Interview with my Father, Richard Josephson (Heng Kung)

On the afternoon of February 2017, I arranged a phone interview with my father. I was hesitant due to the formal nature of an interview and unsure of what to expect. To my surprise, my father was an open book; He was giving of his time and life's memories. 

During our interview, I learned many things about my father—like how he began his meditation practice and why he left his monastery without saying goodbye to his teacher. As our interview drew to a close, I found myself grinning from ear to ear. 

Growing up, I heard many stories about my father, but never understood the order or context in which they occurred. It was nice to to piece his life together, to have a timeline for the sake of having a timeline, but more importantly—to understand the life of one man who strived to follow the Buddha's path.

MUDRA LOVE: What was your first experience with Buddhism?

RICHARD JOSEPHSON: I just sat down to meditate. It was a spontaneous decision. I was very anxious and impatient. I felt really stupid and super uncool. I sat in between my father’s doorway and the hallway and lasted only five minutes, but that five minutes was enough to keep me going.

ML: How old were you? 

RJ: I was 17 years old, living in Santa Monica, California.

ML: What was happening around this time?

RJ: I was in my senior year of high school and everything just exploded—there were the peace marches in Berkeley and everyone was protesting the Vietnam war. I hitch-hiked up to San Francisco with my buddies and hung out on Height Street and slept on the floor. People were exploring LSD – everything was just happening all at once.

ML: What happened next?

RJ: I went to Hawaii to surf the waves! But really, it was my next big step. 

ML:  How so?

RJ: Well, all the surfers were meditating a lot. We meditated 2/3 of the day and surfed the remainder. I liked meditating so much that eventually, I quit surfing and just meditated all day.

ML: How long did this period last?

RJ: I meditated for a year and a half in jungles, beaches, caves, coffee plantations and abandoned homes. I had no job. I just lived in the fishing camps with the Hawaiians and begged for food.

ML: How did you eventually make it to Nepal?

RJ: I got a job at the first hotel ever built on the Big Island and earned $2,000 to take with me to Nepal and later India.

ML: Did you ever have any doubts about what you set out to do?

RJ: Never

ML: I remember you eventually got kicked out of India for an expired Visa...

RJ: I was Nepal for the first year and when my visa expired, I snuck off to India.

I stayed in India for another year before the police asked to see my passport. They saw that I had no visa to be in India and no exit paperwork from Nepal. So, straight to the airport I went!

When I got to the airport, they asked me to change clothes, but the only possessions I had were on my back. I left India wearing only a longi, t-shirt, and flip flops—my hair in a top knot. My sister laughed the entire way home from the airport and our first stop was a department store before we even made it home.

ML: You're back in California now?

RJ: Yes, I stayed at my dad’s for five days and then I wanted to find a temple or at least a place to meditate. My dad gave me his Volkswagen camper and I drove it to San Francisco. I found the San Francisco Zen Center and after only about a week, I found it a bit too easy for me.

I was used to meditating twelve hour days and at the Zen Center they were only meditating for two hours a day then drinking tea and chit-chatting.

I told them I needed a more rigorous practice so they told me about this Manchurian Chan Master meditating out of Gold Mountain. They said that it was a very strict place and no one can stay there. So, I knew this was going to be the right place for me...