Ted Howell
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Counting Breath thoughts from Ted Howell: A Cuke Audio mini podcast from Ted's email about counting breaths
Cognate Han - a poem by Ted Howell, "humbly offering some language and rhythm as possibly a useful song for recovery."
A 2021 email from Ted
Hi David,
I’m not entirely sure of why I am sending you this, other than to add to your collection of the connections between people over the years involved with Zen Center.
I heard today from Dennis Bacigalupi who was at Tassajara 1993 - 1994. He’s returned to sitting at Kannon Do where he sat years ago. I know Dennis because I met him in 1973 when I went to the Juilliard School of Drama in NYC. We were part of “Group 6.” This was the 6th group of students to enter Juilliard’s newly formed Drama Division started by John Houseman in 1969. In 2017 I was looped into an email chain about a reunion. I wasn’t able to attend but participated in email exchanges and learned that Dennis had ended up going to Tassajara also.
When Group 6 was the freshman group we were obviously attending classes with the groups prior to us (Groups 5, 4, & 3) and we had some powerful actors amongst us. I had attended a summer workshop in 1972 that was taught by Group 1. I trained there with Kevin Kline, Patti Lupone, David Ogden Stiers, and many more. Robin Williams, Christopher Reeve, Kelsey Grammer, Francis Conroy, Kevin Conroy, Henry Stram, Lisa Banes, Harriet Harris and many others were in my Group 6 class.
I’ve attached a 2017 email chain that ends (or starts because it’s at the top and as you scroll down you see the history - so start at the bottom if you like) with an email that I sent to Dennis back then. Inside the emails you can see some of the Group 6 students discussing the reunion that I was not able to attend. One of the emails in the chain is my note to my fellow Juilliard classmates where I offer a bit of a biographical summary of my life at Juilliard and the resulting path to Zen Center. It’s kind of a long read and doesn’t really have much of a point but I thought you might add it to your pile of stuff to keep on file for a “someday" reference. In a way, it is a bit of my “way seeking mind” story. I guess I see this like a historical document to be preserved as a future research source because it reveals a bit of the intertwined lives of many talented and well known people. A couple of us ended up at Tassajara.
I came to Zen Center sometime in late 1974 or more likely in 1975. I had missed Suzuki entirely. I was living in Oakland. A good friend and I were out “spiritual shopping.” We had been to several other groups and decided to get Zazen instruction at ZC. Issan was the one who gave us the instruction. As I recall, it was just my friend, Will Hubben (who went on to study with John Tarrant) and I who attended that day. Then Issan served us tea in the student lounge next to the kitchen at Page St. I had read some of ZMBM and that’s about all. Somehow, though, I was attracted to the style of Zen Center. Probably because I had read Be Here Now in my senior year of high school after some pyschedelic trips and recalled that I had seen the Tassajara schedule in the back of the book. When I read the Be Here Now description of Tassajara back in 1973 I had felt an immediate attraction to it. Here it was again and this time I could participate.
As I went on to become more involved at ZC, moving to an apartment in the neighborhood, then eventually moving into the building, I was immersed in an ocean of people that I did not know. I could never really piece together who knew who, who did what, who had been there for how long, etc. Bits and pieces of stories were told to me over the years. What I am finding from your podcasts is that they are not just about the teacher but also about “the taught” - the ones who were taught. You are helping me have a deeper understanding of the experiences I had while at ZC and who I had them with. Such an expansive web of people. Thank you for your help in revealing and clarifying the many stories and connections.
I did not arrive at ZC to be a student of Richard Baker but he was the only choice. I think sometime in 1976 I eventually asked him if I could be his student and he sent me to Tassajara. My first practice period was Fall 1977.
When I was living in Oakland before coming to ZC my roommate was an old high school friend, Francis Legac, from Skaneateles, New York. He hooked up with a woman, Wendy White, for a couple of years. They eventually had a rough break-up. Some years later I believe Wendy ended up in a relationship with Van Vorheis. I don’t recall how that came to be. I never found out where Wendy ended up. If you are in contact with Van, maybe you can ask him if my memory is correct and if he has an update on where Wendy might be and how she is.
OK, that’s just some stuff that’s been bubbling up over the past few months of listening to your podcasts. Supporting documentation for a couple of people whose lives were influenced by the teachings of Shunryu Suzuki.
Many thanks!
