Meet Henry Shukman, poet, author, and Zen master. We begin our conversation by exploring how Henry navigates his life, both inwardly and outwardly, with a deep commitment to mindfulness. Henry shares insights on being present in the world and how his various life paths often merge, guided by his body’s inclination towards creativity, especially poetry.
Starting from his early experiences, Henry recounts a story about a hobo named Speedy who taught him that a home isn’t just four walls; the whole world can be your home if you take time to be still every day. This lesson has profoundly influenced Henry’s approach to life and spirituality.
Henry explains how each person can find their way in the world and how meditation is about coming home to oneself, especially in moments of overwhelm—a feeling most of us can relate to. He reminds us that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to meditation and finding one’s deeper self. For those starting, Henry’s app, The Way, offers a guided introduction to meditation, making it accessible amidst the overwhelming number of options available. Yoga is another path he suggests, emphasizing the importance of connecting with your body.
Addressing the often-discouraging long path of spiritual growth, Henry shares the shifts he has experienced over the years and the journey he still sees ahead of him. It’s about the process, not the end goal. He discusses this in his book, “Original Love.” Henry also opens up about his concussion and difficult recovery, which helped him realize he was experiencing the world with more “heartfulness,” turning his injury into a blessing. He explains why heartbreak, though dreaded by many, can be a valuable teacher.
We conclude our conversation with a discussion of Henry’s book, “Original Love,” which serves as a manifesto, map, and manual for spirituality in the twenty-first century. This essential guide replaces the concept of original sin with original love as the true foundation of life. We know you will leave this conversation feeling rejuvenated and maybe even inspired to begin your journey of meditation if you’ve been interested but hesitant to start.
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Original Love With Henry Shukman
Introduction
We’re excited to have you with us on this episode, Henry Shukman. Henry is a poet, an author, and a Zen master in the Sanbo Zen lineage. After a spontaneous spiritual awakening at the age of nineteen, he embarked on a long journey of healing and deeper awakening through meditation. Since then, he’s been leading a growing number of practitioners in Europe and the US.
He’s the spiritual director emeritus of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Henry has also created The Way, a new first-of-its-kind meditation app that offers a single long-term path into the deep end of meditation. Henry is also the author of several books, and one of his recent books is Original Love.
Henry, welcome. I speak for both Bonnie and I. We’re super excited that you’re here with us on this episode and we both have taken a little time to reflect, enter the space, and think, “What do we want to learn today with Henry?” The first question that I want to offer is, you’re a poet, you’re a Zen master, you’re an author. The question that comes to me is how is it to be in the world this way?
That’s the heart of the matter. I would say, as any creative person, there’s sometimes like tapping deeper into the well, connecting with a deeper aspect of life. I want to say thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you. It’s special and precious to me. I’m happy that you’ve invited me on. There are times when I’m more reflective and sitting more deeply.
Just gather new regeneration things and then times when I’m much busier and outward facing like many. I think the possibilities that come with any deep practice of whatever kind, like any commitment to being more aware as we go through life, which certainly, in my case, is a work in progress. That title, Zen Master, makes me very uneasy because I’m not a master of it at all.
It was something bestowed on me by a teacher. I feel I’m a student of life and I see how far I fall short of my own ideas of what a great practitioner or something would be like. I’m not there at all. I do hope to live, breathe, and exist with more awareness. Being more aware that this moment is the only thing we have.
Of course, we can plan and we must plan. We have some sense of a compass heading, perhaps whatever or several maybe, but even those orientations are also happening now. It seems to me it’s always about how aware I can be. As a poet, that includes catching the hints that there’s some creative turn asking to be made.
There’s somehow some subtle signal that usually in the body is saying, “Wait a minute, there’s something here that’s wanting to express itself. Am I willing to open to that and to give it time and space to say what it wants to say?” It’s a commitment, as supposed to, “I don’t know.” It’s living more richly. It started when I was a teenager, at age 13 or 14, I met this guy who was a hobo. This is in the UK, where they didn’t use that terminology. There was what used to be called a tramp. Somebody who lived not indoors. For most of his life, he was without a permanent home. He had a couple of dogs. He was skillful at living in the countryside, catching fish, smoking fish, and catching rabbits or whatever he could get by.
