Transcript: Episode #199: Michael Stein
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Host 0:29
whether one is listening to this Myanmar or from outside the country, we know it's a very difficult time for those of us who hold the golden land and its people in our hearts. In trying times like these, we can all use a bit more care and compassion in our lives. So on behalf of the team here at insight Myanmar, I would like to say in the traditional way metta as offered, may you be free from physical discomfort may you be free from mental discomfort may You not meet dangers or in his good May you live a peaceful and happy life and May all beings be free and come out of suffering. And with that, let's move on to the show.
Host 2:20
For this episode of insight, Myanmar podcast, we're talking to Michael Stein. Michael, thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Thank you. Yeah, so I want to we're gonna get into your journey of meditation, which certainly involves the lineage and organization of Sn Goenka but also involves other great meditator figures and teachers early on in your journey that we'll get into. Let's get right into that now. So before we get into how you started meditation and your experiences with going to G and some of these other great masters, can you tell us about yourself where you came from, and growing up in your childhood and family background?
Michael Stein 3:03
I grew up in Long Beach, New York, right outside of the city, beach community. And everything was great until my mother passed away at 14. And after that, that's when I really started to need meditation. I was pretty angry, upset. And yeah, it was 60s. And after that, you know, college and then a lot of a lot of getting high and hanging around. Got in trouble here and there. And finally, one day, I decided to leave America and go to and travel a bit.
Host 3:43
So leading up to your decision to leave America and and look for answers, perhaps elsewhere. Just to know a bit more about your family background. You mentioned 14 Was this really traumatic event with your
Michael Stein 3:57
was Viennese. He escaped in late 30s, from Austria and came to America, he was maybe 10 years older than my mother and he he owned a movie theater in Vienna. And of course him and her family lost everything. And then they came here and he started a business and everything went fine. So my mother got sick of cancer and then sort of everything sort of you know, the business went out. The business started turning bad. It was a business that made these things called pants creases, and they came up with fake press bans. So at the same time my mother became sick with cancer. And his business started going bad. So he had a really, as you would say Dukkha filled experience at that point. And that was it. Really. That's pretty much and I have two sisters, one who lives in Australia married and Australian and another sister I passed away from cancer about 13 years ago.
Host 5:06
And I understand your family was escaping Europe because of their Jewish background. And what kind of Jewish home were you raised? And when you face this kind of tragedy and trauma, was there anything within the Jewish faith that helped you or your family at that time,
Michael Stein 5:20
no. Experience. In the town we grew up with, they were like six temples, we went to the temple that was closest to us, which was an orthodox temple. men sat on one side that women sat someplace else. I went to Hebrew school from many years after school, but it never really resonated with me. And actually, after my mother died, an incident happened at the temple. When we went to the anniversary, you went to Kol Nidrei, which was a memorial on Yom Kippur. And I had a bad experience, and I never went back.
Host 6:01
Right. So there was really no resources you had in terms of like family, or religion, or spirituality, or even society or arts or creativity that you had to turn to with that trauma? Well,
Michael Stein 6:13
I did have one thing, it's a place that grew up was a very tight community. Long Beach, we were sort of an island, really, and everybody was very close to each other. And everyone knew my mother, she was very involved in many things there. So I had a lot of support from my friends and other people, but nothing. So I got in a lot of trouble. But I never got in trouble if you know what I mean.
Host 6:41
Yeah, right. Right. Now, I'm wondering about the years of all this, because when you talk about going to India, you reference this being the 60s. And there's so much happening in society and arts and culture and politics at this time, I'm just thinking of myself. And like my timeline of when I started meditating was the 90s and 2000s. And really, the only thing that happened in that period for like, my lifetime, and generation is like before and after September 11. And other than that, it doesn't really matter all that much if you were like 95, or 98, or six or something else, because it wasn't like the 60s where it was just so chock full of really important things going on that also that aren't just happening outside, but are influencing the youth culture and the, the the inner landscape as well
Michael Stein 7:27
as the way in 1963. I was 14, I graduated high school at 16 in 1965. And I really was not interested in college or anything, but at that point, you either went to college, or you could wind up in Vietnam. So I went and stayed there. Most of my college was basically protesting and smoking a lot of weed and getting high and doing other things of that nature. And that was in the 60s Once. Once I knew that I no longer had to stay in college to get out of Vietnam. That's when I left, which was 1971. I was in Europe. Europe became it was like an actually, it was very odd. I went to see my aunt in Vienna. And actually my father showed up and showed me where you know, different things in Vienna from his boyhood, which is which and he he didn't know I was there, and I didn't know he was coming. So we just bumped into each other there at my aunt's house. And then from there, I went to Israel. And I wandered around Israel. I didn't really at that point. Israelis didn't, you know, they liked you if you went to a kibbutz, but I had had, I had very long hair. And I was very sort of in the anti establishment. And the Israelis weren't that fond of that, because they didn't want us to influence the youngest rallies because they wanted them to keep. Be a little bit militaristic.
Host 8:55
I was gonna I was gonna ask, was there not a counterculture movement in Israel at that time?
Michael Stein 9:00
Much at that point? Happens a lot, a lot. Most of the people who came went to the blitzes was a very big kibbutz movement. So actually, I was in India went down to a lot, which was when and I met some guy. And he said, Hey, I'm going to I'm going to Afghanistan and probably India, you want to come? I should. Sounds like a good plan better than then I just felt, flew to flew to Turkey. And started the journey overland to India.
Host 9:34
How was that?
Michael Stein 9:37
It's like a once in a lifetime thing to do, because if you do it once, you'll never do it again.
Host 9:43
Pretty hard, I
Michael Stein 9:44
imagine. Yeah. And it was all these people met at this place called the putting shop and they were people going and you had you had to leave in the fall because of winter and other things coming in. Also at that point, conflict started in Bangladesh and Pakistan, India wars. So we actually, we actually got to ride in a Volkswagen bus with two surfers from California who wanted to go surfing in India. So we're in this bus and we're driving cross Turkey. And we get into a car accident. The bus hits a Landrover that's parked on the side of the road. So the bus, of course, is no longer functional. And we're in East we're in Eastern, Eastern Turkey, which is not which is already Asia, like Istanbul was sort of still, you know, European. But once you got out past there and down, it was very Asian in that way. So we, this is, so I dislocated my toe in the accident. And I had to they took me in a hospital and some guy with a bloody vest, snap my toe back in. And we had a wait for the army was in charge of Turkey then. So we this colonel came and to investigate the accident. So we're all this foil, five of us lined up there. And he talks to the driver of the other car, and all of a sudden he's talking to the driver. And all of a sudden he starts yelling at him, and he starts smacking them in the face. So I said I said we hit him. And that's what he did to him. I said what cooked? So it turns out, the guy was lying to him. And he just said, Okay, you guys can leave. So everybody sort of split up these couple of California, California guys wanted to stay with their, their van to see if they can fix it. But we got on a bus and got out of there and went into Iran. Through Iran, then it was the 25th 100 anniversary of the peacock throne, the Shah was still in charge. And in Iran, if they caught you smoking cash at that time. It was the death penalty. So I didn't stay long to be. So we went through Iran into Afghanistan and got to the border of Iraq, Iraq, and went to the border guards. The border guards were very nice. They smoked cash with us all those hours is with the Afghan Afghanistan was a very different place than very well, that like it is today. So then we kept taking buses and stuff to do cool. And when we were in Cabo we we started on it was the last stop before you would go into India. At the time. It was sort of the beginning of sort of problems between Pakistan and India. And there were all these threats of the border closing the border close, you could get stuck in Afghanistan, or you'd have to fly over. At that point, I only had a couple of $100. So I didn't want to get stuck anyplace. So this, one of the other guys from California actually showed up and Kaboul. This other person I was traveling with sort of got a little weird started doing way too much drugs. So this California guy, Tim and myself side, you know, we back up, and we went to India, took the bus through the Khyber Pass into Pakistan. And then we crossed the border into India. And it was all of these, and we got there, you know, maybe a month before the war started. And actually, it was very strange because he took a bus and then some trains through Pakistan and then they got to the Indian border. And for myself, it was very, when I crossed the border into India, and I stepped into India. I had this feeling like I was home. It was like you know, okay, here I am. I'm finally here. So in the very beginning, all I was interested was you know, smoking, you know, who was uh, there were people on this whole trail all over people who were in spiritual people wanted to get out people were doing all these different things. So we wound up getting the Train man into Delhi, spent the night in the train station and got a place in Delhi to stay was like cost us like $1 or something. Oh, and when I was there or rom Das was in town at that point and went to see rom Das. He was saying at the palace heights then so hung around there for a day or so. And then we decided to go to Goa which was like a Portuguese colony. So they celebrated Christmas it was a big thing. It was before it became very popular now it's a big Indian Resort at that time was just an empty, you know, just really nice beaches. So we took the train to Bombay and then two About down to go up. We rented a house with only seven or eight of us in house. And we just hung out in in Goa for a while beautiful beaches. And while I was in Goa some guy bumped into I bumped into somebody I knew from home. We hung out for a while and he started traveling with us. And I met this guy's and he said he was going to go to Bombay to sit in meditation course, with this Indian man who was a businessman, and he, you know, it was a 10 day course. But you know, that's interesting. But then what happened was, I didn't go because it was in Bombay and Bombay then became under a blackout. I really had no desire to go to an in another Indian city. So I passed that first. That was the first I heard about Glencoe. And I passed up that opportunity.
Host 15:57
That's still 71
Michael Stein 15:59
Yeah, that was 1971. And he'd only been teaching for two years at that point. And he only been teaching Westerners for a little over a year or so a year and a half. So, from there, you know, I traveled close to Banaras and to Katmandu, and went trekking, and you know, did all the things that you many of them was so called, you know, trek to Asia hippie stuff, and, and then I bumped into this Swedish, Swedish woman I was I went out with for a bit there and then that was oh, then somebody else told me when it's in Banaras that going could use teaching of course in boat guy or to Thai. And then again, I passed it up. So I went to Katmandu came back down. And then I decided I wanted to stay in India longer, but I had no money. So I arranged. I got money, sent from home from my grandmother and flew back to the States. And worked all summer and then flew back to flew back to India. Via I stopped in Sweden, and then I flew back to India. And when I got to Delhi, the first thing I did was hella head up to Dalhousie to do a course with glenkinchie.
