Acknowledgements

A brief tour through people, circumstances, and situations that have contributed to my spiritual development.

The aim here is to acknowledge influences in a certain dimension, not be an autobiography. Timelines with different perspectives, such as making money, intimate relationships, and physical fitness, would have minimal or no overlap with this timeline.

Timeline of Influence

Before birth: The family I was born into was of scientists and rabbis, largely Ashkenazi, with Danish and Swiss admixture. A few samples: a rabbi ancestor. A scientist ancestor. The ladies were no slouches, either.

1970-1984: Statesboro, Georgia — I lived in the rural south for 14 years. Shooting guns, playing football, riding my bike around a small town by myself, and fighting until someone gave up, just for fun. All these established a ground in physical action.

1976: Psychedelic Puppet Freakery — this is what my young mind was metabolizing. Psychedlics for kids.

1978: Moomins — I first encounter the Moomins. Tove Jansson’s art is where I absorbed the foundations of my moral sensibilities.

1979: CoEvolution Quarterly: This was the Internet before its time, the access point to everything interesting in the world. My parents got me a subscription. Made me want to move to California.

1976-1984: Conservative Judaism: We often hosted services for the small Jewish community in our town. My favorite holiday was Passover, with the intellectual puzzle of how to address four different types of children, the hiding of the afikomen, and the ultra-violence of the plagues. Judaism was my first introduction to formal ethical frameworks

1984: Boston Latin School — Reading the classics such as Julius Caesar in the original Latin, or Seneca, introduced me to classic Roman moral philosophy. Engaging in a contrasting ethical framework led to the depth that comes when embracing multiple incoherent systems. At this time, my family was poor enough to be on welfare, but this rarely had an impact.

1986-Present: Bande Dessinée: They carried the English translation of Métal Hurlant at my local convenience store, igniting my lifelong love of the French comics tradition.

1987: David Kelly — David was the long-time director of the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Math. It was in the two summers there that I discovered the creative potential inherent in all formal systems.

1988: Robert Fripp — I was really into playing rock guitar. Robert Fripp is a British musician who had a very strong Gurdjieff influence and wrote pamphlets on Discipline, which I sent off for via mail. I took a seminar with him in Manhattan, was introduced to the Alexander technique, and became (for a useful few decades) discipline-pilled.

1989: Ashok Gangadean — Ashok taught Hindu and Buddhist philosophy at Haverford. A scholarly introduction to Nagarjuna and Advaita Vedanta.

1997: Magma: I discover a CD in a music store, a musical group that would be favorite for the next few decades.

1990: Drinker House — Living in the primary party house of the college had its own lessons, having to do with intoxication and dancing and late nights and lighting farts on fire. This could be said to be a gateway to Tantra.

1991: Bryn Mawr College — I lived as a year as one of 40 men and 1200 women on campus. Thank you, The Feminine. Undergraduate thesis on Niklas Luhmann.

1991: Brighton Beach/Coney Island — I sold beer, wine coolers, knishes, and pepper spray (“Life Insurance in the Can”, was the bark) with Mitch on Brighton Beach that summer. The Russian Jewish mobsters kept the Italian franchises (ice cream vendors) out of our hair.

1992-1995: Penn Engineering — Engineering was a demand to master complex formal systems, and make stuff work. My “internet” of the era was Loompanics Unlimited.

1992-Present: Human Potential: the initiation of my investigation of the Human Potential movement, the Californian tradition of Esalen that was a beautiful culture.

1993: Kathy Acker: Kathy Acker’s cut-up surrealist shock-the-bourgeoise-ism portrayed a possibility that I engaged with seriously.

1994: Klaus Krippendorf: Klaus introduced me to Cybernetics, in particular in the biological and social realms, a view of interacting organism and environment as a gestalt.

1995-1996: Jazz Arranging: Studied Jazz Arranging at Berklee College of Music while managing a Bagel shop in Harvard Square.

1997: I started taking money more seriously. My guru instructed: make as much money as possible in the least time possible to free up energy and attention for spiritual practice. My first “real job” was making accounting systems for venture capitalists. For the last two decades, I’ve written boutique software for hedge funds and private equity, generally projects with an audience of three to ten people, covering an endless variety of financial topics. At some point, earned an M.B.A. from U.C. Berkeley.