The fact that he didn’t live in a permanent home, but somehow, he was a happy guy. The world was his home. That blew me away when I first met him. I thought, this guy has got a relationship with the world that I didn’t know was possible, that it’s his home. The world, the natural world, is his home. That for me was, “I want to feel that I belong to the world and that I belong in the world.”
That became a guiding light for me. He was called Speedy, but he moves slowly. He only ever walked. Every day, he would do what he called, stopping still. He takes time to be still every day. He said, “People run around like a lot of chickens with their heads cut off because they don’t know how to stop still. For him, be still and come back. Come back to being here. Come back to know that you’re part of this world. I aspire to that. I’m still on the path.
Finding One’s Way In Meditation
I had a question about some of the things I’ve read where you’ve talked about each person having no one way for doing meditation. Each person finds their way. Listening to you now, this Speedy has his way and poetry is maybe a way. I want to hear from you what you think about that.
I think of meditation. I’m not saying this is the right way to think about it, but I think it’s more like a context that offers an opportunity for different kinds of homecoming. That could be on a lot of different levels. Sometimes, I get busy and sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed, and then when I sit, it’s about coming home to the fact that I’m a bit overwhelmed and being able to pull that out because that’s what I need in that moment.
If I had some prescription, like what meditation should be, it might encourage me to overlook what I need now. I think there’s some risk in that. I also think that all of us have all the infinite possibilities of meditation and I think they are infinite. Discoveries about human consciousness and human nature, and discoveries about who we individually are. What our deeper growth project might be in this life and the ways we want to serve and help.
I don’t think there should be an outside prescription for that process. If people want that, it’s more like there can be minor prescriptions about setting up a context. It helps. For some, it’s how you align your body. That can be important. For others, don’t align your body, be relaxed. Lean back on a couch and lie down. Maybe that’s the best position for you, but it’s about helping us come home to ourselves.
There can indeed be discoveries about ourselves. What we are, what our awareness is, and is it limited to the skull or does it go beyond the skull, and how connected are we intrinsically to the world around us? There can be discoveries of that nature, but meditation is a prime laboratory for that, but only if it’s our own way.
It’s all about this body, this mind, and this heart in this moment. That’s how I feel about it. It should ideally be a support, whatever helpful support is wanted by a particular person. For them to be more at home in themselves and more at home in the world and then, from that basis, maybe behavior is changed in certain ways.
Henry, I know you spoke about how to be at home in your own body and feel your body in this moment. How does one start or engage with finding their own way? How do you even build a context for it? Especially some people might want to engage in a more meditative process. I know you also have some tools. You can feel free to speak about that, but wonder.
I think for somebody starting today, as opposed to 35 years ago when I started on the path, it’s cool that there are apps that you can download on your phone. I’ve launched one recently with a small team, which is a guided introduction and beyond an introduction to meditation. We found that a lot of the apps have multiple courses. Some are hundreds of courses even, and it can be confusing.
Which one should I do? How do I know which one I should do? We decided to make a single pathway. You do this one, then this one, and then this one, but all of them, the principle is you’re coming home to you. Sometimes, you can try this method. Sometimes you can try this technique, and see if they work for you. Doesn’t matter if they don’t. There’s another one next day. That’ll be different.
You keep gradually step by step releasing. It’s a process of release. That’s one way. Personally, as a young man, yoga was important to me. Getting more connected with my own body and finding that sweet special pleasure that comes from moving my body in ways that feel good. I’m sure others would get it from dance and many other movement practices.
I think some kind of body engagement is, probably for many of us, helpful in establishing, should we call it a practice that supports awareness, something like that.
Some kind of body engagement is likely helpful for many of us in establishing a practice that supports awareness.
The Way App
I know, Bonnie, you want to jump here, but because you call this particular path, this one single path that you’re offering with the app, you call it The Way. I’m wondering, does The Way mean that it’s coming to you in the way that you would experience it in your own body or is it a particular path that you’re suggesting?
The principle of it is helping whoever’s using it to come home to themselves and to let go in different kinds of ways. A little letting go of the thread of thought, for example, so that we become more aware. Yes, thoughts are arising and we can let them do that. It’s okay to let them be, and we can be a little less engaged with them.
That little bit of letting go from being involved in the stream of thought. For example, that brings a kind of peace that has a slightly different quality of awareness with it. It’s cool that for people who are overwhelmed by decision fatigue when they try to go to an app, there are many choices for meditation. This is a bit more like Duolingo for language.
