Refuge in the Storm is a collection of 24 essays by Buddhist chaplains, spiritual leaders, psychotherapists, medical providers, and scholars who share their perspectives on crisis counseling, be that personal or global crisis.

We begin with a poem by Mushim Ikeda, “Five Irises for Mary Oliver.” One line in particular might resonate with you:

We aren’t always reduced to our entangled thoughts, our anguish.

Praying with my friend this morning, he said Thank you, he asked Help– we bow down and rise up.

Crisis is a disruptive event or relationship. A disaster, per the definition published by the American Red Cross, is “an event of such destructive magnitude and force as to dislocate, injure, or kill people, separate family members, and damage or destroy homes.” Disasters produce a ripple effect– the numbers of people affected on a fundamentally spiritual level is far greater than the number of people killed or injured.

When faced with crisis or disaster, how do we lean in to Buddhist tenets to help us emerge from it?

Rev. Dr. Nathan Jishin Michon, the editor of Refuge in the Storm, opens with an overview of twelve guiding principles for a Buddhist approach to crisis care:

1. Basic needs come first. When caring for someone in crisis, attend to their basic needs first. Are they hungry? Are they cold?
2. Do no harm.
3. Every person is unique and holy. Keep that at the top of your mind and it will be much harder to mess up.
4. Do not proselytize, evangelize, exploit, or take advantage of those affected, and do not allow others to do so.
5. Respect diversity– grief looks different in different cultures and religions.
6. Meet people where they are and accept them as they are.
7. Help platform victims and survivors so they can tell their stories.
8. Always be mindful of confidentiality.
9. Do not make promises or anything that might sound like a promise. Ex. Don’t say “I promise you’ll be okay.” Instead, say, “I am here with you.” or “I will try to find you a bandage right away.”
10. Be sensitive to language (or cultural) barriers.
11. Be sensitive to communities that harbor a distrust or fear of the government/institutions.
12. Practice active listening, which means to also listen with your eyes and heart. Make sure you are never doing more of the talking, and are doing more of the listening. Do not respond with, “I know how you feel” and do not interject with a telling of your own story.

In crisis care, the focus is on spiritual first aid, not on trying to cure or fix.

You want to start by stabilizing the person and unobtrusively introducing your presence. Then acknowledge the person’s situation by listening to what they’re saying and asking questions that will help you to better understand their situation and needs. When reassuring someone, opt to use the acknowledging phrase “this is a common reaction/experience” instead of saying “this is a normal reaction/experience.”

When you have an understanding of their situation, recommend strategies. Offer to pray with them; offer blessings; work through breathing exercises together. Finally, you may need to refer that person to someone with a more specialized background that can directly assist that person’s specific needs.

There is an essay from Victor Gabriel on a Buddhist framework for navigating ecological crises, which transitions into an essay by Dawn Neal on how Buddhist chaplains and teachers can support communities in crisis.

Vimalasara (Valerie Mason-John) provides a simple yet powerful method for tempering our suffering, through RUST, a way of delivering ourselves from the prison of our own minds:

• R: Recognize what is activating you right now. Recognize your subjective perceptions and judgments.
• U: Understand that you are caught up in a story, a very old story. Ask yourself: “Why am I still holding onto the story? What is it doing for me?”
• S: Sit with the sensations in the body. Stand with the sensations, and stretch with the sensations. Sing or scream even. Acknowledge where in the body you’re holding on to past traumas and wounds.
• T: Trust that this, too, shall pass.

There are essays in here on Buddhist practice for navigating QTBIPOC and personal identity crisis, trauma care when faced with a natural disaster, methods for addressing short-term, intermediate, and long-term relief care, dealing with social movements and protests, and the varying degrees of trauma we’ve absorbed after a pandemic, especially trauma we don’t recognize as trauma, each through different lenses and sects of Buddhism.

There are essays for handling death and dying and terminal illness, methods of spiritual counseling for both patients and their loved ones, as both experience different while related facets of the trauma.

Then there is an entire section of the book focused on Buddhist approaches to stress management and self-care. I love the very tangible suggestions offered, like mandala art or helping the person curate a daily ritual, which doesn’t need to be religious; the daily ritual can be committing to doing a certain activity at a set time routinely, every day. A daily ritualized routine can help convey a sense of stability. These tips are a lot more accessible than telling someone, “Go meditate.”

I also love the acknowledgement that crisis counselors need crisis care, too, and what that looks like from a Buddhist perspective. The book closes with instructional advice for those who are interested in taking the path to Buddhist chaplaincy and different avenues of training for Buddhist scholar-practitioners in professional spiritual care.

Refuge in the Storm poignantly touches in to many facets of crisis care and Buddhist philosophy, offering a diversity of voices, diversity of Buddhist practice, and covering a wide spectrum of crisis experiences– racism and social inequality, illness and dying, Covid, climate change, and so much more.

It’s instructive on how you might personally develop self-awareness and self-knowledge to become a care provider, no matter what that looks like in your unique capacity. It helps you to prevent burnout with actionable self-care practices rooted in Buddhist principles.

Truly, as the endorsement from assistant dean Monica Sanford at Harvard’s Multireligious Ministry noted, this book is “essential reading.” Writes Venerable Juewei from the Fo Guang Shan Buddhist order, “This collection is clearly a gift from bodhisattvas to bodhisattvas.”

FTC Disclosure: In accordance with Title 16 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations Part 255, “Guides Concerning Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising,” I received this book from the publisher for prospective review. Oh, also!– the publisher is North Atlantic Books, who is also the publisher of my books! =) Everything I’ve said here is sincere and accurately reflects my opinion of the book.