apply to a community, especially a community that is nearing the end of their life, whether it was expected or not expected. I feel like there's a lot of different practices of holding space for yourself is a lot different than holding space for someone in a hospital, maybe with their family there and you have the caregivers there. I don't know, that seems like a little tricky to navigate at some point. So how do you develop these practices to refine your skills to help best for that moment that you're going to be involved in? Ji Hyang Padma: One of the techniques, simple but effective, that I teach the students during one of their practicums is called co-breathing. So you watch the person's breath and you match your exhalations with theirs. And as your breath comes into sync, then also your heart rate rhythms begin to sink, your nervous systems attune, and then it just becomes innately much easier if there's a whole right brain implicit knowing phenomena through which people can understand each other. And then you just know intuitively what is the right thing to say or do. David Devine: Do you think the right thing to say or do comes to you because you're available in the moment or because of you've been taught that? Or is it because of a dance between the two because you've been taught to be available to the voidness of the moment? Ji Hyang Padma: There's a kind of craftsmanship through which at Naropa, we have these classes on spiritual care. There are textbooks. There are skills that are part of clinical pastoral education, including spiritual self-differentiation, capacity to work in a trauma sensitive way, capacity to work with cultural sensitivity, to practice active listening, to do bereavement work, et cetera. But all of that is resting upon this place of not knowing and contemplation. And that's creating space within is what makes the techniques useful. In the Tao Te Ching, it says it takes four walls to build a room, but it's the space within the room that makes it useful. So all the techniques are like the walls of the room or the clay that is shaped to make the vessel, but it's the space within the vessel. If I didn't find that within myself, there would be no holding space possible. David Devine: You know what? You're making me think a little something here where I'm recognizing how Naropa's educational model taught me to be okay when I don't know something, which is a weird thing to learn. It doesn't seem like you learn something like that in an educational setting, but to be okay with not knowing a certain situation or being emotionally neutral to address certain situations helps you be more proactive and not as reactive. You can address the moment in a better light in an emotional state. And I think that's one thing that I've noticed about the teaching, especially in a contemplative model. And it seems like that's what you're saying is to be a compassionate listener. You're almost like listening so well that you can transform the space as you're talking about the space you're in with the breathing and the listening and the just not responding so quickly. So another question I have for you is like, what other types of practices do you give your students to give them some tools to use? For instance, do you ever do group practices where you're trying techniques with each other in the class? Ji Hyang Padma: One of the things that I've been emphasizing is these somatic practices that come out of trauma-informed ways. And they're good for people who aren't in trauma as well. Yes. In modern life, very often we're living this short distance from our bodies, but being grounded and resourced in our bodies is what makes it possible for us to have a good human journey, to be fully alive, to be able to respond rather than to react. So some of what I teach people are, here's a qigong breathing exercise. We can do moving our arms in sync with our breath. As we do that, the breath becomes deeper. As the breath becomes deeper, the body relaxes. As the body relaxes, the mind relaxes. So if people are just receiving some challenging news or maybe they're fatigued and they have to get into the car for a long journey, these are some of the practices that can help to resource people. Maybe if there's a big thing coming up, maybe there's news. So in that moment, we might look into the body. Where is that living? Where is that anxiety living in me? I feel it in maybe my solar plexus. There's a butterfly there. So as I breathe into that and see if I can relax and soften that a little bit, then as a spiritual caregiver, I might say, now where in your body do you feel more relaxed, more resourced? Maybe people feel more resourced in their feet, so let's bring awareness to the feet and let the feet be like these deep roots of a tree going into the earth, feeling our connection with our families, our communities, everything that grounds and nourishes us at our root. And now that we feel that rootedness, let's go back and visit with the butterfly again and see if that can relax a little bit more. And that practice of moving back and forth between what's grounded and resourced and what is still a work in progress is called pendulation. David Devine: Okay. And you got me thinking. So when people overreact the ... Okay, here, let me phrase this differently. What I'm recognizing is the fact that when you can have a contemplative way to approach a engagement that might be really high energy or low energy, the first thing that reacts is your heart rate and your breath. So if you can't control that, it's almost harder to control what you say, what you think. So it's like that starts first is your breath. So that's why it sounds like most people in this practice