Open, Honest and Vulnerable

Ming Po Larry Matthews - Shuso

 It’s such a privilege to introduce Ming Po Larry Matthews to the broader community.  Ming Po has been instrumental in our development as a sangha by continuing to bring Jun Po Roshi’s Mondo Facilitation to many as a Certified Mondo Facilitator.  He is an active board member of SBLMS and he has been serving as the Shuso, the head student, in our training programs since January of 2024.  I caught up with Ming Po earlier this week just after his return from hosting his daughters wedding.

Ekai: Ming Po, nice to see you.  Let’s start with how you got started with Buddhism?

Ming Po: I got involved in meditation while I was in college. My first introduction was with Alan Watts in Berkeley, California. I did two weekends with him, and read Suzuki Roshi’s Zen Mind, Beginners Mind.. I established a regular practice.  When I moved to Boulder I got involved with a local Soto Zen Group and sat with them regularly.

Ekai: You were also interested in other forms of Buddhism, yes?

Ming Po: I started karate in when I was 45. Our Sensei was a student of Trungpa Rinpoche. I started coming to Colorado to the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, and doing courses. I went through the whole ten courses in two and a half years. While completing the Warriors Assembly, I was the personal attendance for Sakyong Mipham, Trungpa Rinpoche’s son.  I had been a Eastern Studies major in college at Chico State in California, so this was all very congruent with my interests.  When I moved to Boulder, CO I began studying Aikido as well.  

Ekai: What was appealing about Trungpa Rinpoche’s teachings?

Ming Po: At Shambala Dharma Center, when you come in, everyone is treated on a level playing field.  There's this huge acceptance for wherever you are, Having been with Maharishi and some other Hindu organizations, I was familiar with strict ways of doing things, I loved Trungpa Rinpoche’s loving community. The community was diverse and being centered in Boulder, it was lovely to be happening. It felt like we were making a difference in people’s lived.

Ekai: Sounds like a wonderful time, and yet you came back to Zen

Ming Po:, I was doing householder work, raising a family. I got really involved in The Mankind Project, and I was running to band and soccer practice and working. Through MKP I connected me with Doshin Roshi and I started sitting with the Denver Zen Center.  Doshin Roshi ran the Denver Zen Center and he was hanging out with Ken Wilber. I did Mondo with him several times.  When he started Integral Zen I didn’t continue.

Ekai: Fast forward a few years and you ended up connecting with Fugen Roshi?

Ming Po: Yeah, I knew Fugen Roshi from The Mankind Project and through a mutual friend I was pulled into the Mondo Zen Facilitator Program after attending the Mondo Zen Intensive at Yokoji in Southern California.  That’s where I first met you! 

Ekai: How does Mondo Facilitation and Jun Po’s teachings fit you?

Ming Po: I had some nice breakthroughs for myself, working on my own core issues on retreat and in the facilitator program. The practice really works for me. Some little mystical thing happened allowing me to go deeper and get more vulnerable with myself and others. I feel like it's such a beautiful way to pay it forward and to give to other people. I can see them shift. They get to take on a new practice,

Ekai: That’s what we call transmission!

Ming Po: It feels like there's transmission of some kind of awakening. It's beautiful how kind and loving people can be. I've got some really nice acknowledgments, especially around the emotional koan work.

Ekai: Very nice.  I’m curious.  How would you described the difference between Mondo Zen and m the Zen tradition?

Ming Po: The Zen I was doing along the way had nothing to do with emotions. It never looked at the concept that feelings are just another sense. With Mondo Zen, breathing in a particular way, helps you shift that reaction to a response in a beautiful way. What's funny about that is it was something I discovered one my own working as an executive, I'd be in these meetings, and there's a lot of egos in those meetings, and I would find my energy coming up. And because it's competitive and about who's smarter, I used to practice breathing in those meetings, just dropping in. So when I started learning Mondo, I realized that it was stop, drop and respond. It's something that I had, like natural software for myself. I could stay neutral in these meetings.

Ekai:  So Mondo offered you a tool that you naturally already were doing. It fit on top so you could blend it with your understanding of Zen. Why was this so important?

Ming Po: I spent many years with Warner Earhart and John Hanley, to name a few. We were in this kind of conversation, but it was never actualized, rather it was more of a didactic. This is how you should be. But we weren't actually being. With my Mondo practice, I realize that I'm actually being rather than reacting.

I'm in the last third of my life, so I don't need the attention on me. It's a real embodiment of the teaching. I’m being open, honest and vulnerable.  I grew up not being that expressive emotionally, because who my father was or maybe just the masculine era that I grew up in. So for me, being open, honest and vulnerable, is the Zen way, it's the way to make a difference with who you're with. It's just about being a real person in present time.

Ekai:  That must have something to do with why you are becoming a priest.

Ming Po: I don't know what kind of influence I'll have as a priest, but at least with Mondo, I can directly see when I make a difference.  What stands out is that as impermanence is showing up in in my body, I can make a difference in my last few years. I got maybe 20 years left or maybe five. I'm not attached in a relationship. I have time to show up for people and, and make a difference. The other thing is that I also like being a part of the sangha. I like the sound of Cosmopolitan Zen.

Ekai: Cosmopolitan Zen includes the learning we are all experiencing in this 21st Centaury.  It’s a community perspective that respects the differing voices while remembering that even if we are developmentally and culturally different, we are not separate.

Min Po:  Yeah, and there are more people who are developmentally farther along, which means that there are more awake people to help out with the rest.

Ekai: Exactly!  More people to be of service helping as we find our way. Ming Po,  thank you for sharing your story.  I look forward to continuing to work together.

Ming Po:  You are very welcome.