A few months ago, I met a man named Kiley Jon Clark who teaches meditation to the homeless in San Antonio, Texas. My curiosity piqued. I asked him to tell me more about what he calls HMP Street Dharma(HMP stands for Homeless Meditation Practitioners).

What's the purpose of meditation?

"In Tibetan, the word for meditation means, 'To become familiar.' We are trying to become familiar with ourselves -- with how our minds work. It all starts with being here, in the present moment.

It can be very unsettling when you realize just how frantic your mind really is. Just try it. Stop, sit down, stay in the present moment and think of nothing but your own breathing. You may find, like Buddhist elders have said, that the mind is like a crazy monkey swinging from thought to thought and from past to future. Our brains do not know how to relax."

But how can the homeless meditate if they are in a critical situation like homelessness?

"Our main aim of working with the homeless is just being with them. It is about everyday interactions. And those who ask for meditation instruction will gladly get it.

"Like most of us, the homeless have been listening to the same negative thoughts in their heads for years. 'I'm so stupid.' 'I'm such a mess.' 'I can't do this anymore.' 'I wish I were dead.' Everyone has this negative mental chatter going on all the time and we don't even recognize it.

But once the 'monkey mind' is revealed through meditation -- once we start being present with our thoughts as the observer of them -- old thought patterns get broken and things begin to change in our lives.

This is as true for the homeless as it is for anyone else. Whether or not you have a roof over your head has nothing to do with quieting your mind, getting to know yourself and being fully awake."

What does your work entail?

"We go to the streets to the homeless and also teach at a facility called 'Haven for Hope.' Working this way provides freedom to just be ourselves and make friends. Interestingly, this is what both Jesus and Buddha did. Although they both held services and preached, they spent the majority of their lives simply being the message of love and compassion. They lived with the poor -- both Buddha and Jesus sat with, talked with, listened to, ate with and shared the suffering and grief of the people."

What's your own personal story? How did you come to be doing this work?

"My story is a long one, way too much to tell here. But the short version is, I was raised in an alcoholic home and became one myself. I've dealt with clinical depression, divorce, death of loved ones and jail. But, in 2006, I met a Tibetan Lama at the San Antonio Airport, of all places. His name is Lama Tulku Tsori Rinpoche and he runs a monastery for Tibetan refugee children in Mainpat, India.

Meeting this Lama changed the whole course of my life. He has been my guiding light and inspiration.

If you were going to be a meditation teacher, why teach the homeless? Why not upscale people who want to meditate?

"Neglect is something most children of alcoholics feel, so I think my childhood made me especially sensitive to the loneliness and suffering of others. Among other things, the homeless also suffer from personal neglect. When you have lost everything, it is easy to lose yourself, too.

As a Buddhist, my life should reflect my beliefs. Most people's lives are usually driven by unfulfilling desires and cravings for money, status, material goods, sensual pleasures -- things we think will make us happy, but don't.

Instead, why not be completely motivated by compassion, generosity, loving-kindness and wisdom? Can you think of a better alternative?"

Can non-Buddhists be involved in this outreach?

If you would like to become a homeless outreach worker, Buddhist or not, feel free to contact us. We will be living, learning and practicing together. Or, if you'd like to support our work with contributions, we gratefully accept. The need here is enormous, so we welcome your help and support."

What about dangers you might face ... any antagonism from the homeless?

"In my experience, there is very little violence among the homeless community. They often have fights among themselves, but rarely, if ever, is that violence directed at people outside their peer group."

Can you give me an example of how meditation has helped a homeless person?

"When we were doing the meditation group inside the emergency shelter, there was a man named Dino. He was reclusive and angry when he first started coming to group. Little by little, he started opening up. He would share a little more about his life and what he was feeling every week in the group.

"After several months of these weekly meditation groups, he was a very different person. Dino told us that he would use these meditation techniques to keep his mind tranquil and calm throughout the long nights at the shelter. He often spoke about his daughter, from whom he was estranged. We gave him a Tonglen practice to help with this. It was a visualization of taking in the negative energy between him and his daughter, and releasing it back as light, love and healing.

"One day, Dino came up and gave me a big hug. He said that he had called his daughter after years of not speaking to her. They both cried and talked for hours. She sent him a bus ticket, and as far as I know, he is living with her somewhere in Oregon."

It's been fascinating talking with you, Kiley. Any final words you'd like to add?

The Tibetans have a proverb: "If you want to be sad, think only of yourself. If you want to be happy, think only of others." I would add to that my own words: "Better than a thousand years of bowing to The Buddha is one day lived as a BOW (Buddhist Outreach Worker)."

If you would like to support HMP Street Dharma, go to www.ytdr.org and make a donation for 'Homeless Meditation.' To contact Kiley Jon Clark directly, email hmpstreetdharma@gmail.com.

from Huffington Post article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bj-gallagher/street-dharma-teaching-me_b_1074124.html 

 

 

I see it in their faces. Here at the Homeless facility. The way the young mother looks at her baby in the stroller, “What’s going to become of us now?”

The old woman asleep, head down on the metal bench, “So many places I’ve slept, maybe this, my last, there’s no more ‘going’ in me.”

 

The rude boys running past, trying to look cool in clothes from ‘donations,’ all of them thinking, “I’m going to be bigger than this someday!”

 

The men in the Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program hiding in back and around the corner, talking on banned cell phones. They’re talking to wives and girlfriends, promising the World, acting tough, and being scared.  

 

All these faces, waiting for something better to come along, thinking of where they have been and where they are going.

 

And I’m invisible, just a custodian picking up trash, moving in and out of offices, dorm rooms, waiting rooms, courtyards, kitchens, restrooms, and people’s lives, unnoticed.

 

But I’m thinking of my own life, where I have been.  Sometimes I can slip into non-duality, where I AM nowhere, but I always come back to remember.

 

I remember being where they are. I remember guards making me take my clothes off and put on other clothes that said, “Property of County Jail.”

 

I remember letters to my girlfriend promising the world. I remember waiting, waiting to use phones, waiting in lobbies, waiting for probation officers, social workers, principals, doctors, results, rides, answers, and my drunk father to get up. I remember waiting.

 

I’m not there now, but I put myself in their shoes and think, “They are all trying to get where I am now.”

In distance, it’s only a few feet. In time, it might be a matter of seconds or infinite lifetimes. I’m just a custodian moving through people’s lives, unnoticed. But I’m the man I’ve always wanted to be.

 

I did not gain anything that I didn’t already have. No miracles happened.  Yet, when I look around, I am so content with all that I have.

 

And there is no more waiting for me.   
 