Ted
11/11/2017
Venerable Dennis-san,
Your email to me is very kind. As I recall, you were the first one to pass on to me personally how to meditate. You helped direct me to TM, which was the beginning of a daily sitting practice for me. As I would do in dokusan at Zen Center, I bow before you with 3 full prostrations to the floor in gratitude for your passing on the teachings.
My jaw dropped when you wrote that we both lived at Tassajara! When I then recalled how you had been one of my earliest contacts with someone who practiced I could see how our paths had been intertwined. I sat tangaryo to enter ZMC in the fall of 1977 & lived there until fall of 1979. I was assigned to the kitchen in the spring of ’78 where I took on the practice of cooking. I was Fukuten 78-79 and Guest Cook summer of '79 and again summer of ’80. I was shipped out of Tassajara in the fall of 1979 with many of the other young monks to the newly acquired Green Gulch Farm. Richard Baker-roshi was orchestrating the beginning of the transformation from farm to Green Dragon Temple and I was on the water crew. We lived in the barn, sat one period of mediation then left the zendo to hike up the valley and hand dig a catchment basin to collect the water from a fresh water spring that we had discovered. I worked under the watchful eye of our hard driving Irish crew leader, Paul Haller, who may know as a teacher at Zen Center. We proceeded to dig trenches and lay hundreds of feet of pipe for drinking water, fire fighting, conduit for phone and power, etc, etc.
I met my first wife, Antoinette, at Green Gulch and we produced a son while living there. When the Richard Baker-roshi crisis erupted she was working as the Abbot’s assistant (Anja) in his family’s quarters at Green Gulch so I had many views of the situation! Baker-roshi served as the priest for our wedding and I had a good, non-controversial relationship with him. I continue to feel that he is a core teacher of mine in the lineage of Suzuki-roshi. As Work Leader at the time I also knew Anna Hawken and occasionally we had some long talks. I was somewhat aware of events from her perspective. Fortunately I was never personally hurt by or involved in any of the extreme behaviors that were taking place. I suspect that my experience at Juilliard helped me to not get negatively caught in Richard Baker’s charm and wisdom.
I also developed student-teacher relationships with many wonderful teachers such as Lew Richmond, Mel Weitsman, and Wendy Johnson. I was fortunate to practice along side and personally learn from Issan Dorsey, Ed Brown, David Chatwick, Blanch Hartman, Steve Stucky, Vanja Palmers, Norman Fischer, and many others. What a wonderful rich practice experience my life at Zen Center was!
While at GGF I worked a stint in the Treasurer’s Office and learned double-entry accounting. Once again leaving the morning zendo early to go sit in a cozy room off of the library (the former living room of a house on the farm)to enter transactions by hand into the accounting ledgers. I learned the basics of double entry accounting which later helped me when I was doing the same thing as I took over running a small plumbing company. From there I moved on to the shop crew, then Work Leader, and then Plant Manager, picking up plumbing skills along the way. In 1985, when Zen Center went in to full turmoil over leadership & direction, a fellow former Zen Center student, Frank Kilmer, arranged an opportunity for me to join him working at a plumbing shop in San Francisco. Thus the beginning of my non-Zen Center life in the world of plumbing.
I have not read “Dropping Ashes on the Buddha” but it is now on my list! Thank you for that. Selling toilets is a wonderful way to continue the practice of mindful awareness, supporting myself and serving others. Zen is rich in supporting the earthy connection of toilets to the practice of being present in "things as they is”, don’t you think?
Mumonkan Case 21
A monk asked Unmon, "What is Buddha?"
Unmon replied, "Kanshiketsu!" [A dry shit-stick.]
I was just bouncing around the internet looking at related Zen and the toilet readings and found a talk by Norman Fischer. He relates this story when commenting on this case:
But it does remind me of a passage in Jack Kerouac which impressed me so much I remembered it for twenty-five years. Jack Kerouac was an extremely enthusiastic writer, you know. He was so enthusiastic he would take speed and write for days on end without stopping. And I forget exactly what the story was, as usual. But something had to do with--somehow he encountered somebody--I think it was like maybe an Indian person who, when he went to the toilet, would wipe his butt with a rag with soap and water. You know, clean his butt out really well. And this impressed Kerouac. And Kerouac started doing this himself. And here's the good part. Kerouac in his book said, All those middle-class people out there think that me and my beatnik pals are just a bunch of unwashed people. But I have a much cleaner asshole than they do. They're all walking around with a dirty asshole. He spelled it--I'll never forget--he spelled it a-z-z-h-o-l-e . Azzhole. Maybe that was because of the censors at the time or maybe that's just how he pronounced it or something. But he went on for pages about this, you know, about how it was that all these people who were putting him down were walking around all the time in their nice suits and dresses and everything with dirty azzholes. And he took great satisfaction in the fact that this was not the case with him.
