Where's Eko?

Where is eko little? Has anyone heard from him ever since he got kicked out of Shasta Abbey? Im curious

At last report, he was in Camden, Maine, pursuing a career in woodworking.

this thread show the recent discussion here, although I'm told his listing on the massagetherapy.com website has since been removed.

Update:
Mike Little is now living in Southern California attending a culinary school in vegan and vegetarian cuisine. From what I understand, he is living there on his own.

I attendend a continuing education seminar on mindfulness in Lexington Ky last year. The presenter ,who belonged to a sangha in St. Louis knew Eko. He said after Eko left Shasta, he changed his name to a Chinese name, which I can't remember, stayed at the monastery in St. Louis for awhile, and then went to China to study.

Hi Peggy, I think the presenter had someone else in mind. It was not Michael Little but a younger monk who now has a Chinese name and is studying in China. He used to be called Rev. Sheridan. He left the order and was reordained in the Chan tradition, and stayed at the monastery near St. Louis, Mid-America Buddhist Association, I think?

It would be nice to hear from him (Sheridan) sometime, hopefully he will post here at some point.

Lise, actually, he did use Michael Little's name when we were talking together, and used the name "EKO", and gave me the new name and the email address. The presenter didn't want to hear any of the Shasta Abbey goings- on about Mr. Little as he said he did not believe any of it. If the information I received from him is, in fact, true, it is an unfortunate circumstance that Eko can continue on in another Buddhist tradition as a monk with another name. I made a point to throw away the name and email address as this is a nasty business, but I wanted to share the info here due to the unfortunate recent history of Shasta Abbey, and this website seems to want to bring the "shadow" in the open.

Hmm, perhaps Michael Little has become a monk again and is in China, perhaps someone here knows? Peggy, I don't dispute that the lecturer related this story, I think he's mistaken & doesn't know who he is talking about. It would be an odd coincidence if two Shasta monks left the OBC, took Chinese names and went to China. It's not speculation that the younger monk, Rev. Sheridan Running, did this. He's been in frequent public communication with many current Shasta sangha members, and he is on China, on an intensive retreat, I'm told.

Michael Little did not take up residence at MABA after leaving Shasta Abbey; that organisation doesn't deserve the association. Little spent that first summer in Mt. Shasta, laying low as it were, then went to the East Coast with his then-girlfriend.

I think it's likely Mokuan's information is correct. I had heard that M. Little missed the West Coast and had been telling people, a couple of years ago, that he was thinking of returning.

Hi Peggy,
The former Eko is alive and well here in the USA. There are traces of him around, like on LinkeIn an Facebook, that keeps his info up-to-date. After leaving Shasta he studied woodworing in Maine, then worked for a while as a front desk receptionist in a hotel, also in Maine, before deciding to learn the art of vegan cooking in California. He does list his current address as Durham, NC, where his girlfriend is from, so who knows... but the pictures on these sites corroborate this timline. They are unmistakably michael little.

Well, it's been four years since eko's departure. 

It would seem that Shasta is settling comfortably back into the status quo,  but I'm not too sure what's happened to eko.  I do know he went to North Carolina after cooking school; I do know that about a year ago his girlfriend married another man, who is about half eko's age and appears to be a lot more fun!!! 

When the relationship became public knowledge, so did rumors about his paramour's reputation.  They were not at all flattering,  and I started to think about her and make judgments about her based on hearsay.  I was not kind in my thoughts towards her.  But now,  I'm thinking that this woman and the way she's lived her life was a blessing in disguise.  Because without her and her "hearsay" flirtatiousness, etc.,  eko would still be on his throne and the OBC still intact.  She, with her frowned upon behavior, was the catalyst to blowing up the OBC,  and I'm grateful this has happened.

So Ms. KR, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart that you are who you are.  I wish you well in your new marriage and I pray you find what you're looking for.

~mokuan

I found this very amusing mokuan!

There always has to be a scapegoat, and blaming women for being sexual is a convenient way to scapegoat them for the alleged infraction of the social order.
So the story of Eko seems to be following classic lines: sounds like his ex made a happy getaway!
Thanks for the story....

