INTIMATE MEANDERINGS

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Chapter One

Although the World is Full of Suffering: Death, Dying, and Living Fully Morgan Zo-Callahan

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. —Helen Keller

This is what you do when you want to know God. You don't go looking for an object called God. You cultivate the awareness of love in an awake heart. You keep your heart awake to respond to God by love ... This, a person can cultivate. —Thomas Merton

I have been a participant and a seminar leader in an on- going conversation about accompanying the dying and living aware of our own dying at the Rosemead Buddhist Monastery in southern California. This essay is drawn from my own reflections, notes, and the comments of other participants.

We begin each session by trying to create a loving and centered context, "right mind" in Buddhist terms, for the inquiry.

Our prayer is that we all be happy, free from worry, free from hatred. May we all develop hearts of loving kindness. We are alive!

We begin by taking a few deep breaths to center ourselves, relax, be present and focused.

Let's take a few minutes to forgive ourselves and release all unnecessary burdens of guilt, anger, jealousies, sadness, and worries.

Release any tense grudges we may be holding; forgive offenses against us, let hatred go and cultivate a compassion and loving kindness towards others and myself.

I acknowledge where I've hurt others, and myself and I try to see the thoughts that mobilized those behaviors. I release my "you should have's," "you're no-good's."

I forgive myself. I forgive you and thank you for in advance forgiving me for any way I might offend or mislead you.

I offer myself loving regard, appreciating myself, just as I am.

May we be happy and compassionate, in touch with what we love. May we be open to listen and hear.

We extend these wishes to family, friends, and to the whole world. May we all flourish, discover our heart's truest desires and live with renewed faith.

I bow to each of you and all of you with respect, reverence and gratitude for taking the chance that something is useful in this writing for the benefit of own lives and for its ending.

Several years ago, when I came to this temple and introduced myself to the abbot, Bhante Chao Chu, I told him that I was a Catholic who was also nourished spiritually by visiting the Vedanta Temple, that peaceful oasis above the Hollywood Freeway where there are images of Jesus, Buddha, Ramakrishna, Sarada, and Vivekenanda side by side in the shrine room. I shared with him how attractive the image of Buddha's serene face was for me. Bhante smiled broadly, nodding. He told me that he also goes to other temples from time to time for inspiration, and, then we laughed about how hung up people are about "their" religion. He said I was always welcome here. It's enlivening for me to sit quietly in this temple and from time to time talk about our lives. I would like to extend the same open welcome to everyone who is participating in this conversation.

We can talk with one another about this topic of birth, living and death if our conversation is in a loving context with an appreciation of each other, and of the wisdom and compassion found in all the great sacred traditions, as well as the intellectual rigor of what I will call "honest religious skepticism." My presentation may have a Buddhist flavor, but, no matter what our religion or lack thereof, we are all growing in wisdom, compassion, friendliness, and equanimity in relationship to the subject of dying and living fully.

We may bring perennial metaphysical questions into the conversation: "Is there a Personal or an Impersonal God?" "Is there an Uncreated, Unborn, Undying as Buddha declared?" "Is there an immortal soul?" "Is there Nirvana?" Perhaps we've concluded these are unanswerable questions. Certainly in the Pali suttas that we study here at Rosemead, the Buddha himself tended to steer his disciples in the direction of being more down to the earth, saying that very often metaphysical discussions about "imponderable subjects," such as whether the enlightened person experiences an eternal life after death, take away from the more important practices of ethical living, forgiveness, study, meditation, service. We can ask ourselves: what is the best way for us to live life completely, gracefully, with joy in losses and gains, in life and death? How do we prepare both spiritually and practically for our particular death?

Alan Watts once said: "To feel life is meaningless unless `I' can be permanent is like having desperately fallen in love with an inch." We can end our suffering without having to answer metaphysical queries.

Someone once asked Bhante, "Does your temple belong to any particular branch of Buddhism? Bhante answered, "We respect many things people do in their respective Buddhist cultures, but the Buddha's teachings bow to no particular sect, tradition, ritual or culture." Of course, religion has myriad cultural expressions; we just don't need to absolutize or glamorize them. Cultures also have forms of magic—some call them superstitions—which we try to avoid (though I've found that magical thinking can be of help if used positively). There's no magic to being "holy" or truly "whole." True spiritual growth is rooted in our own selves, our own understanding, wisdom, loving-kindness. We enjoy and profit from inviting all faiths and traditions into the conversation.

We're all well aware of the Dalai Lama's urging respect for all religious traditions, that there are many paths to the common goal of liberation. In a public lecture I attended, he encouraged people to keep their own genuine religious traditions, while learning from Buddhism. If one did become a Buddhist, he or she should remember not to lose respect and appreciation for the good in their original religious training.

