Eric Steuer's Articles on Lion's Roar

When Eric Steuer discovered his childhood bully was now a Buddhist teacher, he asked him the question he’d always wanted to: Why did you treat me that way? When I tell my dad I’m going to hang out with Jeff Zlotnik, he laughs. “Once, when you were a kid, I asked why you were so scared of Jeff. You said, ‘Because he’s so much bigger than me.’” In reality, I was a head taller than Jeff. But he was so confident and aggressive that he always loomed large in my life. My earliest memory of him is from kindergarten. A bunch of us were playing in the sandbox, and I’d loaded up a Fisher–Price trolley with action figures. Out of nowhere, Jeff ran up, swiped the toy from me, and threw it into some nearby plants. He smiled, but it was a mean smile—Jeff’s signature smirk. It was the first time I remember feeling like someone wanted to make me feel bad. I went home and cried to my mom. A few years later, during a soccer game, Jeff kicked the ball to me—a rare thing. I wasn’t exactly well-known for my athletic prowess, and Jeff’s vote of confidence made me feel especially good. But at the last second, I let the ball sail past my feet—right into the clutches of the other team. Jeff screamed at me, calling me an idiot. What hurt most was that I kind of agreed with him. There were other incidents over the years—the time he told me I couldn’t sit with him and his friends at lunch, or when he picked a fight with me in the schoolyard over a girl we both liked. Honestly, none of it was major—just kids’ stuff. But I was a painfully sensitive boy and it had lasting effects. Jeff made me aware there were places I didn’t belong and groups I’d never be a part of. So, I decided to stop trying to get Jeff to like me and observed him from the point of view of an outsider from then on. He joined the football team, while I made music and took drama classes. I had good friends, but I never quite fit in with the cool kids. I marveled at how Jeff and his crew seemed to have things all figured out, how they seemed to be free of the confusion and self-doubt I often felt. It was a surprise, to say the least, when I first learned that Jeff had gotten deeply into Buddhism. We’d been out of college for a few years when I heard a rumor that someone had seen Jeff shopping at the mall—fully decked out in an orange monastic robe. My mom told me that Jeff was living at a monastery in Taiwan, devoting himself to meditation and Buddhist study. I was dumbfounded. What in the world led to this? Part of me was skeptical that Jeff had become some sort of new person. I wasn’t alone. One of our elementary school teachers said, “I’ve worked with a lot of kids over the years, and you can see who they are at their core by the time they get to my class. I don’t buy Jeff’s ‘peace and love’ stuff one bit.” I started hearing about Jeff’s various projects. After returning home from Taiwan, he had opened a temple free to anyone interested in Buddhism. He started The Meditation Initiative, a nonprofit that offers classes in places like prisons, homeless shelters, VA hospitals, and sober living centers. He organized a coed service fraternity, Delta Beta Tau, for San Diego college students interested in doing volunteer work. Jeff and I started following each other on Facebook, where he was posting a steady stream of affirmations, calls for more kindness in the world, and reminders to friends about life’s preciousness. As I followed him online and learned more about his activities, I went from incredulous to intrigued. There was no doubt, it seemed, that Jeff had found his true calling, and that he was all in. On a whim, I sent him an email to ask if he’d be interested in spending some time together. I wanted to hear about his journey. He told me he was glad I’d reached out and invited me to visit. Jeff greeted me with a big hug at the new home of the Dharma Bum Temple, the Buddhist meditation and study center he runs with his partner. The temple is beautiful, about 6,000 square feet in a former 1927 Swedenborgian church with a perfect combination of wide-open convening spaces and small alcoves for reading and intimate discussions. It was important to Jeff to retain the church’s historical and religious features, so the large cross that adorns the entrance and the pews inside the congregation area remain intact. The temple’s new home was a result of Jeff’s tireless fundraising, which was such a success that numerous fundraising consultants wanted to tap him for his secrets. “It was the greatest Buddhist practice I’ve ever done in my life,” Jeff said to me about it. “Because every single moment, there was something that needed to be done. And all that could be done in that moment was the one thing that was needed.” As we walked through the temple, several people from the neighborhood dropped in. A longtime resident who had read about the temple in the newspaper said hello and signed the guest book. A homeless man stopped by to relax and ask some questions. Jeff told him the temple