Selfless Service
Yesterday, I spent the afternoon writing award entries for several Chaplaincy volunteers at my NHS Healthcare Trust. In all the entries I submitted, the volunteers gave exceptional time to helping patients, families, and staff during difficult times. One, in particular, had been offered a salaried job but had turned this down to work as a volunteer, giving up two to three days per week and being part of the on-call shift overnight and at weekends. All of the volunteers have a strong faith background.
While travelling in India recently, I read a book, "Without Buddha, I Could Not Be a Christian", written by a once-Catholic Priest who later married a Buddhist teacher. The author spoke of how Christians and Buddhists approach service in the book. Both stand alongside each other in recognising and being concerned about suffering, including the suffering we inflict on each other. As Buddhists, we approach serving others with our practice at the forefront of everything we do, and the reason for this is that through our practice, wisdom, compassion, and non-judgement arise, and through this, we gain insight to take the right action. If we do these things, we will take care of ourselves. There is no big plan, no final goal, and we focus on the moment. Bodhisattvas are not looking for a happy ending; heaven is not the goal. In Buddhism, no proclamations exist that "the poor shall inherit the Kingdom". On the other hand, Christians, he points out, are looking to bring justice and love into the world; life is against them, and they are looking to level the playing field. There is a discussion to be had here with differing points of view, but one thing is clear: differing views exist, and an insistence that one side is right and the other wrong is unlikely to bring a long-term end to suffering; only more fighting.
Genuine service, or selfless service in whatever form, is never a choice. This lack of choice is evident when interviewing Chosei Zen students to join our three-year Priest Training programme. Those wanting to become priests never talk about it as a choice they are making but as something they have to do, often not knowing why, only that they must commit. One of the earliest habits we gain comes from exercising our will. Parents and school teachers tell us to concentrate; we must do this and obey. For me, will implies choice; I have to overcome something; this choice comes about through the lack of clarity, both objectively and inwardly; when there is no clarity, choice arises, and I have to exercise my will, which is the essence of desire, what do 'I' want!
Clarity is the ability to see things as exactly as they are - when there is clarity, there is no need to exercise will or choice. We can live daily without will, choice, or resistance. It is like water in a river; if there is an obstruction, the river finds another way; it goes around, and there is no fuss. Rivers have the capacity to cleanse themselves as they move and flow downstream, but as I witnessed in India, rivers cannot clean themselves if there is too much pollution. Instead, they choke and stagnate, affecting the natural world and communities which rely upon them. In the stream of noise and media we live in today, we constantly find ourselves swimming in pollution, causing us to lack clarity; our choices and actions quickly become confined to a narrow bandwidth into which we need insight. Only then, using our insight, can we clear away the pollution we call will. Through this clearing away, we do not doubt our actions because there is no choice; I know the action required, and I don't mind what happens.
Andy Seizan Robins Roshi works as Lead Chaplain at Somerset NHS Hopsital Trust, U.K.