In much the same vein, Thich Nhat Hanh in a seminar a few years ago in Oakland called "A Taste for Diversity and Mindfulness," said he keeps an image of both Buddha and Jesus on his shrine, because, in his practice, as in mine, they are together. American Indians, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Christians discussed how, within each of our scriptural traditions, we can misuse interpretations, quotes to justify non-rational, non-compassionate actions toward other religions and toward other people different than ourselves and certainly unkindness and impatience towards ourselves. I was happy to see Islamic leaders protest the beheading of Daniel Berg in Iraq, saying it was hateful revenge of shameless political power of people who use scripture—"kill the infidel"—in a way that is contrary to true Islam.

A woman friend of mine, an activist, once showed me Buddhist scriptures that had been quoted to her to justify treating women as "second-class" citizens. We, Catholics living at the beginning of the twenty-first century, shudder at the scriptural justification once used to justify the Inquisition and the Crusades, as well as for slavery. The written words that exist in any tradition can be used to justify a particular, narrow, and in those cases I just mentioned, destructive worldview. Thich Nhat Hanh said: "God is neither small nor big. God has no beginning or end. God is not more or less beautiful. All the ideas that we use to describe the phenomenal world cannot be applied to God. So it's very wise not to say anything about God. To me the best theologian is the one who never speaks about God. Whether you call it Nirvana or Father; it's not important. What is important is that there is another dimension that should be touched."

Once a disciple of the Buddha was upset that some others wouldn't accept one of the Buddha's teachings. The Buddha wanted his disciple to understand his own anger, his own dualistic thinking (me against you), his preoccupation with the need to have absolute right and true doctrine. He asked: "Do you think that we are always 100 percent right and that group you are so mad about is 100 percent wrong?" The disciple calmed down and was blessed with insight.

Our spiritual efforts may allow us to develop some detachment, so that we don't give so much energy to the disturbing emotions that arise when facing death. The emotions of dread, fear, anger, sorrow, our habitual reactions and compulsions may not disappear, but they've lost mastery of our souls. In the movie "A Beautiful Mind," we see John Nash telling his delusional voices and hallucinations that he won't talk to them any more, that he feels the presence of their demand, but that he's not going to give them any more energy.

John Tarrant, a Zen teacher with whom I did two retreats, writes about the death of his own mother in relation to the koan, "The great way is not difficult if you just don't pick and choose." He said this isn't to prescribe some right way to live or think, but "to encourage us to make an ally of the unpredictability of the mind and to approach life more as a work of art."

John spoke how we might just automatically be compelled to be happy at weddings and sad at funerals. Mindfulness is about meeting and being fully present in the moment, without being clinging or adverse to circumstances. Of course, we all do have personal preferences and intimate connections.

Here's what John writes about his mother's death: "My mom was extremely wasted.... I held her hand.... My father was trying to encourage Mum to stay in this world, to eat—for him, for life.... Mum was heedless, impatient, rude.... I noticed it was easy to think that my father should accept that my mother was dying and let her go. Acceptance, the last stage, and all that ... that my mother should bless Dad on her way out—why not? Or think that I should be able to help, oil the wheels. With any of these thoughts, the room became small and fearful ... a sense of strain, of needing to change others, of the hopelessness of that task, of picking and choosing ... wanting to change myself also led to this strain ... but when I wanted no one to be different, the room was large and at peace.... It even seemed that my father spoke out of love and my mom pushed him away out of love."

And finally I would like to note the urgency of the conversation. As best we can, we cannot put off dealing with the last things until they are upon us.

Whatever the tainted food was that Chunda inadvertently served as the Buddha's poisoning reminds us that death can rush in and stake its claim without notice ... our lives are so short so Buddha implored us to make haste, to pursue liberation `as if there were fire in our hair.' Buddha took his last breaths under two stately Sal trees. Their falling red blossoms are said to have framed an intensely beautiful sunset. `Ananada,' the Buddha asked quietly, `do you really see it?'—Allan Hunt Badiner

My Mom's Dying

Rilke says that death is a great gift, but that few of us "open it." With the hope that I can begin to open it, both for myself and others, let me talk more personally about death, dying and fully living as grounds for reflection without any intention of dogmatism. We meander so personally, so differently. Can we face the naturalness of death? We welcome good-hearted gifts and even our deaths and the deaths of our loved ones can be good-hearted gifts, a final planting of the seeds of our so very unique and precious lives. Death has been for me the "great unwrapped gift" of mystery, fascination, fear and great yearning to touch what is eternal. I've been part of the dying of family, friends and of those I've known through hospice work. I'm humbled by the great change that is death and how unpredictable its circumstances are for others and for one's self.