Host 17:23
So what drove you to want to take it your this third chance, the third opportunity, when you hearing about it, you passed on the first to
Michael Stein 17:32
do it. I had all these friends who've done people I traveled with everybody was telling me about it. Yes, resonated with me. But you know, sometimes things resonate. But it's just not the right time. So I won't go housing, where he was teaching course. And I got there a day late. I got day one of the course. And I was he was teaching another course after that. So I said, Oh, I'll do the next course. But I went over there. And they said, they asked, go and you said oh yeah, he can, he can start today. So that first day evening, I started the course. And they'll how's the course and Dalhousie was in a hotel. And it overlooked in the Himalayas. It's a foothills of the Himalayas about 7000 feet. So they said to me, go to go and produce room and he'll teach and you can start and he'll give you you'll take the precepts and surrender and he'll teach you how to partner. So it turned out that the rooms were such that there was a bedroom, and then there was an auntie, a sitting room in front. So going he was in the sitting room. And I went in there, and it was just going to Jay and myself. And he started chanting a little bit and started told me I take the precepts and he gave me on apana and, you know, so I had I had a unique experience to start off my time with them. So, so after that took course, and then I did another course. And I just you know, I mean, I did a 30 day course at that time, you could just send any amount that you wanted going could you stayed at different places, and he stayed sometimes. Sometimes he teach three courses in a place and and you could then sit 10 days or 20 days or 30 days. So I set a 30 day course fairly close in the beginning. And then we went to boat guy and I went there for the first time. I'd never been before. This was 1972 and if you've been to bug Bodhgaya then was a little village it wasn't built up like it was now and It was, it was small. There weren't a lot of people in this. And glenkinchie was coming to do first to self course, which he used to do every year there and then he would do a regular course afterwards. And when I got off the train from Banaras to Gaia, I took a Tonga, which is a horse drawn carriage from Gaya to Bodh Gaya, which, I'm just guessing now, I guess it's probably about a three or four miles drive. And I was back in my mind, I just finished the 30 days. And I was sitting there while I was out, and I was looking at people and it was just like, it was 1000s of years ago to me, you know, and it was just very moving experience for me to come to boat guy. And so going he did a self course I didn't do the self course then I managed it, he got a certain amount of people due to self course and the other people went to the Gandhi ashram which were ninja lived. And they did a self course there also and the other people in the Burmese Vihara. So, I managed the course at the, with another person at the, at the Gandhi ashram. Gandhi ashram was right in the center of both Gaia not fought maybe, you know, not far from the temple. And after that point, he did his did a regular course. And I said that, and then they left and I started, everybody left and going could you was going to Bombay, then a lot of people would follow him around then but I sort of at that point, needed a little break. So I saw the friend and I went up to Darjeeling to hang around and do things. And when I was up in Darjeeling, I went to see kalo Rinpoche, which was very is he was very, very, very powerful and very calm and great person. And so I went there and then I sat there with him at Sona doll, which was his temple where his monastery was, and they did a thing which you took refuge with him and stuff. And so I did that. And he hit me on the head. And it was like all of a sudden, the top of my head just completely opened up. It was it was a pretty moving type of experience at that point. And I didn't see him again for another six year. No, I saw him again, he came to Rajgira. When going could you is there. And that was the only time a couple of times I saw him.
Host 22:47
So that's really interesting. And there's a couple of things I'm wondering about is you're just you're you're weaving this really delightful tale, the imagery of, of, of this, this kind of caravan of these hippies that are typically going overland to India and how they're the the culture of the counterculture that's being formed, obviously, in protest of Vietnam and other countercultural things that are happening at that time, predominantly in the west and trying to understand just what it felt like a bit more in that crowd, which is really a time last to us in history. I mean, of course the India's still India and it's attracted Westerners for ages and will continue to but this particular moment in time, of the way it was tracked, attracting them and the way it was affecting them, of course, not just with meditation and Glencoe, but everything from you know, the Beatles to anything else that's getting at the heart of the West. And I'm thinking of how, like in the discourses and the 10 day discourses, I think it's on day nine or day 10 Goenka has this line that always draws a laugh, where he talks about you come to India and you do you do this, and you do that, and then you get you do the blanket trip, you do that. And the way that and it always made sense to me then but the way that you're describing this, this this counterculture activity in India, and how you're coming together with different hippies coming apart, you're talking some people are more interested in this, some are more interested in that some don't really know what they're interested in. And maybe suddenly they get pulled by by this or that thing. That it's it's kind of hitting that context where in in with this kind of escapism or or adventure, we're looking for something new that's happening at the time. GLINKA is but one of several themes, I'm sure that are revolving around and starting to be discussed along with other ones. And so I'm wondering if you can kind of flesh out that imagery for us. And, you know, and I asked this also because sometimes when we look back on history, and we're today we know what happened with Glencoe we know the mass movement, it became these centers all around the world and teacher appointments and everything else. And so there could be a way of kind of superimposing where we are now back on this being the predominant thing and this and having a view of it that links right to what it's built with today. But at the time, it takes a different shape, because it's one of several competing themes that are happening with the other people that are interested. And so I'm wondering if you can take as much as your memory is able to take us back to what it felt like, in those years of the role that it was playing, how it was being talked about how it was being known where it was fitting in with other parts of that counterculture and community?
Michael Stein 25:28
Well, you have to realize that there were people from all over the world then. I mean, a lot of Europeans, Australians, people from the States, you know, all who would travel, and you would keep meeting the same people in different places at different times, you know, maybe meaning go and you'd meet in Banaras. You'd see him in Kathmandu, people, you know, I met people I met on a train in Pakistan, and I was living with them in Kathmandu, you know, it was just, it was just a very, everyone was really open about things and sharing, and it was great, but and India was India, there's no, it wasn't like, I mean, when you were in India, you isolated that, okay? There were no newspapers and no stuff, there was no Internet, if you wanted to make a phone call to the states, you have to go to the to general telephone office and book a time the next day to get a trunk line to make the call. So it was certainly we were very isolated in our own little worlds then. And it was wonderful, because I really was very happy to be isolated in a completely different climate. And, and when I mean a climate of completely different mental climate, it was a whole different thing. It had nothing. It had very little to do with, you know, European Judaism, Christian, you know, things it was things that you never even thought about. Yeah, as you were saying is that there were many there were people who went to some Indian teachers, you know, there was wrong, there was Neem Karoli. Baba, there was, you know, the Dalai Lama, there was call Rinpoche. They were above. There were people who were just starting it was Sai Baba. So different people went to different places, and different yoga, and different this, and everybody sort of got along. And then there was my ninja teaching. And so everybody sort of did their own things, and then came back and shared stuff with each other and said, and one of the things weren't a lot of people, you know, it wasn't strict that there wasn't rules and regulations or anything, right. So every people would say, Oh, you got to go do a course with glenbeigh. It's great. You know, and I mean, you know, there were a lot of people around to you know, now like, I was there with Sharon with Joseph, you know, Danny Goleman. And there was a lot of people who are now my age in their 70s, who were there at that time, and we were all friends. And we all did a lot of things together, and I'll get on later and what we did when we finally came back, but it was funny is we stayed in the plains of India during the winter. And we would go up to the mountains in this to get out of the heat. And every little sort of hill station had a lot of Hill stations had their own little thing in Dalhousie was mostly going to teach people nanny toll is where people who were with Nim currently Babu went and rammed us and then there was if you want, if you were Tibetan, you would wind up being and go into Darjeeling or you would go to Dharamsala. So it was like little group different groups. But there was no everybody liked each other. There was no animosity, nothing with anybody.
Host 28:49
Were most people doing some form of spirituality or were there others that were blissed out on drugs or music or
Michael Stein 28:55
Denali? If you wanted to get high, you went to Menolly
Host 29:00
I think it's the same today. Yeah, in Katmandu,
Michael Stein 29:02
you know, no, you know, there were there people who just got getting high, I was one of them from the very beginning. I mean, I could go into many stories, but we'll skip that for a while. But, you know, people would, you know, there a lot of people just came to India to get hired. And, and there were a lot of people who came to India that, you know, they were tracking people did yoga, I mean, it was so open, and they, you know, so many places to go and you have to and India was crowded, then this is a this is a fact that I always keep remembering that India was crowded that and there were 600 million people. Now, there's 1.6 billion people, from what I understand the country hasn't developed a larger landmass. So it must be you know, it's incredibly crowded now. So
Host 29:56
and where did the the kind of cultural Divide, how was that manifested? Or how was it overcome and I'm thinking of, you know, firstly, obviously just having a lot of these counterculture, Westerners who are standing out even in their own countries and even having clashes there, let alone coming to a conservative religious country. And then within the the meditative or spiritual communities as well. So within the country, and then, within those particular spiritual communities and teachings that are taking place,
Michael Stein 30:25
some of them really liked us and stuff. And some of some of the people thought we were pretty weird. And they actually came out with a movie at that time, an Indian movie, called Harry Krishna had a bomb. And it was about these hippies in Katmandu, who like to do stir, you know, got some Indian people to come with them. And it became the biggest kit after that, anytime they saw you, they stopped singing the theme to it. It was quite funny. But, you know, it depends where you are, and who you are, and how you and how you behave towards them. You know, you know, if you were nice and did this, they will also to that time, there were a lot of people still leftover in Nepal, and not so much in India, who were in the Peace Corps. And, you know, Indians in in Nepal, they liked they loved America, you know, they liked the American, it wasn't very easy in the beginning, during the Bangladesh War, because the Americans went for help Pakistan, which was not what the Indians wanted that to happen. It was sort of a little anti American at that point.
Host 31:46
Right. And then how about within the spiritual communities? You're going? I
Michael Stein 31:49
think he could, I didn't think he really couldn't believe it at first.
Host 31:52
Going couldn't believe it.