A great story for me as I have been a sales rep for bidet toilet seats for years. First with TOTO and now with American Standard, I am a proud user of and total believer in converting the US market to the use of bidet seats. Funny that I arranged a no-charge bidet seat for Norman’s house in Muir Beach a few years ago! I finally got my 93 year father to put one in at his retirement condo a few months ago.
The Without Fear story is supposedly from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones but I’ve lost my paper copy so I can’t verify that. Need to get another one because I can’t find a Kindle version. ??. The actual origin of the story is not known to me. Couldn’t even find a particularly insightful version to link to. Here’s one: www.spiritual-short-stories.com/spiritual-short-story-114-without-fear/ It did it’s job as story and taught something to me.
During my time at Zen Center I became friends with Taiyo Lipscomb. He remained there after I left to study with and receive transmission from Reb Anderson. Taiyo now lives in Asheville, NC, just around the corner, so to speak, from where my Dad has retired in his (and one of mine) old hometown of Hendersonville, NC. I’ve been visiting my Dad and thus Taiyo frequently this year. My father has just yesterday gone in to hospice care and transferred to the nursing facility at Carolina Village where he lives. I will be visiting that area & seeing Taiyo again in the near future. Perhaps you crossed paths with Taiyo while you were at Zen Center?
I continue to be delighted with being reconnected to Group 6 and hope for an on-going interface of some kind. Perhaps small get togethers in various locations might spring up.
Well, enough ramblings. It certainly is nice to catch up with former classmates. I agree, Group 6 was a very special collection of crossed paths.
Take care. I hope the Group 6 Facebook page happens!
Gassho!
Ted
Oct 17, 2017
Hello Dear Ted,
I've read your powerful note several times and the first thing that strikes me is that you are a wonderful writer. With such an interesting life history, perhaps it's time to begin writing your memoirs?
Perhaps one of the good results of a seemingly dastardly "trauma" foisted upon you by a misguided school policy, is that your hurt helped pave the way for those rules to be changed. It was always so bewildering to figure out by what criteria the administrators made their decisions...certainly it had nothing to do with the human values you so clearly possessed in abundance. ("Thank you bee for stinging me.")
I must have just missed you in your adventures in the San Francisco Zen community. I lived at Tassajara for more than a year (1993-1994) and have visited Green Gulch a number of times, though only staying for one sesshin with Reb Anderson in August 1991. Ancient history! I have been a member of the Kannon Do community in Mountain View, from which Zen Mind, Beginners Mind originated in transcribed lectures by Suzuki Roshi. It is still led by Les Kaye, Suzuki's student from the Haiku Zendo days in Los Altos where my parents lived. I haven't been there recently, but luckily it was never directly affected by the Richard Baker fiasco. It continues to be a fine group. I seriously considered joining the current fall confab at Tassajara, led by Reb, which is celebrating its 100th practice period, but I couldn't make it work. I don't claim to be a "Buddhist" per se. My nature is simply a reflection of its values.
I loved your zen story, which I've never heard. Sounds like you have certainly made strides in achieving its life-long goal. (And by the way, you may know that Stephen Mitchell's teacher, Seung Sahn, was reveled to be a washing machine repair man in the wonderful "Dropping Ashes on The Buddha." You are in good company!!)
Our 6er comrades appear to have had a very successful meeting. They all seemed to be walking on air...even many who revealed their own "tortured" feelings about that time in their lives. I do believe that whatever the duration of our stays at Juilliard, Group 6 was a very special collection of crossed paths....
Thanks for sharing your lovely missive, and I will continue to think of you thriving up there in the great Northwest.
All the best and much love,
Dennis
Hello Group 6!
I’m sure y’all will have a grand time tonight and I wish I had figured out a way to be there with you.
