SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

Ms Amanda Cahill

Good afternoon, friends,

I feel very honoured to be asked to share this deeply personal experience with you all on this very special occasion of the 28th  RKUK Anniversary. I hope that it provides comfort, understanding, gratitude, love, strength and a sprinkling of laughter. To assist with the development of this talk, I would like to thank Kyo and Paul for their support, and Yoko and Yukari for their encouragement to come forward and share my experience. Let me start by saying that I would like you to keep in your minds the focus for today, ‘gratitude’, but also Naikan, which Paul has explained.

And now some family history…

I was born on 30th August 1967 to my Irish immigrant mum, who was one of 12 children and my dad. My mum was Irish Catholic, and my dad, Jewish. I had an older brother and a younger sister. We siblings were raised as Irish Catholics, but we celebrated both Irish and Jewish holidays and traditions. We went to Catholic schools, and up to the age of about 11, we were made to attend mass every Sunday and give our confessions every Saturday.

Growing up, I was never aware of wanting for anything; both my parents worked hard, we had long holidays in Ireland staying with family, and life appeared to be good. When I was around 12, I came home from school to my dad protecting himself with a kitchen chair from my mum brandishing the Sunday carving knife at him. I ran from the house to my friend who lived around the corner and sobbed hysterically. My mum had the temper of an Irish woman; she was never violent with us as kids, but she was a formidable 5ft woman. I had a Saturday job with her, and I have seen her step between arguing drug dealers in Brixton and stop the situation escalating. She could be a very charming woman.

This was a turning point in my life. My dad had committed the ultimate unforgivable thing in my mum’s eyes; he had a relationship with her sister. From this point onwards, our family life as we knew it changed forever.

My mum never forgave my dad. She died in 2001. I think she was still feeling as strongly about it as she did the day she found out. It seemed to break her. She developed a dependency on alcohol, and we were made homeless on a number of occasions as she had not paid the rent. She had men in her life who were less than ideal, and we never managed to help her overcome this awful event, or her addiction and live a happy life.

However, even with all her faults, she loved us, clothed us, managed to send us on school trips and holidays, and she adored her grandchildren. My dad became an ‘absent father’, but we would see him sometimes at weekends. We would see him during some school holidays. For me, enjoying myself during these times with my dad felt disloyal to my mom. I never felt that I should enjoy these visits because of how my mum felt.

My dad became less and less reliable; sometimes our bags would be packed to spend a couple of nights with him, and he wouldn’t turn up. This would make my mum angry, and it built resentment in me towards him. I really became disrespectful towards him, and just asked him for money for various things. I didn’t see him as a person. It was easy to blame things on him.

The relationship between my mum and dad varied over the years; sometimes it was OK, and they were on speaking terms, sometimes they were not. My relationship with my dad never really recovered; my dad remarried, and his wife, Wendy, had a grown-up family. During this time, his daughter from a previous marriage, before my mum, got in contact with him, and honestly, it appeared she could do no wrong. It felt like all the things I had wanted him to say about me, he was saying about her. I found it very difficult. Our relationship ended during a telephone call where I angrily told him he was a useless dad and I would prefer to no longer have contact with him.

I had no contact with my dad for a number of years until my oldest daughter, Anneka, became very seriously unwell when she was 13, and we were told to give loved ones the opportunity to see her for possibly the last time. I spoke with my mum and asked her if she would be OK if I told my dad and gave him the opportunity to visit Anneka. I called my dad and told him about the situation. He thanked me for calling but did not visit her. Thankfully, she made a good recovery after being on life support for a week and in the hospital for about 8 weeks. He visited her about 6 weeks after the initial call. This did have an impact. I just assumed he didn’t visit because he disliked me, but I was not going to allow him to treat my daughters the way he treated us when we were kids and be an unreliable person in their lives. So, I resumed the non-contact with him, but as both my daughters were teens, I advised them that they both had a choice and could keep in contact with him.

Until this year, my dad and I had not spoken for about 25 years. In that time, if I am honest, when I thought about him, or our relationship, I felt let down and that he did not care about me. There were times in my life when I felt he could have told me he was proud of me. But I felt wrongly judged by him at times, which compounded my reasons for keeping my distance. It was a very one-dimensional view.

