Mine Your Life Experience
Few speakers know this. Fewer act on it. They want to know you. They want to know what makes you tick. What makes you so smart. How you got to be up here at the head of the room.What matters to you. Why it matters. What deep beliefs you cherish. What crucibles you’ve endured. How you survived. The lessons you learned. How they can steer clear of such crucibles while learning these life lessons from you.The challenges you've faced. How you overcame these challenges. Your strategies and tactics. The pratfalls and pitfalls you’ve endured. They long to laugh with you as you recount the red-faced moments of your life.Your survival strategies, how you finally got it together and how they can get theirs together too. How you healed yourself from life’s wounds. How you shield yourself from the malevolent forces abiding on this planet. How they can do so, too. were my last.

One day my young monk friend didn’t show up, which was unusual, and I became concerned, wondering if he had fallen ill. The following day, however, he was back at work — but he wasn’t the same monk — something had happened, a change in personality that was my first proof-positive that something was definitely going on up here.

I asked around a little and discovered that he had experienced a first “ke

When I first arrived at Shasta Abbey, a Zen Monastery in northern California, I was assigned to the goat department. My job was to graze kids (baby goats) on the mountainside every day among the Manzaneta patches (except on the days when it snowed up to three feet at a time!) I also helped a young monk milk the mature goats and assisted in birthing, feeding, and pen repairs. The goat milk and cheese supplied much-needed protein to supplement our vegetarian diet, and the goats themselves provided a lot of fun.

They were characters! From the dominant females who would stand like statues on the highest thing they could find, to the bashful ones who would hide under the mangers all day. Especially comical were the frisky males who would regularly crash through stout, barbed wire fences hoping for a shot at the female population.

My young colleague and I got along well; neither of us liked to talk much, and one rainy day he proved himself wise beyond his years. It had been raining hard for three straight days, as it often does at Mt. Shasta, and I was gazing at the dreary landscape from a smeared window of the goat building while filling a sink with cold water to cool the fresh buckets of warm goat milk.

“Another shitty day,” I said under my breath (more to myself than to my monk friend).

He turned the water off for a moment and joined me in looking out the window at the rain-drenched forest. “It’s the only one I have,” he whispered.

Well, I thought that was really cool, so authentic, so indicative of what he was trying to attain and which few experience, and his words have always stuck in my mind. I’ll never forget them, and have since tried to spend each day as if it were my last.

One day my young monk friend didn’t show up, which was unusual, and I became concerned, wondering if he had fallen ill. The following day, however, he was back at work — but he wasn’t the same monk — something had happened, a change in personality that was my first proof-positive that something was definitely going on up here.

I asked around a little and discovered that he had experienced a first “ken

n to supplement our vegetarian diet, and the goats themselves provided a lot of fun.

They were characters! From the dominant females who would stand like statues on the highest thing they could find, to the bashful ones who would hide under the mangers all day. Especially comical were the frisky males who would regularly crash through stout, barbed wire fences hoping for a shot at the female population.

My young colleague and I got along well; neither of us liked to talk much, and one rainy day he proved himself wise beyond his years. It had been raining hard for three straight days, as it often does at Mt. Shasta, and I was gazing at the dreary landscape from a smeared window of the goat building while filling a sink with cold water to cool the fresh buckets of warm goat milk.

“Another shitty day,” I said under my breath (more to myself than to my monk friend).

He turned the water off for a moment and joined me in looking out the window at the rain-drenched forest. “It’s the only one I have,” he whispered.

Well, I thought that was really cool, so authentic, so indicative of what he was trying to attain and which few experience, and his words have always stuck in my mind. I’ll never forget them, and have since tried to spend each day as if it were my last.

One day my young monk friend didn’t show up, which was unusual, and I became concerned, wondering if he had fallen ill. The following day, however, he was back at work — but he wasn’t the same monk — something had happened, a change in personality that was my first proof-positive that something was definitely going on up here.

I asked around a little and discovered that he had experienced a first “ke

league and I got along well; neither of us liked to talk much, and one rainy day he proved himself wise beyond his years. It had been raining hard for three straight days, as it often does at Mt. Shasta, and I was gazing at the dreary landscape from a smeared window of the goat building while filling a sink with cold water to cool the fresh buckets of warm goat milk.

“Another shitty day,” I said under my breath (more to myself than to my monk friend).

He turned the water off for a moment and joined me in looking out the window at the rain-drenched forest. “It’s the only one I have,” he whispered.

Well, I thought that was really cool, so authentic, so indicative of what he was trying to attain and which few experience, and his words have always stuck in my mind. I’ll never forget them, and have since tried to spend each day as if it were my last.

One day my young monk friend didn’t show up, which was unusual, and I became concerned, wondering if he had fallen ill. The following day, however, he was back at work — but he wasn’t the same monk — something had happened, a change in personality that was my first proof-positive that something was definitely going on up here.

I asked around a little and discovered that he had experienced a first “ke

myself than to my monk friend).

He turned the water off for a moment and joined me in looking out the window at the rain-drenched forest. “It’s the only one I have,” he whispered.

Well, I thought that was really cool, so authentic, so indicative of what he was trying to attain and which few experience, and his words have always stuck in my mind. I’ll never forget them, and have since tried to spend each day as if it were my last.

One day my young monk friend didn’t show up, which was unusual, and I became concerned, wondering if he had fallen ill. The following day, however, he was back at work — but he wasn’t the same monk — something had happened, a change in personality that was my first proof-positive that something was definitely going on up here.

I asked around a little and discovered that he had experienced a first “ke

were my last.

One day my young monk friend didn’t show up, which was unusual, and I became concerned, wondering if he had fallen ill. The following day, however, he was back at work — but he wasn’t the same monk — something had happened, a change in personality that was my first proof-positive that something was definitely going on up here.

I asked around a little and discovered that he had experienced a first “kensho,” the initial meditation flash or experience that qualifies a monk as a Roshi, (after he or she spends the required five years at the monastery).

He had definitely changed, and for three days, he just stumbled around looking here and there, and saying things such as, “Wow,” or “I can’t believe it.” He didn’t talk to me one-on-one, maybe because I was new, I don’t know, but I didn’t want to pry either. I could tell, however, that he had definitely gone through a life-altering experience, and he was never the same afterward, as if some old soul had taken over his body.

The monastic schedule was brutal for the first six months. If I “would” have had someone to write to, which I didn’t, I wouldn’t have had time to scratch out a postcard. When I left my family, I decided not to divide my kids’ allegiances between me and their mom, or later between me and their new dad who was soon to arrive on the scene; one of my best friends in high school that lived on a little farm right down the road when we were kids — I couldn’t count the times he and I slept in the hay barn or tobogganed together in the pasture. He was the original nice guy. No, I had done enough damage already, and decided not to bother them further.

Although I didn’t have any personal spare time, I was permitted to engage in elective activities and became involved with making swastikas. (The “swastika” is an ancient Buddhist symbol called a manji, representing infinity and the seal of the Buddha’s heart; a symbol that was reversed, with the points going to the right instead of the left by Hitler’s regime, and pirated for their own purposes).

You could find me in the shop working away on copper ones; wooden, pla