Excerpts from Meetings With Mentors

From Interview with Jack Kornfield:

Jack Kornfield:
I think most young people face a very deep spiritual longing since the time of being a teenager. They look out at the world and ask, "What am I supposed to do with this? I see that the modern society around me has screwed up royally!" Any young person whose eyes are even a little open can see that. And then this person asks, "What can I do? What is my place in this? How can I show myself? What is my gift or my art in the world?

And elsewhere in Soren's interview with him, Jack Kornfield says:

...this great heart of wisdom and compassion that we could call our Buddha-nature. We each have it, but we have grown up in a society that does not recognize it, or honor it, or empower it. To find a teacher, or a monastery, or a retreat center, or a mentor in a spiritual way is one of the most important tasks for young people. Look around the world and ask, "Who do I most respect on this Earth?" Then go and put your body near theirs for as long as you can. Shine their shoes, fill their cup with water . . . do whatever it takes to be near the people who embody that which you most value. Take them as teachers or mentors. Then go and get the spiritual training that is offered and bring it back into the world.

Soren: And for a young adult, you see that as one of the primary tasks?

Jack Kornfield: Yes, one of the most important tasks. Otherwise your life will feel like it does at the end of too many good parties.

From Interview with Ram Dass:

Soren: When do you feel like your life became interesting?

Ram Dass: When I took psychedelic mushrooms in 1961, that's when my life turned around. That one experience changed my reality, because it showed me that I wasn't who I thought I was. It showed me all these other dimensions of my being. So it shifted from 1961 to 1965 or '66. By then I realized the limits of psychedelics. Not that they were necessarily limited, but the way we were using them was limited. We learned that set and setting were very critical in the nature of the experience. My feeling was that the set we had was not one that would allow us to optimize their sacramental use, since we were westerners and were not coming at it from the right place. By 1966 I had run out of my zeal for psychedelics as my major practice.

Soren: Did you feel that they weren't a stabilizer, that they could take you somewhere but couldn't allow you to stay there?

Ram Dass: Yes, basically. I could get high but I couldn't get free. I couldn't integrate the experiences into my full life. I looked at the people who were using psychedelics and they didn't seem to be that much more evolved than anyone else when it came right down to it.

From Interview with Br. David Steindl-Rast:

Soren: For someone who is looking for a spiritual tradition to explore and follow, what advice would you give them? Would it be to focus on their peak experiences?

Br. David Steindl-Rast: To focus on their peak experiences could easily be misunderstood. The person could become preoccupied with getting a certain high. I would make reference to the peak experience by saying, "When you have experienced the bliss of being one with all, that is what it's all about." Those are the moments in life which have meaning. Those are the moments in which everything is experienced as being real. That's what it is all about. Then the question is, "How can we make this a more permanent awareness? How can we live a life that embodies this experience, that carries this experience on? If this is our encounter with meaning, how do we make our life more meaningful?"

From Interview with Sam Keen:

Soren: You've talked before about the importance of exploring what myths we are living by, and finding out whether they are our own myths or ones we've taken on from the world around us.

Sam Keen: Yes, to be raised in a culture is to spend a lot of time living someone else's story, until you discover that it's not your own. This is true of any family or nation. For an entire lifetime we are always trying to separate our own story, our own aspirations and sense of importance from all those who surround us. It is a lifelong task.

From Interview with Starhawk:

Soren: It must have been hard for you to go against the norms of the mainstream culture.

Starhawk: Well, I never really wanted to be a part of the mainstream culture, so it didn't affect me very much. I also came of age in the late sixties when everyone was going against the mainstream culture-so I guess the mainstream was to go against the mainstream. (Laughter) But my intention was not just to oppose what was, but to create what I wanted. I've always believed that if you want the world to be a certain way, you should act as if it were that way, and make it that way.