| Summary: | 碩士 === 南華大學 === 生死學研究所 === 95 === The main point which the study concerns the most is about the dialogue experience between terminal cancer patients and a Buddhist hospital chaplain while the patients are on their deathbeds. Under the guidance of hermeneutic phenomenology, the researcher proceed a seven-month long field observation and interviews in a hospice ward in a regional medicine teaching hospital in Chia-Yi. The text in this article is based on the information which we get from the field observation record and the depth interviews with three research participants; it then undergoes a process of synthetic analysis on various viewing horizons. Besides, we excerpt the essence of the dialogue experience between terminal cancer patients and a Buddhist hospital chaplain from the analysis, on the basis of which the description and interpretations are made.
According to the study, terminal cancer patients have different needs to comfort their bodies, minds, and spirits as the illness develops. And the goal a Buddhist hospital chaplain wants to reach through the dialogue experience is to comfort the patients by the map of the soul the Buddhism has supplied. The description and interpretation of the dialogue experience mainly involve the following two levels: (1) the development of the dialogue experience. (2) the intrinsic meanings contained in the dialogue experience.
The first level explains the connection of the sickbed relationship as the illness develops, which concludes: (1) the backgrounds of the research participants. (2) the situation of the first contact between the patients and the chaplain. (3) the transitional difficulties as the patients’ condition worsens. (4) the religious situation and the extrication of the patients while they are dying. The second level is described in the following four perspectives: (1) the primordial experience of terminal stage. (2) the sacred experience of religious conversion. (3) the “speechless talking” while dying. (4) the spiritual care of religion.
Although the study inquired into the essence of dialogue experience between terminal cancer patients and Buddhist hospital chaplain, the contextual interpretation of the dialogue relates to the depth of spirit and is ever changing. To strengthen the role as a helper of a Buddhist hospital chaplain in local hospice professionalizing, we suggest basing on the context of the dialogue experience in the subsequent studies, and developing a training manual of Buddhist hospital chaplains in the future.
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