Michael Stein 31:55
I mean, yeah. I mean, he didn't, he didn't. But you know, there were all these people come in, you know, hip, you know, wearing Indian clothes, and this and that long hair, you know, but when did say afterwards was, all the people came, they worked really hard. So
Host 32:14
how did he understand the hippies? Because I mean, this movement was kind of it was taking off in real time, it wasn't like you had historical context to understand. All these people were and where they're coming from,
Michael Stein 32:24
well, he cared about was, you came, and you and you wanted to learn meditation, and you worked hard. We learned meditation, and you kept coming. For a while, you know, he got to know you, personally, a lot, a lot of us. But you know, he was very open to that. I mean, he was he was a very high end Indian, he wasn't the, you know, not like the people you see the state. He's a very well to do business person at the time. But he accepted us, he used to joke, you know about it. And later, you know, when he first saw you, and you see, part of him was like, one of these people, I mean, underneath the I'm sure, he was thinking what did these people was like an invasion, we will find together, you know, we, you know, again, it was sort of a similar type of thing. I mean, I knew most of, you know, I knew Miss Coleman hover Dennison, pretty well. And, you know, they, you know, when they saw you were serious, and you were meditating. And by that time, too, we weren't as freaky as we were a little bit more on the Kajaani. And we were, we were more, you know, wanting to learn meditation and keep practicing and stuff. But you couldn't go to Burma, then, you know, you couldn't do these things. Those people were, you know, and there is generational, they were like your parents age or something. But we all got along afterwards pretty well, in the beginning of, you know, everybody, you know, that your first reaction to anything, is you react to stuff from your preconditioning. So your first reaction might not have been so you know, good. But afterwards, when you got to know each other, everybody was very close, you know, almost all of us were more in tuned with that. We were in tune to go and get you to you know, nothing else.
Host 34:22
How so? What do you mean by that? Well,
Michael Stein 34:25
he was our teacher, you know, they were just people who study who were, you know, people with him and we did courses with them, but it was never the same type of thing.
Host 34:35
Right? Right. Your first teacher is always your first teacher.
Michael Stein 34:38
He is the most important. Yeah,
Host 34:41
yeah, it is. And as the you were first coming to take these courses with Glencoe, of course, the most of the people in this CounterCultural Movement are they're searching for something outside where they're coming from that's obvious, but they're also doing it through drugs and toxic hands free sex. other kinds of things that are violating Chela, the five precepts. And so how did this start to clash. And those early courses as they saw this kind of in line with their other experiments, and Goenka probably saw a very different way.
Michael Stein 35:11
He didn't, he didn't, he was not, you know, he was not that heavy about it at that point, you know, if you went to talk to him, he will tell you, but there were no rules and stuff. If there were, I think the first courses, okay, we'll complete the game. They were not done in silence. You were silent on day four, day six, and day eight, women and men talked all the time to each other, you could smoke beats during your course. You know, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't strict and stuff at that point, you know, and there were people who did probably, and there were people I know who did get high during a course or something. But could you sort of tolerate all of it for a while. And we didn't, but it wasn't, it wasn't this strict thing that you have now. So he just go, mpg just wanted to teach you. He just wanted to share with you a teach. He wanted to share. And he wanted to give what he had to all of us. So he was willing to put up with a lot.
Host 36:15
That's, that's really beautiful. It's really, really remarkable to just to think of this conservative Hindu who grew up his whole life in Burma was kicked out with a military dictatorship learned a meditation outside of his own tradition. And then is bringing that back in his home country, which he didn't grow up into a counterculture movement that is just about as different to anything you could have imagined until that interaction.
Michael Stein 36:42
Yeah. But he was in a remarkable person that way is his soul part of life was to share the Dhamma with people. And as times went on, things obviously changed. It will go here, we can talk about later and stuff. But in the very beginning, he was very tolerant of all of us. Cry, you know, and he told us later, he couldn't believe it. You know, why? He wasn't there in the very beginning, but afterwards, and he also had Yadav, who was the Secretary was with him the whole time. His sons is his sons, are hired Yadav to be his secretary, he traveled with him.
Host 37:19
Those early courses must have been wild, too, because they're just your make. Yeah, I mean, you're making some of it up as you go along with not in terms of the practice of the teachings, but in terms of the structure and reciprocal for for the student, that body that's coming in. There's no roadmap for any of that.
Michael Stein 37:36
Oh, no. This is what people I find that people fail to understand. That was outgoing koji. There was no thing of teaching these courses like they are everybody who's teaching courses, this 10 day periods, other teachers and other things. All of them pick this up from Glencoe cheese way. Okay. Absolutely. And you know, meningioma was teach it manager didn't teach courses like this. He was teaching at the time, but he didn't teach like this, nobody, and to audit and be able to order and sort of play this out. You know, he was the one who sort of figured out a way to do this a way that would work. And he kept fine tuning in as time went on. But without him that would be you know, without him, there wouldn't be much of a movement here in the States as far as I'm concerned. Oh, I
Host 38:30
totally agree. And I'm referring to I'm referencing now this song line that Gil franceville wrote about the, the way that meditation is thought of, and he was saying that this, the just the mere imagery of the idea of a 10 day course has become so powerful, that in 2023, it's almost hard to imagine a meditation experience outside of that, because we're almost by this point, so conditioned by this being kind of the only reciprocal we can imagine. And I think it's, um, that's, that's kind of a more recent thought or reflection on it. But I think going back to the era that you're describing, it's that this has become so commonplace and so understood within every aspect of like, Western culture is amazing it is to say that yes, I mean, sometimes we forget what came before it doesn't seem like anything came before because that's how it always was.
Michael Stein 39:24
Going there was no there was no Dhamma girI. Then there was no meditation centers. And going we would go in at Burmese viharas one in Banaras Banaras one was very good. It was in between the bus station and the train station. So you can imagine and there were 200 people in space that you couldn't imagine. When we did and you know when we you sat in the hole you didn't move you know why if you move you hit the person next to you. So it was a very different, very different and with a lot of us went from one site to another he taught it out Hell's at different ashrams, wherever somebody would set up a thing he would teach, but there weren't any centers. So things were there wasn't any sort of big, he set up a trust in Bombay, but it really didn't do much except eventually by Dharma gear, you know?
Host 40:18
And the students are, are they basically like half Indians and half hippies? Or How's that look in both English and in Hindi? So separate courses? Yes, I Okay. So you're not sitting side by side Indians, you have one
Michael Stein 40:31
couple of Indians who did sit with us. And we travel around with us. Who we became really close with. But for most of the time, the English courses were mostly English. And we could sit Hindi courses till we sat. And those courses were mostly in Hindi.
Host 40:51
So I was going because getting this off the ground, I actually didn't realize that he was doing these kind of, for lack of a better word segregated, you know, in terms of the Hindu for the Indians and English. For everyone else.
Michael Stein 41:05
It was more language issues than anything. Sure, sure, sure.
Host 41:08
But it makes me wonder if there became a difference in his style of delivering these courses to these different audiences.
Michael Stein 41:16
He did, he met and he, he, he, he wanted to make sure that the Indians would get better, we used to get milk at nine o'clock at night. The first courses, because he set up things to make it very easy for the Indians. He said, The Indians were, you know, they had much his his line with the Indians had very good Sheila. But they didn't really want to work aside, the Westerners had really bad Sheila, but they worked really hard. So um, you know, so he did both of them, you know, he did them all over, you know, from Bombay to Madras to all over the country. And a lot of us went from, and there was some famous, there was an Indian movie star, and some other people, you know, did courses with him.
Host 42:06
So, I'm curious and just stain for a moment in this phase of this, I guess what I call like the experimentation phase, where you you don't have centers, you don't have a roadmap, you're kind of refining things, and looking and reflecting after each course to look at what went well, and what you hadn't thought of that you now have to think of next course. And you're in the mix of all that sitting and then serving these courses as as the just the very nature of what of course, is starting to take shape. What kind of comes to mind when you think of that, that creative process of trying to figure out okay, what do I got? How do we have to deliver it? What's working? What's not? What what do you remember from that stage of experiment?
Michael Stein 42:46
It was very different than in the fact that everything was laid out you and you the only thing that you served IT services was managers of courses, except that except at the very end, we started cooking, but they had cooks hired and in those days going, could you still didn't you paid for the course but you only paid the place that was having it for the food and the other stuff? I went did you still never took money that happened on the free everything being free? No charge happened much later. Okay. So, you know, we just kept going there were there were some courses that were pretty wild, and look to say the least.
Host 43:26
Can you give us any examples? Oh,
Michael Stein 43:28
wow. Well, the the ghosts in Banaras was pretty crazy. Because the first couple of days, they didn't have food. And they sent out to the railroad station, we had like this vegetables. And it seemed like they were soaked in motor oil, you know, it was article. And you know, but somehow or another, the whole thing got to the wildest cause probably was this course in Peru top car, which was a little bit with some, an Indian gentleman built this meditation center for glenkinchie somehow or another, which he never really used. So he invited him to come teach a course in Punjab car. So we go to the top car. And you look at the building, you looked at the meditation hall, and the roof was on an angle, then not the side wall was on an angle. We said you can't sit in here this thing could fall down. So we had to get a tent to put there. They had all these he built all these little, like cells and stuff but you really couldn't use them and they were in bed. So and a built it in a hollow. So up on the road. The end, you could just stand on the road and look into the way you were meditating. The protocol was is out of the way village. They've never seen Westerners much before. All of a sudden, 150 Westerners descended upon this place. So they were like couldn't believe it. Today then what happened was the cooks quit the first day. So all we had was one Cook, who we knew from Banaras. He was the cook at the Burmese Bihar in Banaras. So all of the Westerners together knew about 12 or 13 of us, we became his apprentices. We made your bodies, we cooked the rice, we cooked the vegetables. This was the first time we you know, that meditators were actually did everything. And going, could you see, and so the course went on like that. And it was just a little, I got one guy, I was I was sort of in charge of doing the kitchen stuff with with the system, I did rice, you know, for do laundry, and the utensil over but it's and I went to find somebody once in a in a shell, and it was a French, French guy. And he was shooting morphine. So obviously he had to leave. This is the craziness that went on in some of these early courses.
Host 46:10
Yeah. Yeah. And going is managing this all by himself. That's incredible. Yeah,
Michael Stein 46:15
we had that, you know, just with our assistance, you know, managers and stuff. But if all by himself, there was no other teachers or anything of that nature, he did everything.
Host 46:25
I'm also curious about the discourse is just because this is such a hallmark of a blanket 10 day course at least. And I'm almost thinking of like how you hear about comedians? Well, you know, go to these, like, smaller clubs and just try all these different routines. And then when they got it all figured out, then they'll do the HBO special or whatever. And we have these fully formulated discourses that I think are from 1990 or 1991. That that are the standard today, but I have I would have a feeling that like during those years that you're describing, it's almost like his not not only is he experimenting with horses, but he's also experimenting with discourses and jokes and, you know, rhythms and all of those things. So did you get a feel for like, how he was trying different things and discourses in different courses?