Here’s one pathway and it will meander through different valleys and over different hills. You don’t have to figure out what to do. The intention is to help any user have a bit of space in their day, where a little bit of awareness that isn’t attached to projects and relationships and the thinking process can grow. It is like it fertilizes awareness and helps it grow in someone’s life. Of course, even that’s not quite right because it’s already here. It’s more us learning to tap into it a bit more.
One of the things that has struck me about this long path you’re describing that meanders through valleys, hills, and some other things I’ve gathered from you. I think you even say in the app that it’s about a long path. There’s something else I’ve read about you that you went on a long journey after your spiritual awakening at age 19.
I want to talk for a minute about the long journey because I know the tradition I come from. It’s a long journey and it’s a long time before you ever get to even think about passing some teachings on to others and many years of study. It seems in today’s world, this is old-fashioned because many people want things, immediately and rapidly, but it’s that long path that’s very critical. I find deep inner development and I want to hear from you how you think about that and how you put that out into the world when it may seem old-fashioned these days.
I agree with you. I think it is a slow ripening process. I don’t say that thinking that I have ripened. I can see, that things have shifted for me quite significantly over the years, but there’s still a long path ahead. I would love people to feel that it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing that it’s slow. It’s a good thing that it’s long. It’s a good thing that is never-ending.
We’ll shuffle off this mortal coil unfinished. There is a saying, “You won’t die with an empty inbox.” That’s not what it’s about. It’s about the process. I love the fact that there are ways in which we can grow as a human being. All kinds of stuff will happen as well. It’s not like we’re sitting on a hydroponic shelf somewhere with a light bulb shining on us or something.
We’re in the midst of life and events will happen that throw us a loop and somehow, our heart needs to expand to include whatever heartbreak they may bring and it can. We can keep growing. I think maybe the important this is that, somehow, we stay open to growth and learning. That’s something that I’m trying to encourage in people who use the app. I’ve got a new book out, which is on this same type of journey called Original Love.
Original Love
That was what I wanted to ask a little bit, Henry, but you spoke about this opening of the heart. I don’t know how this connects with the book. Maybe there’s a thread to the story, but I know you had a concussion. You fell off the bike in 2020. I remember in our conversation last time, you said something about how much this came as a gift to you because that opened up more your heart. I’m curious. Can you say more about that? Maybe there is a way to connect it to the book or maybe the book came as part of it. I don’t know. Maybe there’s a story there.
Yes, I think it was a process that was happening anyway, where I was teaching more and more from the heart without recognizing it. Then, when this concussion happened, it developed into what they call Post-Concussion Syndrome. I’m not even sure if I’m completely out of it now, but I’ve been functional throughout it but in much more limited timeframes.
What happened was that I realized somehow, I was experiencing the world with much more heartfulness. I think that’s because my cognitive powers, whatever they had previously been, were diminished. I couldn’t go there as much. It feels like a great blessing because to live in the heart is another thing that I aspire to.
It became easier after that accident. It coincided also with COVID and the great difficulties that many people had with COVID. I’d been running an in-person meditation center for ten years at that point. Suddenly, we had to close and do everything online. I’d done some online teaching before, but it wasn’t the central plank and it became wonderful because we would have these gatherings and people were grateful to come.
It was a far larger gathering. We had thousands of people joining us from around the world. I had to change from how I’d previously taught in person to what I can offer when it’s larger gatherings, less one-on-one, and have it been meaningful for people facing challenges. They’re receiving it in the middle of their home. Not traveling and leaving work, family, and life to go to this sequestered place for a week, a month, or something for a retreat.
It’s in the kitchen and I felt that’s the place for it. That’s where this is supposed to happen anyway in our lives. I’ve felt like I can share my heart as much as I’m able to. We invite lots of great guest teachers who have some heartfulness in their teaching to allow people to sense that in themselves more and be affirmed by that. That does change how we all experience life.
There’s gratitude, there’s love, there’s compassion, there’s cherishing, and appreciation. There’s more room for heartbreak, which is, as somebody who’s had heartbreak, it’s a good thing because it means that we understand suffering more deeply. We don’t go into adaptive modes easily, or readily. We can stay true to ourselves more. That’s the intention, anyway.
