MZMC priests and teachers are available to support members through life transitions such as coming of age, marriage, becoming a family, making healthcare decisions, illness, bereavement and dying. Ceremonies, one-to-one visits, personal ritual and consultation for health care planning are some of the things our clergy can offer. For information about specific ceremonies that can be performed by MZMC priests, please see the Ceremonies page. If you would like to talk to an MZMC priest about any other form of pastoral care, please contact the office. Priests at MZMC volunteer their time to serve our sangha; donations to the Center for these services are gratefully accepted.

Resources and additional support

Below are some useful references and links to resource materials.
Suggested Reading: Coming of Age
  • Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up by Norman Fischer
Suggested Reading: Marriage
  • Into The Garden: A Wedding Anthology: Poetry and Prose on Love and Marriage by Robert Hass and Stephen Mitchell
  • Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life by Karen Maezen Miller
Suggested Reading: Illness, Bereavement, and Dying
  • Knocking on Heaven's Door: The Path to a Better Way of Death by Katy Butler
  • Final Gifts by Maggie Callahan
  • Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death by Joan Halifax
  • "Loving Kindness Meditation for Caregivers" from The Kindness Handbook: A Practical Companion by Sharon Salzberg
Useful Websites:

​Guest House by Jelaluddin Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.