will take a breath. You've heard that saying, take a breath, but you're talking about actually doing breathing exercises and trying to match or interpretate someone's breath and kind of have a different rhythm that happens that you guys can relax in a sense to address the situation more mindfully than just like, "Oh my God, what do we do? " Just freaking out. And it's a little bit harder to be skillful in that moment. Ji Hyang Padma: Well, the great thing is that now in this 21st century, there is a lot of good neuropsych research that supports these contemplative practices we've been doing all the time. And some of that exciting research is what's called Polyvagal Theory and understanding of sequential processing, which is to say that the brainstem, which activates the vagus nerve—ventral vagal for a place of being a little bit more spacious, dorsal vagal, if we're going into a freeze response. That vagal nerve brainstem response is primary. If we're in a kind of fight, flight or freeze, there's no higher brain function that's really available for saying, let's talk about madhyamika. Let's talk about how this all fits together in the scheme of your world. So we really need to work from this kind of right brain to right brain. And in order to do that, self as instrument, the person who wants to be a caregiver has to be really, really connected to the basic operating system of their own body. Their capacity for empathy and resonance and presence is going to be dependent upon how well they're able to work with the medium of the body-mind. And then out of that, you can convey to other people, this is okay. This is workable. Let's ground what's going on. Let's just take the next step. David Devine: And what's interesting is it's all workable because you know how to breathe and you know how to take that pause because it's almost like you pause the fight or flight. You're like, I don't want to be here, but hold on, pause. Take a breath. Nobody wants to be here, but how do we skillfully move through this space together? Ji Hyang Padma: Right. David Devine: And that's the contemplative model. It's like, yeah, you're going to be more destructive moving through the space if you don't do it right. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah David Devine: It could be healing. It could be so progressive in the way that you advance it. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. There's a great sage I've been listening to on Spotify. His name is Trevor Hall. He's a folk musician. David Devine: Oh, that guy. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of his lyrics, feelings come and feelings go, and that's just the way they are. He says, "I don't cut off any part of myself and I don't prune the limb from the tree." And so all of that that's going on, all of it gets to be here. If we're having grief or if we're having anxiety or if we're having joy or love, that capacity we have for being grounded and present with that actually gives us more choice. Even if we want to change the situation, the place we get to be empowered to make that change is by being present to what is. David Devine: That's awesome. Yeah. Trevor Hall comes to Boulder fairly often, does his music. Yeah, he's beloved musician amongst us all. So I have this saying that you kind of spoke about where it's like, "I'm not my feelings. I am how I interpret my feelings." Know what I mean? So it's like, I can have a feeling, but how I interpretate it depicts the characteristics or the personality type that I am or the practices that I have integrated into my workings of that. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. Here's another quote from the sage, Trevor Hall. David Devine: I love them. Keep them coming. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. Great storm clouds holding rain. It's part of nature to have a bit of pain. And so if you just kind of let the storm move through, there can be a lot of energy there. And the times we're living in are like that. No doubt people are going to get triggered if they read the news this week. And so how can we stay in touch with that and just let that energy move through us like a stormfront or like a volcano so that we can then be present to what's next? David Devine: And rain waters the ground. Ji Hyang Padma: Yes. David Devine: You need some rain to get a flower, right? Okay. Well, thank you for sharing. That feels very relevant. And I love how music has a ability to transcend into spirituality in some sense. So to go back to a class setting, what I'm curious about is what type of students enroll into the Master of Divinity program? And also what are some of the career paths or directions that these students would like to pursue? Because obviously when you're entering a master's degree program, you have some sort of idea of where you're going. And I'm wondering if you can just shine some insight on that. Ji Hyang Padma: It really varies. There are some students who are coming clear out of Naropa's undergraduate program because they've just had this beautiful experience of meaning-making and they want to continue to look into what it's all about. There are some people who have already been physicists or social workers, and this is a second career because they just had this kind of opening to their experience in a way that makes them really want to go deeper. And there are people who have moved here from the Midwest or from the East Coast because Naropa is kind of a mecca. What is going on here is exceptional and you don't find it just anywhere. So it might be this calling for a spiritual community or an opportunity to find right livelihood. If you have this meditation path and you say, it's like being a meditation teacher, how do I support myself? Actually being a chaplain is a great way to continue to give care to others and support the wellbeing of the community and the planet while also supporting yourself. So when people get the degree, they often become chaplains, bereavement counselors, ministers, retreat center managers, but also all kinds of human service work is going to benefit from having a degree in Masters of Divinity because it's about how do we relate to the human journey. David Devine: That's beautiful. Finding your sanga. