In this life, I got my start as a Buddhist practitioner when I left the Oberlin Conservatory in 1970 to go to Japan to study Zen. There I became an “Unsui” training monk in the Rinzai Zen monastery of Daitoku-ji in Kyoto, where I spent a total of 7 years under the masters Kobori Nanrei Osho and Nakamura Kan’un-shitsu Roshi.

Many years later, after meeting the 16th Karmapa and Kalu Rinpoche, and after receiving empowerments and teachings in the Nyingma lineage from Kyabje Penor Rinpoche, I had the deep good fortune of glimpsing Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche from a distance. Then, in 1998, after several years of yearning, in an interview in one of the tiny retreat cabins at SSRC, Rinpoche accepted me as a student.

Under Rinpoche's direction, my wife and I completed a three-year retreat at the Vajradhara Gonpa in Australia in 2008. Since then I have been helping out in various capacities as an Instructor, Dharma Gar administrator, and group practice leader. Based in the Seattle area, I help Rinpoche's Ngondro and sadhana students all over the world, as a coach, Instructor and friend.