Michael Stein 47:12
He did. He changed a couple of things here and there. And he would ask us if this was right, is the right wording. Is this the right phraseology? You know, is this he used to get one thing that always sticks in my mind changed? It used to be, you know, hippies you know, the word he did this whole thing about freaks now. It used to not be freaks, it was then the hippies sort of passed away, and the freaks came, so he changed it. But he used to have a line about how the hippies game you know, it's and the discourse is there if they've changed somewhat, but in overall, they're not really that far away from what he used to did, he just kept fine tuning it and getting better and better with it. You skate in the beginning he didn't feel his English was was good enough to write. But you know, he's there pretty much has been there, they're not really very different interesting little stories little this or that, and then here are their you know, but not not really much different. Supposedly, this with the Indian stuff is that his Hindi is very, very good and very classical. And the discourse is to the in Hindi are different than the English discourses because they are more aligned with that culture.
Host 48:42
Right. So as we're still in this phase of before, it's gotten out of India, and it's, it's now becoming a very known thing on this hippie counterculture circuit that everyone is in this kind of open and connected environment you describe people are gravitating towards it, trying it along with the other things they're trying of tracking and drugs and other teachers and things like that, but then how does it if we're at this point, where, what else can you say about this period that we're in and then where does it start to move towards whatever the next phase is?
Michael Stein 49:17
greatest period of my life? It was great. You know, I mean, it was wonderful. It was like, sort of, you know, your teenage years, you know, everything was sort of fun and great, you know, and we just kept trying we you know, I mean it just kept evolving. You know, I'll get it changes. I guess the big changes sort of happened late I'm later on in like an like 1974 and on when a lot of us left India and went back to the States and also going to G goddamn McGarry a big change also happened when a couple of people invited Mr. Hubbard to come to India Hmm. And in 1973, he came and started teaching courses. And at that point, he went to Burma with some people and came back. And he got very strict. And all of a sudden there was silence on courses and other rules. And when could you got stricter after Hubbard came? And that was a turning point in things. And then when he ever went back to the States, we all came back. A lot of people did courses with him also.
Host 50:31
So you describe this as the most beautiful or precious time of your life? Can you put some more imagery to that to take listeners into what it felt like to be involved in something so special?
Michael Stein 50:43
Oh, well, after so I went up to well, it was was just very quick after doing all these courses, I had to leave India for visa problems and went to Nepal and then I came back to India, and I worked my way back up to del housing. So and Dalhousie at that time, I met up with my old girlfriend there who was there with Vimla taka, who was an Indian teacher at the time, and most people probably haven't heard of her. But if Krishna Murthy had chief disciple, she was it. And she was also involved in the land gift movement there. So I got to spend a lot of time with her and she used to give talks at night, and all about people, a lot of us who were students of Glencoe, he would come and listen to her and stuff. And also, you know, so it was just like, so personal and stuff. And the only thing, the biggest thing I'd say, so if I wasn't such an arrogant idiot at the time, I would have got a lot more out of it. What do you mean? Well, you know, after you meditate for a year or two, you think, you know, every day was a little bit too it's true really gain up I could have gained a lot more from being with her. But she was she, you know, they had no she was at the Krishna Murty, you know, no groups No, this she's living now Abu but she was very, very special person. Just to hold presence, and she, she was politically active and then became more into meditative. I don't know, if people know about it was land gift movement. We've been noted above it, that people want he was sort of like, like a contemporary of Gandhi. And he walked around India and this group of people, and they would get people to give land to him, and then he would redistribute it to poor people. So she was involved in that. And then she was involved with she just had a view of the you know, she was just unbelievable. She I think a books is still out. But but she, you know, she wanted you to meditate, do yoga in this, but she didn't have a technique or she didn't have it. This said you need to find ways that are good for you. So it was sort of, you know, the same way Christian birdies, you know, was Yeah. She was a, so that was a, and, you know, Joseph, in, up in, up in Dalhousie. At that time, we all had little we all rented houses and living in housing. Joseph was up there. Sharon, myself, Barry laughing, oh, a bunch of people. We all had these places. And we all spent sort of the, you know, the hot season up there. And then going could you came up to teach course. And everybody would go and do the course. And then that people would start going down to the planes or go someplace else wait when it got cooler. And so he taught like only one course that year, and then he left. And then I had a choice of what to do after he left. And I had all these different choices to do I said, Well, should I go to Mount Abu should I go I could you see here of course in Darjeeling, and they said oh, maybe I should go back to gold guy. So I decided to go back to boat guy or at that time. And I will stay in the Gandhi afternoon. It's August in Bodhgaya which is not exactly what you would call seasonal the big season for it. So I lived at the Gandhi ashram there next door I'm an Indra and I was there for months and months Andrew, I studied Avi dama Whitman, Indra. And we used to talk every day about things and I would do self courses. And I walked to the temple at night and there was hardly anybody there you know, one or two Westerners and show up so it was just a great time of my life there to this you know, I just did so many opportunities you know, I'm so I feel very grateful for being able to have all these opportunities.
Host 55:00
is a bit about when Indra
Michael Stein 55:02
Gwenpool is your father the ninja was your mother. He was nice. He was quiet and I mean ninja was was fantastic. You know, he was he was very close to go and the two of them were very close to each other when grandkid, you came and injured, go over there sit with them, they will always talk my ninja ninja taught. called, like, if you wanted to study with Ninja to time, you would go sit, you know, he tell you what to do when you do it, you know, and we come by and talk to you and do things like that. But he was very scholarly also, and very, very quiet. And he was all dressed in his whites. He was Anagarika which is a non monk monk through all this. And he you know, he was just just the kindest, nicest but funny, it's funny in in a different ways. He was, you know, he used to if you go into the bizarre with them. He would argue, as he would say, bargain with the bizarre people back and forth for a pacer and this, you know, go back and the guy wanted, you know, and it was like over Don Nichols, you know, as Westerners, we couldn't really believe it. And then you would say, he says, you know, life is to be lived simple not to be a simpleton. You know, and he says, so he would bargain all the time with people, it was quite funny. But it was him. It wasn't like putting on airs, you know, I mean, every year you would love shopping with him, because it was always quite an experience, you know. And the other the other thing is, I used to be sitting in the morning, and my ninja was like, a door so away from me, you know, so you could hear everything. And I had limited knowledge of Hindi, like I knew I may N word was dude. And I couldn't know what the water or the word for water was pani, so the milk guy would come and bring milk from an engine in this big container every day. And then he would pour it out, as he would come manager would argue with me in your head on a hydronic hydrometer or something, he had a testing kit. So he can see the amount of water in the milk. So he would argue with him for like, on and on and on be sitting there saying well you stop. And he wouldn't be arguing back and forth. Like have other punny other dudes back and forth back and forth, it was. So he was very, you know, he was very real in a lot of ways. And, but very simple, he was not the he was not a powerful figure glenkinchie was in a sense, very kind, sweet. And, you know, I would you know, I would read, he gave me the Dhamma books, I would read them and then every day I would go over there. And I would ask him questions, and he would explain things to me about what this means and what this means and that, you know, which was, you know, at the time was, you know, quite you know, I sort of developed a knowledge which later on we can get into a sort of gave up. And, also I could, you know, I could go over to the temple every night sit under the tree of certain temple. And the ashram that we lived in at the Gandhi ashram was an ashram from the novice time, it was a land grant ashram, and they would train Bihar way about Gaia is, is the poorest state in India. And they would go out, and they would teach the women sort of nursing things, and they would teach the, the boys how to fix pumps and stuff. So they had schools out there, in fact, going up toward the first children's class at one of these schools, he was very close to the person who ran the place, which was taco, who was who was, you know, you would call a social justice person, for sure. As he was. He he was great, really great, sort of leader for social justice and trying to get people involved in stuff. So it was a combination of things.
Host 59:25
Right. So as you're painting a picture and transitioning from just kind of arriving in India, the whole experience, overwhelming of what the country represents and the people that are coming from this CounterCultural Movement and then starting to experiment with Blanca and you're now describing transitioning into this phase of the those people in the community some of the names that you mentioned, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg and Barry lapping among others, certainly that are, are not just taking a course here or there or having as Goenka said, On the discourse of the blanket trip, but are actually starting to settle a bit, I mean, not permanently, obviously, they're in India, but starting to just kind of go through the rhythms of living, ongoing Indian India, knowing where to go with the different climatic systems and the different course offerings and stuff like that. And so, as this movement is kind of transitioning from being something more transient and adventurous and kind of wandering around as something where people at least a little bit more starting to plan their lives around and in terms of where they, where they go, and what they're studying what they're doing, what shift started to happen with what was happening within the community, within the students, and within the teachings and courses,
Michael Stein 1:00:41
there were just people who decided they, this is really, you know, this is, for me, this is I really, you know, this and you realize that you wanted to continue this show, either now or for your whole life, you know, and so you started, you know, your whole life started revolving around courses and going places where you could meditate, and just changing your, you know, the way your whole life is, at that time, and then happened a year or two into things, you know, after, after you saw other things. And you decided, yeah, this is really what I want to do. And, you know, a lot of us just a lot of us just stuck together and knew what, you know, you knew what was doing, and you just get when it was a similar group of people, you know, who were around. And many of us just went from one course to another. You know, it's just, it just happened sort of organically, you know, wasn't like you said, anything different.
Host 1:01:37
And it's interesting then projecting many years in the future among this, this tight knit and open group that you describe, some of them go on to be important figures within the Glencoe movement in terms of what they do and being teachers and, and how they carry the teachings back. Some of them become very important and famous teachers outside of the Glencoe movement, like Joseph or Sharon or others, others probably, you have no record of and just disappeared into the other. So just the, at that time, you're all together and all all practicing in this eager and, and close ways. But then the trajectories differs over time as the bullet starts to spread.
Michael Stein 1:02:21
We've stayed friends, you know, Joseph, we have, we have at least once a year, Joseph and I have lunch together. And Barry, you know, because she Sharon, you know, we stayed friends over the years, you know, it's not just, maybe we had just slightly different views of things, you know, I don't look at things as separate as other people look at it. Let's put it that way. Okay.
Host 1:02:48
Can you say more about that?