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah, that is so. David Devine: Where your people at. So I kind of want to switch a little bit into chaplaincy and death care a bit. And we've talked a little bit about that, but kind of just curious, how would you define chaplaincy? I sort of know, but I'm just curious from a professional educational standpoint and higher educational view. So what is chaplaincy and death care? And could you also share the role and responsibilities that the chaplain holds while in that space? Ji Hyang Padma: It varies. So there are many different sectors in which people can serve as a chaplain. It could be medical centers like hospitals, hospice, or it could be higher education or military. Nowadays, there are some corporations that have chaplains. There are some people that specialize in being chaplains to a community. They get involved in community service or specializing in bringing peace to their community or ecological awareness as a chaplain. There are eco chaplains, but most often people are hired either by a university or a healthcare institution. Chaplains support people by providing relational care and meaning making in a usually transitional time. So that's where the chaplain differentiates from being a minister. You are there in a person's moment of a shift from one part of life to another. So if a person is in the hospital, they're not always in the hospital. How can you help them through that healing journey? And specifically as a chaplain, you're working with people that are not necessarily part of your own denomination. They're not part of your usual community or sanga. You're working across cultures and across traditions, but need to be grounded in your own meaning-making, your own theology, and then also receptive and appreciative of the meaning-making and theology that the other person has so that you can differentiate. David Devine: I always think about humans are meaning-making machines and we want to make our meanings be meaningful to the machine. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. There's a great person actually in the work of meaning-making, it's logotherapy. Victor Frankl, who came up with logotherapy, said, "A person who has a why to live can bear with almost any how." David Devine: Love it. And this is why I wanted to ask this question because now I have a different understanding of chaplaincy and the many different roles a chaplain can hold, whether it's like a, what kind of career path do I take? I talk to an educational chaplain, what type of exit strategy do I have from this serious injury that I have that I might have to live with for a bit? Or I'll get over it in two years, but it's a big impact. I talked to a chaplain at hospital or a facility or rehabilitation center or death and dying chaplains, or maybe there's birth chaplains. Now you have a child. How does this integrate into the family? And it's like you reach a fork and road, a chaplain's right in the middle of the fork being like, "How you doing?" Ji Hyang Padma: That's it. That's a great analogy. So if there's someone in the hospital who has just had that leg injury and their whole family is having to reorganize because the breadwinner is going to be out of commission, that's a conversation that a chaplain facilitates. Or if a baby's just come into the world and you want to welcome it to its community, its family, its clan, its place, like hello, welcome to earth. David Devine: Welcome to the family. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. There's a ceremony for that or someone is in college and they're thinking, "Should I stay with this person because I like him, but we're going to be a thousand miles apart next year in graduate school." And so that's a conversation that a higher education chaplain might get used to having. David Devine: Yeah. Okay. I'm having this thought where I want to, if I'm having an idea where like, should I do this or should I do that? I'm going to create a little chaplain thought in my mind that's like, all right, well, hold on, let's think about this real quick. So what I'm curious about is where does the curiosity of death and guidance and support or afterlife care come from for a student who chooses to take a role in death care space? I feel like it's a certain type of person and how you described it is you had that early experience that made you confront care and real life situations. Is that relevant to most of your students, have you noticed? Ji Hyang Padma: Very often people who are called to this have had some kind of awakening experience. Maybe the awakening experience was the birth of their first child, or maybe they got their dream job and realized that this wasn't all that it was about, or they were doing something that was aligned like social work, but they really wanted to drop in deeper to the wholeness rather than kind of fixing the structures. Sometimes as I found when I was being an EMT, we were able to rearrange the furniture in the room, but through our work, there's only so much that could be done. And so I feel like chaplaincy is an invitation to help someone define wholeness regardless of circumstance right where they are, right in the middle of things. David Devine: And then also a practice to want to help others to do that as well because there's like birth doulas and then we have death doulas, which is a chaplain. