Since this is the first official article of my new weekly column, Samsara, I thought we should get to know each other better. Its true Ive promised articles on the gamut of metaphysics and divination, the hidden history of Buddhist-Vedic UFOs, and tales of the electric dharma via psychoactive substances and samadhi states of consciousness. Not today. Im feeling in a lighter mood. Lets start at the beginning.

I grew up in the Chicago area and am a self-taught person. Buddhism has been my great passion in life. Ive been a professional writer off and on for the past thirty-three years and have paid my dues a couple of times, now. Today, Im an author. I was kind of a weird kid. My mom bought me a deck of tarot cards when I was fourteen and in a few years I was competent enough to make a marginal living from doing readings. I practiced yoga in an ashram, learned all about practical magick, divination, and astral projection. In 1969, I had my first experience with LSD and for a few years thought I would explore the Mind at Large. It was quite a trip. Around that time, a high school friend who had been to an NSA meeting, told me about Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. He told me that he laughed at the sight of people chanting to a box. None of us were ready for Buddhism, especially him.

My friend was obsessed with making money and smoking high quality pot. I was never drawn by greed but the pot had to be good. By 1973 he was getting rich and I had started to seriously chant. His name was Don Steinberg. He was an entrepreneur of amazing skill. In time, Don and a smoky cabal of my high school classmates formed the largest and most lucrative marijuana smuggling enterprise in US history ultimately selling more than 100 tons a week. By the time they hit their stride, I was eating Ramon noodles and they were all multi-millionaires dining on lobster. Don was making more than one million dollars a day. It was a dilemma because I was not against what they were doing, because I think pot is a decent way to relax and get inspired, but I could not reconcile having their kind of lifestyle and the practice of Buddhism. Ive always been against the war on drugs because its a war against our own citizens. I remember senior leaders saying you cant be a leader if you smoke pot then they would go out later and get pig drunk. It was a mixed message. I still fondly remember when our territory YMD leader came to town for a meeting then afterward getting me stoned on some righteous bud. Now that was some primo guidance.

I explained my situation of being poor and my friends new wealth to the late, great, Ted Osaki, and he assured me that I would win and they would lose. Ted Osaki was not against pot per se, because I know as a fact he tried it himself. He was for Nichiren Buddhism and a lifestyle of chanting. He was right too. I chanted three million daimoku and became a father the same year that Don and my old school chums were caught and put on trial by the Federal Government. They were the first people in America to be convicted of a new law of running a continuing criminal enterprise. It was 10 years to life. Their bust was quite a sensation at the time. Time and Newsweek covered it and a book was written about it called The Underground Empire.

In 1975 I tried to get Don to chant as well as some of the other guys that were involved, but I had no takers. Don and my other friends spent 10 years in Federal prison while I got to meet president Ikeda and received tremendous training in faith. Now that thirty years has elapsed, the difference is even more obvious. Several of the crew came to garish ends and the others wondered how I changed from a directionless hippie into a realized being. Chanting, I told them. You were greedy, I said with a laugh and wink. For me it has always been lots of chanting and a little inspiration.