Michael Stein 1:02:49
Yeah, I, you know, everybody should do what they feel the best with, you know, nothing is better or worse than the other thing. If you want to practice in a certain way, then you should practice there. But you should practice that, you know, but there's no condemning or anything, there's no, you know, there's no one particular technique that does everything for everybody, you know, it just doesn't work that way. You know, there, there is the thing that you have to follow the actual teachings of the Buddha, as far as one particular technique, there are other techniques, obviously, in Burma, there's hundreds of them. Here, the same thing, you know, if you're comfortable with it, and this is something that's for you, then you should do it, you know, but you don't have to say anything bad about the other ones. Or if you've done one, and then you leave, you don't have to say bad things you left because it didn't work for you. That doesn't mean the technique or the group or the community is bad. The part that sort of gets me the year.
Host 1:03:54
Right, right. It doesn't make me think, though, that in at least the modern take home message of the that you find among many in the Glencoe organization today, is that this is the only technique it is the pure and pristine technique and the only one that goes back to what the Buddha actually taught. And this does create a certain kind of narrowing and insular and maybe people
Michael Stein 1:04:15
who think that way are a little confused, right? I don't, I don't figure I don't. I mean, I only practice this technique. I do it. I've been very close to going through yoga over the years. I do law courses. I was an assistant teacher no longer am. I don't feel you know, I feel Yes, this is a this is a technique that can take me to as far as I can go, but I don't feel anything that it's the one and only I think that gets can. I think it's somewhat gets confused. And I think some of the ways things got passed on. Make some people think that way. I always was like The only reason I would say is when you don't have confidence in what you're doing. You either put down other things or save it, this is the best. Because if you didn't think this was the best, you wouldn't do it, you would do something?
Host 1:05:13
Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's that's my question, then is that if looking back at how the the teachings of the technique were held at that time versus what we're seeing today, and you kind of already answered that, or alluded to an answer, that there was some that, that comes from something in the way that this started to get passed down. So let's go there, where did you start to see those changes? And how, and how it did become passed down in a way that perhaps led to some of the sentiments that some people hold today?
Michael Stein 1:05:47
So it's sort of hard to, you know, I think people just, you know, there's so many issues involved in it, you know, with that, you know, I don't find that certain means. It's more how do we, how do you say it without becoming part of it, you know, I didn't say this without criticizing, you know, I just feel that people should just, you know, be open and fine, and be confident in what they're doing and continue to do what they do. And yes, blankety? blankety also, you have to realize is he his background was somewhat different, you know, it wasn't, he wasn't born a Buddhist, he was born a staunch and do some of his conditioning is somewhat different. You know, and also, you know, there's somewhat of the game of telephone, you know, you know, you say something, and by the time it gets to the fifth people, it's completely confusing. And I might have said something, and somebody took it one way and said this and said that, and things have changed quite a bit, you know, I don't know, going to gym manager or very close to with no animosity between them. I think it's more students and other people have animosity towards other people. And, you know, I don't see anything being gained by it.
Host 1:07:14
Right? Well, those are two really important points. I mean, one looking at the particular conditioning of the teacher, which led to frame things in certain ways, and you know, everyone has their own conditioning. So it's going to come out in some way. And the second is this game of telephone. So if we could just look at both of those for a moment, and what ways did you see the particular conditioning of Glencoe starting to frame and how he was teaching or
Michael Stein 1:07:39
just some of the strictness on Sheila really is, it goes back to the Hindu roots, you know, he's very, very strong on that part of things. And then, you know, and just other you know, it's, it's hard to pinpoint exact types of things. But he was very, you know, there's a great deal of purity in it, you know, in what he tries to do, he's trying to keep things pure in his mind. And sometimes, maybe he was a little stricter than was necessary. I don't know.
Host 1:08:16
How do you think he defined purity? What do you think pure meant for him?
Michael Stein 1:08:20
Well, he didn't want you to mix techniques. From his point of view, if you, if you did a technique, you should do that technique, you have a chance to work to do it. Don't mix, don't go from one place to another, you know, nobody's you know, just keep practicing until you have, you know, achieved the goal. You know, in this technique, if you don't feel that this technique is working for you, well, then leave the technique and go someplace else, that's fine. But you know, you want to maintain the purity of a technique, because even though techniques might not be conflicting, certain things of of techniques can conflict with each other. You know, if you, you know, if you tell somebody to do something a certain way and certain techniques, it's conflicting with the way somebody's teaching in another technique. So, I mean, that's what he, you know, he wanted, he knew, he knew that this technique worked for him, and he wanted to keep that type of purity with it. Okay. And I think some ways he gets misunderstood by that.
Host 1:09:25
Yeah. And that leads to the second part where there's this game of telephone, and you just said, sometimes he gets misunderstood. So in what ways did the game of telephone lead to a misunderstanding of his intent?
Michael Stein 1:09:35
I mean, I just hear people say things which I can't believe, like, what, for example, I can't even remember. But I mean, I was able to, I was able to spend quite a bit of time with one country alone and with you know, this and talk with him directly. And I hear him, you know, and I go by that I hear other people telling me things they said, I'll go and could you said this, and it's just completely gone. contradictory. I can't really think of things right offhand. But you know, it's not always. Not always, you know, it's not always been passed down without. And I'm sure it's the same way from the Buddha. Right? Do you think that everything that people have said in Buddhism from 2500 years ago is passed down and dirty? I don't think so.
Host 1:10:27
And so that leaves an interesting question of what do you do when you have a spiritual teacher, whether it's Goenka or bukan, or the Buddha? And you start to have generations removed from that? And this is an age old question that goes far beyond Buddhism of to what degree do you figure out how strict and quote unquote pure you have to be in trying to adhere to exactly what was said by that particular person than their time and place? And to what degree can you take as what they said the inspiration to then mold it and frame it to the current time and place that you're living?
Michael Stein 1:11:01
Well, there's the basics of things, what you need to keep, and then there's all the other stuff, you know, I mean, it's hard to ask, but I mean, okay, the basics of Sheila's Samadhi, Bunya, you have to keep that part. There's all this other stuff that might be institutionalized, is the practice in is and institutionalizing. Okay, I say the practice, you have to keep your the institutionalizing of it? Not so much, you know, and everybody has to figure it out themselves, in a sense, you know, I mean, you can't tell people, you know, different things.
Host 1:11:42
So, going back to where we left off in this trajectory, you were, you were describing this, this circle of Westerners in India were becoming more serious kind of planning their lives around, they're starting to have this inkling of an idea, as you mentioned, of HA, this is really good, maybe I should do more than one course, and do it for an extended period of time, maybe I should do it for life. And so this, this kernel idea is starting to take place, what happens after that,
Michael Stein 1:12:08
a lot of us did it, you know, and kept doing it and kept doing it. And, you know, then what you see now in America is a lot of us, who didn't do that, and came back from it, you know, and did help each other, you know, establish the techniques here and just, you know, in America and in the world. Until one, okay, so this, alright, I'm a little hesitant to talk about I will lower is yours. In 1974, going could you did a self course, in Bodhgaya, which he did all the time, and a group of us and he let people sit with him and self course. And after the self course, we went to the temple last night itself course and we'd sit at the temple. And we all sat at the temple. And then he before this, he told, I don't remember, maybe it was 15 of us that after everybody leaves you people should stay, we're going to stay the whole night. So there's 15 of us, we're staying the whole night with going to G sitting at the temple, we go from the tree to the other rooms to different places in the temple. At the end, maybe some middle I don't really remember. He says, he says we can do a vow if you would let want to. And the vow would be to serve Him and the Dhamma for the rest of your life. So 15 These people all took the vows how I can recollect, there's only two of us who have kept them since that, and that was 50 years ago. Hmm. And there were other people that were there who, who went in different directions. But that sort of goes in line with this. And the two of them were myself and Barry.
Host 1:14:00
And what does that mean to you that it was only two that
Michael Stein 1:14:04
nothing it means that these two people decided, you know, it's just how life is, you know, you know, some people decide and they stick to something and other people don't? I think you know, but I felt for myself, you know, I made I basically, I guess I have a lot of loyalty. I guess I made a commitment. And I don't see any reason not to keep it. Right. Right. Right. You know, I've tried to keep it through my whole life, you know, and that was that that was 50 years ago.
Host 1:14:33
Wow. That's beautiful. I mean, that's not unlike a marriage vow and just a different type of relationship
Michael Stein 1:14:38
the work better than the marriage.
Host 1:14:41
Right, right. Wow, that's some that's really something so. So how did it start to take off how, as
Michael Stein 1:14:50
we came back to, you know, I think really when things started taking off, we had left India and come back to America. So, Joseph left first he had enough of India After a while India puts a real taxing on your body. The food is not high in nutrients to say the least. And so everybody sort of got tired of it and full decided they would, you know, it was time to come back. Some of us had been on and off there from 71 to 74. Or even before that, you know, so it was a long time. So, um, I think it's in spring of 1974. We started coming back, I flew back with Sharon. And Joseph was back before this. And we also came back together, Barry came back a lot of us just different ways. We all came back to there. And Mr. Hubbard was starting to teach a little bit then. So we did courses with Mr. Hover, and we were sort of lost, not knowing what to do. Joseph bumped into rom das in California. And they asked them Joseph and Rhonda says Joseph, he was teaching at Naropa at this course, that rom Das was teaching, and he has Joseph if he would teach meditation segment of it. And Joseph said, Yes. So he went, he went out boulder that summer. I was hitchhiking, I was going to go to Boston, go pick me up, said he was going to Cincinnati. So I said, Oh, that's fine. And I went to Boulder. And I lived with Joseph. And then I stopped and saw Jackie Schwartz to on the way and then Sharon decided to come out to Boulder. And Joseph was a huge hit and Boulder. People love. He was by far, the biggest, you know, out of all things that Rahm das did, he was by far the biggest draw there of you know, people in that seminar,
Host 1:16:41
what do you think resonated so much about what he did? He was great.
Michael Stein 1:16:46
They could, he could explain Dhamma. And it was simple. And not many people at that point that heard Theravadan Dharma, which in my mind was simpler, and more straightforward than then the Hindu things that Rahm das would talk about, and the Tibetan Buddhists, and things of Trump. So many people picked up on that at the same time. Oh, Jack came, Jack was teaching out there. That was the first time Joseph and Jack met Jack Kornfield. Yeah. But he had a little course on Tera Vaada Buddhism. And so I was living in Joseph's apartment with him for the first week. And hanging out there. And at that also the same time. So Joseph got a big following there. And at that same point. This other friend of ours Westminister set up a course for Joseph to teach a 30 day course, in, in the Sequoia National Forest. In October or September, I think it was September. So a lot of those people decided that they wanted to do the course. So all of a sudden Joseph had a course. And we all went out there with him. And it was a 30 day course. And it was really the first course and Sharon taught with them. It was the first real course that you know, was with Joseph did. And at that same point, Mr. Hubbard was teaching courses. So all of a sudden, in America, there was Joseph teaching courses at Mr. Hubbard teaching courses. And you know, all of a sudden, people were, you know, wanting to do these things.
