When I told my mother I was going to my first Buddhist service that Sunday, she stopped what she was doing and slammed the kitchen counter with her hand.
“At Easter? » she said, turning strangely still.
It was the late 1990s. I had stopped being Catholic a few years before, at 18, so I no longer paid attention to the Christian calendar. The choice of date was not symbolic, but my mother’s raised voice showed that she meant it.
About a year later, I heard her on the phone with a friend expressing concern for my eternal soul. My mother was a devout Catholic, and her youngest daughter’s abandonment of her religious education was unthinkable – although I had not completely rejected religious pursuit.
I sat down and wrote a letter to my mother and left it on her bed. My words were strong, but I wasn’t smug or sneering, which was unusual restraint for a college-aged kid. I didn’t question his faith. I just asked him to respect my need to find my own contemplative path.
We never discussed the letter.
When my mother followed my father in death in 2019 and my sisters and I had to clean the house, I found my letter in her room hidden between important cards she had saved. I took it out and sat on the floor holding it as if it were a vital link between the two of us across very different planes of existence.
It was important to me that she kept it. I know it was not easy for her to read because it declared in clear terms my apostasy. But she took my words seriously, it seemed. The way she affirmed my decision-making over the years showed me that she ultimately trusted that a desire to be kind and a clear sense of right and wrong guided my actions.
It’s so tempting to glorify someone you love after they’re gone, to the point of leaving their flaws unspoken when telling stories about them. I firmly believe that it is very important to present a complete picture of who someone was to honor their memory and remind us that we humans are always a work in progress. I hope people do that for me after I’m gone.
But I’m not exaggerating when I say that my sweet mother inspired me in the way a religious icon would. I like to say that I have the heart I have because of her. She helped me develop that heart by hugging me, kissing me, telling me she loved me, and teaching me through word and action that treating people with compassion should be taken as seriously as earning a college degree and building a career.
She donated to the local food pantry. She helped with coat drives. She quietly embodies the words: “Everything you did for one of my littlest siblings, you did for me.” » She did not turn away from the suffering of others. I understood that this was a moral imperative that transcends belief and affiliation.
My mother was also deeply thoughtful. I nourished her need to be cerebral about the human condition, and she nourished mine. We could talk for hours about the intricacies and vagaries of life and living. Our political opinions differed, sometimes greatly, but the credo that animated them was generally the same: protect dignity and defend others, especially the most vulnerable.
For Buddhists, right action is one of the principles of the Eightfold Path to enlightenment. Your task is to avoid evil, cultivate kindness, and help others.
Values are important. But we humans prove who we are by how we put these values into practice.
My mother proved who she was by her charitable acts, done without fanfare, and by her repeated appeals to my sisters and me to be as decent as possible. Whatever her flaws, she did her best to embody her values, and for that, there was no need to take advantage of others.
I can imagine my mother in a different life as a social reformer like Dorothy Day, who cared for people living in poverty, protested injustices, and lived what she preached with remarkable dedication.
I imagine my mother saying these words like Day: “We can’t love God if we don’t love one another.” »
The final word is love, Day said. This is also what my mother taught me.
This is why I show up for the people I care about and why I show up for my community. And that is why I sit and follow my breath in Buddhist meditation and face the ups and downs of my humanity. Love requires us to look beyond our narrow selves. Love requires us to commit ourselves to the well-being of others.
This is what the world expects of us. Especially now.
Colleen Kujawa is a content editor who works with the Tribune editorial board.
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