By STEPHEN MAYPER

Everything was different. Not when I received transmission, but

when I found the Sangha. Receiving transmission, for me, felt like a foregone conclusion. The wheels of a cart following the foot of the ox. 

I can look back at my life and see a variety of conditions that subtly steered me in this direction, such as learning from my parents that people are fundamentally good and worthy of love; my karate teacher, Mrs. Kaplan, teaching me "square breathing" when I was 5; my pathology professor, Dr. Wheeler, leading fortnightly meditation sessions in my first year of medical school. Through that, though, I never really saw the path. 

2020 was the year I woke up. The scales fell from my eyes, and I realized I had fallen asleep behind the steering wheel of my life. I had let my personal and professional lives run on autopilot without much thought to what I aspired to in life. Jolted back awake during the pandemic, I set to work trying to course-correct. 

I gobbled up self-help books, sought out a psychologist, and set to work on establishing healthy physical habits, and, under the guidance of a few smartphone apps, I began to take up a meditation practice. For years, I sat semi-regularly, and began to listen to Dharma talks online. Most of that time, I couldn’t tell if anything was happening. I understood the goal was to stay mindful during daily life, so I set reminders. I put up sticky notes around my office; I taped index cards around my apartment; I set morning intentions. Yet still I struggled to find mindfulness off the cushion. 

A breakthrough started to happen when I stumbled upon Wake Up and the Florida Community of Mindfulness. Practicing in community and basing my practice in spiritual values and aspirations for the first time, I suddenly found myself having mindful moments throughout my day-to-day. The support of a community and a moral framework made my practice come to life. Still now I spend most moments lost in thought and carried away by emotions, but ever so slowly I am finding moments of “remembering” creeping into my day. 

Before coming to FCM, I had already found solace in the Buddha's example and many of his teachings; however, in finding the community, I truly found refuge in the Buddhist path and the community. Everything was different once I found the sangha. 

The decision to take part in the transmission ceremony did not even feel like a choice. It felt like a natural expression of what I already knew deeply in my body: that the Buddha, the Dharma, and the sangha are my refuges in this life and that I will work for the rest of my life to follow the five precepts to the best of my abilities.

Stephen lives in Tampa with his wife, Nicole, and their dachshund, Weasley. Not unlike his path with the Dharma, when he met Nicole at FCM, he "knew” he had found his soulmate and they married not long after. He enjoys gardening, hiking, and almost anything nerdy or science-y.