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. One of the ways of describing chaplaincy is you're putting yourself out there as a spiritual friend and you might do that with a lot of people and you have to be ready to do that because your own relational self is the instrument through which we're inviting people to come into a wholeness and a connection with themselves. So if you have that question about what can I really do to help and a willingness to use your own body-mind in service of that, chaplaincy is totally great because it gives you great canvas and lots of creativity in how that comes about. David Devine: So how does someone in this space navigate with the people in care? So what I'm recognizing is you just said being a spiritual friend and sometimes being a spiritual friend doesn't mean that they have the same spiritual aspects or ideas that you have. Someone may be from a different religion or idea or just have different ways of going about how they think about spirituality, which tends to happen a lot. And being a spiritual friend is not going to challenge them. It's going to be supporting them and recognizing what we have in common and what we don't have in common. So when you are doing the chaplaincy with somebody who has a different religious outlook or spiritual outlook than you, how does one hold that space? Ji Hyang Padma: It's important to meet people where they are. And at the same time, most of the conversations are not religion specific. So for instance, maybe you're sitting there and you just had a hard day. Maybe you just lost your dog. And so I might say, at a time like this, people might have a lot of different feelings. What are some of the feelings that you're having right now? And you might be able to come up with a few. Or if you weren't, I might say, let me suggest a few. What about grief, anger, anxiety? So let's imagine those feelings as if it's a ball and the ball has all these different layers. And the first layer we're going to visit is the impatience that part of you that just wishes this would all go away. So what does that look like to you? Does it have a texture? Does it have a shape? David Devine: It's thick. It wants to go away now. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. David Devine: It wants to be immediate. Ji Hyang Padma: So let's just imagine, let's imagine that impatience layer just dissolving through a kind of compassion, like all that compassion that you've ever known, just coming like a reign of kindness that's falling down upon the impatience. And that takes us to the next layer. And the next layer is perhaps the sadness. So when we meet that sadness, what does that look like to you? What's the shape of it? Does it have a color? David Devine: The color came to mind purple. Ji Hyang Padma: Okay. Right. So just working with that. David Devine: Kind of like an onion, like a purple onion. Ji Hyang Padma: So let's just take a minute to be at home with that and get to know that. And as we stay present with that kind of purple onion sadness, how does that shift and change? What's underneath that, do you think? David Devine: It's interesting because the more we go into this, the more I'm recognizing it's easier to be with the things I don't want to be with. It's like once you get past the impulsivity, then you're just kind of like, huh, well, I'm sad. Now that you're sad, you're like, huh, well, that was a beautiful friendship that me and my dog had together, but it's still sad. Sad seems like a very thick layer because that seems like a layer that can go on for years or a lifetime. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. But I think what's often helpful is if we're able to be intimate with our own direct experience, we're usually able to relate to it with more spaciousness. There's a poem by the Buddhist practitioner and writer, Rick Fields, where he says, "This world is already pure as is beneath the anger, pain, beyond that sadness, then compassion and beyond that, the vast sky." So he doesn't just go like there's always vast sky.That would be a different poem. But if you go through those layers, yes, I mean, there is the vast sky. David Devine: Yeah. And it was weird too because I was really role playing with this and the first layer is a punk. It's just like, no, no, no, run that way, go that way. And then, but once you break through that layer, you're just kind of like, "Okay." You're like, "Yes, I am sad." And then you start pushing through it and you start to go through the layers as you were describing. But the first layer is the fight or flight layer because you're like, "I don't want to deal with this. " Or you're just like, "No, we have to push through." And it's really interesting to experience that. Ji Hyang Padma: But it's much easier, I think, to make friends with the different layers if you have someone holding space for you. David Devine: Yeah. Ji Hyang Padma: That's why I'm here. David Devine: Spiritual friend. Aw. Yeah. What a beautiful friendship to have with somebody. That's awesome. It's just so confirming and just easy. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. David Devine: It's non-combative and you're just like, wow, okay. It's kind of like an animal where you just have compassion. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah. David Devine: So what I'm curious about is what are some of the commonalities you come across when holding the death care space for people? Are there similar themes that stand out when people are in transition of their beliefs or idea or what are the context, maybe not the actual stories, but what are some of the lessons and context that people tell you about in their life when they are near transition? What are some themes that they talk about? Ji Hyang Padma: One thing that is a common in the human process is the need to do a little bit of life review. And sometimes you'll see that if you visit an older relative, they're more in touch with what happened when they were six than whether they left the burner of the stove on. And that's a natural process where we go back and reflect upon what are the experiences I had that brought me the greatest joy or the deepest meaning, or what's the legacy of values that I want to leave for the next generation? So that meaning making is really essential, but then also the ability to release, to let go. You can think about how it is if you've lost a relationship sometime or a job or a house. So at the end of life, it's like losing everything. And so just considering that, holding space with some mercy and compassion, supporting people in their grief work and the way that their identity is changing and through that, then offering that kindness so that whatever is going on in their body, mind, emotions is okay. Out of that kind of grace and compassion and creating a serene environment at the end of death, people can often find their own way. And then whatever kind of ritual or ceremony is aligned with their meaning-making, that's what we do. David Devine: Okay. I was having a thought what you were saying. That was very beautiful, by the way. Thank you. I was having a thought where you were saying something about losing everything, and in a sense you are, but what I'm recognizing is chaplaincy and spirit or religion pursuits are characteristical developments of how to be with other people and yourself and your soul. But when you die in the Buddhist, you go to the Bardo, you know what I mean? So necessarily don't lose your soul. You are the soul. So the practices that we are refining aren't lost. You can lose family, you can lose a house, you can lose a job, you can lose material items, but the thing you are developing and refining is the thing that goes with you too, in my perspective. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah, ultimately, whatever work we've done to have a good heart, a clear mind and a good heart, I think that's what continues. But some of the differentiation, are you going to remember the French language or are you going to remember the doctoral thesis that you wrote? Those things you can't take with you, I'm pretty sure, generally speaking. But as we are able then to practice letting go and letting go, there is a grace in that simplicity, which I think helps us to reconnect to that great love and compassion, which is all that is. David Devine: Ooh, I love it. Things to think about. So this is my last question. With all the experience and knowledge you've gained through your experiences with chaplaincy and death care and holding space for others, how can we, as the living, prepare for the ultimate transition into the Bardo? And are there certain practices or ways of thought, ways of being, ideas to lean into that will ease us into death? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people that are confronted with the end of their life and they are discouraged with how they've acted, were treated, responded, they didn't open up enough. There's always like something that wasn't enough. How can we be enough or try to be or prepare to be? Ji Hyang Padma: In the Zen tradition, there's a temple rule, which goes back to Baizhang, who was a kind of medieval era monk who put the temple rules in order. And it says, "In this lifetime, if you can't open your mind, you can't digest even one drop of water. So if you break the wall of yourself, you become infinite in time and space. So how do you break the wall of yourself? How do you get out of the isolated, independent eye into the place of the interconnected we? " That's what the Bardo is really about being able to return to that place of being all that is. So we can practice that in a simple way through acts of kindness and compassion. Maybe we make eye contact with the clerk at the market, or we offer some kind of generosity to that person that we run into on the street. Or maybe we are just a little bit more gracious when we're driving our car in traffic. There's no end of opportunities. And as we do that, then that gesture of openness becomes who we are. David Devine: It's almost like transcending ego in a way, because the ego is the wall. It's almost like how you're talking about the building. The ego has built the wall and then the spirit is like what's inside the wall. Ji Hyang Padma: Ultimately so, yeah. David Devine: And then the spirit can just be like, "Oh, there's a door too. I could go outside that. " Cool. So I just want to offer this last moment. Is there anything you would like to share with any last thoughts? Also, do you want to share the classes and you have a website? Would you like to share that? Any social media? Ji Hyang Padma: If people are interested in following my work, my website is www.mountainpath.org. David Devine: Beautiful. Thank you. Well, thank you for sharing all your wisdom and knowledge, and it'll be very interesting to see the progression of the students and the teachings that you teach at Naropa. Ji Hyang Padma: Yeah, I look forward to it. Thanks for the invite. David Devine: On behalf of the Naropa community, thank you for listening to Mindful U, the official podcast of Naropa University. Check us out at www.naropa.edu or follow us on social media for more updates.