The first time I saw Stan, he was weaving around in a solitary spin at the outer edges of an ecstatic dance event. We were both slower and more staid than the rest of the undulating, exuberant crowd. We ran into each other later gathering our shoes. He smiled. I smiled. We didn’t say anything, so it was some years before I knew his name, voice, opinions. In that moment, and for many ensuing events in our local New Age community, he was just the man with a kind face, one that reminded me of Buddhist monks, both contained in themselves and completely open.
In fact, Stan was a bit of a monk for the 25 years he lived in Santa Barbara. He had a committed meditation practice in the Hindu tradition, sprung from living in India prior. When he spoke of his time there, and the transformation that took hold of him, I imagined him like one of the Beatles sitting with the Maharishi, hippie accoutrements slowly giving way to something deeper than cultural iconography. In this community, he slipped into an epic awakening to much more than his true self. He went beyond to recognize there is no self at all.
He used to tell me about there being no self as we sat in various Santa Barbara cafés, where he was familiar to staff and would embarrass me — a father figure — bantering with the baristas. He was an older bachelor, and his day was enhanced by the open-heartedness he found in the service industry. He would go out two or three times for a coffee or a meal more interesting than he could make. He read library books alone or made conversation with those at the next table.