He turned 90 nearly 3 years ago, and this was the start of my reflection on our relationship. My eldest daughter was going to Spain to see him, and I gave her a card I had written for him. I felt that being 90 was a huge milestone in life and should be celebrated. My daughter said he was happy to receive the card, and that pleased me, but I left it there and did not pursue anything.

It is worth my pausing here to talk about RKUK and my individual journey and development that have resulted from being a member of this wonderfully supportive community. From my initial meeting with Kyo and Yoko, I felt that this was my chance to really look at myself, my values, my priorities and what I wanted to develop. Unlike my experience with the Catholic faith, I feel that RKUK allowed me to look at myself with love, tolerance and non-judgment. And that the Buddha does the same. The community, the opportunity to explore and learn, the support, the explanations of the Buddha’s teachings, the daily morning sutra recitations, and everything in between are all cherished times. The sense of community and lack of egos have filled me with strength and clarity. There has been lots of laughter and tears. And I am deeply thankful for the part that everyone has played in my journey.

Late last year, Anneka let me know that Wendy had been diagnosed with terminal cancer; they have been living in Spain for about 13 years. I did feel empathy for both of them. They had been married for about 30 years. This seemed such a cruel end for them. Wendy died in February this year.

I reached out to my dad, it started with messages, which turned into video calls and resulted in me flying out to Spain to spend a couple of days with him, then in August my dad arrange a celebration of life in Wendy’s memory which all the family attended, it was a absolutely wonderful. From here, I think this is where my reflections and focus on my thoughts and feelings really began in earnest.

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What did I receive from this person?

When I think about this, I am immediately drawn to the words ‘life’ and ‘existence’.

This is mammoth. And my gratitude is endless. Everything I have known, experienced, loved, liked, disliked, is born from being alive and existing… Without this, I have nothing. I recognise how incredibly lucky I am. There are so many positive memories, including those days when I was younger, when my dad took me to work with him. He was a long-distance lorry driver, and in those days, when we were on the road for hours, and it was just him and me, we had lots of laughter, and it made me feel very special. He would always have a fun story about the depot or delivery companies we went to. I had forgotten how funny he was, and actually, our sense of humour is very similar.

What did I give to / return to this person?

I can look at this in terms of the two parts of my life. In my early years, I gave him love, respect, affection and laughter. After that, I believe much of what I gave was the opposite of that.

Which moves on to question 3

What troubles, difficulties, worries, unhappiness did I cause this person?

Many, many, many troubles and worries. My partner, with whom I had children, was an abusive and violent man, and I refused to listen to my dad’s guidance. I know this must have been extremely hard for him. I disrespected him, and I refused to speak to him. I refused to listen and to explore our relationship, believing that everything I did was the only solution to managing the issues I faced.

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I am very remorseful about my behaviour and my actions. I am willing to accept responsibility and to take steps to show remorse to him and other members of my family.

As I have said, being part of this Sangha has also helped me to explore my life and personal growth and development in a way that has been steady and safe. On the initial introduction course, we learnt about the Four Noble Truths, where we acknowledge the truth of suffering, the truth of cause, the truth of extinction and the truth of the path. This has really helped me to form my own understanding of the situation and coupled with some extensive, and at times extremely painful counselling, I finally feel free and able to express myself.

In two days’ time, I am going to fly my dad to America, just the two of us, to reunite him with his twin brother so that they can spend Thanksgiving, their 93rd birthday and Christmas together. This has been a labour of love, and I am so deeply grateful for the opportunity to share this experience with him. He has been so very forgiving, which has helped me to do the same, and break down those walls that I spent the last 25+ years reinforcing. We have plenty more to talk about, but with every conversation we have, I feel the gratitude deepening.

With this shift in my outlook, I am improving my interactions with friends, colleagues and other family members. I have grown both emotionally and feel connected to people on a new level. I do feel my spirituality connection deepening, and I am looking forward to pursuing that further.

I appreciate your time, your strength and support. I hope that my Dharma journey talk provides you with some strength, reflection and inspiration.

Thank you