Oh Maisie,

I don't believe there is a scapegoat in any of this.  I think it's a happy coincidence.

wonderful story
I will include it as chapter 5 in my latest book 'The lady in the red hat...vol.3'
Chapter 5 will be about a famous wall street player loosing his empire to a transvestite dancer,and ends up in the gutter a alcoholic but with 3 dimes in his pocket,of course the road back is equally tough,but the devious tricks of investing other peoples money never left him,and he ends up in California owning a world famous ice cream factory,and a very high pair of crocodile stiletto shoes

Michael,

That has to be the funniest thing you've written here to date!  

Well, at least he kept the shoes

chisanmichaelhughes wrote:

Well, at least he kept the shoes

 
Man, if you are not writing for a living you have missed your calling LOL

mokuan wrote:

 Well, it's been four years since eko's departure. 

It would seem that Shasta is settling comfortably back into the status quo,  but I'm not too sure what's happened to eko.  I do know he went to North Carolina after cooking school; I do know that about a year ago his girlfriend married another man, who is about half eko's age and appears to be a lot more fun!!! 

When the relationship became public knowledge, so did rumors about his paramour's reputation.  They were not at all flattering,  and I started to think about her and make judgments about her based on hearsay.  I was not kind in my thoughts towards her.  But now,  I'm thinking that this woman and the way she's lived her life was a blessing in disguise.  Because without her and her "hearsay" flirtatiousness, etc.,  eko would still be on his throne and the OBC still intact.  She, with her frowned upon behavior, was the catalyst to blowing up the OBC,  and I'm grateful this has happened.

So Ms. KR, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart that you are who you are.  I wish you well in your new marriage and I pray you find what you're looking for.

~mokuan

So we are resorting to "Slut Shaming" now are we?


 Actually "Ms. KR" sounds just like my kind of girl. Less boring and prudish, seemingly, than present company.

It is wonderful to hear unvarnished feelings from trainees of varying levels. One of the things I remember from my months at Shata was the emphasis on not letting the colorful unsolvables around us take us away from the work we should be doing on ourselves. That one seems like a keeper even in the light of long reflection. I wonder if others feel that that was a good teaching?
Gassho.
Dan Staples

On Michael Little's linked in page it says that he is now a bartender. I know it's naive of me to be shocked especially after everything that he did, but I truly am. It's hard for me to reconcile that this is the same person I treated with such reverence and whom I shared deeply personal information with. And now he's a bartender???? It's just hard for me to imagine ordering a "side car" from a man that said once said one shouldn't drink wine with dinner.

June, thanks, this got me laughing -  I love the image of M. Little pouring drinks, polishing the counters.

Maybe he took this job because it gives access to people who have problems and are looking for someone to talk to and receive counseling from - I'm told that some former monks miss that kind of contact and look for ways to recreate it. Or maybe he decided that all the demonization of alcohol really is rubbish and there's no bogeyman there to be afraid of -

Lise wrote:

Maybe he took this job because it gives access to people who have problems and are looking for someone to talk to and receive counseling from

"From the list he posted on Linked In about his work experience, and from my own experience after leaving, I'd say he's doing whatever he can to make his way.  It's not easy to start over, especially later in life.  Employment opportunities are limited and having lived in a Buddhist community is not something that carries a lot of weight on a resume.  Besides I don't think that Bartending is necessary unworthy work (and not suggesting you do either Lise)."

And then Lise said:
Agreed, and I think my first comment didn't come out quite right. Tending bar is good honest work, so is waiting tables which I did for years. Not everyone enjoys or is good at serving people, making them feel welcome, listening when they need to talk. When I first read June's comment I was just delighted that M. Little was doing something so normal and human. Good for him.

