Those of you who have read Quest for Eternal Sunshine already know that my childhood was far from typical. When I was seven, my family joined an alternative spiritual community called the Pathwork. “The Guide”—a spirit channeled through the leader—explained exactly how the universe works and the best ways to evolve both spiritually and emotionally. By the early 1970s, a vibrant community had sprung up around her, and the Pathwork purchased a former resort in the countryside of upstate New York. My family built the first private home on the property.

My parents were high-level members and active leaders. When they decided to break away after seven years, things got ugly. The leader felt threatened, so she discredited my parents and encouraged intense hostility among the members, especially towards my mother.

Virtually overnight, my family fled the whole world I’d grown up in—my friends, my home, my school, and my entire belief system. Within a matter of weeks, while suffering from such tremendous pain and loss, we moved into an apartment in Manhattan and I started high school. My mother was so traumatized that she hardly ever left her bed and was afraid to go outside. Shocked, confused and depressed, I soldiered on.

After a couple of years, my parents regained their equilibrium and resumed their spiritual explorations. Our family vacations often featured visits to ashrams or the opportunity to hear a renowned teacher speak.

As time went on, I became increasingly cynical about the many charismatic spiritual leaders who were supposedly delivering the highest truth. Although I felt desperate to understand the meaning of life, my trust and faith had been usurped by suspicion.

When I went away to college, I created an independent major called “Human Perspectives.” In my quest to discover if there was a place where so many diverse belief systems intersected, I studied religion, philosophy and anthropology. My favorite class was Chinese philosophy, because it exposed me to Taoism, which I found deeply soothing.

A dozen years later, when I was twenty-nine, I took a day trip to the Tassajara Zen monastery and attended their meditation instruction. Unable to keep my attention on my breath for even a minute, I knew I needed to learn to quiet my mind. Luckily, I had a friend, Patricia Wolff, who meditated at a local Zen center every Tuesday evening. I gave her a call, and soon after, she kindly picked me up at my house and brought me with her.

Forty-minutes of meditation was incredibly difficult for me. I did better with the walking mediation and liked the novelty of the service, though my skepticism was triggered by the vow we chanted to “save all beings.” But then the teacher, Katherine Thanas, began to speak. I will never forget that moment.

Myra and Katherine with Myra’s kids, Marea and Jeff, late 1990s

In her late sixties, with close-cropped grey hair, her manner was slow, quiet, and serious. She had just returned from a conference for Buddhist teachers and openly shared the troubling issues they’d tackled, including the frequency with which teachers were getting romantic with their students. Then she introduced the concept of “no gaining idea”—no one should come to Zen practice expecting to attain any state superior to his or her experience of this very moment.

Far from the seductive pull and grand promises exuded by the spiritual teachers I’d met before, Katherine was blunt, grounded, and honest. She wasn’t trying to lure me in. In fact, it felt as if her talk was intentionally cautionary. I trusted her immediately.

For eighteen years, I rarely missed those weekly sittings. I also participated in Katherine’s Sunday classes, and the annual retreats at Tassajara.

When she reached her eighties, Katherine needed to slow down and could no longer make the hour drive from Santa Cruz every week. While I loved our sangha, I soon realized that the main artery of my connection was through Katherine. It was her hands I wanted to watch holding a ceramic cup of tea—feeling its shape, weight and warmth before taking a sip. It was her hands I wanted to see opening the fabric-wrapped bundle of books and notes she’d brought in preparation for her talk. Katherine’s deep, conscious presence settled my nervous system. I loved being near her. As her teaching wound down, so did my participation.

Katherine and Myra at a MBZC picnic, 1990s

Over the years, my relationship with Katherine evolved into a sweet, loving friendship. My friend Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts and I would drive up to visit her in Santa Cruz, where we’d take her out to her favorite Japanese restaurant, and then finish catching up over tea at her home.

When Katherine died in June of 2012, I was heartbroken. And then, a few months later, my beloved father passed away.

Amazingly, during the years I was working on Quest for Eternal Sunshine, Natalie Goldberg and Bill Anelli were compiling and editing some of Katherine’s talks into a book they published in 2018, The Truth of This Life—Zen Teachings on Loving the World as It Is. This wisdom-packed, provocative book lives by my bedside—an intimate connection to Katherine, and a continuation of her mentorship.

Mendek, Myra, Edith, and Katherine in Myra’s dining room, late 1990s

My long-ago search for the place where all truths intersect feels satisfied by discovering the areas where my father’s wisdom and Katherine’s converge. The following quote from Katherine’s book articulates it beautifully:

“All of us look out at the same world. And we all see a different version of it, depending on what’s already in our minds. Practice is to notice how the dust of our mind obscures the clear reflection of the world, how our values and preferences determine our interpretations.”

Katherine and my father continue to be two of my biggest teachers. They were both relentlessly persistent in their quest to awaken to the truth of this life, they both lived in the present moment and gave everything their full attention, and they both had smiles that lit up the room. I feel immensely lucky to have known and loved two such remarkable people.

This essay was adapted from an essay Myra wrote for the April, 2020 issue of the Monterey Bay Zen Center’s newsletter

Myra’s Journey—Eighteen Years as a Student of Soto Zen Buddhism