Compassionate Care for the ‘Buddha’s Older Children’
Barbara Bates, Chicago
World Tribune, 07/19/2002, p. 9 (Culture Dept. In Action)
I am a 52-year-old attorney with a master’s degree in social work and have been practicing Nichiren Buddhism for 24 years. My legal practice focuses on estate planning and probate (primarily in an elder law context) and adoptions.
In July 1999, I left my job as an executive director and legal counsel for a social service agency due to unresolved differences with the organization’s founder. Fortunately, I was able to receive a substantial severance package (that served as the seed money to start my own private law practice six months later). However, when I left the job, I felt depressed, lost and defeated and had no idea what I would do next.
I sought guidance from a senior in faith, who shared SGI President Ikeda’s guidance to do something, be something, create something, encouraging me to build a life of happiness and financial success. From that point on I sincerely chanted to show the power of faith in my life.
Shortly after receiving this guidance, another great opportunity crossed my path. The SGI-USA culture department was holding a Florida Nature and Culture Center conference, and I was strongly encouraged to attend as a representative of Chicago’s legal division. Since I was not working and had the money, I decided to go.
At the conference, as I listened to one dynamic experience after another, I realized that the people sharing them had so much passion for their work. I searched my heart and all I felt was a core of emptiness. I ran to another senior in faith because this emptiness scared me.
The guidance I received was to assume 100 percent responsibility for the happiness of my members, especially those who gave me the most problems, and to chant for clear direction in my life. I began chanting with firm resolve to follow this guidance. There is no doubt that my ability to feel true compassion about—and responsibility for—the happiness of the members was the cause that opened the door of passion in my career.
When I returned to Chicago, a fellow member and good friend in faith allowed me to volunteer in her labor law practice. This gave me a sense of usefulness. At the same time, I looked for work but to no avail. As the months went by, I realized that I did not have any choice but to create my own source of income. Actualizing President Ikeda’s guidance to create something took on a new sense of urgency. So, in January 2000, the start of the new millennium, and the same month as my 50th birthday, I began to work as a solo practitioner.
Initially, the focus of my private law practice was unclear. I took on labor and employment law cases (which gradually became less appealing to me) as well as those relating to the concerns of the elderly and disabled. Over time, I became aware that I was enjoying my legal work with the elderly more and more, and a dream that I had actually forgotten about began to reappear.
Right before I started law school in 1988, I saw one of the morning network shows about an attorney in Atlanta who started her own elder law practice. She would do home visits and provide whatever service the elderly required. She even did some work on a sliding scale. I said at the time, “That is what I want to do when I graduate!” But weighted down by whatever suffering I was going through on my various jobs — and there were several — my dream vanished. But my concern and compassion for seniors remained in my heart.
My special love for senior citizens relates back to my childhood. My great aunt and uncle, who had no children, showered me with love and affection. From the time I was two weeks old until I went away to college I spent almost every weekend with them. As they aged, I became their caregiver. I shopped, cleaned and was there during their hospitalizations. We used to stay up all night laughing and joking. They were my best friends. After law school it was necessary to place them both in a nursing home and until they died, I visited them every weekend. Caring for them was an expression of my deep appreciation and a way I could repay my debt of gratitude to them.
After they died, I found myself seeking the friendship of our older SGI-USA members.
I have chosen to be a loud and vibrant voice on behalf of seniors, both within the SGI-USA and in my now passionate elder law practice. I have carved out a niche for myself in that I provide legal services in the homes of the elderly.
Of course, my training for this comes from the many home visitations I did with my fellow SGI-USA members. I also serve the elderly in hospitals, nursing homes and hospices or my office if they wish.
In return, my clients love me, as I love them. I even have a cadre of older women clients who always have a meal cooked for me when I come to visit. When my clients die, I attend their funerals with a sense of deep appreciation for them in my heart. I chant to touch the lives their family through my humanity and compassion. As a result, I am often retained to do the decedent’s estate work, and then even after that, I often remain on as the family attorney. Because they always refer new clients to me, my business is experiencing tremendous, dynamic growth.
As a chapter leader within the SGI-USA, I am assigned to a different district for a period of about six months. I always seek out the senior citizen members and make sure to give them rides to all the meetings, because for many of them their need for transportation is the biggest obstacle to participating in Buddhist activities. I work with the district leaders and members to help them develop a heightened sensitivity to the needs of their older members. I chant with our “senior division” members in their homes, we chat on the phone and we even go out to lunch together like old friends. I encourage them to become empowered and to speak up in their districts. At larger meetings, I advocate to get them seated early so that they do not have to stand in line.
The results of working with seniors in my SGI-USA districts have been outstanding. In one district, a once nearly housebound woman is now the study leader for the district and another senior in that same district recently sponsored someone to receive the Gohonzon.
In another district, one of the senior citizen members became the women’s vice district leader. And in the district I left most recently, the district grew and split into two districts, and a member more than 70 years old was named the district leader of the new district. Unheard of at that age! But the crowning jewel is that on May 4, I sponsored an 80-year-old woman to receive the Gohonzon!
I am so very happy and excited about helping older members develop their faith and I am overjoyed and passionate about my law practice. How wonderful that at this point in my life, at the “young” age of 52, I feel that I have finally found my true mission in life: caring compassionately for the older children of the Buddha!
Barbara Bates lives in Chicago and is a women’s vice chapter leader and the Great Lakes Region leader for the culture department’s legal division.