 

Photo © Enrique Lopetegui/San Antonio CurrentKiley Jon Clark had drunk himself out of a job, a marriage, and the trust of his children when he happened upon a Buddhist book that changed his life. Now he’s bringing the dharma to others who have fallen on hard times.

Buddhadharma Magazine article:
http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2011/5/16/welcoming-the-homeless.html

San Antonio Current Newspaper:
http://www2.sacurrent.com/blog/queblog.asp?perm=70213

I wish you could hear him, my lama, eyes welled up with tears, arms wide embracing the World, telling us about how everyone, everywhere, are all beautiful ‘Mother Beings.’ Beings who have loved us and nurtured us throughout innumerable lifetimes.

To hear Lama Tulku Tsori Rinpoche tell it, not only sentient beings, but everything in the universe, whether plant, animal, mineral, seen or unseen, all of creation are ‘Mother Beings’ whom we should serve, revere, and bless with infinite kindness. Even with this, we will never be able to repay even a small portion of the sacrifices and miseries they have endured in countless lifetimes raising and protecting us from harm.

Rinpoche says when he was a young monk, his teacher made him meditate on being pregnant himself, so he could appreciate what a woman goes through to give birth. But, being such a hard working and diligent student, his teacher would often find him knocking on the door and crying about this at night. And his Root Lama, being disturbed from his sleep, finally took him off this visualization because when he would ask Rinpoche why he was crying, Tulku would say, “ I can’t sleep, the baby is kicking too much!”

There is no doubt in my mind that my Perfect Teacher sees all beings as his mother and perhaps the entire Cosmos as the ‘Mother of all Buddhas.’ But, then there is me.

A guy who once, sitting on the couch with my Lama discussing these things, pressed the ‘ignore’ button on my cell phone because my mom was calling and interrupting our nice visit. I can still remember the look on his face when I said, “It’s just my mom, she’ll call back later, now, tell me more about these ‘Mother-Beings’.”

The thing about it is I am good at seeing the homeless folks that I work with as my previous mothers, and I’m getting better at seeing the people who cut me off in traffic as my previous mothers, and I’m working really hard to stop calling anybody who disagrees with me a ‘Mother!’

But when it comes to my own real mother, a woman who has never done me any harm or said anything deeper to me than, “You want a sandwich?” or “You want some cake?”, she is the very one that I can’t seem to muster up compassion for. It’s not that she hasn’t been a very caring mother; it’s just that, I don’t know her and can’t seem to know her. She had a very abusive childhood, married young to an alcoholic; and she has been full of anxiety, overcome with fear, and doom ridden ever since.

She is the kind of person that never stops moving. Even with Parkinson’s disease and poor health, when she can’t walk, she stands in one spot swaying back and forth, nervously. Mom seems on the verge of panic at all times, and I’ve fantasized about sneaking up behind her and saying, ‘Boo!’ But then I realize that it would require much effort to get her off the ceiling.

So, I am more than happy to let everyone be my ‘Mother-Being’, but I must view them as I do my own mother. All these beings are panicked, confused, worried, troubled, in decline, and like it or not, in need of my help.

Whether I cuss the whole way there, or not, I do go fix my mom’s DVD Player every time she calls. And I do eat her sandwich and cake, and make small talk.  I do whatever is asked of me, again and again. There is no choice. This woman is my mother, I am her son. It’s not a “maybe, maybe not” decision, it just goes without saying, I come when she calls and do what needs to be done.

So, here I am surrounded by ‘Mothers’, all sometimes, a pain in my ass. But not helping is not an option.

I’m getting closer, Lama, don’t give up on me. 

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

“The Body is a Cancer” by Kiley Jon Clark

 

Imagine doing your own meditation. You are sitting there minding your own business when suddenly, you feel someone watching you. Some guy is standing across the road glaring at you. You decide to just ignore him, unfortunately, more arrive.  

Folks start showing up from all over the World, only to watch you do your own meditation practice. If this was all, it might be fine. But, they have other plans.

Soon, a huge Meditation Center is being erected. Hundreds of people, beeping bobcats, shouting foremans, cranes, dump trucks, and dust whirl around your ordinary, little meditation cushion.

Ok, so you may never have to worry about this happening to you, but from what I’ve read, this is pretty much what happened to Ramana Maharishi.

According to the book, “The Spiritual Teachings of Ramana Maharishi,” it states, “He was born December 29, 1879 in Tiruchuli, Tamil Nadu, South India, the son of Shundaram Ayyar, a scribe and country lawyer, and given the name Venkataraman, which was abbreviated as Ramana.”

“At the age of seventeen he suddenly had an experience of death one day in which he suddenly realized that the body dies but consciousness is not touched by death. Whatever this “I” was, it is immortal.

After this experience Venkataraman lost all interest in things of this world and ultimately left home without his parents’ permission to find his way to the Holy Mountain of Arunachala.”

Which brings us to the fact, that although he wrote very little and spoke less, so awe-inspiring was his presence, that people came from all over the world to build an Ashram around him.

It is my understanding that although a lot of great saints are talked about, Sri Ramana is one of the very few that is openly acknowledged by Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and most all others, as actually being a “Self-Realized Being” or “Awakened One.”

And although he did speak little, there is one thing that he did say, that I cannot get out of my mind.

Eventually, in his later years, Ramana started losing weight and it became harder for him to get around unaided. So, after much pleading, he was taken to a doctor by his devotees.

The diagnosis was, “Stage four Cancer.”

His followers began to weeping and wailing. They fell at the doctor’s feet begging to know about a “Cure” and “treatments.” But, with his ever present smile, Ramana simply said, “there is no need of treatment” and stood to leave.  

For the remainder of his time on Earth, people, cards, telegrams, and letters poured in, each in their own way, begging him to reconsider seeking medical help for his condition.

His one and only comment about the whole situation was both direct and puzzling.

“The body is a Cancer,” he said once while shrugging his shoulders.

Now, here is the thing that has been keeping me up at night. A couple of weeks ago, I took my daughter to a foot specialist to get some warts removed.

Just to make conversation, I asked the Doc, “What causes warts anyway?” I never expected what I was about to hear next. “Leading research says that warts are a virus that can live in standing water like gym showers and even the ocean. Because it is a living organism, I’m treating it with venom extracted from a species of Beetle,” his reply.

Ok, let me preface this by saying that I don’t live in a hippy trippy part of L.A or Miami Beach. This is San Antonio, Texas and this doctor is an older Hispanic man wearing cowboy boots.

I told him that I was amazed and had never thought of warts as being a living thing. And he blew me away even further. “Oh yeah, most of all diseases and sicknesses come from some living, invading organism trying to infiltrate and set-up shop in our body-organism,” he said while applying the “beetle-juice” to my daughter’s foot.

“OK,” I said, “I know that you hear about the flu bug, viruses, bacteria, E. Coli, staph infection and other tiny organisms that make us sick, but what else?”

“Well,” he said while bandaging her foot, “I saw an old man on his death bed become completely free of cancer by drinking water. It’s something called ‘Kanga Water’ and it has something to do with the ‘Fungus’ not being able to survive at that PH level.”

I told him to wait a minute and back up. “Are you saying that cancer is a living ‘fungus’ that can be cured with water?”

“None of this can be proven yet, by it’s my opinion that just like everything else, cancer is a living organism. The body tries to fight it off by producing tumors. There is one doctor who is opening up the infected areas with a scalpel and flushing the area out with Sodium Bicarbanate or Baking Soda, he has a very high percentage rate of folks that recover completely from their cancer.” he said with a smile.

Now, for the last couple of days, this is all that I’ve been thinking about. I remember reading in the ancient Vedas, “All of Life is food for another.”

And, indeed, everything lives off of something else. We feed on plants and animals, and eventually, we will be food for them. It seems, the whole of life, is spent consuming something and producing waste.

Could it be, that in truth, everything including the Earth itself, is some living form sustained by the consumption of another living form?

Is Cancer a type of Fungus? Are warts a Virus? Is the body itself, some form of cancer, as Sri Ramana Maharishi so clearly told us?

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

“Mindfulness and the lost coffee” by Kiley Jon Clark

A Buddhist Life, is a life devoted to compassion and discovering the Buddha-nature within ourselves and others.

This was demonstrated; the very first time I shared a meal with my Teacher, Lama Tulku Tsori Rinpoche. I didn't know what Buddhists did before they ate, so I asked him if we should pray or something?

I will never forget what happened next. Then Lama Tulku got his fork, scooped up a single grain of rice and held it up at eye level. 

He said, "The only thing that is needed... is that we be completely mindful of how many lives were affected and how much it took to get this single grain of rice to our table today. This rice was planted by people in sweat and toil, it was probably harvested without machinery in some foreign land, with back-breaking labor, there were people in factories washing and packaging it, and folks loading and unloading it onto boats, and truck drivers, all of these people with lives, families, and troubles of their own, and all of them working to get this tiny grain of rice to our table today. 

And we are to be especially mindful of the cows that gave their lives for us today and the chickens who gave their lives for us today."

Then Lama Tsori said, "If you are mindful of all of these things when you eat, there is no need to pray and no negative karma created with the eating, and if you can go through life with these kind of things in mind...life become very precious.” 

Now, I can’t tell you, that I think about all those things when I slam down a Sloppy-Joe...but I can tell you about a Zen Moment that happens to me almost every day. I come into work every morning with a creamy, sweet cup of coffee. At 8 o'clock my work-day starts.

I run between four or five different buildings doing the cleaning and fixing this and that. At some point, during the day, it never fails, I will be back in the same building for the fourth time, and I will look up and there will be my coffee sitting on a shelf, a water heater, or some toilet paper box.

And there will be a split-second of surprise. I'll be surprise...like "Hey, alright! I still got coffee left!" And I'll take that first swig....and man, is it sooooo sweet! 

Those moments are an entire universe in themselves, and can happen all the time, just by being grateful about the small gifts that life gives you. 

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

“there is no philosophizing here” by Kiley Jon Clark

 

 All that is happening is just “WHAT IT IS”, straight forward, Truth. My hands are in the toilet, there is no philosophizing here, my work boots are covered with blood and spit of the homeless, there is no philosophizing here, outside the window a black man is screaming obscenities at his "so-called" wife who is white and toothless, there is no philosophizing here, an old woman turns circles in the same spot with everything she owns on her back, there is no going home for her....and there is no philosophizing here."

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

“Release the Bees!” by Kiley Jon Clark

 

When I worked at the State Hospital with folks that were Mentally Challenged, people always told me, “God bless you, son. You’re going to have “Rewards in Heaven” for you work!” But when I would tell them about all the volunteer opportunities there, it seemed they didn’t care much for these rewards in Heaven themselves.

Then, when I went to work at a Children’s Home as a Houseparent to twelve teenage boys, they all agreed that I was one “Wonderful person.” When I told them about all the volunteer opportunities there, it seemed they would have to pass on being “Wonderful.”

Now that I work full-time and teach meditation three times a week at a Homeless facility, the praise never stops. One fella told me, “You create more positive Merit in one day than most folks do in an entire life-time.” So, I told him, “Cool. Come spend a day with me.” He maintained a Noble Silence.

As for me, I have this funny feeling. See, I teach an ‘On the Job’ Training Course in the Custodial Arts to the Homeless. And on our list of things to do, is a trash route consisting of thirty two big, outside trash cans.

We take the full bags of trash out of the can, throw it into a Trash Buggy on wheels, and put a new bag in the can. Many of these trash bags are full of Honey Bees. You don’t see them at first. They are way down in the bottom dinning on all the goodies.

But, by the time we get the buggy to the huge Trash Compactor, they’re all buzzing around the air pockets near the top of these bags.

 So, what do we do before throwing these bags into the Hydralic, Crushing Monster? We untie each bag and release the bees, of course.

If there is a “Life Review” in the Bardo after death, I don’t think it will focus so much on the Mentally Challenged, the teenagers at the Children’s Home, or the Homeless folk that I’ve had the great pleasure to befriend. Like I said, I got this funny feeling,

I think it’s just going to be a short film about some really happy Bees.   

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

“Suddenly, from the Void.” by Kiley Jon Clark

 

I was alone for the first time in my life. I mean, really alone.

 

Here I was, living in a tiny apartment, because after seventeen years of marriage, she could no longer accept my drinking.

 

I was a good provider. We had the house, cars and grass to mow.  I wasn't there emotionally for her or the kids. I had become my father, I guess. So, one day in early 2005, she just loaded up the kids and left. She got an apartment. I couldn't be in that house without them, so I got an apartment of my own.

 

Learning how to be alone and sober was brutal. Sometimes at night, my body would be so hot, that my sheets would be completely soaked with sweat. If I pulled them off, it was so cold that my teeth chattered. I would hear people arguing outside, but when I'd look, no one was there. Later, I found out that these are called the 'Alcoholic DTs' but at the time, I had no idea what was happening to me.  I did know one thing, however.

