We hope you enjoy reading this newsletter. Please link here to subscribe to our free Newsletter on Socially Engaged Buddhism.
BEARING WITNESS
NEWSLETTER FOR WESTERN SOCIALLY ENGAGED BUDDHISM - DECEMBER 2009
To submit articles, profiles or information on past or present activist-practitioners, trainings, employment or volunteer opportunities or projects in Socially Engaged Buddhism, send to: Editor
To subscribe to our free Online Newsletter for Western Socially Engaged Buddhism, please link here.
To view our Directory for Western Socially Engaged Buddhism, please click here.
JUNE and NOVEMBER 2010 AUSCHWITZ BEARING WITNESS RETREATS
The Zen Peacemakers and Bernie Glassman return to Auschwitz for Bearing Witness Retreats: Jun 7 to 11, and Nov 1-5, 2010.
To read descriptions and/or to register, please click here. The June retreat is fully subscribed, you can go on a waiting list. The November retreat includes a youth component.
Buddhists have long honored the Buddha as a great healer. Aside from the
sympathetic advice and guidance he gave those who came to him in physical
and mental distress, the Buddha gave the Dharma itself as a medicine for
the fear and anguish that usually accompanies serious illness and the end
of life. And the tradition honors Shakyamuni as an equal opportunity
healer – women, the elderly, and untouchables were treated with equal
love and attention by the early sangha.
Now in the West, compassionate care for the sick and dying has been a
focus of socially engaged Buddhists for more than twenty years. The Zen
Hospice Program was founded in 1987 during the first decade of the AIDS
crisis in San Francisco. During what observers called “an epidemic of
the disenfranchised and dispossessed,” ZHP volunteers found that caring
for those who were shunned by the society was a powerful spiritual
practice.
In this issue of Bearing Witness, we feature the ZHP and three other
leading Buddhist chaplaincy programs. Now in its second generation,
Buddhist hospice and chaplaincy work includes the training of new
chaplains as well as the direct care of patients. As you will read
below, the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, the Upaya
Chaplaincy Program in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Metta Institute in
Sausalito, California offer training and certification programs for
Buddhist Chaplaincy.
When I attended theological seminary in the 1960s, all candidates for the
ministry were required to take a course leading to certification by the
Association of Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE). Today, it is highly
significant that the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care offers a
full program – not simply a course – leading to ACPE certification for
Buddhist chaplains. Engaged Buddhism has made great strides in this
field!
Please help promote the cause of Socially Engaged Buddhism by
sharing this URL with friends, associates, sangha members and groups you think would be interested. Click on the line below, "Send mail using your own address book".
Survey of Buddhist Chaplaincy and Hospice Programs
New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care
Chodo Campbell
Koshin Ellison
Koshin Paley Ellison and Robert Chodo Campbell, Zen Buddhist priests & chaplains established the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care in 2006 in the heart of New York City.
The New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care is creatively transforming pastoral care by being both the first and only Buddhist organization to offer a fully-accredited ACPE CPE Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program in America. NYZCCC integrates Buddhist contemplative practices into the professional training, creating a dynamic program that is interfaith and experience-based, geared toward developing professionals and those seeking to deepen their spiritual, caregiving practice.
The Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Training is a two-year certificated program for a new kind of chaplaincy intended to serve individuals, communities, the environment, and the world. The program is open to those who wish to be serve as Lay Chaplains, Zen Buddhist Chaplain Priests, as well as those who wish to deepen their understanding of service from a Buddhist and systems perspective.
The program focuses on altruistic and compassionate service, and on social transformation from a systems perspective. The Chaplaincy Training is part of the Zen Peacemaker Order, a leader in integrating spiritual practice with social action.
Zen Hospice Project (ZHP) provides a spectrum of collaborative services in end-of-life care, including residential hospice care, volunteer caregiver support, and public education events.
Zen Hospice was founded in 1987 as a program of the San Francisco Zen Center. The birth of ZHP coincided with the first decade of AIDS, an epidemic of the disenfranchised and dispossessed. ZHP volunteers found that caring for people with AIDS or cancer was, in itself, a kind of spiritual practice.
Initially,they brought their services to indigent cancer patients living in the streets or in small residential hotels. In 1988, they began working in partnership with Laguna Honda Hospital to offer hospice services in an institutional setting. They began caring for people at their residential Guest House in 1990.
To read more, click here.
Metta Institute
Frank Ostaseski
Metta Institute was established to provide education on spirituality in dying. Inspired by the Buddhist tradition we encourage the integration of the spiritual dimensions of living, dying and transformation through professional training, educational programs and materials.
The Institute was formed in 2004 as an outgrowth of the Zen Hospice Project. The Director, Frank Ostaseski helped form ZHP in 1987 and guided the program for 17 years.