Within an hour of the announcement of Challenger's seven astronauts' tragic demise, January 28, 1986, Mom told me she would only live for about three more months. She accepted the results of the biopsy gracefully—she understood "terminal" diagnosis—but she also felt humiliated and angry at the way she was told which she perceived as poor, insensitive hospital care.

I said to her: "Let's go home." My sister, Mary, with whom she lived, was eager to make her comfortable in a place she knew was home. A kind and efficient nurse, Felicia, stayed with Mom. All of her immediate needs were taken care of. Mary and Felicia would be with her during the days and I would visit after work into the cool evenings and on weekends. My mom loved being a "late-nighter." We always stayed up far after midnight, even if she'd drift off for short periods of time.

She lived for another fifty-four days. She died on March 24. My Dad had died nineteen years earlier on the 21st of March. Mom had hoped to die on the anniversary of his death, which was also her birthday, for emotional reasons that we all can understand, but she lived three days longer. "Why does this dying have to take so damn long?" she moaned.

Loss is difficult and inevitable. While my mom was dying, I felt my attempts to manipulate myself emotionally and make death all right, but, in the face of death, there was a lonely emptiness and helplessness in my gut. At times, I was aware of my own hard heart as well as my generous side. It was a time of learning and letting go, of being aware and feeling my darker side as well as being light and attentive. All of us, even doctors, therapists, teachers, monks, priests, struggle with our "demons" and subtle preconceptions regarding death. I remember a Buddhist monk once telling me how he was unaffected by his mother's death, that he could easily just let her go. Yet, as he was speaking, he could not hold back the tears that were welling in his eyes. Perhaps he felt it was "proper" for a monk not to show any tears. We're human beings before any of our religious indoctrinations.

My mom's death was not my first experience of letting go of a loved one. I remember myself as an eight-year-old boy, late on a dark, starry night, touching the lifeless, cold arm and face of my grandma's corpse, as she lay in our downstairs living room. I was alone with her for a final time. "Grandma, I'll keep you company while you're going to heaven," I said to myself. I had the feeling somehow "she" was still subtly connected to her body as if her spirit had a faint but real presence while disconnecting from all association with bodily life. Though I was a bit afraid, I also sensed a peace and naturalness to her death. I went outside and looked up to the stars where I had a feeling of being engulfed by a spirit, a presence—that I called God—that was both wonderful and humbling. And such an unknowable Mystery.

The next day, my family gathered to perform the rituals of death: Mass and burial, food and drink, stories and memories, laughter and weeping. I saw how family members and friends react to death so differently. Some were inconsolable; others were accepting; some even argued. This was my first experience that letting go of a loved one leaves some deep effect, combustion burst from the inside to empower those still living to be nicer to each other and more wise. If we so choose. I would later learn that many religious traditions have similar periods of saying good-bye, even celebrations, and allowing the subtler energies of individual consciousness to enter into the greater stream of conscious life apart from one's body.

One of my mom's characteristics was that you couldn't fool her. Usually, she could see right through people, so any phony "solicitous" attitude on my part was quickly dropped. I felt like we were just together. I'd help naturally rather than in any preconceived ways. As hospice work taught me, listening and being oneself—at times just being there and not trying too hard—as well as being alert and of practical assistance, were the most helpful dispositions. I gave up trying to be the "strong" person in the family and "knowing all the answers." I stopped right away telling her not to smoke cigarettes that she'd continue to do until the end. "How I enjoy a good conversation and a smoke!"

One night, Mom had this incredible perplexed look on her face. She seemed confronted with a disconcerting puzzle. She was so lost. I spontaneously said, "Those are just experiences as you go deeper into the vastness. Relax. Let go. You're in the loving hands of your Source, God, your Destiny." I don't know how these words came out of my mouth. Mom started to breathe easily, letting go the tense contortions of her face.

Once I felt the vulnerability of my mom, lying there, alert, but helpless as a baby. We seemed at that moment specially connected in the fragility of our human condition. I felt comfortable, as never before, to ask Mom: "Is there anything bothering you? Do you have any worries?" No, she said everything's all right. However, the discomfort of her body was intense at times. "It's difficult, Mom, isn't it?" She'd nod her head `yes' and squeeze my hand tightly.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from INTIMATE MEANDERINGSby Morgan Zo-Callahan Copyright © 2009 by Morgan Zo-Callahan and Friends. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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