Leaders

In 1965, I saw the famous photo of the Vietnamese Buddhist monk sitting in the meditation posture in the middle of the street in Saigon. He was completely on fire, but clearly at peace, and not experiencing any pain.

After seeing the picture I wanted to know what could be in his mind. It was like he was thumbing his nose at the establishment and the importance of killing and war.

To learn about meditation and Buddhism I went to the five Buddhist churches in San Francisco. One of the priests directed me to Suzuki-roshi who was teaching Zen Buddhism and meditation to westerners.

After I met Suzuki-roshi in 1966, I committed to practice Zen meditation (zazen) everyday under his guidance. In 1971 he gave me the Refuge and Bodhisattva Vows (To Attain Enlightenment For The Benefit Of Others). Receiving these Lay Ordination Vows clarified my life’s goal.

By going for refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha everyday, I have remained inside Buddhism continuously. After Suzuki-roshi’s death in 1972, I stayed in his Lineage, practicing zazen and helping to establish Zen centers until 1986 when I met my second teacher Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche, who had arrived in England in 1977.

Geshe Kelsang introduced me to The Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. A very clear presentation on how to accomplish the Bodhisattva Vow. Geshe Kelsang was the teacher I was looking for after Suzuki-roshi died and I have been under his guidance ever since.

Ever since I was young, I loved trees and nature. But at an early age, I also saw that economic trends devalued the things I loved. By the time I was 20, I began looking for ways to integrate economy and ecology. That led me to careers in ecological business, politics, and finance.

The journey was difficult, especially because the default societal view, especially in the United States, is that taking care of ecosystems is something for governments and charities, not for businesses.

As a result, I invented my own approaches to every aspect of society in order to create ecological business opportunities that transcend the typical confrontational quality of environmental progress.