A Chat with Diana
by Pam Larsen

I think that it is important to connect with members of the Sangha and learn more about each other. Many are involved in things that are so very helpful and loving. One of those people is Diana Schuster, long time Blue Lotus member and creator of EnergyInfusion, her own work and practice that she has developed to help others find inner peace and love. I find Diana to be so delightful and full of love and sweetness. I hope that you will enjoy this little chat with her.

Pam Larson: Tell us about how you came to be involved with the Blue Lotus Temple.
Diana Schuster: About 6−7 years ago, there was a “Change your Mind” program on the [Woodstock, IL] square on a very hot summer day. I wasn’t living up here yet. My daughter and I came up here for it. Part way through, we noticed that the sky was turning black. And all of a sudden the sky opened up. People scattered and I went into the gazebo. Bhante Sujatha, who I didn’t know yet, was sitting there and I said “So what’s your take on this sudden rainstorm?” He said, “To teach us impermanence.” He planted a seed at that moment.

Tell us about taking your bodhisattva vows.
This was the first year that Bhante Sujatha had offered this. About six months prior to that, I offered out in one of my meditations that I was ready for more precepts. I didn’t know what vows or precepts, but I knew I wanted to take more steps on my path to enlightenment. So when he offered them, it was like, “Thank you!” I embraced them fully. It’s a deepening connection to being even more mindful and it fits into the parameters of accountability that I have set for myself.

How are these vows adapted for our western culture?
I weave these vows into my life, for my culture. I am not a nun and I am not a monk. I didn’t sign up for that. But I did take the vows with the notion of detaching. I live with comfort, but I can say, “I will give this to you now, it’s yours, take it. I am ok with this being removed from me. I don’t grasp.”

How long have you worked as a hospice patient care volunteer?
Almost three years.

Tell us what it’s like on a personal level to come into the last phase of someone’s life.
It is an honor and a privilege to be possibly the last new person that someone will meet in their life. So it is a big responsibility to nurture that heart space, to honor it, to help heal it. They are often carrying a heaviness and a need to forgive. I do it with great respect.

Tell us about EnergyInfusion.
EnergyInfusion is a blend of powerful modalities. Meditation, visualization, breath awareness (pranayama), and energy healing (Reiki). Reiki is healing through universal love and energy. And I use intuitive healing. I’m guided by spirit and I listen to what it is in my client’s highest good. What my desire for people to gain from this is a sense of calmness, health, and release of what’s no longer serving them. They can live in light and love and joy.

All of the questions that you have asked encompass my life: the Buddha, hospice, EnergyInfusion. When people ask, “What do you do for work and what do you do for fun?” I describe that everything I do is my work and everything I do, I do for joy. EnergyInfusion is my life’s work. You are experiencing it for yourself; it is liberating. The lightness brings mindfulness, the mindfulness brings clarity, and clarity brings joy.