From the Introduction to Medicine and Compassion: A Tibetan Lama's Guidance for Caregivers by David R. Shlim, M.D. and Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche
We tend to think that you either have compassion or you don’t. We aren’t certain about where it comes from, so we use it sparingly, reserving it for select situations. We feel that compassion is like a battery—once it’s turned on it will be steadily drained until it eventually has to be recharged…
I was approaching burnout when I decided to move to Kathmandu in 1983…In my second year in Nepal I started volunteering to see monks at a Tibetan monastery, holding sick call on Saturdays. The head of the monastery was Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche. He was born in 1950, the same year the Chinese started invading eastern Tibet…Although we were the same age, I began to see him as a father figure, someone who was always ready and able to give caring and useful advice. His advice was based on Buddhist philosophy, and I started to see how the Buddhist viewpoint could help me function more easily in difficult and painful situations. Learning about Tibetan Buddhism directly from someone who had mastered the tradition both philosophically and experientially made it seem remarkably scientific and clear.
The many Tibetan lamas I met in Nepal embodied a rich and courageous form of compassion. They were able to offer kindness and wisdom to everyone. They faced challenging situations with equanimity. Even when their own lives were threatened by terminal illness, their calm acceptance, and their compassion toward others, never wavered. They remained kind, calm, and completely unafraid even at the end of life.
…Striving to emulate these extraordinary examples of wisdom and compassion made me more committed to my meditation practice. Over time, I became aware that my encounters with patients were changing in positive ways. I was able to create an environment that allowed patients to more easily say what they needed to say. Encouraging and appropriate words arose more effortlessly. I found I had more patience for irritable and angry people. I could help comfort severely ill or dying patients more easily. In other words, I had found a way to train in being the kind of doctor I had always wanted to be.
I experienced this not as an overnight revelation but as a gradual change. It confirmed for me that it was possible to train in being a kinder and more compassionate physician. This realization led to a desire to try to organize a conference on medicine and compassion for a Western audience. I mentioned the idea to Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, who agreed that he would teach such a course to doctors and nurses if I could arrange it someday.
…The weeks leading up to the first course in September of 2000 were marked by terrible drought in the American West. Fires were burning out of control in many states, and flames were visible in all directions from Jackson Hole, [Wyoming,] including a forest fire within Grand Teton National Park. Firefighters were overstretched and exhausted; experts said that the fires would only be brought under control by the onset of winter snows.
The day Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche flew into Jackson Hole for the medicine and compassion course it rained the entire day—the first rainfall in almost two months. It continued to rain another two days throughout the West, extinguishing fires and easing the burden on firefighters. Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche commented on the rains during the course: “These days, a lot of forest has been on fire in the United States, and now the rain of compassion is falling, which is quite wonderful. Not it is not just talk, but actuality, the forests burning from the fire of anger are being subdued by the rain of compassion. The gentle rain of compassion is putting out the fires of anger.”
Were everyone to cultivate the gentle rain of compassion, the fires of anger throughout the world might be subdued. Not just in talk, but in actuality. What a better place to start than with the healing arts—the practice of medicine.