1997-2011: Adi Da — Adi Da (aka, Bubba Free John, Da Free John) was an incredible spirit-transmitter. When I first moved into community, I slept in the back of the bookstore. Adi Da emphasized study of the great tradition, and I studied across all spiritual traditions, and meditated in an energetic and expansive manner. There is a tome worth of experience here. (I have placed photos of the Basket of Tolerance table of contents below. This book has never been published, and I see that the institution that followed after his death has scrubbed the web of it. It is a shame: the “Adi Da” found on the internet is largely a post-death institutional creation.) I came to live in his community, by the Mountain of Attention sanctuary. Every time I sat with him, particles of being would be re-arranged.

1997: Sorabji: A devotee introduced me to a Classical piano composer whose music I find deeply moving.

1999: The Tradition of Werner Erhard — Being introduced to this tradition was an exploration of operationalizing Heidegger. I am particularly fond of his using his Integrity and Leadership summaries as liturgy.

2001: David Allen — I encountered his work on initial release, and had the pleasure of a seminar with him. Taught “mind like water” as practical, everyday practice. My inbox is still zeroed weekly, after more than two decades.

2002-2012: W. A. Mathieu — I studied piano with Allaudin. He had a long history with improvised music and wrote a lot of books about the intersection of listening and spirituality. Best pith advice: “Feel the room”.

2003: Scott Sonnon — Introduced me to many breathing and energy practices of Russian origin, which were neither European nor Asian.

2004: Manfred Clynes — I had studied Manfred’s work on and off for a decade. He was a cyberneticist of emotion. I discovered that he lived nearby to me, and took to visiting him.

2005: peak music making. It would start to dawn on me that that I had done what there was for me to do with respect to music, and the journey was complete.

Example of composed piece:

Example of improvised piece:

2005-2009: Harbin Hot Springs & Human Awareness Institute — Back then, the Human Awareness Institute was the epitome of late 60’s exploration. The essence was learning to participate in free activity, asking for exactly what you want and freely accepting, modifying, and rejecting possibilities. “Free Activity” is probably a more extreme sense of “Free” than you are imagining.

2006: Moved to Petaluma, California, where I still live. I appreciate it is a town with a long history of experimental art; near me, for example, is the last laboratory of Survival Research Labs.

2006-2021: BATS (Bay Area Theater Sports) — Performing long-form narrative improv requires allowing yourself to be moved by the circumstance, in cooperation with others, dwelling deeply in interest for others and the situation.

2006-Present: Lydia Becker — Lydia comes from a tradition of Reichian Breathwork that is very physical and intimate. An exploration in unclogging energy.

2007: Bruce Di Marsico — Bruce’s taught the path of desire. His teachings can be summarized as “Be Happy, and Do What You Want”. The order is important: he emphasized deconstructing any “reasons” you had for not being OK right in this moment, and on that basis, having total self-trust in desire. This is the best summary essay I’ve seen on his teachings.

2007-Present: Antonia Kao — I married her.

2008-Present: Anja Kao Nielsen — It’s been my pleasure to be her father.

2009-2012: Carey Wolfe — Carey lived on the streets by choice, and was very fond of crack. I would bring him offerings of grape-flavored vodka, and we would sit an chill all night, while his toothless girlfriend Dawn danced to a beatbox. He presented a radical view of freedom. One year, the police arrested him and I now not where he is now.

2010-Present: Taking Children Seriously — Engaging with this approach to children has been a great practice in blessing other’s freedom.

2012-Present: Broadway Musicals. Always enjoyed them, but having a theater kid daughter means I am now richly familiar with the genre.

2014: The Tradition of Marie Kondo — She presented an entry into intimacy with the lived environment. My house is a living organism, also.

2017-Present: Rin'dzin Pamo — Rin’dzin, also known as Charlie Awbery, has been my one of my primary teachers in contemporary Dzogchen. Always a pleasure to share company.

2021-Present: Keith Dowman — I'd read Keith’s work in Adi Da’s community. I started engaging with retreats under his guidance, the most monumental which has been an extended Khorde Rushen retreat, alone, naked in the woods, playing out patterns unto release. He focuses on a different group of Dzogchen practices than Rin’dzin does, including trekchö and tögal.

The Eternal Conversation

Lineage is an eternal conversation. Each of us has opportunities to enter many lineages, devote ourselves to those lineages we love the most, and create our inevitable variation that both continues and modifies the lineage. I am grateful for all those who have and continue to enrich my life.

Appendix: The Great Tradition illustrated by the Table of Contents of the Basket of Tolerance

This is a good overview of the broader Dharma lineage I’ve engaged with.