 

I knew the meaning of 'loneliness' when no one comes to see you, answers your calls, or invites you over. Your inescapable, Infinite Sadness is too much for anyone to bear. And even your own soul looks at you from across the room and says, 'I wanna flee, man. I gotta go, I can't be around you like this anymore."

 

No wife telling me what to do and no kids running down the hall screaming and spilling things. I had always thought, “I wish everyone would just leave me alone!” And now I had gotten my wish. It was a big, empty, misguided wish for a big empty misguided fool.

 

My chair faced the open window, where I stared out into the hopelessness street, with the hopeless cars, full of hopeless people, and the hopeless birds flying in a hopeless sky...and sometimes at night when the clouds would part, a big sad hopeless moon weeping.

Wanting to take a sharp object to my wrist, I instead took up a pen and wrote a letter to a Guru, “You must help me, Meaningless Life, Eternal Depression. Only you can help me. Only you can direct my steps back to the Path. Only you can help me cut through this intolerable ignorance. Only you can restore my sanity and show me the Buddha-Nature.” And I signed it, “Groping In the Darkness.”

 

Walking down the barren streets at midnight, I kissed the letter and dropped it into the outgoing mailbox.

 

The next afternoon, to my great surprise, a response had already come.

Although, to my dismay, I soon discovered, that I had written the return address in the wrong place. I had written a letter to the one who could save me, and mailed it to myself.

I had written a letter to the one who could save me, and mailed it to myself. 

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

“Killing for my Daughter” by Kiley Jon Clark

 

The Buddha said, “No one can make us angry, if the seed of anger is not already in our hearts.” So, as any good Buddhist, I’ve been trying to uproot that seed for years.

Sometimes I’m foolish enough to think that I have actually removed the seed of anger from my heart, then my cell rings, and it’s my ex-wife. And I discover, nope, it’s still there!

I wanted to start off with a little humor, because what I’m about to share with you isn’t easy. In truth, our family was pushed almost to its breaking point in 2010.

It started with a phone call from my fifteen year old daughter, asking me to come pick her up early from a friend’s house. She had that quiver in her voice that told me that something was very wrong.

When I arrived, she was standing out in the yard alone and crying. She told me that they had been watching sad movies, and she just wanted to go home.

For the next several days my daughter became very quiet and withdrawn. She denied that there was anything wrong until we confronted her about what some of her friends had told us.  
 

Then she confirmed what we already suspected. That she had been raped.

She had been raped by a boy that she had known since the first grade. This boy had been to our home many times, and she had visited his house on many occasions.

In actuality, she thought of him as a very close friend, they eat lunch together at school every day, and did things on the weekends together.

We called that police and pressed charges. They picked him up and then release him. Then there was the long wait until the trial.

One of the saddest things that I have ever heard, is when my fifteen year old daughter said to me, “Daddy, if I would have know how many of his friends were going to call me a liar and spread hateful rumors about me, I would never have told.”

And I said, ‘Baby, you told because it was not right what he did. And it was not your fault, and the more that this type of behavior is not reported by women; the more dangerous this world becomes for women, including your two little sisters, and you are showing them what it means to be brave and strong.”

Without going into much detail, let me just say, that I had always said, that if this kind of thing ever happened to one of my daughters, I would kill the person who did it. And I did mean that.

But as I sat in that tiny conference room they were calling ‘juvenile court’, close enough to this boy to hear him breathing, I clung to the one Buddhist Scripture that had become my mantra.

It is a scripture that I am sure great people like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, and Cesar Chaves knew very well.

Buddha says, “In this World, hate never yet dispelled hate, only love dispels hate, that is the LAW, ancient and inexhaustible.”

And when my time to speak came, I simply told the boy,

“No, I do not hate you or wish you any harm. But I do want you to realize, that my daughter trusted you and felt safe with you. She thought of you as a brother and what you have done can never be taken back. Because of your actions, my daughter and our entire family will never ever be the same. We all pray that you get the help and counseling that you need, to never, never do this again.”

He was sentenced with a light juvenile probation period and ordered to never contact my daughter. But was not ordered to seek counseling or attend any self betterment classes.

And although he moved to another town, we have recently been informed that he is awaiting trial for two rapes that occurred there.

Listen, all the energy that it would have taken to hurt that boy, or hate that boy, is the energy that I’m now using to hold this family together and help my daughter get the counseling, support, and love that she needs to get through this without becoming a victimized, oppressed and bitter adult.

We have tried to avoid adding even more negative power to this already traumatic event, by not speaking hate filled words about this boy, and in doing so, not creating an environment of anger and frustration around our daughter.

Instead, we are doing are best to handle the highs and lows with love, acceptance, and speak only healing words over each situation.

Perhaps, by doing this, in some small way, we are showing all three of our daughters, that indeed:

“In this World, hate never yet dispels hate, only love dispels hate. This is the Law, ancient and inexhaustible.”

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

“The White Bird” by Kiley Jon Clark

 

Of all my childhood, I recall nothing as vividly as the majestic white bird.

When I was six years of age my family moved from the city to a small town. The town was ninety-eight percent of Mexican descent. We had moved to follow another one of my father’s failed business ventures.

My father was a drunkard, with bouts of depression. In his alcohol poisoned mind, it would seem that the undeserving had it all, while life dealt him continuous bad hands. I pitied him.

My mother was raised a very sheltered child. Up until she married my father at age twenty, her mother laid her clothes out every morning, made her breakfast, and gave her a “to-do” list. Strangely enough, mother was shielded from the world but not safe in her own house from her own father.

She entered marriage with a combination of ignorance and low self-esteem. It was legal slavery. She looked to my father for everything, even though she was the bread winner. He controlled her. He used her. The arrangement served him. I pitied her.

I was shunned at school because of color of skin and the fact I was not a native of the town. I was always either alone in thought or defending myself. Even my own brother, who is four years older than I, recruited his friends by inviting them over to beat me until they got tired or thought that I might need medical attention. Cruel?  Yes, but he never lacked friends.

I have given you a little insight, that you may hopefully comprehend what I was feeling in the day of the sighting of the white Albatross. As I have stated, I recall it with more realness than anything else from that time.

It was during our recess period. I was at my usual spot under a leaning oak tree, alone, as usual. I would sit under that tree and watch the other kids play until it was time to return to class.

On this day, for reasons unknown, I had an urge to get up and walk through the field of playing kids, to a destination unknown.

It was a beautiful day. I could feel the sun’s warmth on my skin as I walked in a daze. There were children running, jumping, and throwing balls all around me.

Through them I walked slowly yet firmly. I never let my hollow eyes leave my destination, of which I knew not.