I remember Bob Springer asking Sochu Suzuki Roshi what he thought about him leaving his job as it was a fried chicken outlet,Sochu just said 'You're lazy Bob'  Bob did think the answer  was a good one.
I think the formal spritual path can take one further away from the path as anything else can, there is a great tendany to think one is right and doing the right thing,well to me this is just reinforcing ones ego,its adorning oneself in colourful clothes. Eko may well be far wiser in real terms now his Sham Pheonix is seen for what it is,he may be alot kinder for having a life whipped from under his feet, and experienced some difficulties and impermanence. Maybe the girlfriend is gone, maybe it worked out for her, maybe she seduced the unseducable who knows, if we meet as human beings in this arena of life and death I have no problem with Mike

June99 wrote:

On Michael Little's linked in page it says that he is now a bartender. I know it's naive of me to be shocked especially after everything that he did, but I truly am. It's hard for me to reconcile that this is the same person I treated with such reverence and whom I shared deeply personal information with. And now he's a bartender???? It's just hard for me to imagine ordering a "side car" from a man that said once said one shouldn't drink wine with dinner.

June I empathize.  You feel Eko let you down and betrayed your confidence.  After all he did take on the responsibility of being an example for others.  The problem though is at some point that role ceased to be authentic for him and the system there was such that it was virtually impossible to acknowledge this openly and step down in an orderly fashion.  I understand this well because I also went through a process of denial and eventually fell on my face before I could get honest with myself and everyone else.  As Mike (chisanmichaelhughes) said Eko may be kinder and wiser as a result.  As for bartending it looks like he's doing whatever work he can find to get by.  Having been there too I can say it makes one humble.

A Zen priest bartending in Japan:

http://www.tricycle.com/blog/meet-tokyos-bartending-monk

Aha Kozan,and the comments were excellent too
The teachings of the Buddha are seen in all places, 2 days ago I had a message that touched my heart from a man Nikola from Macedonia,who works on my websites for me,  he does what we ask and is always on time this week we wasnt and he sent this touching message

Hello Michael,

Really sorry the job is not done, sorry... die father of my wife. I will be able for work from Thursday. It was unexpected and we are so sad.

Here you can see the work progress 
http://

Regards


Nikola




I felt his sadness

Hello Michael, and All, sorry to disrupt this thread -

Isan, this may be a first -  I was trying to reply to your post of 8:39 am, above, and instead it put my text into your post - I'm sorry! I meant to quote you and reply, but not replace what you wrote. Have no idea of what happened, please feel free to fix it if you can.

Thank you for your comments. Somehow, the pedestal I had put Eko and the Shasta Abby on is still lingering inside me. Even tho he fell hard from grace, the idealist, hopeful side of me wants Eko to somehow still embody everything he taught, so that somehow I don't ever have to go back and question everything I blindly followed. And in all fairness, much of it was decent advice and probably lead me to a healthier lifestyle, i.e. for years I didn't drink any alcohol.  Still I had superhuman expectations of these people and thought they had reached a higher level of understanding, evolution, or being and that I needed to race hard to try and catch up to them. 
But maybe that's how the system was set up or intended? Just funny that I still find myself a little sucker punched by it all.

Lise wrote:

Isan, this may be a first -  I was trying to reply to your post of 8:39 am, above, and instead it put my text into your post - I'm sorry! I meant to quote you and reply, but not replace what you wrote. Have no idea of what happened, please feel free to fix it if you can.

No problem.  I just attributed the added text to you.

June, wonderful thoughts that you've shared!

Without trying to go into all the detail, one of your exceptional comments that stands out for me is:

"Somehow, the pedestal I had put Eko and the Shasta Abby on is still lingering inside me. Even tho he fell hard from grace, the idealist, hopeful side of me wants Eko to somehow still embody everything he taught, so that somehow I don't ever have to go back and question everything I blindly followed."

I love your comment here because I think that you might be acknowledging that, however difficult it might be, you (and, indeed, ALL OF US)  must, in the end, QUESTION EVERYTHING!

I would propose that this is not just a good thing--it is, in fact, profoundly liberating.

Hi everyone,  

It seems to me that Michael is just trying to support himself in the best way he can.  He is really good at listening and making the person talking to him feel like the only person in the world that he cares about at that moment.  I think if someone is sitting at the bar wanting to talk to the bartender, they could do a lot worse than Michael Little.

