A New LifeFrom Buddhist nun to psychotherapist, Mary O'Callaghan has had a colourful career, eventually settling back in Ireland to open Oscailt holistic centre in Dublin, writes Sylvia Thompson
Mary O'Callaghan has one of those kind, compassionate faces which often reflect a worldly wisdom garnered from rich and varied life experiences.
Such a demeanour is not unusual for a practising psychotherapist who comes face to face with many people's problems. But, when you discover that as a teenager O'Callaghan left her native Cork to live in Scotland, France, India and ultimately to train as a Buddhist nun in Nepal, you realise that what lies beneath that benign expression is a much more complex journey.
"I grew up in Cork city in a close-knit family community surrounded by aunts and uncles on a piece of land which belonged to my grandfather," she explains. "My parents were both very Catholic and I had a strong sense of questioning from an early age. I started yoga when I was 15 and also became a vegetarian when I was quite young.
"I found it hard to focus in school and did badly so I left when I was 15 to do a secretarial course. My first job was as a secretary with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer which had just set up in Cork at that time."
Finding 1970s Ireland "claustrophobic", O'Callaghan decided to go to live in Aberdeen in Scotland with just £200 in her pocket. "I met people who were setting up a vegetarian wholefood store and worked there, learning a lot about vegetarian cooking."
While working in the wholefood store, O'Callaghan mingled with lots of university students and, like many of them, she smoked marijuana and dabbled in hallucinogenic drugs.
"I had a very bad experience with magic mushrooms which opened up my awareness of the power of the mind as everyone else was having such a good time while I wasn't. Though that ended my drug exploration, I realised that it had given me an important insight into the relationship between my mind and reality as I experienced it," she explains.
Taking up an invitation to holiday in the South of France, O'Callaghan then decided to stay, and lived and worked on the fruit farms of the Corbiere region for almost two years. Contact with people who had just returned from India gave her an appetite to travel further. "When I got to India, I did an intensive 21-day meditation course in complete silence which then led me to a Tibetan monastery in Nepal."
She was so impressed by the Tibetans that she decided to become a Buddhist nun and was accepted into a Buddhist community. "I shaved my head and donned the robes and spent the next few years of my life going on retreats, chanting, meditating and learning about Buddhist philosophy and psychology." As a westerner, O'Callaghan's studies were funded by various friends.
Meanwhile, she returned often to Ireland and says that her parents seemed relieved once she made the commitment to become a nun. "For my mother at least, it made some sense as she was very attached to Catholic contemplative orders so she felt that as a Buddhist nun, I would be living a safe, structured and disciplined way of life."
However, after five years, O'Callaghan began to question her commitment to Buddhism. "I had got caught up in the culture of it, saying my prayers in Tibetan and identifying with the cultural traditions of the Tibetans who were living in exile in Nepal.
"But, what really changed things for me was when my two principal teachers got into a power tangle which broke the community in half.
"Because they were unable to resolve their differences, a central tenet of Buddhism - harmony in the community - had been ruptured for me," she says.
At that time, there were also other scandals and abuses within Buddhist communities which influenced O'Callaghan. "I realised that the cultural gap was too great and what I had become was a Roman Catholic Buddhist."
At the age of 32, O'Callaghan decided that she could no longer remain a Buddhist nun and left Nepal. "I went to London, started to do some secretarial work and underwent Jungian analysis three times a week. I also did a lot of yoga and other body therapies."
Describing this period as "the dark night of her soul", O'Callaghan then went on to do a degree in counselling psychology and practised as a psychotherapist in London. "I worked in various GP practices and then did a Masters in Jungian and Post-Jungian studies.
"I found that these studies helped me understand what had taken me away from my own culture and yet left me 24 years later back in the same place I started from."
She is, however, keen to emphasise that she carries no ill feelings towards the Tibetans and in fact is grateful to them for "teaching her how to think".
"I believe now that if I had become a Tibetan Buddhist nun later in life, I would have been more discerning and wouldn't have had to rebel against it," she says.
Her long journey back to Ireland began when she met her partner, Brián Howlett, at a psychotherapy conference in Dublin in 2001.
"I developed a relationship with Brián and decided to move to Dublin, otherwise I probably would have moved back to Cork," she says.
Back in Dublin, she began working as a psychotherapist and meditation teacher. In 2001, she founded the Oscailt holistic centre in Pembroke Road, Dublin, which offers a wide variety of complementary therapies, treatments and classes.
Within the centre, O'Callaghan also runs courses in mindfulness meditation.
Her vision for the centre is that it will grow as a community in which "you can express your health and your creativity as well as dealing with your pain".
And, how does she feel personally now, having returned to her home land with such strongly formed experiences from other countries? "I spent decades exploring my identity through independence. This exploration led me to realise the importance of community, particularly in my work life. It can be lonely working as a freelance therapist and I think all the practitioners benefit from this sense of community.
"Working at Oscailt also allows me to integrate my training in both eastern and western traditions.
"This is part of a groundswell of interest in the psychological community where we are learning to take what is essential from Buddhism and integrate it seamlessly into our wisdom traditions."