When I had reached the middle of the playing field, I caught a glimpse of something high in the clear blue sky.

I stopped and let my gaze rise upward to find the object.

It was an ordinary white crane. Yet to me it was the single most brilliant creature in the universe.

Standing trance-like, I felt as if I was looking into a realm that not even angels were privileged to see. Although it was very high, the sunlight reflecting off of it created a hauntingly beautiful, ghostly white vision.

As I stared, I began to feel dizzy and lost all concept of a body.

Everything around me became a blur. Once I heard my heart or maybe a trumpet blast, and then there was neither quiet nor sound.

You simply must understand the magnitude of this creatures’ beauty! It was majestic! As nothing I have seen before or since. It was surpassed by nothing, as if looking into the very eyes of God.  

I rose suddenly, in a split second I was looking down at myself, the way perhaps a circus performer looks in the spotlight down below.

My eyes, the birds eyes, the eyes I was looking through raised off of me to reveal the abundant sky as I have never seen it.

The clouds were living being, glowing with the freedom I felt. The sky was water-matter. I could touch it, feel it, be engulfed by it. It was cool to the touch and having the color of the bluest sea. Looking down now, I saw fields of flowers, tops of trees, farm houses, and cattle grazing.

I could see as far as even the curvature of the earth. A plowed field was not cold dead sod. A field was the womb ready to be impregnated with seed and give birth to life nourishing crops.

My mind was a wonderful thought, yet I wasn’t trying to think. It was as if everything I’d seen before had been dirty and now was shiny and new. I was the eyes of the Universe.

But as quickly as I had left, I had returned equally so. I stumbled back and there was no longer a bird in the sky.

Had there ever been one?

Was this some form of spiritual experience or just the imagination of a child, and is there a difference? 

 
Where the Buddha Meets the Road
 by Kiley Jon Clark

 

For some reason, at the homeless facility, a lot of people can’t seem to remember my name. Most folks around here just call me ‘Buddha.’ I think it is because, three times a week they hear over the intercom system, ‘Buddhist Mediation in the Chapel’, and then see me walking that way to lead the group and also, many are involved in the group or have attended before.

I work here full-time teaching Job Skills and Workforce Readiness. I teach the Custodial Trade, and help the homeless find work in this field. So, it’s just natural when someone walks into a restroom that I am cleaning, to see me and say, “Oh, hey, what’s up, Buddha?”

Being identified with the ‘Enlightened One,’ teaching meditation, and working full-time as a Job Skills Coach carries with it some responsibility.

But I have devised a way to make everything I do here, as part of my practice. And it has spilled over into my Custodial Training Program with the homeless folks.

When we wipe something down with a sponge or cloth, we think of ‘Generosity.’ We are reminded to not just wipe down the seat of the chair, but the backs, sides, legs, and underneath of the chair also. We are using each chair to practice being generous with our attention. And try to do this with smiles, kindness, helpfulness, and hospitality.

When we dust, whether high, low, or normal dusting, we are reminded of right effort. Others may never notice dust on the top of a florescent light fixture, but we know it’s there. So, we must use right effort to go get a ladder and clean it. And we are not ashamed to get down on our knees for low dusting, cleaning the pipes under sinks or baseboards. When we show right effort toward all the little things in life, they rarely become big things. Much like it is much easier to eat right daily then trying to lose a bunch of weight at the end of the year.

‘Policing’ is when you walk around an area looking for leaks, spills, and trash. It takes patience. How many know that picking up cigarette butts in the same flower bed day after day will teach you patience or you’ll lose your mind?

Taking out the trash is a very common custodial activity. Sometimes it’s easy to tell yourself, “I’m not going to worry about the trash in those offices. I’ll just grab them tomorrow.” But if we realize that we are also practicing right action, the trash will never pile up and stink up the place.

Believe it or not, sweeping and mopping is very relaxing. It’s very much about simplicity in movement. There is no running back into the past where your mistakes are or running into the future where your worries and fears are.

Mopping and sweeping is just about being mindful of this present moment, without stressing about anything. As they say in Zen, ‘When mopping, just mop. When sweeping, just sweep.’

Then there is the ever-needed vacuuming. Some folks love it, some folks hate it. For me, I love it. The vibration and hum of the machine feels like music going through my body. The smooth, back and forth movements are like flinging your dance partner out and pulling her back. And it makes me grateful to be alive.

One thing, that most people dislike, is cleaning windows. And there are so many of them in this place. What I try to do while cleaning, is to think about the word ‘Truthfulness.’ And I like to analyze if my life is as transparent as I want the windows to become. I guess you can say that I’m cleaning my own mind with questions such as, “Am I being truthful with myself, my family, and others? Am I living in truth, accepting the world exactly the way it is, or am I adding my own spin on things?”          

Buffing and Waxing the floors takes place almost every day around here. You can work all day on a floor, just to see it, the next day, get trampled, spilled on, scratched, and ruined in a matter of hours.

So, to stay on top of this job, it takes dedication, but also non-attachment. How wonderful life would be, if we viewed everything this way. If we showed complete dedication to our families, careers, spiritual practice, homes, friends, things and everything else that comes into our lives. But at the same time, we were totally non-attached to the outcome or result of our actions.

One of my favorite Buddhist Scriptures is, “Before straightening the crooked, first do the harder thing, straighten yourself.” So, I don’t know if all this Tantric Housekeeping is helping anyone else out at work, but it sure helps me get through the day.

When asked what our Custodial Training Program was all about, one of my guys said, “Oh, well, it’s just kind of cleaning toilets all day with Buddha.” Maybe that means something, or maybe it doesn’t…but it makes me smile either way. 

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

by Kiley Jon Clark

 

Since beginning my effort of building loving, supportive Sanghas within Homeless Communities, I have been relatively successful.

The folks on the street have accepted me and have been open to integrating meditation into their lives. We rather quickly went from doing our practice in parks, alleys, and under bridges, into two beautiful downtown Chapels.

I was asked in 2011, to go to India and speak before H.H. the Dalai Lama about Homelessness in America, saw the actual spot where Buddha preached his very first sermon after walking two hundred miles to deliver it to five homeless guys, and was able to touch the Ashoka Pillar in Sarnath.

We spent a month in Ngondro Shedra Training with my Lama, Tulku Tsori Rinpoche, at his Children’s Monastary in the mountains of Mainpat, India. And after five years of studying, training, and asking; I was finally given Ngakpa Ordination.

Upon my return to the States, I was greeted by the news that one of my articles would be published by BudddhaDharma magazine in the summer issue. This article has raised awareness about our work within the homeless community and generated many kind emails from around the world. Which has encouraged me to work on a manuscript called, The Street Dharma Manual and turn out a string of articles called, “Where the Buddha Meets the Road,” which I assume, if you are reading this, someone has been crazy enough to publish.

