In 1980, under Trungpa Rinpoche’s direction, Ken Friedman began to teach dharma to young people in the community. From 1980-1988, Ken held after-school storytelling sessions for the very young children, weekend programs for the teenagers, and a 10-day summer study and practice session at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center. For many years, he also served as Gesar Mukpo’s Buddhist-Shambhala tutor.
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Listeners’ comments
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Just a note of appreciation from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
I have family friends with three boys (4th grade, 9th grade and one that just graduated from high school). The two older boys have been interested in the meditation practice and in Buddhism in general. Yesterday was the graduation party for the oldest boy; I was able to send the recording of your practice instructions, which appeared on Chronicles this week. It was a perfect way for me to maintain a little contact with them.
Naturally, I listened to the recording prior to sending it to them. Really nice! So gentle and smart, no talking down to them. And you have one of those great Bill Clinton voices.
So – hearing you and seeing your picture brought back good memories that I wanted to share.
I hope things are well with you. With best regards
– Robert Merchasin
From Jonathan McKeever
In the early days of sun camp, there was a teacher there named Ken Friedman who used to teach the children. One of his ways of teaching was telling stories, and he told the most amazing lineage stories, which was very encouraging for all of us in terms of how our own path could be. The way Ken presented it, we could all become mahasiddhas. He was really serious about it, and I think something about that made it in [real] to us.
When I was 13, I ran into Ken Friedman again. I forget exactly what he said, but he asked me some question about what I thought of one of the stories. I said I thought what Tilopa was doing here was this and that. But there was just this sense that he respected so much that I had even thought about it. But also he was saying (and he was speaking to me but I’m sure he said the same thing to many young people) “You really could help the world. If you really practice and you really follow these forms.” So that woke me up.
-Jonathan McKeever (excerpted from his interview on Chronicles Radio)
