Check out the program:
http://www.isec.org.uk/pages/learningfromladakh.html
[Ive]
Please answer the following questions:
1. Briefly describe yourself and your background (education, employment, significant life experiences, etc).
I was born to middle class Jewish parents in New York City, where I was raised. I attended Colgate University, with major studies in religious studies and in psychology. I spent one university semester studying in Israel and travelling in Egypt and Poland; my first experience in international travel and living. During these college years I worked summers at a camp for inner-city at-risk children. I was amazed at the powerful and mutually transformative relationships that I developed with these children. I began to become aware of my own sensitive heart.
When I was graduated from university in 1991, I pursued a career as a psychologist working with youth in trouble with the law. I completed my Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Alabama in 1998, specializing in the psychology of juvenile offending. As a New Yorker, living in a very different culture in Alabama for five years could be considered my second experience with international living! I also fell in love with someone in Alabama. After five years together, we married and relocated to Seattle, Washington, where I completed an internship and then a fellowship working with adults and children with severe mental illnesses. Unfortunately, my wife and I, struggled to navigate our relationship, and we decided to divorce after almost three years of marriage. This was a devastating occurrence, making me feel that the rug of my entire life – my plans, dreams, and visions of the future – had been pulled out from under me.
In this time of groundlessness, I was introduced to the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. To remain brief, I will simply say that I have been transformed by these teachings – cultivating deepening insight into the trap of ego, the inevitability of suffering, and the potential to help others from a space of genuine compassion. My most painful experience in life suddenly became an opportunity to meet myself honestly and to use what I learned about myself to help others also in pain. I spent the next seven years studying and practicing Tibetan Buddhism, developing a deep appreciation for its unique blend of nature-based shamanism and personal psychological growth.
For the last nine years I have been employed by the State of Washington as the Director of Juvenile Forensic Services. I run a clinic in which my colleagues and I conduct mental health evaluations of children and youth to help juvenile court judges make more just and, hopefully, therapeutic decisions. I am also a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Washington where, among other responsibilities, I coordinate a post-doctoral fellowship program in juvenile forensic psychology. I have published a number of scholarly research papers, presented at many conferences, and recently completed a book about the best methods for evaluating youth in juvenile court. Over the last few years, I have also been in an inter-faith relationship with an amazing woman of Coptic Orthodox Christian descent. This has further opened me to exploring people, their beliefs and ways, rather than settling on conventional wisdom (e.g., “the rigidity of Christian conservatives”). It is at this point in my life that I feel especially drawn to spending time with the people of Ladakh (more about that below!).
2. Describe any relevant experience that you bring to the Project. (Note: farming experience is NOT necessary for acceptance)
I have no real farming or gardening experience, so I am a true novice looking to benefit from what I can be taught during this experience. My girlfriend and I love the idea of farming on our land in the future, so this will be of real benefit to me. Among the characteristics that I think prepare me well for this experience are a sensitivity to and genuine curiosity about other cultures and other ways of living than my own. This has been cultivated both by my formal training as a psychologist and my past travel experiences. I also think that my understanding of and deep respect for the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism will help me to better engage with Ladakhi people, particularly in ways that help them appreciate the beauty of their cultural heritage.
3. In approximately 500 words, state your motivations for wishing to participate in 'Learning from Ladakh'. Please be as honest, open and thorough as you can.
I have strong desire to engage the Ladakhi people in a genuine way to experience all that their culture can teach me because I deeply believe that my own growth is contingent on truly engaging people rather than settling on what I “think” I know about them. Except for some concerns about the potential oppressive qualities of traditional hierarchies, I hold many stereotypes about Ladakhis that are probably extremely positive. My intrigue with Ladakh began with an early adolescent fascination with the Himalayas as a 60’s seeker/backpacker destination, deepened with my love for the Tibetan Buddhist culture that arose from my own spiritual explorations, and then flowered with the beauty described by Andrew Harvey in A Journey in Ladakh. I planned to travel to Ladakh several years ago, but somehow it never came to be.
This to say, I have been enamoured with the Himalayan culture and, especially, the Ladakhi culture for a long time. But as I appreciate from my experience with other cultures, reality is much more complex, and in that complexity, much richer and potentially nourishing of my own understanding of humanity and its condition. Sinking into different cultures has taught me how much I can grow from both the attractive and aversive things I see when I move beyond clichés, and genuinely encounter individual people. This happened profoundly during my university semester abroad, when I first encountered Poles, Egyptians, and, most especially, Palestinians, and realized a shared struggle and a shared humanity that dispelled the demonizing myths I had grown up with in my Jewish-American community. A true birds-eye compassion for the plight of the Middle East arose and has been an issue I have tried to educate others about in myriad ways. It happened again when I lived in Alabama and moved beyond experiencing stereotypical “backward Southerners” who “can’t let go of the U.S. Civil War,” and directly felt the pain and shame that has been passed down for generations to many Southerners. It has happened every time I have engaged people different from myself, living in foreign countries and right next door. Encounter is transformative.
I have particular attraction to engaging Ladakhis because their cultural roots are less harried, less aggressive, less greedy, less isolative, and less individualistic than the culture I grew up in. I travelled in Peru in 2001 and did overnight homestays with families in the Andes and the islands of Lake Titicaca. I was deeply struck by their joyful lightness, despite their lack of the material things that, by modern beliefs, is supposed to bring happiness. The people I stayed with worked hard in physical labor during the day – but when evening arrived, meals were shared with family and the subsequent hours were spent with neighbors, laughing and bantering about simple every day experiences. On weekends, homes were built or repaired for families by communities, not individuals or hired labor. I left Peru wanting a life more like theirs.
And, still, seven years later, I somehow found myself in the arduous process of writing a professional book in my free-time after my 9-to-5 work time. It required me to spend countless hours in front of a computer away from the friends and family I love. Despite my experience in Peru and the values cultivated by my Buddhist practice, my eyes were opened to the path I was nonetheless travelling – one of goal orientation and (when I am honest) seeking the ego-strokes of professional success, at least as much as the hope to benefit others. Faced with a critical choice I, along with my partner, decided it was time to step back from this path – to find new ways to engage this world that is so in need and to continue our personal evolutions so that we can spend our lives being as unselfishly helpful to others as possible. We decided to step out of American society and travel the world in 2009, volunteering our time and deeply engaging a variety of people living life differently than we have so that we can return to the U.S. transformed and precise in our intentions. I feel like the opportunity to spend time with the Ladakhi people is going to be a critical aspect of this hope.
4. Do you have any physical or health limitations that may affect your participation in the Project? If so, please describe. (Note: answering “yes” to this question does not disqualify you from participation.)
No, I am a healthy 38-year-old who exercises regularly. I have enjoyed mountain climbing for several years and feel comfortable in mountain environments.