On top of all this, I’m with the love of my life, and all our kids seem to be doing fine under one roof. I’m gainfully employed at a homeless facility.  And I’m watching the HMP Street Dharma groups and the iBow Fellowship grow organically, even though, it’s obvious to me and everyone else that I have no idea what I’m doing.

So even though I have met with so much good fortune as an organizer, teacher, and father; I’m still very much stuck with me. And I find myself caught up in heated discussions with misinformed Christians that don’t understand our work with the homeless. I angrily defend myself against misinformed Buddhists that don’t understand, either. I’m pissed off when folks don’t answer my emails or at least not in the way that I think they should. And many times I’ve been accused of being more compassionate with the homeless than with my own family.

Other times, I lose track of my purpose and act like a self-promoting, self-serving, egotistical asshole. All of this from a guy who practices some form of meditation daily, listens to the Dhammapada on CD so much that I know it by rote, reads at least two Buddhist books a month, and gives two to three Dharma talks a week.    

And this brings me to Charley, my thirteen year old daughter. She is the one who got all the curly, blonde hair when mine fell out. Charley is the type of girl who, when I said, “The way you act, Charley, you must have been some kind of Princess in a past life.” She said, “What do you mean, past life? I’m a Princess now!”

Often, Charley sees me getting upset about the dishwasher not being unloaded, the sink being full of dirty dishes, and running around screaming at the kids to get the house cleaned up. She knows that I’m just trying to get supper on the stove, get them fed so I can get to my ‘precious’ emails. So, Charley likes to stop me in my tracks by saying, “Calm down, Dad. Don’t get all butt hurt!” 

Now, I have no idea what ‘Butt Hurt’ means, nor do I care. But there are three distinct things about it. Number one, it’s funny. Number two, whatever it is, I don’t want to be that. And three, there is no good defense against it. Believe me, I have made myself look ridiculous arguing for hours on ‘how’ and ‘why’ I am not ‘Butt Hurt.’

So, here I am, a Ngakpa Monk, a student of a Great Lama, student of Buddhism, and outreach organizer, and the best antidote to my manic behavior and temper tantrums come from a thirteen year old girl.

And now, it’s become such a part of my vocabulary, that it’s almost my mantra. I find myself even adding it to the Dhammapada, such as, “Look how he abused me and beat me, (but don’t get all Butt Hurt), how he threw me down and robbed me. (but don’t get all Butt Hurt).  And, “Look at your own faults, what you have done and left undone.” (but don’t get all Butt Hurt).

When I am projecting that another Buddhist teacher isn’t returning my emails because, ‘He’s got a problem with me’ or I’m stuck on the side of the road with a clutch that’s gone out or even when I find out that my daughter is pregnant at sixteen, I may not recall one word from the Buddha’s teachings, my Lama’s training, or my practice, but I do have this nagging reminder floating around in my head saying, “To avoid embarrassment, it might be a good thing, to not Get All Butt Hurt!” 

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

by Kiley Jon Clark

 

Maybe it was my American Puritan upbringing, but I’ve got a problem with judging people. I don’t do this much with ordinary folk, but mostly spiritual leaders. When I hear of one stumbling into ‘misappropriation of funds’ or ‘sex with students,’ I think, “Oh my God, how could they do such a thing?” And I get so upset; it’s almost like shooting a mental finger at them.

And you know what Buddha said about that, ‘When shooting the bad finger at others, it leaves three fingers pointing back at you.’ OK, so, Buddha didn’t say that. But he said other things similar, such as, “Counting another man’s faults, only doubles you own” and “Look upon your own faults, what you have done and left undone”.

When I hear about Buddhist leaders tangled up in ‘sordid affairs’, suddenly I start feeling all let down and holier than thou. This is strange because, when I met my Soul Mate, she was a married woman. (gasp-breathe-read on.)

I was divorced from a woman, who I had cheated on many times, and my Soul Mate had one foot out the door of her marriage. We met at the city swimming pool, where I had taken the kids for some fun in the sun.

During this time in my life, I’m sure it was the few beers and pain pills that gave me the courage to strike up a conversation with her. I say this, because one, I drank and popped pain pills almost every day back then and two, she remembers this day with way more clarity than I do.

Diane and I would meet again years later after my sobriety. And she says, that she had ‘fallen’ for me during that very first meeting. Truth be told, she knew my brother, and had kept track of my life through him. (Some people call these folks, Stalkers. Lol.)

So, although I realize the trouble and pain that our relationship caused others for a time, it did turn out well. But I do not recommend this type of behavior to anyone. But, if I was in a relationship with a married woman who would later leave her husband for me, how dare I even lift an eyebrow over rumored infidelities in some spiritual leader who I don’t even know?

If they are all adults, and choose to close out a mediation retreat with an orgy, booze, and tabs of acid, what the hell business is it of mine? There are innumerable stories of spiritual leaders throughout history that have done and lived lifestyles that don’t jive with our ideas of morality, but seem to have been right on target with their work and teachings. I don’t understand this. But then again, I don’t have to.

If you ask me, I should worry about my own life and practice. I have vowed to take on the training practice of no intoxicants, no sexual misconduct and the others and choose to follow spiritual guides that have done the same.

 I am no one to judge. When some starry eyed, college girl calls me up and tells me that she is writing a paper about Buddhist Outreach and wants to interview me, and then I’m in my closet thinking, ‘Hmm, which pair of these jeans makes me look better?’, then I am already in error. 

Where the Buddha Meets the Road

 

by Kiley Jon Clark

 

I wish you could hear him, my lama, eyes welled up with tears, arms wide embracing the World, telling us about how everyone, everywhere, are all beautiful ‘Mother Beings.’ Beings who have loved us and nurtured us throughout innumerable lifetimes.

To hear Lama Tulku Tsori Rinpoche tell it, not only sentient beings, but everything in the universe, whether plant, animal, mineral, seen or unseen, all of creation are ‘Mother Beings’ whom we should serve, revere, and bless with infinite kindness. Even with this, we will never be able to repay even a small portion of the sacrifices and miseries they have endured in countless lifetimes raising and protecting us from harm.

Rinpoche says when he was a young monk, his teacher made him meditate on being pregnant himself, so he could appreciate what a woman goes through to give birth. But, being such a hard working and diligent student, his teacher would often find him knocking on the door and crying about this at night. And his Root Lama, being disturbed from his sleep, finally took him off this visualization because when he would ask Rinpoche why he was crying, Tulku would say, “ I can’t sleep, the baby is kicking too much!”

