{"id":3250,"date":"2021-05-27T14:04:28","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T14:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/?p=3250"},"modified":"2021-05-27T14:07:04","modified_gmt":"2021-05-27T14:07:04","slug":"the-physician-and-the-monk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/?p=3250","title":{"rendered":"The Physician and the Monk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The Physician.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following letter is written by Lao Huo Shakya, a monk of the Contemplative order of Hsu Yun, to her father, A. Erik Gundersen, M.D. (retired).\u00a0 During a long and illustrious career, Dr. Gundersen was a surgeon specializing in cardiac, thoracic and pediatric surgery at the Gundersen Clinic in La Crosse, Wisconsin.\u00a0 He pioneered the new technique of open-heart surgery in the late 1960\u2019s and early 1970\u2019s and went on to build a thriving regional center for heart surgery within the institution that was founded by his grandfather in the 1920\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The Monk.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Andrea Gundersen often went on hospital rounds with her father on the weekends as a school girl, and as a young adult, she watched her father perform open heart surgery.\u00a0 Though fascinated with her father\u2019s medical world, she initially resisted entering into the family business of healthcare.\u00a0 Eventually she entered the field from another angle altogether, training in the new science of body-mind integration through mindfulness, movement, talk and touch.\u00a0 She and her father have long debated the relative merits of western vs. traditional and holistic approaches to health and healing.\u00a0 In the 1980\u2019s they together read a philosophy of integrative medicine, which led to him inviting her to lecture before Grand Rounds on the emerging science of trauma as a body-centered phenomenon, and the alternative therapies that can treat it.\u00a0 Through the decades, this conversation between father and daughter and between paradigms of healing has periodically surfaced.<\/p>\n

When Andrea shaved her head, put on a robe and became Lao Huo Shakya, the dialogue between father and daughter went underground.\u00a0 As an avowed atheist, a scientist dedicated to the observed world as the foundation for what is true, the physician was surprised and befuddled by his daughter\u2019s seemingly strange turn towards being a monk in the world he could not understand or appreciate.\u00a0 Recently however, their ties have found a way back towards the realm of thought and word.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Letter to the Physician After a 90 Day Retreat<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Dad,<\/p>\n

As the 90-day silent retreat I was on this winter came to an end in mid-April, we were gathered at a family lunch when you asked me if I would describe to you\u2014in 250 words or less! \u2014what the retreat had been all about.<\/p>\n

This seemed a tall order at the time, with family members and dogs, plates of sandwiches and the brand-new experience of not wearing masks all swirling about.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it is a wonderful question.\u00a0 Allow me to answer it now.<\/p>\n

Well, you already know that from agitating for a recycling center when I was in high school to organizing unions to providing therapy for trauma survivors, I have gravitated toward work that I hoped would contribute to ending the pain and anguish of humanity and the planet. \u00a0But I came to realize that there would always be more suffering than I could ever relieve. My individual suffering alone seemed hopelessly intractable. It was all wearing me down, with no end in sight.<\/p>\n

The wisdom tradition that began with an ordinary human named Gotama Buddha also has suffering as its primary focus.\u00a0 Rather than respond to suffering by going outward towards activity, this unbroken lineage of teachers and students have practiced turning inward to investigate how the mind itself produces suffering.\u00a0 A primary conclusion of this 2500-year investigation is that suffering arises when we want things to be different than they are.<\/p>\n

In this way of seeing things, to be human is painful and difficult from the moment of birth until our last dying days.\u00a0 This is what it means to be human.\u00a0 Of course, we do what we can to alleviate the pain, for life is very precious and we have a lot to learn while we are here.\u00a0 But the bottom line is to accept that life is going to rub us the wrong way!\u00a0 It is a surrender, an opening into a higher consciousness, within which the absence of suffering is found.\u00a0 \u00a0Maybe you have seen this in very sick people, the ability to find a place of rest, even joy as they contend with their failing bodies.\u00a0 This is another central tenant of Buddhism, that suffering can end.<\/p>\n

When I discovered these fundamental propositions in my late 40\u2019s, it lit a fire within me that still burns bright.\u00a0 The possibility that always drove me, that suffering can end, was not a delusion after all.\u00a0 It remains the worthiest of efforts, worthy of spending three months in silence and sequestered from family and friends so that it could be my singular focus.\u00a0 Such a retreat is like being in graduate school, or writing a novel, where everything else is set aside.\u00a0 It is devotion, in this case, to paying full attention to all the experiences of my days and nights from brushing my teeth to taking a walk to contending with hip and shoulder pain to eating a meal\u2014everything.\u00a0 Within each activity I studied how my mind grabs for what it wants<\/em> as if it were what I need, <\/em>the many ways I find to be anywhere else but present to the only moment that we actually have to live in.<\/p>\n

I realized that so most of what I want is selfish, I have SO MUCH, plenty!\u00a0 I saw a well of hatred and arrogance from which my frequent judgements and criticisms arise and spill out, causing more suffering. I realized how quickly life is passing by, that in a flash it will be over.\u00a0 I saw that every word I speak and every action I take has a lasting impact. \u00a0I am tremendously grateful for these insights; walking in this way through the fire of my own suffering I am warmed by the light of a larger truth out there beyond right and wrong, beyond even birth and death.\u00a0 In THIS place fear falls away, I am safe, all is well.<\/p>\n

And here I am, having used up more than twice the number of words you requested.\u00a0 Be careful what you ask for!\u00a0 And\u2014thank you for asking, it has been my pleasure to tell you this tale of my winter\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

With best wishes for your well-being as summer approaches, A.<\/p>\n

\"Humming<\/h4>\n

Author: Lao Yuo Shakya<\/p>\n

ZATMA is not a blog.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If for some reason you need elucidation on the teaching,<\/p>\n

please contact editor at: yao.xiang.editor@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Physician. The following letter is written by Lao Huo Shakya, a monk of the Contemplative order of Hsu Yun, to her father, A. Erik Gundersen, M.D. (retired).\u00a0 During a long and illustrious career, Dr. Gundersen was a surgeon specializing in cardiac, thoracic and pediatric surgery at the Gundersen Clinic in La Crosse, Wisconsin.\u00a0 He… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lao-huo-shakya"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3250"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3266,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3250\/revisions\/3266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}