Host 1:18:21
We should also remind here, though, that when, because I think there's a way to hear this that, you know, Joseph Goldstein was teaching courses, Robert Hubbard was teaching courses. And in 2023, we there's a way to think about this in terms of how we think of meditation courses today. But just to go back to the point that you made at the start of our conversation, where the idea of a an intensive meditation, Silent Retreat, while Goenka didn't start that obviously, you know, but Ken was doing it and there's probably you can find some precedent for it. What he did in formulating what the 10 day course was it standardized and opened up possibilities. And so it probably wouldn't be incorrect to say that these courses, these experiments, you could even say, because they're also formulating what they're doing that hover, and Goldstein and some of the others are putting together that that's still drying so much from the the format that Kalinka laid down before them. Would that be fair to say?
Michael Stein 1:19:14
Oh, yeah, hover, hover, sort of learned all of things from going to. And Joseph did all these courses with glenkinchie. Yeah, I mean, at some point, Joseph, you know, he studied a lot with go mpgn With my ninja and Ninja pushed him to do courses with glenkinchie. My ninja was quick was Joseph's main teacher. Right. But but, you know, Joseph sort of got a lot of the, you know, and a lot of the courses that Joseph taught in the beginning, a lot of them were filled with people from co-anchor who had sat with encouraging because Where are you going to get people anyway, you know,
Host 1:19:51
how did it go? And I take that that a lot of the students we're now going to learn from Joseph Goldstein. He wasn't
Michael Stein 1:19:56
you know, he wasn't 100% behind it, you know, But he didn't, you know, I mean, in his ways at that point, he didn't really feel a lot of us were ready to teach. But he also knew that Joseph was not his student per se. But he wasn't negative to him. I mean, but then Joseph taught more courses as time went on. And I managed all I managed most of justice first courses and help set them up. People would set them up, and I would come in and do all the sort of work that was necessary to get done. You know, Junior cooking, managing it and stuff. And then, so I was very involved with Joseph and Sharon at that time.
Host 1:20:51
Right, how did those go?
Michael Stein 1:20:52
were great. Good time. Yeah. It went for you know, it was remarkable. It took off, you know. And we also had a little dumb house in Santa Cruz called the dama Vihara at the time, so a friend of Joseph lent it to us, and we had self causes and other stuff there. And so I was in California at the time. And then they flew me out to Great Barrington to run to first course Joseph and Jack that together there's so I was pretty much involved in I did, I also managed some courses for Mr. Hover at the time. So I was sort of in the first level of like, doing a lot of this stuff.
Host 1:21:31
And this was before Goenka had brought his courses to America.
Michael Stein 1:21:35
Well, hover was collected
Host 1:21:37
at that point. I see. So hover was was acting as
Michael Stein 1:21:42
a student of U BA. Khin also, right. That point, you know, he was teaching and going could you said listen to Mr. Hover in America. Now you couldn't do more opposite people if you tried.
Host 1:21:53
So was Robert hover
Michael Stein 1:21:56
over was like really up strong uptight, like engineer type of guy. And going he was like, you know, pretty loose in a lot of ways and smiling, happy and powerful, much different.
Host 1:22:12
Right heard one hover student explained to me that for every time that Goenka references and each hour impermanence, that hover instead references dukkha or suffering.
Michael Stein 1:22:23
No, he did he Yeah, he did that. He also used to do a Nietzsche all the time. But he would like he was like an army drill sergeant. He was just a different person. You know, it was just he was very strict. He was actually very helpful in a lot of ways. Because, you know, going to GE was not very strict in the beginning. Aba was very strict about sitting and silence and all this courses, you know, he he at one point, put timers on you know, all of you want to sit at the time for an hour, there'll be a buzzer, there'll be a buzzer and an hour and a half to be a buzzer at two hours. There'll be a buzzer at two and a half and a buzzer at three. I'm saying to myself, you're crazy. I'll take the buzzer at one that'll be the end, you know,
Host 1:23:09
so it was three hour it times. Yeah. I mean,
Michael Stein 1:23:12
you know, ridiculous. I think he was the only one left in there by then, you know,
Host 1:23:20
I did the same hover student I'm thinking of that I that I spoke to. He told me that as a new student, he was making himself sit those three hours and he was coming out successful but had absolutely zero Dhamma understanding was just just stealing himself to be able to manage those three hours.
Michael Stein 1:23:40
But he you know, but you know, Hubber all of these people hover and Coleman and Dennison was sort of around for a while there was I mean, there were all these little periods of time, you know, that people were involved and then not
Host 1:23:55
involved in being a part of Glencoe emerging mission or kind of your own take on it.
Michael Stein 1:24:02
Yeah, involved with Blanca, geez. Yeah. And then so left, or did this or did that same with, you know, Syama.
Host 1:24:11
So I wonder if one of the reasons that some of these western teachers were more involved at the time was that Goenka simply wasn't, wasn't coming to wasn't in the west and was still trying to devise how this movement would take shape going forward, and thought perhaps that he would be more on the Asian Indian side of things and these western teachers would take their country.
Michael Stein 1:24:32
That was some of it, but a big part of it was they were students go back in. Yeah, yeah. You know, they were not somebody appointed. Yeah. He had such great faith in who by Kenneth Rubin, Kim said it was all right, because all right, you know,
Host 1:24:44
so then how does this teaching start to take off as different teachers are experimenting with different formats related to Glencoe more or less but students of Rubicon How does it move from that point?
Michael Stein 1:24:59
Well, you Well, I mean, then they would, you know, Hubbard was going all over the world to go. We're going to do you ever went to Europe ever went to Australia, you know. So a lot of that was coming and then at that particular time going to GE in 75 or so. So starting down McGarry. So Glen, could you staying in India, his main function was to try to get this meditation center built, and so he was there and people, and they're all you would come and sit it down McGarry, you know, so, and then people would go back, so there was sort of places that they could go when they got back and do of course, Mr. Harbor, Coleman or somebody else, so that that period was sort of like that, you know, it was, you know, there wasn't like some exploding moment there was incremental in the sense.
Host 1:25:52
Right, and this is also being done in at the same time that you have other concurrent teachings happening, like Joseph Goldstein, Jack Kornfield, and Salzburg we haven't yet talked about, I don't know how much this intersects your own story. But we haven't yet talked about other traditions entirely like the guitar. I John Shaw.
Michael Stein 1:26:09
I was one of the people who helped stock Barry Allen's on the first board. But I mean, that was at a particular time and 76. But you know, so I, well, let me let me before that I was very, you know, so I was doing a lot of courses for Joseph, Mr. Hover, you know, Jack, and you know, so I manage a lot, of course, and it was fine, then, at that point, you know, and then then I was with my wife, who was also an student of going to jail time. And we decided to drive back out to drive to Massachusetts, because she'd never been on the east coast. So we drove out to specific visit friends of ours, Eric Lerner. And we wound up encounter
Host 1:26:52
Eric Lerner. He's the he wrote the book about
Michael Stein 1:26:59
Eric was living at what the week they used to call it Nietzsche forum. We wound up living. And, and that's where Stephen Schwartz is other people. So we all so I wound up moving out to Western Mass. And we bought a house and we were living there. And Eric was there. And we then way before this was shared, and no one wants to talk to you. Because you know, it's really terrible for us to keep moving around. Why don't we get a place and we can be in one place, and people could come to us and not have to move around. And that was one of the ways we thought about Barry, you know, and Barry was sort of designed in, in the very beginning mentally to be like the Burmese Vihara were a place where teachers could come and go, come and go. It was never meant to be anybody's center was the center of all different traditions, right? So um, so when we were out there for a while, so then Eric and rich Cohen, they were looking for play, they found that they found that they found IMS in and we were able to put it together. And the first board was Eric myself. Lila, my wife, Richard Cohen and Stephen Schwartz. And it was an one and we had Joseph taught courses there. Jack is and Mr. Hubbard actually is one of the biggest draws there. Why? Because they were going to be students who they were much more CO MP students than any other students
Host 1:28:40
on this was before there was a coin center.
Michael Stein 1:28:43
Yes. What was in 1982?
Host 1:28:47
And what year are we talking about here? 1976. Okay, so this is this is some years before?
Michael Stein 1:28:53
Yes. Yeah. So and you know, so we started at that same time, Lila got pregnant, they had welled up with a kid. I didn't see eye to eye exactly how things were going and buried. So I no longer was on the board, but I still friends with these people. And I still I sat there a couple of times, but you know, but I was, you know, I was one of the original people who helped, you know, figure out a lot of it and also help started.
Host 1:29:24
And so were you also involved with the visits to America by John Shaw and Matthew Sarah.
Michael Stein 1:29:30
I saw right in charge. I wasn't involved in that ticket, but I didn't I came and stayed in Conway when we were out there. outside a little cabin we had so I got to see them. I got to meet him and hang around with him for awhile. I guess that was like 1979 or so. I wasn't that. I mean, by that time I was already on my second child. So from 76 to 79. I was not that much involved in stuff before Oh, yeah, I would say I would just be helpful to get a sit in. Not many people at that time that kids
Host 1:30:07
I see.