Somehow helps us break the habit, get out of those habits that keep us, we hear leaders often say, out of our comfort zone. Get out of my comfort, or break those habits. This space of heartfulness or being this way, is that what you mean by original love, which is the title of your book? The message? Can you say more about what original love is?
It came out of two things. One was like the doctrine of original sin has always seemed to me as problematic. I’m not a Christian and I’m not a Judeo-Christian. I’m not on a theistic model myself. I don’t know the ins and outs of it and I can’t speak to it with any significant knowledge. I think that there’s an epidemic of unworthiness in our culture, and it’s been around for a long time of feeling judged, unworthy, blameworthy, and shameful.
I hear it a lot from students. On the other hand, I feel quite convinced that we’re all pre-installed with innate goodness. We are evolutionarily wired to care and to share. There’s research that equity, compassion, and care are deeply wired into our nervous systems and can come quite naturally to us. Of course, on the other hand, unfortunately, we do have wiring also for divisiveness, tribal opposition, and aggression. That seems to be part of our evolutionary inheritance as well.
There’s a place where we can see that it may never be that useful. There may always be better ways to work things out. That’s another question. We know that there are ways to encourage the former and discourage the latter. The practice I’m trying to share would be trying to encourage the former. I think that when we find this sweet awareness that’s always ready, it’s to be more aware of now. One of its qualities that will sometimes taste is that it is loving.
In the book, I map out different ways that a sense of its love, of an intrinsic love, can show up. Based on some of the experiences that I’ve had. I know it’s my experience, but I believe that there may be an unconditional love that’s in the fabric of existence. Somehow that anything’s existing at all has a quality of infinite generosity.
In your book, Henry, when you talk a little bit about the idea of original love, this is from Yogananda. You stated in the book, that when thinking about it as a projector. The movie gets projected and then you follow the thread of the projector as it’s beaming out and you’re returning to that. I thought that was such an interesting way to connect. One morning, I kept thinking, “Where am I going?” “Where is the original love beaming in my being?” It was such a great image to be in it. I wonder, is The Way potentially one way, or finding our own way is the way to find ourselves to original love. Is that what you’re saying?
Yes, it is, I think. It aspires to be that. I think we can find some flavor of that “Original love,” in many ways. I find that in meditation, anytime I accept. I’ve been caught up in thinking or there’s a difficult feeling arising, that that shift from being caught in it and maybe even wrestling with it or resisting it to accepting it, saying, “Yes, you can be here too.”
That little micro-shift, I don’t know if it’s me, but I don’t think it is. I find that there’s a flavor of some love or belovedness. Sometimes, that shows itself. It’s like a little drop of something sweet enters the heart at that moment. All of us can get that little hit. Maybe we often do, and I’m encouraging us to notice it more. They can go deeper.
There’s a flavor of some kind of love or lovingness that just shows itself like a little drop of something sweet entering the heart.
We plug into a sense of interconnectedness and recognize that we’re made of the same stuff as everything on this planet. We’re part of the biosphere. We don’t exist independently. We’re always in a web of complex systems. We’re part of many systems. We contain many systems. The kind of slightly softening our sense of, “I’m separate.” That can start to get a little looser, softer, and more porous. That’s nice when we get little hits of belonging more deeply. That’s something that I invite people to explore if they’d like to.
I can sense the Zen, the poet, and the author in you by being in this conversation. Bonnie, anything comes up for you?
The whole time I’m listening to you, Henry, talking about homecoming and how you’re speaking to all of this, the projector. There’s a very old saying, “If your heart runs, return to the place.” It was my tradition and the word for place, “Makom,” is also a word for the divine. When we’re finally here and we’re here, and then we’re here. We do connect to that original love and that source space.
That’s beautiful. That reminds me of Rumi. He says, “Come back, come back. Wonderer, worshipper, and lover of leaving. Come back. No matter how many times you’ve broken your vows, come back. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come back, come back, come back.”
That’s beautiful.
Henry’s Upcoming Retreat
Coming back, returning home. Henry, you are coming, this is literal, to this area in DC. I say this area, although Bonnie is in France, you’re in Santa Fe now, but the university or let’s say the home of this show, is in here in the DC area. You’re coming for a retreat? What are you doing? Can you say something about what’s coming up and what you’re doing because people might be interested in learning more from you and your work?