I know he "fell from grace" in a very dramatic way and has some serious problems.  On the other hand, that doesn't make his understanding and teaching any less profound.  I know some think that because his personal life was so messed up he couldn't have had a deep understanding of the truth.  However, having glimpsed that deep understanding, I believe it was the truth.  I still maintain that one does not stand against the other.  

I'm sorry that his true understanding did not help him do better with his personal problems, but that doesn't mean he didn't experience the true understanding.

My current view is that any time you take any religion and add rules, dogma and an us, them attitude, you have lost the essence of the religion.  It doesn't matter whether it is Christian, Buddhist, or whatever religion. As soon as you add a select membership who follows rules, you have created a division and set up the opposites.  

I mentioned that to an atheist the other day and he said, "but what is the purpose of religion, then?"  And without thinking I said,"to be a better person."  So in that light, Michael Little, needed more work.  But I'm hoping he is still working on it. 

Sophia

Hi,

It just occurred to me that giving excellent council and advice when one was in a crisis or difficult place, was what Eko did well.  It was the long term relationships that went amiss.  So bartending might be a better way for him to help others than abboting.

Sophia

I also agree with Michael and Sophia, who said "As soon as you add a select membership who follows rules, you have created a division and set up the opposites."

Eko once gave a talk on Right Livelihood that was very helpful to me at the time. I thought Right Livelihood meant you had to follow some prescribed rules and that probably you had to be poor, do good works, not make much money. He  told us that Right Livelihood meant doing what was right for you that expressed your Buddha nature, not adhering to a set of rules. Not like the Buddhists in Thailand that take only whichever precepts apply to them (if you're a bartender, don't take the precept about alcohol, etc.).

I would like to think that Eko is doing the best he can to be a decent person and to make a living. As Isan says, it's a hard for a person leaving the monastery to make a living. Eko joined up when he was 19, his mother disinherited him (he said), and being a fallen abbot isn't exactly good job training for today's marketplace. I wish him well and want to believe that Right Livelihood for Eko could very well mean being a bartender someplace.

I must confess my main reason for writing is to say lovely to see you here Carol and hope all is well
and also add immature zen can be full of us and them and placing importance on ridiculous things.Mike would have been taught and did teach the goat shed , shunning and manipulation with a bit of luck he might be better off even as a fallen Abbot to drop the whole lot and start afresh...lovely init

Thanks, Michael.It's lovely to see Ol'ga and some others who have been around a long time.

I've had many things on my mind following the death of my husband, buying and selling houses, moving to a new house, caring for my dog, visiting good friends, building a new garden. So it's good to get back to the forum and see the same gang here - still arguing about Awareness and giving advice to the OBC (who don't care about our advice) and just shooting the breeze about what happens after death and other things we can't know about.

Koshin used to say that training consists of doing the next thing that needs to be done. I've been doing that and find he was right! Maybe it's doing the dishes or cleaning out junk that is no longer needed (after thanking it for its service) and watering to fend off the horrible drought we're having here in the western US. But it's living and if that doesn't represent the divine in all of us, nothing does.

Aha xxx

and of course it is very difficult to put words to spirituality, and sometimes there are different answers for the same question, but really practice is not doing anything .
life is lived

I love that idea. There is not "practice" and "not practice." There is just living. I guess all of it is "practice." When I was little, my mother made me practice the piano. What are we practicing for now?

Interesting what you say about practicing the piano,I feel lucky because I have played with some really good guitar players who have played in big bands,when I play with them  sometimes I am really touched, only 1 could read real music rather than guiatar tab which is written a different way.  What  we have all played is alot of formal songs written in a certain time  and key, with perhaps  a familiar riff,however we all like to play with a certain space and freedom  for interpretaion at a certain time,eg a guitar solo, as a guitar player I look for my space to be just right I like to be touched by what is played i hope it touches other people,sometimes it feels just right the notes the spaces it blends together and sometimes it doesnt but I cant help it when I play I want to hear that extra inspirational bit,when I have talked about it with these guys who knock me out when they play something simple I am so pleased to hear they feel the same. I guess  it is similar and close in a way to when life is lived and zazen just done

Yes, it's a lesson for life. The notes and spaces have to blend together and it's best to have buddies on this earth.