is open to all. You just never know what people are dealing with inside. There are also people who live at the temple, and Jeff took me around to meet them. They were of all shapes and sizes and walks of life. I talked to a mom in her fifties wearing a tie-dyed sweatshirt and a guy in his late teens, hunched over a sheet of paper drawing possible logos for the temple. Jeff told me the beauty of the community is that it’s filled with people who are leaders themselves—residents and other community members routinely teach meditation to anyone who shows up. His goal is to be completely dispensable, for it to be possible for the temple to run without him. Jeff’s demeanor was calmer, much looser than what I remembered. He smiled a lot and often seemed to be on the verge of laughing. He listened intently when people spoke, then replied deliberately, always making eye contact. It was nice, but jarring, to see him in this environment—almost like something out of a dream. I told him so. He was not surprised to hear it. “When I tell the people here that, as a kid, I used to punch people, pick on people, and do those kinds of things, they’re shocked,” he says. “They can’t believe it. “It’s weird, I know,” he says with a chuckle. “But you just never know what people are dealing with inside.” At age twenty-seven, Jeff began to notice feelings of emptiness, dissatisfaction, and even depression. A friend was visiting a local Buddhist temple to take meditation classes, and she invited him to join her. Jeff loved everything about the temple—the warmth he felt, the focus on wisdom, morality, and mindfulness. He told himself he would return immediately for more. “But life got in the way,” he said. “And I didn’t make time to go back.” Then, a few months later, Jeff was out with friends. While waiting in line to get inside a club, an intense wave of sadness and panic washed over him. The next morning, nursing a wicked hangover and knowing he wanted something greater out of life, Jeff decided to return to the temple for another visit. Jeff spent the next two years going to the temple almost every day, and even moved into a small cottage nearby. He meditated, read, and participated in community volunteer programs. He felt like he’d found his purpose. In 2004, Jeff packed up to live at Fo Guang Shan, Taiwan’s largest Buddhist monastery, where monks and nuns devote themselves to practicing kindness and performing charity. “There’s this notion that Buddhist practice is all about sitting under a tree and talking about the infinite levels of the universe,” Jeff said. “But they were the hardest-working people I’d ever seen in my life. They put me on a path to be as compassionate in each moment as possible.” After a year there, Jeff’s teacher told him it was time to go back home. “She said I needed to figure out how to integrate what I’d learned into the culture where I grew up.” Jeff returned to San Diego on a mission to use Buddhist teachings to help alleviate suffering in the people around him. He started volunteering in prisons and juvenile detention centers. He led meditation classes and began building a community at the Dharma Bum Temple. He was driven. “I knew I was still a powerful person, someone who wanted to win,” he said. “But there’s nothing to win in Buddhism. So, I figured I’d use that part of my personality to make positive change, after having affected people negatively for a long time.” A few years ago, Jeff had what he calls a come-to-Jesus moment about his past as a bully. It was at our twenty-year high school reunion. He’d arrived alone at the downtown San Diego hotel ballroom hosting the gathering. For weeks, he’d been looking forward to seeing what had become of our old classmates. Early on in the night, someone Jeff had picked on pretty badly in high school walked up to him. “Hey, I saw on Facebook that you’re doing all this Buddhist stuff, and it’s really great,” she said. “But can you tell me why you were so mean to me when we were kids?” Another woman approached next, beer in hand. She took a breath and downed a big sip. She wanted to know the same thing. Jeff’s night turned into a series of conversations on this theme. He listened to people tell him that he’d hurt them. He didn’t make excuses; he just heard them out. And then he apologized as openly and honestly as he could. I walked from group to group that night, hearing all kinds of people talk to each other about how strange and surprising it was that Jeff Zlotnik—yes, Jeff Zlotnik—now devoted his life to Buddhism, meditation, and helping others. Most people were fascinated by it. Some seemed amused. I heard one woman, whom Jeff had been particularly awful to, say she was “so proud” of him. I admired her grace, but for some reason, it also aggravated me. I didn’t want her to accept his apology so easily. Later in the evening, Jeff took me aside and told me he was sorry if he’d ever hurt my feelings. I told him I appreciated the apology, but it...

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