My memories of Group 6 are a bit tortured and I wish I could see you all again to change that. It was a lovely day in the spring of 1974 when I was summoned to the office of John Houseman. Classes were all but over and summer was coming. I nervously entered the office and sat in front of his expansive desk. I don’t recall much other than the moment he leaned froward and said in his best John Houseman voice “I’m sorry Mr. Howell, but we are going to have to let you go.”
Everything stopped. It was over.
It had been a tough year. The summer of 1972 I had studied with the debut of the Juilliard Acting Company in Sarasota, NY, and had a wonderful time. I was a high school stage star of sorts, having been the lead in the senior play in both my junior and senior years, along with numerous other small shows. My twin sisters, Margaret Howell & Kathryn Howell, were both living in New York pursuing their own theater careers. I moved to NYC and made the den of Margaret’s apartment into my bedroom. Across the street was David Ogden Stiers who I had met the previous summer so I hung out with him.
Soon, though, I realized I was in over my head. I still remember Christopher Reeve tearing his shirt during his turn when we were taking turns doing lines from Romeo and Juliet. The entire room gasped. :)
Things did not go well for me that year at Juilliard. My high school first love sent me the Dear John letter. My parents has split up a year before, my father sold my childhood home in central NY, my mother had a breakdown and was confined to a psychiatric hospital somewhere near 178th St, I can’t recall the name. I lost all self confidence and suddenly for the first time had stage fright even during Edith’s speech classes.
But somewhere someone of you taught me to meditate. I remember joining a group of you to “streak” a stage show one night. Kelsey and I visited his parents house and hung out drinking beer. I tagged along with some group of us in a cabin to indulge in a psychedelic trip which was part of my overall psychedelic journey at the time.
I left NYC to do some summer stock theater back in Skaneateles, living in the Sherwood Inn. I hitch hiked to San Francisco to visit my sister Kathryn who was studying at ACT. I started taking Alexander Technique lessons with the intention of becoming an Alexander teacher. Then I met a Zen teacher who invited me to live and study Zen at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in the Los Padres National Forrest. That began a 10+ year period of living the Zen life in the mountains then in Marin County at the Green Gulch Zen Center.
One day as I was walking down a path at Green Gulch I saw Robin coming towards me! He was there doing a retreat with his then wife Valerie. Robin and I had lockers near each other at Juilliard and we had talked frequently, at one time both sharing how much we were attracted to Christine Wiedemann (sp?) (where did she go?). Robin remembered me well and invited my new wife (a fellow Zen student) & baby boy to his house to attend a party. We accepted but we really knew no one there. We hung out with Robin for a bit then left. I didn’t keep in touch with Robin after that and am now very sad about that.
I left the Zen Center as things shook up around one of the teachers sleeping with the students. What a trip! Yet the Zen training was the best thing I ever did. Off I went and trained as a plumber, becoming a journey level plumber and plumbing instructor for about 15+ years. I migrated over to a plumbing sales rep company in 2000. Now I sell toilets! I had a amiable split from my first wife, then later met my now 2nd wife. We live in Tacoma, WA, in the house she grew up in, having inherited it from her mother.
So that’s my memory to share with you all tonight. That’s what happened to one of the ones who was abruptly booted out of Juilliard’s Group 6. So good to hear that I was not the only one who was traumatized by the Juilliard of the day. Having my entire ego & career plans crushed so thoroughly at a vulnerable time turned out to be a good thing. For some reason it reminds me of this Zen story:
During the civil wars in feudal Japan, an invading army would quickly sweep into a town and took control. In one particular village, everyone fled just before the army arrived - everyone except the Zen master.
Curious about this old fellow, the general went to the temple to see for himself what kind of man this master was. When he wasn't treated with the deference and submissiveness to which he was accustomed, the general burst into anger. "You fool," he shouted as he reached for his sword, "don't you realize you are standing before a man who could run you through without blinking an eye!" But despite the threat, the master seemed unmoved. "And do you realize," the master replied calmly, "that you are standing before a man who can be run through without blinking an eye?"
Having had my soul run through by Mr. Houseman, I sat in the cold zendo learning to find the place where I could be run though without blinking an eye.
I’m so happy to spot some of you from time to time in your various careers and to learn more about the others of you through this reunion thing! Proud to have been once a part of Group 6. I wish you all a good time with lots of stories and memories told. I hope someday to be able to see you again. Raise a glass for me, please!
Much love, respect, and a deep Zen bow……...
Ted