Thank you, yes. On October 4 to 6, 2024, that’s a weekend. We’ve got a retreat which is on Original Love. It’s a gathering to explore the things we’re talking about through guided meditation, poetry, and teachings from different sources and through tastes of silence. It’s for anybody. It’s not like a hardcore meditation retreat. I like doing it. It’s a little encouragement and a little nourishment. It’s 10:00 to 12:00 and 02:00 to 04:00, two blocks on Friday and Saturday. The morning, 10:00 to 12:00 on Sunday. People are welcome to come for any piece of it.
Request For A Poem
I love how you describe it and what you said earlier, I had to write it down because it was beautiful. You said, “To connect to that drop of sweetness.” This little retreat, it’s like a little drop of sweetness, if you want to call it in yourself and cultivate it. The nourishing, you use the word nourishing. Henry, we would love to hear maybe one of your poems. No poetry is big in your work and how you show up. Do you have one that you can share with us?
Yes, sure. Thanks. This is a poem that’s in the book, Original Love. It’s about a time, it’s not that long after my father died, a year on actually, when I had an encounter with a heron, with part of the natural world, and it stopped me in my tracks and caught me in a certain way. I’d love to share that. It’s called Yahrzeit, Heron. Yard site is a Jewish term for the anniversary of someone’s death, a year on.
As you get in the poem, I had forgotten that it was the yahrzeit of my father. This bird reminded me. Here it is, Yahrzeit heron. I have to say, there’s a word in it which is a weir, and I think in the US not everybody knows what that is. It’s a real British Islands thing. It’s a dam that water flows over, often next to a river or part of a river when they channel water off somewhere. It’s a very common thing in Britain and Ireland, a weir. That’s FYI.
“The young heron pauses in the middle of the weir to stare at me. It waits there so long on its single stilt, one webbed foot held aloft. The other planted in the pouring water, with not a feather stirring, the long neck, adjusting like a snake, for balance, and the hazel target of its eye, locked on mine. It waits there so long that time stands still. The elms sigh in a wind not made of air. The path under my feet softens like skin.”
“The river’s sound presses its cool hands over my ears. What is this pressure holding my head? Why am I remembering all of a sudden that today is the anniversary of your death and wondering where you’ve gone one year on or whether you’ve gone at all? Who is this bird fixing me with its eye stately as an Egyptian prince?”
“As if wearing time like a pair of wings, it has only to open to bring back all the years of your life. At last, it lowers its foot and moves on.” This is a poem that I hope evokes a moment of a deeper connection with the world around us. How something non-human or more than a human can engage us at a deeper level?”
Closing
It reminded me of Speedy, of how you thought of Speedy having that connection with the world. This is your way of connecting with the world. We all can find our moments of connection this way. In our own way. What a beautiful capture of the moment. The essence of it. Henry, we’re grateful to you for joining Bonnie and me. I wonder if there’s anything else you want to say in closing for now.
I want to say thank you to both of you. It’s been nice to join you and have this conversation. Thank you for your generosity with the questions. It’s been very nice to be asked to explore these things. I’m grateful for that and hearing your wisdom about your tradition, Bonnie, and great wealth of experiences.
It’s a sense both, as we’ve been talking. I could say that my book, Original Love, lays out a map and a path so you can explore some of these things in your own time in a somewhat systematic way. Some frames of understanding might help with the rather fragmented and multiplicitous world of meditation. It can be confusing to figure out what this is for or what are the possibilities.
I’ve started going more into the book and I think it’s a good pairing also with The Way, the app that you’ve put out. It’s good and that image of the mounting and the valleys is very effective from tasting it.
Thank you again, Henry. Thank you very much.
Thank you, too.
Important Links
- Henry Shukman
- Original Love
- The Way
- Henry Shukman – Instagram
- @henry.shukman – TikTok
- @ShukmanHenry – YouTube
About Henry Shukman
Henry Shukman is a poet, author, and Zen Master in the Sanbo Zen lineage. After a spontaneous spiritual awakening at the age of 19, he embarked on a long journey of healing and deeper awakening, through meditation. Since then he has been leading a growing number of practitioners in Europe and the US. He is the Spiritual Director Emeritus of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Henry has also created The Way, a new first-of-its-kind meditation app which offers a single, long-term path into the deep end of meditation.