Michael Stein 1:30:09
So, I wasn't that involved. But you know, in that particular time, so you
Host 1:30:14
were taking a bit of a backseat to Dhamma during that period, as you
Michael Stein 1:30:17
know, family. Well, I was doing my
Host 1:30:21
household life, you know, that's what I mean. Yeah, the household life
Michael Stein 1:30:25
walk, I got back into it pretty quick again. So for a couple years did that. And but you know, and then eventually, you know, Hubbard was not able to teach. So Joseph and Jack and then all that group, they, they sort of took over the whole sort of thing in a
Host 1:30:43
sense, why was hover not able to teach? Well, he did things that
Michael Stein 1:30:47
we don't need, he was no longer sort of shit, there was some issues,
Host 1:30:52
let's put it that way. Some ethical violations, we could say,
Michael Stein 1:30:55
things that he knew. So going, he was no longer once he was not once he was out of glenkinchie orbit, there was no demand for him. So because most of the people would like G students or whatever, so there's very little demand there and then eventually stopped teaching. Right. And I like to appraise reuse a nice, nice enough guy and stuff, you know. And so, that was so that, you know, 1976, Barry started, hover, hover, taught courses, they taught courses. And, you know, I was sort of, you know, I had just slightly different views. Let's put it that way. Well, some of them financially and others, you know, you know, it's a great place. Wonderful done. I don't agree with it. But it's, you know, so many people got whenever they could get out of things. dama you know, so, it worked out? Well, like, Joseph invited me back for the 40th anniversary thing. So I came dissident, but, you know, it just at that point, so many things in my life going on, you know, I mean? No, wife, two kids family, I wasn't that, you know, involved anyway, naturally came and and. And I had been in contact with Dwayne cucina, and he said, just let it just let it organically happen. And then organically happened. And I was no longer involved.
Host 1:32:23
Right. Right. And I guess that was also a period where I mean, it's interesting, I hadn't thought about this before, because you have these different dama initiatives taking off in America, some of them indirectly related to going to GE some directly related and but he's actually not here yet doing anything.
Michael Stein 1:32:41
I think 79 He came to Montreal. And so a lot of people went up, and he taught in England and in France. And then in 1980, he taught in California, and this and in 1981, he taught in Massachusetts, it was a course right by here in Goshen. And that was the first course that awake outside of courses at the center. That was done only on donner.
Host 1:33:10
So that was kind of a new way to experiment.
Michael Stein 1:33:12
Yeah. And it's funny because there was still this another person who was involved in a lot of thing. When I told him about it, he said, It's America. If you give something for free, people don't think it's worth anything. We proved them wrong. So that was it, it was important to try to make sure that this course worked. Because if this course didn't work, then it wasn't gonna happen. So we had a course in Goshen. I think they were close to 200 people. And at that time, glenkinchie had cancellation and stuff. So I live. He came and stayed with us for about a week afterwards. And we went looking for centers.
Host 1:34:04
Oh, that's soon. Oh, yeah. Right. Right after the course that I knew it.
Michael Stein 1:34:09
Yeah. Well, he wanted to have centers here and stuff. And we found something deal fell through and the next year he came again. And we went looking again and then we found the center 1982.
Host 1:34:26
I you know, that's funny because I before hearing the story and hearing your involvement in all of this when I first became interested in meditation and Buddhism in the West quite some time ago. I remember kind of being a bit surprised that two of the most important meditation centers in the country were just both happened to be in Western Mass not very far from each other. And I mean, you're the missing connection there. I just I thought what a bit of serendipity. How can I used to laugh and think like, I wonder if they I play, you know, Frisbee or something on the weekends, when
Michael Stein 1:35:05
the other people started. Barry also will have us living with Steven and Eric. We all live in characters. And actually, it's funny. One of the first questions Mr. Hubbard was also in Western Mass.
Host 1:35:19
Yeah, so Well, you know, and one of the other early locations, which as I started to get more involved in the Glinka tradition, when I saw this nearly knocked my socks off, is I, my, I don't exactly have one hometown. But if there's one place that is truly my hometown, in my heart, where I did spend most of my formative years, it's a very small town in northern California that doesn't even have a stoplight called occidental. And I was yes, I was when I was in rural countryside, Japan, flipping through a book and reading the different courses that Glenn had done. And when I saw occidental California, I was just speechless, because I mean, that's even people in San Francisco don't know where occidental is. It was a small center there for a while. So So tell me about that. This is a story.
Michael Stein 1:36:10
I just remembered. I went to visit norm there. But there was a little center there. But you know, I don't really I was more. I'm more involved here than there. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like to say things that I don't know. Sure. I can make up a great story if you want.
Host 1:36:30
Yeah, no, I just I love. I'm far from Occidental now in terms of time and distance, but it's still always in my heart.
Michael Stein 1:36:39
But no, Shelburne falls Berry, I mean, really, you know, not exactly booming metropolitan areas.
Host 1:36:47
Right. Yeah. And becoming a hub of this Buddhist activity that's taking place. And that's largely because you settled there. Well,
Michael Stein 1:36:55
there were other people here. And we all came, it was just a group of us, you know, stayed here and stuff. So.
Host 1:37:02
Yeah. Right. And so that, first that that course he did in Western Mass, that first course that was really the impetus to seeing that this could really be something that you can find that you can call your own?
Michael Stein 1:37:17
Well, he, he was always looking to start a center, and he felt you know, that it could work here. You know, because we went around and looked things he had confidence, you know, that we could put it together. I also, I also kind of persuaded him on different levels.
Host 1:37:37
persuaded him in terms of location.
Michael Stein 1:37:39
Yeah, yes. You notice a great, okay, close to New York, close to Boston. They all lands that expensive, you know, that. We went around looking at a lot of places.
Host 1:37:51
And this was also before the famous split with mothers say, I'm at IMC 1982.
Michael Stein 1:37:59
This was right afterwards. Oh, this
Host 1:38:01
was after. So how did that impact the way that he was looking at?
Michael Stein 1:38:05
That's what I think, you know, he wanted to do something he was done. He was going to do everything on his own, you know, so.
Host 1:38:12
And how did that because you knew him so much before that split when he was really still part of that mission? And then, obviously, everything he did after how, what what impact did that split have on him personally, emotionally, and then as a teacher with a mission?
Michael Stein 1:38:28
He just took off? You know, I mean, personally, most of that couldn't answer I never showed it never reflected in. I mean, I thought I had some conversations which were personal between it, which I'm not going to talk about whatever. But he was not looked at this way. He was the same going, could you afterwards. But I think he felt somewhat that he could now just do what he felt was he wanted to do and the way he do it.
Host 1:38:54
So with freedom in a way it freedom in a way to
Michael Stein 1:38:56
do it. And part of the thing of not charging was a big part of it.
Host 1:39:00
And how about as going to G was starting his mission. And IMS was also in its early years. And Jack and Sharon and Joseph were also beginning they're teaching and grandkids coming to America what is and probably other traditions and teachers I'm leaving off as well that we're getting off the ground then as well. This is all kind of the start of I don't want to say American Buddhism, because you've had many touches before that but certainly, maybe American Buddhist meditation, or in a more structured and formulaic way is really burgeoning at this time. What was the relations between these different traditions and teachers, and some of whom were teachers that were former students? What What was the relation among them as this was all taking off from the ground?
Michael Stein 1:39:47
I guess there was not much relationship. I mean, a lot of people say things back and forth. But you know, they're I mean, when Glenn could you finally was here, Joseph and Sharon and other people came to this Didn't when he was at the center and stuff glenkinchie never visited Barry, I don't know the exact I don't think he wanted I, you know, part of him is he doesn't want you know, maybe he was concerned it would they would use a visit is there or whatever? I don't know the exact answer to that. But you know, he didn't. They came to him. Also, he's a teacher. They were still students to him, even if they were teachers. But he never, you know, he never they came to visit him in Shelburne a couple of times. And I shot and shared to meet him a couple of times when he was in New York.
Host 1:40:36
Right? Yeah. And then as the Western mission really takes off, and you start to you do courses, as you say, these courses are high stakes, they have to work if they don't work, then it's putting the whole mission of everything in jeopardy because you're
Michael Stein 1:40:50
charging, which you didn't want to do. Right.
Host 1:40:52
Right. Right. And so these do work. So the mission can proceed. And now, courses. Now, not just courses are taking place, but also centers are being established in, in us in Europe and Australia, just to start to get those things going. They're getting off the ground? In what ways? If any, really do you see the mission starting to change? Because you talked about this kind of game of
Michael Stein 1:41:16
telephone. This is when the assistant teachers actually started. So tell us about that change? Well, all of a sudden connected, she's not totally digital course. You know. So, you know, people had to get used to things, you know, that everything was on, and we didn't have videos, then, you know, you had a you had a cassette recorder playing it, you know. So, you know, it was a little concerning people were little at first, but everyday people started accepting it and started to see that it was working. And then it became acceptable, you know, but it was pretty, you know, there are a lot of old old students that go I could geez, we weren't really that thrilled with it to begin with. So,
Host 1:41:58
so yeah, I think this is an important moment, this development of the the assistant teachers, because I'm reflecting on something you said about a half hour ago, where when we were talking about Joseph Goldstein starting to teach, and I asked going because reaction, your response was? Well, I don't think he really thought he was ready yet. And the thing that stood out was was yet that and that kind of leads to a question was, in those early years, too, as far as you know, do you think When could you was looking ahead and preparing his students to take on teaching roles teaching meaning a fuller sense of the word, because, of course, what developed was that they went into assistant teaching roles where they would just merely play the recordings and the tapes that Goenka himself was saying and to go through kind of formulaic question and answers with the students. And so that development that came and you reference how some of the old students really were not pleased as, as that was happening, because they were used to Glinka Do you think that as Goenka himself was trying to figure out how to make this transition, was he looking at the idea of really having some of his students step up as, as teachers on their own footing as himself for, you know, being able to be teachers in their own right, or what do you think made him if he was thinking along those lines, what ultimately made him made him decide to not go that route, and really just have placeholders that would, would bring his teachings
Michael Stein 1:43:30
as a bit of that glycogen, he was trying, and he was going in the way he thought was best. And whatever he saw down the road is this is the decisions he made, I really couldn't say, you know, 100% what he was doing, you know, he was, he was truck, you know, and all of a sudden, you know, this thing turned out to work really well, you know, and, you know, especially once they sort of got video with it, and, you know, and other things, and it wasn't just a cassette that quarter, you know, and he saw how people will really, you know, benefiting so I think that was pretty much when he saw how it work. You know, I he might have changed his mind. And I don't know, you know, if he was looking in the other direction to do it, but he this was working, you know, so he wasn't you know, he is a bit He's a very smart person and a good businessman. If something's working Why can't you publicly that much. And the other the other thing is what I always think about is if if you can get me somebody you can get better discourses in him. I think you could he should go be a teacher. I mean, you have to say those can they discourses are pretty good.
