Although she now serves as the Buddhist chaplain for Hendricks Chapel, JoAnn Cooke’s religious journey has been unique. Like many of us, her faith journey has not been a linear path, but one of exploration and evolution. She now encourages students she works with at Hendricks Chapel to explore their faith identity, too.
Student Support
Cooke offers spiritual advising to students, whether we are spiritual or not. She hopes to comfort us and help us relieve stress and anxiety, especially when feeling lost. She helps us see our true selves, make better decisions in life and be more intentional with everything we do.
Her motivation to help stems from her experiences in college.
Cooke’s Journey in Spirituality
Cooke was raised in a Catholic family––Catholicism came very naturally to her, and she loved everything about the religion. However, she started questioning her faith while she was studying at Syracuse University in 1977.
Cooke was taking several religion classes about Hinduism, Buddhism, Native American spirituality and Quakerism when she realized that Buddhism was more of an interest and comfort to her because of the way it teaches the coexistence of good and evil. She also learned about Quakerism through friends she met through activism early on in her life and had a Quaker wedding when she married her husband, Dana Cooke, a staff member at the Maxwell School. These opportunities allowed her to familiarize herself with several religions.
She deepened her relationship with Buddhism as a yoga teacher, and she read many Buddhist texts. Then, in her 40s, she started practicing Zen Buddhism in earnest at the Zen Center of Syracuse, learning from her teacher, Shinge Roshi Roko Sherry Chayat.
Buddhism helped her find herself during a time in her life when she was struggling with going back into teaching after staying at home taking care of her children.
“I just had this lack in myself, which I think is one of the main things that Buddhism really helps you with, that practicing zen helps you see that you really lack nothing,” Cooke says.
Joining Hendricks Chapel
With her previous experience working with students as a writing instructor at Syracuse University and a middle school teacher in the Syracuse City School District schools, she was the ideal candidate for Buddhist chaplain at Hendricks Chapel.
Her chaplaincy offers a variety of services: daily meditations, the Mindfulness Certification Program and discussion groups. Discussion groups have been very popular as a place of solace and community for the students, says Cooke.
“The first week was really about what students wanted to get out of the discussion group, but it turned into this deep conversation about morality and just ways of seeing what that means, and about death and grief,” says Cooke. “We’ve also talked about struggles in meditation and mental health, since it was Mental Health Awareness Week, and about how meditation helps with anxiety and depression.”
Cooke’s chaplaincy has daily meditations, offered both in-person and on Zoom. For more information about the meditation schedule, visit the Hendricks Chapel website or contact Chaplain Cooke at jmcooke@syr.edu.
Written by Jade Chung ’23, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications