Max King died on Thursday, October 9, at 5:12 pm, at home in Boulder, Colorado in the presence of friends and family.
Tributes
I knew Max in the day because he was always around Rinpoche. I didn’t really know him well, but everything I saw and heard about him made me appreciate him as a devoted student and great help to the Vidyadhara. A brave warrior, for sure.
Although I first saw the Vidyadhara in my 1st year of college, and later in Evanston….one could only guess if I would have become a member of this community, if I hadn’t met Max King. He travelled from I gather Berkeley to Sonoma County, CA, in 1975, offered a class in Buddhist Psychology…..and, for me, the rest is history. I’m pretty sure he brought up with him an “in the works” manuscript from the Myth of Freedom, and shared that with us, as well, combining meditation, with teaching about buddhist psychology, with office hours included.
We’d only be in touch a couple of more times over the years. Early, I got to see you fundraise for something like a lavish set of chopsticks as a gift for the Vidyadhara at one of his trips to Berkeley…maybe in that same year, when he did the Wisdom & Skillful Means Seminar…not sure. But, I had cause to think of you often. You served in the most able of ways as so many of us try to do, carrying the banner of confidence for our teacher.
I think you described enlightenment once….as being in the most extroverted of frames…I can’t remember what you said exactly. You shared about the 6 realms with us, and with me. And, when I met with you for office hours, with you drinking tea, and my sharing from you how the thing about spiritual materialism seemingly makes the project all too near impossible…you took my concerns in stride. And…I am here. I’m so sorry you’re not, Max. I thank you so very much for having offered that course, and having been a teacher to me…and many others.
Ira Zukerman
DC
To Max King,
A Chinese immigrant-family prodigy, you were more American than most Americans. Inseparables from first contact, you accompanied the Vidyadhara like the trail of a comet.
Never compromising demeanor and genuineness with self-importance, you spoke your mind like a long Chinese landscape scroll.
Though shy and unassuming yet razor sharp, you never failed to release an arrow of insight, observation and appreciation to the target of whomever you encountered.
Though dedicated and settled, you never relinquished your playful dance, your utter passion for passion itself.
Though challenging as are we all, your pure heart, mischievousness and sincerity magnetized the most magnificent partner, Michelle, and the most exceptional son, Mikyo.
Though raised and braised in banal American culture, you conveyed the spice and flavor of the Chinese ancestral sovereigns. Like water around rocks, you spread the flow of natural Taoist wisdom through your ever-nuanced humor.
Though separated by oceans and generations, your demand of propriety and precision carried the spirit of Confucius to these shores.
Wielding the cleaver of prajna and love in the kitchen of the guru’s vajra world, you cooked up countless feasts of devotion.
Serving so many lineage holders, you have nurtured the pipeline of blessings to our world. You will be found in the branches of the lineage tree.
Though tasked with checking people out for their purchases, you were masterful at adding conversational cheer and goodness to hundreds of lives, free of charge.
Though your physical and mind karma met with unimaginable challenges, you have never lost your wonderful dignity for even a moment. You have rendered suffering into an adamantine sword of presence.
Through your sometimes tsunami of tears flooded and pierced us, it was apparent you were only so yearning to connect with us all once again…you opened our hearts continuously.
Though you endured the ravages of dementia, you never lost track of your goodness. Your goodness never lost track of you.
Though a great pool of sanity, you provocatively teased us into outrageousness…you will always be affectionately “Mad Max!”
We old practitioners never die, we only suddenly burst forth with a final HA HA!
Love to Mad Max!
Love from Clarke Warren, an old friend and companion on a winding path into nowness. We have arrived!
