"What appeals to me intellectually and emotionally about your book is that reading these pieces together creates a very new context to hold the experience of life. Spirituality, what you call meditation, is the glue that holds all the parts together. I feel that all your contributors are committed to integrate the fragments of what knowledge and methods we have acquired . . . with real life experience." -John Lounibos, PhD "Intimate Meanderings . . . is an inspiring array of insight and bears witness to human life and our innate movement towards wholeness." -Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, Abbot ZCLA, Buddha Essence Temple "This book is an amazing potpourri of wisdom. Intimate Meanderings should be required reading in every Jesuit tent." -Dan Berrigan, S.J. "Most memoirs are 'I-full.' Morgan gives us a lot of 'We-full.'" -Robert Blaire Kaiser Intimate Meanderings shares the wisdom, inner-thoughts, and vast experiences of over twenty-five contributors who offer their inspiring reflections on meditation, religion, community involvement, hospice, and death, ultimately piquing spiritual and literary curiosity for those contemplating their own pilgrimage through life. A glance at the list of contributors, their articles, conversations, and poems illustrates their breadth and depth as well as diversity; personal histories-both positive and negative-that need to be told and not forgotten; spiritual journeys that still have a powerful impact; and poetry that captures emotional and motivational moments. Zo-Callahan and friends honestly communicate their deepest desires and yearnings as they explore the inner and inter-relational processes of obtaining serenity and joy.

INTIMATE MEANDERINGS

Conversations Close to Our HeartsBy Morgan Zo-Callahan

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2009 Morgan Zo-Callahan and Friends
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-3658-0

Chapter One

Section One, The Art of Living Fully

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...