Pure Land Buddhism - anyone?
Anyone here with an interest in Pure Land Buddhism...aka Shin Buddhism?
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I said in a previous post about speaking of my own experience with dementia, after quoting a poem by another. The lady of that poem seems to have coped far better than myself, with greater equanimity.
I had three years of caring for my mum as she descended into dementia. She was already as good as "gone" when my dad died. No real time to grieve. Mum became like a little six year old girl and spoke to me as if I was her sister. Without knowing it at the time I "coped" by suppressing any deep concern. Others told me to take it more easy, but I rushed around and it was - at the time - just like water off a ducks back. It was after she died, when the weight of it all was lifted, that a deep depression hit me. Before then I never knew what depression was - I had thought about it like just feeling a bit "down" after coming back from a good holiday!
Questions stay with me. During those years mum was struck by a car and broke her leg. She spent a few months in hospital. One evening I got a phone call telling me that they thought she had had a stroke and might not see the night out. When I got to the hospital I found her sitting up in bed with this silly little woolen hat on. I just held her hand and she said to me in her little girl voice:- "Why is this happening to me, I've been a good girl?" Heartbreaking. There are no words, there is no "answer" as such, you just sit beside someone and hold them. Maybe I said "I love you" but I really can't remember. Haunting.
To be honest I see all "answers" as virtually blasphemous. The "answer" is not in creed or formula or in personal testimony. It is more a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. A surrender of "self" with its "answers".
I had three years of caring for my mum as she descended into dementia. She was already as good as "gone" when my dad died. No real time to grieve. Mum became like a little six year old girl and spoke to me as if I was her sister. Without knowing it at the time I "coped" by suppressing any deep concern. Others told me to take it more easy, but I rushed around and it was - at the time - just like water off a ducks back. It was after she died, when the weight of it all was lifted, that a deep depression hit me. Before then I never knew what depression was - I had thought about it like just feeling a bit "down" after coming back from a good holiday!
Questions stay with me. During those years mum was struck by a car and broke her leg. She spent a few months in hospital. One evening I got a phone call telling me that they thought she had had a stroke and might not see the night out. When I got to the hospital I found her sitting up in bed with this silly little woolen hat on. I just held her hand and she said to me in her little girl voice:- "Why is this happening to me, I've been a good girl?" Heartbreaking. There are no words, there is no "answer" as such, you just sit beside someone and hold them. Maybe I said "I love you" but I really can't remember. Haunting.
To be honest I see all "answers" as virtually blasphemous. The "answer" is not in creed or formula or in personal testimony. It is more a matter of growth, deepening, and of an ever greater surrender to the creative action of love and grace in our hearts. A surrender of "self" with its "answers".