There is no doubt in my mind that my Perfect Teacher sees all beings as his mother and perhaps the entire Cosmos as the ‘Mother of all Buddhas.’ But, then there is me.

A guy who once, sitting on the couch with my Lama discussing these things, pressed the ‘ignore’ button on my cell phone because my mom was calling and interrupting our nice visit. I can still remember the look on his face when I said, “It’s just my mom, she’ll call back later, now, tell me more about these ‘Mother-Beings’.”

The thing about it is I am good at seeing the homeless folks that I work with as my previous mothers, and I’m getting better at seeing the people who cut me off in traffic as my previous mothers, and I’m working really hard to stop calling anybody who disagrees with me a ‘Mother!’

But when it comes to my own real mother, a woman who has never done me any harm or said anything deeper to me than, “You want a sandwich?” or “You want some cake?”, she is the very one that I can’t seem to muster up compassion for. It’s not that she hasn’t been a very caring mother; it’s just that, I don’t know her and can’t seem to know her. She had a very abusive childhood, married young to an alcoholic; and she has been full of anxiety, overcome with fear, and doom ridden ever since.

She is the kind of person that never stops moving. Even with Parkinson’s disease and poor health, when she can’t walk, she stands in one spot swaying back and forth, nervously. Mom seems on the verge of panic at all times, and I’ve fantasized about sneaking up behind her and saying, ‘Boo!’ But then I realize that it would require much effort to get her off the ceiling.

So, I am more than happy to let everyone be my ‘Mother-Being’, but I must view them as I do my own mother. All these beings are panicked, confused, worried, troubled, in decline, and like it or not, in need of my help.

Whether I cuss the whole way there, or not, I do go fix my mom’s DVD Player every time she calls. And I do eat her sandwich and cake, and make small talk.  I do whatever is asked of me, again and again. There is no choice. This woman is my mother, I am her son. It’s not a “maybe, maybe not” decision, it just goes without saying, I come when she calls and do what needs to be done.

So, here I am surrounded by ‘Mothers’, all sometimes, a pain in my ass. But not helping is not an option.

I’m getting closer, Lama, don’t give up on me. 

'Welcoming the Homeless' Article:  
    
Click Here 

Buddha under the bridge

The homeless dig Kiley Jon Clark’s Buddhist “Street Dharma.” But is he for real?

By Enrique Lopetegui
candombe108@yahoo.com

I don’t remember being scared, but maybe he sees panic on my face.

“Don’t worry, man,” Kiley Jon Clark, a.k.a. Sonom Gyatso, tells me as we approach the West Commerce bridge. “When you come here, [the homeless] treat you with both respect and distrust. They don’t know if you’re a cop, or immigration, or a weirdo. Like any community, there’s violence in their peer group, because there are different ranks. But very rarely there’s any violence outside their peer group.”

Clark is the head of the Homeless Meditation Practitioners Street Dharma project, an independent ministry blessed by his guru, Lama Tulku Karma Rinpoche, founder of the Yogi Tsoru Dechen Rinpoche Foundation. Since January, Clark has come to the bridge twice a week to meditate on the sidewalk, sitting a few feet away from the entrance to the SAMMinistries Shelter, where he used to work part-time last fall.

As we walk by, several people greet him in a friendly manner.

“What’s up, man?” Clark asks one of them. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Ready for some meditation?”

“Yeah … I’ll stop by in a little bit.”

He does, as do dozens who, at different times, approach Clark after he spreads out a Tibetan cloth on the sidewalk at the dirtiest, most populated spot. He places a little Buddha, incense, books, and sets of big and small 108 mala beads strung together. As the smell of incense fills the block, he hits on a Tibetan chime, and begins his prayers.



“OM MANI PADME HUM … OM MANI PADME HUM,” he chants. Depending whom you ask, the popular Tibetan mantra means different things. The Dalai Lama once said that it means that it helps you “transform your impure body, speech, and mind into the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha.”

“I’m not trying to convert anybody to Buddhism or anything like that,” Clark says. “I come down here and do my own meditation and prayers for all sentient beings. What I find is that people come to me and ask me about Buddhism, and some of them want to learn different meditation techniques just to improve the quality of their own thought life. If they’re Christian, I tell them the truth: That I have a deep respect for Jesus. If they’re not into Buddhism, that’s fine. I tell them to stay a Christian, or a Muslim, or whatever they are or aren’t. And I very rarely get treated mean or aggressive.”

Clark and the homeless hit it off pretty well. He speaks in a soft, unintimidating voice, and whatever he does — the prayers, the incense and especially the regular utterance of “FREE beads” — act like a magnet. Some sit by his side and observe. Others try to join in the chanting. One man tells Clark about his years of self-medicating, and Clark can relate to that.



“I know what you’re talking about, brother,” Clark says. “I was self-medicating too, with alcohol, and you self-medicate when you’re sick, don’t you? So why was I sick? The more I started meditating, the more I realized that it was my own thoughts that were driving me crazy. The only thing that would quiet my mind was alcohol or a joint.”

“Yeah, man … I can’t sleep now,” says the man. “When I quit drinking I didn’t sleep like for four days, I had insomnia. I’d hear shit outside and I’d freak out.”

“Yeah, I went through that,” says Clark. Several observers talk in unison, seeing themselves in the story. The man gets up, thanks Clark for the beads, and leaves.
A woman carrying a stuffed toy elephant shows up.

“What are you carrying there?” Clark asks.

“He says he wants a necklace,” says the woman.

“I’m going to give you one of the small ones,” says Clark, who holds the beads between his hands and begins blessing them.

“Here you go, buddy,” he says, placing the beads around the elephant’s neck. “This will bring you good luck. Now you’re a Buddhist elephant.”

“Are you a Christian?” Clark asks a curious woman.

“All religions,” she says.

“This is like a rosary, you pray on it,” Clark says. “Whatever religion you are, you pray. We pray for the end of everyone’s suffering.”

She takes the beads, thanks him, and leaves.

A younger man, who appeared to be dealing at the curb, stops by to check things out.
“Would you like some beads?” Clark asks.

“No, man … I don’t believe in that stuff,” says the man.

“I’m just praying to find happiness and the end of suffering for everyone,” Clark explains. “Whether it helps the world or not, it helps me immensely. Does that make sense?”

“It makes sense, my brother,” the man says, finally accepting the beads. “Thank you very much.”

Some walk by Clark, either ignoring him, saying “Hell no!” or politely refusing to stop. But the vast majority of the homeless show respect and act as if they know Clark is not there to screw them.