As I understand the word "practice" as it is applied in spiritual matters, it is derived from the Greek word, "praxis", which means to "actualize' what is real and true.

When I was in business as a lawyer, people would say, "When are  you going to finish practicing law and learn how to do it?" Same with spiritual practice, I guess. The answer, of course, is "never."

If memory serves, that seems to have been Dogen's koan, enlightenment, embodying spiritual truth, is  process and not achievement.

I don't know if Dogen said that, but it is so true. It's a koan only if you think enlightens happens suddenly, which some thinkers in Dogens time believed.  The "fast or slow" controversy. But in real life, it is certainly true that we never reach a destination in this life. Whether the next life is a destination or not is a good question. Or whether our destination is ashes in the ground. What do you think, having been through the ultimate suffering with your child?

That about sums it up, Michael. Thanks for putting it so well! I just saw an interesting movie "See you in my dreams" about a widow who finally meets the perfect new mate, then he suddenly dies. She goes back to doing what she was doing before the excitement of love and the hope of happiness. Only then she finally realizes that doing what is there is what brings joy, not the dream of what might be.

sounds like a good film Carol..too close to the truth for me I would squirm all the way through!

As humans we do suffer it is the nature f life we love things and they die no ammount of training can stop us being human,and bereavment of closely connected people is always the worse,nobody else can understand or quite feel the pain,the wise can become wiser and more compassionate for others.
I went back to school today to be with a mum I know whose daughter has an anxiety issue and does not attend  school,and legally things have come to a head, the daughter made a good comment by saying 'anxious people live in the futre' in other words they worry about what could happen so they develop an issue about unreality.The girl seens to understand that quite well and hopefully that may be a start to unravelling  her issues,of corse there is only one place to be,but sometimes it is surprisingly hard.You seem to have come back to the present with strength and understanding which is so good to see

Hello all,

I, too, was surprised by Michael's new-found profession.  After all, he was the "Preceptor" and espoused right livelihood on a regular basis, even at one point informing me he was firing a disciple because she was dating a cattleman (which, of course, if you are raising cattle to eat, is not right livelihood).  The Precept "A disciple of Buddha does not intoxicate self or others but rather cultivates and encourages clarity" (taken from SF Zen Center website) is a pretty basic Buddhist commitment.  To actively serve intoxicants to others would seem to be counter to the Precepts, which are the basis for calling oneself a Buddhist.  Perhaps he isn't a Buddhist anymore, or may merely associate himself socially....who knows.

For me it again brings up the "do as I say, not as I do" mantra I saw over and over in my experience at the Abbey.  It was easy to admonish a novice or junior monk not to do or say something, much harder not to do it yourself (i.e. the articles that Eko would have all his disciples read recommending to not pay attention to the Master's actions only regard his teachings, comes to mind). 

From all of this, I have come to rely on people's actions as true - not their words.  What exactly are they 'doing' when something difficult arises?  Are they practicing generosity or are they practicing selfishness?  Are they keeping a mind of equanimity and openness or are they hiding in self-protectiveness and denial?

I have no ill-will towards Michael Little or whatever he chooses to do for his livelihood - we all reap the consequences or our own actions, good and bad.  I am sure it is a mixed bag for him, as it is for us all.  I do hope that his new venture may give him pause to reflect on what might have been idealized and painful actions towards others on his part in the past - the kind of self-reflection we all can benefit from. 

Very interesting comments Enida. I am not sure that it works this 'do as I say not as I do'  it seems such a bigotted statement and actually takes one away from follow one.s heart.

Zen for me gives freedom from self and other the above gives dependence on other so for me is limited or wrong way zen

H Enida wrote:

  To actively serve intoxicants to others would seem to be counter to the Precepts, which are the basis for calling oneself a Buddhist.

"Do not sell the wine of delusion"....Maybe he's serving rum, whisky and beer.

Seriously though, the dude isn't a monk. He can do whatever he likes.