Host 1:44:35
Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're definitely the things that makes it makes it stand out apart from everything else. And as with any decision, you know, there are by virtue of making a decision, you are prioritizing something to sacrifice something else. And then,
Michael Stein 1:44:50
you know, I mean, the whole thing of being a teacher sending metal that was all part of teaching. And you can send metta you don't have to talk and give discourses
Host 1:44:59
It's great. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So as this mission is starting to take off, and teachers are being appointed centers are being established courses are being run, what stands out from this period? I guess we're looking around the 80s?
Michael Stein 1:45:14
Well, it's kind of, you know, who knew what was going to happen? You know, it was like a new thing. And all of a sudden, things started taking off and other people coming and going, he would come, he came a lot, then, you know, His thing was, because VMC was sort of the first center. They log in, and Australia was in a similar time. He came a lot and taught courses in America, you know, I really enjoyed causes of VMC quite a bit. And then he started expanding it was, I mean, I didn't really know if this whole thing was going to work, you know. You were not charging you don't solicit funds. You know, your teaching courses by 10. I mean, it was, you know, it was a pretty interesting time in that sense, you know, and also, you know, VMC started out as a small farmhouse on eight acres of land. And you've been you were here a while ago. developed into?
Host 1:46:15
Yeah, yeah, it's a resort. Yeah.
Michael Stein 1:46:20
It's quite large. So. So, I mean, it's sort of hard to look at things when you're involved in them, you know,
Host 1:46:28
I think that's really true.
Michael Stein 1:46:31
I mean, I just would want to get by day to day, you know, let's make sure the next course works in the next and the next.
Host 1:46:40
So, when you look back at that, period, now, are there things that stand out? Or that you have perspective on that? You were going through with the mission that weren't necessarily apparent at the time?
Michael Stein 1:46:52
I don't know how it worked actually.
Host 1:46:55
something of a miracle?
Michael Stein 1:46:56
Well, yeah, I mean, really, when you think about it, you know, in using any metrics that you want, this should never have work. Yeah. But you know, and I just think that, you know, it stands out. And I think, what is that, really, we did it in what I considered the right way, you know, in a good way, over 40 years, and we got great results from it, and people keep coming, and they're very appreciative. And everything is working really well. And, you know, I couldn't be happier about that part, you know? Well, it's fantastic. You know, it's a fantastic place to sit. I mean, not just I used to sit like a couple more courses years, I said, Just finish a 20 day code. I remember sitting in India, you know, compared to what I have now, my own bathroom room was Sal, you know, this. I mean, I sat in a room with 11 people, 12 people, you know, needed me, it's like, it's like, night and day,
Host 1:48:03
huh? Yeah, that it must be really something to look at what the center has evolved into. And you know, how many? How many courses and centers there are around the world? How many students have actually gone to sit courses? How many, just how many teachers there are, you know, what a big infrastructure this has become and how much protocol around it based on how you having been there in the earliest days of just how rough and and experimental it all was to go from that into this, it must be really something to reflect on.
Michael Stein 1:48:41
Yeah. I mean, I've seen a lot of people come and go, let's put it that way. There are many people still around.
Host 1:48:51
So are there things about your institutional memory of just knowing where it came from and how it got from there to here? And then seeing and those people who come in and you really have a game of telephone now because it's separated by years and time you can't go back to? Are there things that you feel that are being kind of lost or misunderstood that you have that memory from the ground that you'd like to see appreciated? Or better known?
Michael Stein 1:49:18
I think there's a lot of stuff but you know, then you have to think is it worth it? You know, is it worth correcting? Is it worth what I've tried to in the last days, think about before I say something? What's the purpose of saying? Are you saying it for what reason? What do you expect to get out of saying something? So, you know, there's not many that many things that I feel really wrong about that I think a lot of stuff I might not like or don't think is right or whatever, but you know, it really doesn't matter that much.
Host 1:49:51
I don't really mean so much things that are wrong that are like right or wrong, but just nuances or or memories of that just aren't so appreciated or known or that have been modified, like likes anything you feel comfortable with that sharing just to give us greater appreciation.
Michael Stein 1:50:07
In the very beginning, I mean, it was we did all the work ourselves and stuff, you know, we, you know, we, I mean, the amount of work and the amount of dedication, they were people doing stuff, you know, you know, from cleanup, from cooking from this from, from everything from building when it doesn't have the same feel anymore. Like that, even though there's a lot of people who do you know, the work or things aren't, the courses are run volunteer, obviously, on managers and cooking, it doesn't have that same feel of like, you know, how we were all in this together type of thing, it's much more mature, in that sense. Much more mature in that sense. You know, it's, you know, people come from all walks, there, there's just not that type of thing anymore. And then, you know, all of us in the very beginning, we had this sort of bond of India go MPG of all list, it's sort of like, there's a couple of people left and stuff, there's not that many of that anymore. So it's kind of, you know, that type of thing, you know, very, very nostalgic about the old, you know, it was just so much so different. You know, now, I'm talking to bankers about loans, and contractors about finishing jobs, you know, and that's what I do there now, you know, so it's all different, you know, it's just a different thing. But everything's necessary, everything grows, everything changes.
Host 1:51:41
I was gonna say that, I mean, is there really, even as a thought experiment? Is there another trajectory that this could have taken where when something goes from being informal and messy, and you have to go halfway around the world to have a course where you don't even have food for the first couple of days, and in the cases of what you were describing is something that is, so you know, standardized, and protocol, and institutionalized and standards and all these other things, that and permanent centers, like, if that's the route that you want to go, how do you avoid this kind of change taking place?
Michael Stein 1:52:14
You can't, I don't, you know, it's just not going to, it's not really going to happen, unless you want to go off in the woods by yourself or something, you know, it's just the way things go. I'm sure it's, you know, when they talk about the Buddha, right, first, he has, you know, his five aesthetics, and then he's, then he's at monasteries with 8000, you know, 10,000, you know, monks. So, that's what happens.
Host 1:52:40
Yeah. Right. And now, with Goenka G, having passed away about 10 years ago, now, not only was he such a presence in terms of those who knew him and really spent time with them, versus those who, you know, even while he was alive, didn't have that interaction or had a very brief interaction, while they just heard him on a tape. Now you have an organization moving forward that doesn't have that leader and doesn't have a chosen successor. And so I suppose as we look at protocols, and, and the standards and and, and this worldwide mission, where you have things happening in so many different cultures and countries, that is an added challenge of figuring out what that core mission is and how decisions get made and everything else as it continues to expand and grow.
Michael Stein 1:53:27
Fortunately, it's not my challenge, all I care about is VMC. I stay there, I do my work. I hang out meditation center, I'm there three days a week, at least. So it'd be for somebody else. Yeah. As I tell people, you know, they say, Oh, well, you're gonna build anymore. I said, I'm not if you want, you can go right ahead.
Host 1:53:47
You've kept your vow from all those years before. Yep. Yeah. Are there and thinking about your memories of where it came from? And just imagining a new student, no background coming, sit in a 10 day course everything they're hearing and seeing being from the the way things are currently set up without that background? Which is wonderful that that opportunity exists, but what about the background that you live through about the history that that you passed? What about those experiences? Would you want people to know today if you had a way of, of being able to impart something from that experience this generally not as understood or appreciated? What about that what you really want them to bring to life and understand?
Michael Stein 1:54:37
I mean, the whole thing that I really would like people to appreciate more about the whole thing is gratitude that they Oh go into that no matter what that is, the essence of of this day, none of this would have happened without him and the gratitude you should have toward STEM is a mess. And that's what I feel is that the people, you know, be dead or they lose, they don't get, you know, it's hard to have gratitude towards the other thing, because that to me was, you know, just the most important part of everything.
Host 1:55:19
Gratitude to the person of Goenka.
Michael Stein 1:55:21
Well, to, you know, to him for doing all of this, you know, I mean, people don't, he could have had a very comfortable life. He didn't do this for fame, fortune, or anything, you know, he did it to help people, you know. And, you know, he tried his best, you know, was he perfect? No, but he tried, you know, everything he did, he tried. It was to make people, for people to have a better time to get a deeper understanding of Dhamma and to be able to progress. And, you know, I mean, that, to me, is the big thing. You know, I think, you know, that's a very, and I don't mean, I don't mean in like Honor, this, I mean, real gratitude, you know? Well, Goenka
Host 1:56:09
himself certainly had enormous gratitude for CI Juba, can you just hear that a fusing out of him is going to do was of course, a student of ci g began you were a student of glenkinchie. So being a student of glenkinchie, not of the blink of a passionate organization, but actually of Glinka G, because you were so close for so many years for so long. What shaped does your own gratitude have? How would I know it must be hard to think of formulating this, but how would you describe the nature of of how you would characterize your gratitude for Goenka?
Michael Stein 1:56:44
What was his what what did he want done? He wanted sent a wanted people to be able to meditate. He wanted people to learn this technique, you have to help doing this. You have to you have to surrender to your life towards doing these things. So that his his what he wanted done, you're helping him. That's the grant, that's the way to show the gratitude towards him. That's the way you know, so you want to be able to help more people, you know, progress. And that's the way to show that. That's the gratitude I have for because I can't I can't tell you how much it's helped me in my life. I was pretty messed up. And I've gone through quite a bit over the years. And whatever came my way. I was not perfect in it. But I had the Dharma and with the DOM, I kept my shield. I kept myself through it. And I got through everything, you know, and I try to keep doing it.
Host 1:57:47
And how does it feel for you personally, to know that you played some small role in this whole mission and this intercontinental historical development of mindfulness movement?
Michael Stein 1:58:00
I'm happy about that. The only one thing I'd say I have nothing to do with this mindfulness movement. I don't buy that part at
Host 1:58:08
all. Okay, okay. Maybe the wrong terminology.
Michael Stein 1:58:11
Because I'm not in business, which the mindfulness movement might be. I read somewhere, it's a billion dollar industry now.
Host 1:58:18
Right? And I don't mean it in that sense. I mean, is it the exportation of a
Michael Stein 1:58:25
very happy I'm a little, you know, sometimes every once in a while I say, what is going on here? You know.
Host 1:58:31
So with that, I think this has really been a great exploration. I'm glad that we were able to go over some of these themes, some of this hidden history, I would say, I hope we get a chance to follow up on some of it. And I know you're not one who really talks and opens up much so I'm, I'm really thankful that you trusted us and came on here to be able to tell your story. Thanks for doing that.
Michael Stein 1:58:52
Thank you for having me. Help. was good.
Host 1:59:20
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Host 1:59:50
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