“His presence here is very important,” says a man wearing a SAMMinistries badge with “John” written on it. “I believe all religions are the same. They might express it differently, but basically they mean the same. And peace is what we all need. Some people do it with a handshake, some do it with a smile. It’s very important that we care for each other.”

And Clark cares about the homeless, but it wasn’t always that way. For years, all he cared about was alcohol.

“In my previous life,” he says, “I grew up in an alcoholic home and I myself was breaking the law and went to jail for several alcohol-related offenses. You know, public intoxication, DWI, stuff like that. ”

Clark got married in 1994, and had three daughters. After separating from his wife in 2005, while going through the divorce he came across a book on Zen Buddhism at a used bookstore. He began studying it and was so hooked that he wrote the previous owner thanking him for the book.

“Within three days he wrote me back and invited me to the [Shambala Meditation Center] on St. Mary’s,” Clark says. “I would show up and he wouldn’t be there, or he would show up and I wouldn’t be there.”

One day, a girl at the center asked him to come to the airport with her “to pick up a teacher.”

“We’re standing there at the airport, talking, and all of a sudden this Tibetan monk comes in all his robes and mala beads,” Clark remembers, as we leave the West Commerce bridge. “It was Lama Tulku [Karma Rinpoche], the man in the books. I was like, ‘Oh, my God…!’ He was like the incarnation of peace and serenity.”

Lama Tulku, born in Nepal in 1974, belongs to the Nyingma school of Buddhism, founded in the eighth century by the Indian tantric master Padmasambhava, and is the oldest of the four main lines of Buddhism. As a child, he was recognized by the order as the incarnation of Yogi Tsoru Dechen Rinpoche of Chamdho, Tibet, and he now runs an orphanage in India, while leading the YTDR Foundation and dharma centers in seven cities around the world.

After receiving instruction from Lama Tulku for a year, Clark took formal initiation — “refuge vows,” meaning that the Lama formally accepted him as a disciple —  in January 2007, and received his spiritual name, Sonom Gyatso, which means “Ocean of Merit.”

After giving up alcohol and working as a welder, Clark started driving a donation truck for SAMMinistries five days a week, and on Saturdays he would volunteer his own time leading a meditation group in the shelter. And then came the chair incident.

Clark refuses to say anything bad about his former employers (“Going to work for SAMMinistries was the best thing that could have happened to me,” he says), but he wrote about the incident in his blog.

On December 26, 2009, while teaching a group at the shelter, “the guy I was talking to was [bad mouthing] the staff and the shelter.”

So after five minutes of meditation, Clark “rose straight up, turned around, and threw my chair across the room.” The group froze.

"If they would give us comfortable chairs around here, then maybe we could meditate better!” Clark shouted. “If they would feed us decent food maybe we would feel better! If everybody in this room would shut up once in a while, maybe we could concentrate!"
Clark says that, after the initial shock, the group got the message and started laughing.

"See, isn't that how our minds work?” he recalled telling them. “How easily our emotions drag us around? We are so busy trying to fix or blame the outside world for our problems ... and never get down to the real issue … which is fixing ourselves."

Apparently, someone at the shelter didn’t find the incident funny nor educational, and days later Clark was let go. (At the shelter’s office, after asking me “What’s your bed number?” a woman named Norissa told me she had no comment and gave me the number for the main office. At press time, SAMMinistries CEO Navarra Williams hadn’t returned our call.)

So last January Clark took his dharma to the streets. Commerce Street, to be exact, a few feet from his former employer’s door, and every Thursday at the Floresville apartment he shares with Diane Superits Meier, his second wife, his two older daughters, and her two younger sons. He and Diane have been together since January 2008.

“When you’re 22, you don’t know what love really is,” Clark says. “I do now, and I have found it with her.”

The apartment’s walls are decorated with Buddhist scrolls passed on to Clark by Lama Tulku, and the center of the living room is an altar that, he hopes, will attract like-minded souls in order to develop a full-fledged dharma center. The temporary home center is already officially listed in the YTDR website (the other Texas center is in Lubbock).

“I know, Floresville isn’t the best place in the world for a Buddhist,” he says. “But my teacher has empowered me to open a meditation center and to do this with the homeless. I just have to have faith and, if my motivation is pure, one way or the other the money will find me to keep this ministry going.”

For the time being, Clark’s also running an online spiritual bookstore, where he sells donated books about different religions.

“Buddhist, Christian, Hindu … Anything spiritual,” he says. “If it’s spiritual and it’s going to improve the quality of your life, I’ll sell it. I’m trying to share spiritual knowledge with people, regardless of what religion it is. As long as it’s good and beneficial, I will share it.”

Kiley Jon Clark is not a monk, and he doesn’t pretend to be one. When he and Diane chant the Tibetan prayers together they have trouble properly pronouncing the words, and then decide to say them in English. But Buddhism and all bona-fide Eastern spirituality, unlike Western philosophy, is not about knowledge but transformation. That very unpretentiousness and humanity in Clark, unlike the so-called utmost purity of countless religious leaders who eventually fall down bringing the spiritual life of their followers with them is, perhaps, what makes him click with the homeless. And it is what might help him realize his other dream: To bring other Buddhist groups together and spread the HMP gospel, as he has done individually in San Antonio.

“You got Tibetan, Zen, and other kind of Buddhist groups all over town, but they never talk to each other,” he says. “What I’m trying to do is put them together and say, hey, let’s invite all the Buddhist groups together, and I’ll come in and do a teaching on loving kindness and compassion. I’ll take them to the streets a few times, and show them how easy it is. It’s intimidating at first, but after a few times you’ll feel so good. The love bounces back on you.”

On March 16, Clark started working as a custodial trainer for Haven for Hope. He will be training groups of 10 ex-homeless people in custodial arts so that they can find employment in that field.

“To work here is the greatest opportunity of my life,” he wrote in an email. “I will clean a trillion toilets just to have the chance to smile at one person with true compassion.”
Like he did under the bridge.  I remember a Hispanic man carrying some suitcases in a rolling cart, who approached him speaking in broken English. He had been observing Clark for a while, and then he shyly approached him.

“My main problem is about the love, you know?” the man said. “When you love a girl, many troubles in family ... I don’t know why that happens. Can you pray for that?”

“Of course I can,” Clark told him. “Give me your hand.”



The man thanked Clark, took his luggage, and went to the corner. Standing by a light pole, he looked at the sun. He closed his eyes, and just stood there for several minutes, smiling.




For more information, visit HMPStreetDharma.org and ytdr.org.