Audio: BMI 10th Anniversary: Nancy Chu
Full transcript:
SPEAKER 1: Nancy Chu grew up in Northern California, where from a young age, she visited the city of 10,000 Buddhas to learn meditation, yoga, and chanting from the Buddhist monks and nuns who live there.
Nancy Chu completed her MDiv at HDS in 2015, followed by a master's degree in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She is currently a PhD candidate in religious studies at Stanford University, which is also part of the whole network of universities. At Stanford, she's focusing on Buddhism. She's also a gifted writer of fiction.
She has worked as an associate editor at Lion's Roar magazine, and trained as a hospital chaplain, and currently, she is conducting dissertation fieldwork on Buddhist nuns in Taiwan. She studies how Buddhist monastics help hospital patients dealing with acute and chronic pain. So please, Nancy.
NANCY CHU: Thank you so much. And hello, everyone from Taiwan. My name is Nancy, and it is really great to see you all again, especially Charlie-- sorry, Charlie and Janet, key faculty in our Buddhist Ministry program, without whom, our education would not be possible and other incredible faculty who are joining us online-- Cheryl Giles and Chris Berlin. I remember both of your classes as well from my time there.
And the people who have joined the BMI more recently, Monica and Jonathan, who have put together this event. I also learned a lot from my fellow students what Harrison talked about today, the living texts for each other, that really resonated with me. Thank you so much Charlie, for the introduction.
I did grow up in a Buddhist community in California, called the City of 10,000 Buddhas. It is a Chan monastic community and one of the largest such monasteries in the Western hemisphere. I graduated from HDS with an MDiv in 2015, and I'm currently studying religion at Stanford, where my focus is on how Buddhist nuns face pain with greater resilience through monastic practices of overcoming attachment to the body.
I came to HDS in 2011 shortly after college, just around the time the Buddhist Ministry Initiative started, and seeing the fellow graduates who've come before me and after me, it is incredible to see how far the Initiative has taken us.
When I began at HDS, the BMI was just beginning. So I remember a sense of newness and of possibility. At that time, I think the Buddhist Ministry Program was the newest one, and I remember thinking, what is a Buddhist minister exactly? We didn't know. The program seemed to ask us, what are you going to do with this blank slate that we're giving you? What forms will your Buddhist Ministry take? You decide, you determine what it is.
And I have. I think many of us have. My form seems to be a combination of Buddhist scholarship, or attempts at Buddhist scholarship, and more traditional forms like chaplaincy. As Charlie said, I recently worked as an associate editor at Lion's Roar, highlighting the voices of Buddhists of color, particularly Asian-Americans and currently, I'm in Taiwan doing dissertation fieldwork.
In Taiwan, I'm staying at a Buddhist organization outside the city of Chiayi called Xiang Guang Temple. It is home to the Luminary Order of Buddhist nuns. The temple is surrounded by mountains. It sits at the foot of Taiwan's largest mountain range. In the summer, it rains most days. Mornings in the kitchen are busy. Novice nuns in blue aprons wash and chop vegetables in preparation for the midday meal. At the back of the compound is an old temple with a statue of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion.
As I write in a forthcoming piece for the Harvard Divinity bulletin, living on the mountain with the nuns in Taiwan, the rigors of monastic life teach me to be humble. The days are quiet here. Cicadas buzz from the trees, and visitors flow in and out to worship at the old temple. The nearest town is a 10-minute drive away. Time seems to blend and deepen, and I am content.
To the current students, conventional wisdom tells us to grow up, get a job, settle down, buy a house, have a kid, and that's it. But those of us in Divinity School know the world is so much wilder, more interesting, and more beautiful. Go explore, live in it. Use your time liberally to grow your love and wisdom. That diversity and richness of experience, the breadth of knowledge that you gain is what makes our society vibrant and strong.
By questioning our assumptions and beliefs, by listening to all sides, by knowing others and judging for ourselves, we engage in the messy process of opening ourselves up to other ways of thinking, living, and being. Be a student of the world. Let yourself be changed.
One of the experiences I had as an MDiv student was taking a semester off to go to India. I remember hesitating right before I made the decision and Dudley Rose saw me pacing in the hallway, looking uncertain. He asked me what I was thinking about, and I told him. I said, "But it'll hold me up academically. I've never been to India. It will interrupt my program. I'm kind of scared to take the plunge." And he said, "You should go. As you get older, you'll have more responsibilities, and it will be harder to do this kind of thing."
I did and I have never once regretted it. I went to Bodh Gaya on pilgrimage, sat under the Bodhi tree, volunteered with Mother Teresa's organization in Kolkata, and stayed at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad. So to the Buddhist Ministry students now, as you are determining your next steps, I encourage you all to take that road, to follow your heart, to be true to your deeper values, to not limit yourself out of fear.
We will all benefit, and Buddhist Ministry, this growing and beautiful field, will benefit from seeing you live out who you truly are. I cannot wait to see what you will do.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
SPEAKER 1: Thanks so much, Nancy. And just to acknowledge, it looks like the sun has come up. But it still is quite early in the morning and stuff for you. So. And from my side, I truly can't wait to see what you are going to do, too, so.
NANCY CHU: Thank you.