1: When Diane Button was new to end-of-life care, so many questions flooded her mind.
“I wondered if I would ever get to a place where I would feel comfortable stepping into the home of a dying person with ease and grace,” she writes in her wonderful book What Matters Most: Lessons the Dying Teach Us About Living.
Fortunately, she had a mentor. “Hospice chaplain Clarence Liu was was gentle, wise, and unflappable.”
Diane made a point of watching Clarence carefully. She noticed his calm demeanor and his centered body language. She listened to every wise word he shared with his patients.
“He was naturally adept at knowing what to say and do,” Diane recalls.
One day, Clarence suggested she learn about the Zen Buddhist concept of “beginner’s mind.”
He told her it was key to becoming comfortable with the uncertainty of the work.
“Diane, have you had a conversation with someone with cancer before?” Clarence asked as they drove up to a patient’s home.
“Yes, I have,” she replied.
“But have you had a conversation with this person with cancer before?”
“No,” she responded.
“Have you seen someone die before?” he asked.
“Yes, I have,” I said.
“But have you seen this person die before?” Clarence asked, looking into her eyes.
“No,” she replied, beginning to understand.
“Then this is all new. Let it be new. Bring your heart, your curiosity, and your open mind. Leave the rest behind,” he said as he shut the car door and began walking toward the front door.
2: Later that night, Diane reflected on the idea of beginner’s mind, of setting aside any notion of what to expect. To be intentional about seeing the world with fresh eyes.
“It struck me immediately,” she remembers, “that there is freedom in not feeling like I need to always know exactly what to say or do, or how to solve a problem.”
It is a gift to allow yourself to say “I don’t know” and to feel good about it.
“None of us are experts, and the sooner we accept that,” she writes, “the sooner we can stop trying to control life and impress others.”
Cultivating a beginner’s mind means embracing the idea of seeing every new client and every new visit without an agenda or an opinion.
“I simply show up and allow space for whatever is to happen that day,” Diane observes. “My work became so much easier, and I felt free, present, openhearted, and more accepting.”
3: One time, she asked Clarence, “Have you always been this peaceful and calm?”
He laughed out loud and said, “Oh, no. You wouldn’t believe how scared I was when I first started out. Did I ever tell you about one of the very first cases I had as a new chaplain?”
Clarence had been a chaplain for three months when a funeral home director called one afternoon.
The director asked Clarence to come by the next day and sit with a couple who had just lost their one-year-old baby.
“They were coming for a viewing, and the funeral director thought the bereaved couple would appreciate the support,” Clarence remembers.
He immediately felt uncomfortable, but he said, “Of course I’ll be there.”
That night, he lay in bed, worried and wondering what he would say to these young parents whose lives had been suddenly shattered.
Clarence arrived early at the funeral home the following morning. “He found himself feeling nervous, unqualified, and ill-equipped to be with this level of deep grief,” Diane shares.
He felt like the funeral director could sense his insecurity.
“I think I need to sit with the baby first,” Clarence said. Somehow, he “just knew it was something he needed to do.”
Clarence entered a large room with a small bassinet in the middle.
“Lying there on a table surrounded by flowers was a beautiful baby girl wrapped in a soft blanket,” Diane writes. “Clarence recalled that the room was filled with sadness, yet also with peace. He wasn’t quite sure how to feel, so he sat, honoring his lack of familiarity.”
“Beginner’s mind,” he reflected.
Clarence sat there quietly, looking at this sweet baby. “Suddenly, he felt himself tearing up,” Diane notes. “He noticed it, and normally might have tried to hold it together, but he decided to let the feelings come out.
“Within seconds,” she notes, “he found himself sobbing uncontrollably, alone with the baby, contemplating life and loss and love and grief and all the emotions we experience over the course of our lives.
“The voice in his head told him to breathe, just sit there, and let the tears flow. So he did.”
Rather than fight the tears and emotions, he let them out. In that moment, “he felt less anxious and worried,” she writes. “He had become good at controlling his tears, and his emotions, but not this day. He sat quietly while more tears starting flowing.”
“Just be,” he said to himself. “Just be still. It’s okay. Let it out.”
Suddenly, he heard someone talking outside the door. He quickly gathered himself and greeted the parents. He accompanied them as they walked into the room to be with their daughter one last time.
They both began crying. Wailing. And then they stopped and shared memories. Then they began crying again.
The mom turned to Clarence and asked, “Can I hold her?”
“Yes, of course you can hold her. She’s your daughter.” His soft voice reflected the compassion for the heartbreak he was witnessing.
The mother cradled the baby and rocked her, “singing the songs she had hoped to sing to her sweet baby for years to come,” Diane writes. “And then they cried again, and again, and again, until the tears became soft and quiet.”
Clarence sat there quietly. He “knew there were no words to say,” she writes. “There was nothing he could fix. He had learned how to just sit, and not react. And he had learned earlier that day to let all the emotions in the room flow freely. So, once again, he made space for the unimaginable grief, and also for abundant love.”
There was noise in the hallway.
“Clarence hadn’t expected both sets of grandparents and some siblings, but there they were,” Diane shares.
“The mom continued to hold her baby, and soon the entire room was filled again with tears and tremendous grief, and then some shared memories, and then more tears, and some songs, and more tears, and poems, and even some sweet laughter, and then more tears.”
The dad then asked Clarence to pray. “Unprepared, but fully present, Clarence allowed the voice of God to speak through him,” Diane notes.
“The family sensed the heartfelt love and the power of Clarence’s words that filled the room,” she observes. “Big words, spoken in a small, soft voice, respecting the moment. More tears, a few more stories, and then a tender and heart-wrenching final goodbye.”
Diane writes: “Clarence had spent the entire night before lying awake in bed worrying about what to say to this grieving family, but he showed up with beginner’s mind and a warm heart.
“He didn’t need to plan out what words he would say. He simply needed to trust that the words would come,” she explains.
“Clarence knew that giving himself permission to feel his deepest feelings was the way to live in full integrity and truth, but this was the first time in a long time that he had let his emotions be free in a way that was spontaneous, pure, and authentic.”
Clarence learned how to grieve that day. He learned it’s good to hurt. To mourn.
“He learned that we must be in our hearts to do this work, and sometimes our hearts get broken open,” Diane notes.
“He learned that growth happens in the hard stuff. And he remembered that, by practicing beginner’s mind and leaving his expectations at the door, he could do hard and difficult things.
“We all can,” she suggests.
“Life is not always easy,” Diane writes, “and there are always going to be challenges, but don’t let that stop you from living a full and meaningful life.
“Trust your heart and your mind. Trust that you can do hard things.
“You don’t have to have all the answers,” she notes. “Just show up with an open heart and mind.
More next week!
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Reflection: Where in my life am I trying too hard to have the right answers instead of simply showing up with presence, curiosity, and compassion?
Action: The next time you face a difficult conversation or uncertain situation, practice “beginner’s mind”—pause, let go of expectations, and be fully present.
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