About President Richard Connor

Birth: February 4, 1954

Location: Pacific Beach, California

Time: 7:58 a.m.

Then, they tore the hospital down.

There were prostitutes in the room adjacent to us, I am told.

Perhaps it's because I've been to Pacific and Mission Beach so many times since then - - but my earliest comforting recollections are of ocean tasting air...

Father Kraft and Monsignor Booth were my Catholic mentors as a child and teenager. One was stern yet understanding, the other eloquent and compassionate. The nuns--they were all too uptight and impatient with me. I always got in trouble for asking too many questions or inquiring about events in the Old Testament.

So, I began reading theology books, psychology, and biology...then two books really changed my life: Man And His Gods, by Homer Smith and _______________ by __________ (I'll have to come back and fill that in). I was living with my Uncle in Newfoundland, who had an extensive scientific library, and started to discover that there were answers to many of my questions that could be found in parallel sciences.

Realizing that there was more of a relationship between behavior science and religion and chemistry than anyone had ever even hinted at...I began exploring the purpose of existence by defining what existence is.

From worshipping God, to denying God, to searching for God, to defining God--I understood religion / spirituality / and existence from so many perspectives that eventually the common thread through all those realities revealed a mortal awareness and appreciation of spirituality--even if there was no such thing.

Somehow, Buddhism had not been on any of my bookshelves. It wasn't until 1980 when I began studying Shaolin Kung Fu, that Buddhism presented itself to me. Instantly I realized I had been a Buddhist for many years, actually my entire life. The logic and concepts and lessons of Buddhism were the most inspiring and illuminating of all spiritual books I'd read, studied, or been taught. As soon as I discovered what Buddhism is, I realized I was a Buddhist.

I became less me and more myself as I realized through Buddhism my connection to all living and nonliving things. This set me up for the next phase of my spiritual development when in the mid 1990s I was invited to a Pipe Ceremony, and then a Sweat Lodge Ceremony, of the Lakota Sioux.

Then I got a computer.

Here I am.

Richard O'Connor
President, Shaolin Zen