Lloyd Fickett Roshi
Colorado
Lloyd received, as a layman, Inka From Jun Po Denis Kelly, Roshi on September 28, 2018 at Dai Bosatsu Zendo.
Lloyd was looking for a way to deepen his enlightenment when he found Mondo Zen. As he turned sixty, he became aware, with his wife’s support and his practice of listening generously, that he had a deep pattern of grumpiness emerging as he was growing older. While he was already very skillful at embracing and transforming deep reactive patterns, he recognized that this pattern had genetic, cultural and historic roots that would require a deepening of his enlightenment to transform this pattern. As he sat with the question of how to accomplish this, he realized he had had an affinity for Zen since his youth and, given that his path had been highly influenced by Zen, why not explore modern American Zen Masters to see if there was anything to it? In the process of this exploration, he came across an audio dialogue of Jun Po and Ken Wilbur and immediately recognized a deep resonance between his own work, “The Collaborative Way” and Mondo Zen. Each had a deep emphasis on “Listen” and having your awakening show up in how you relate to the people around you.
Lloyd began to practice Mondo Zen in March of 2011 and attended his first retreat in October of that year. Lloyd had been in the business of enlightenment since 1974. Initially, he worked for Werner Erhard and later he partnered with Werner. However, through a long process that culminated by the end of 1989, it became clear that he and Werner were not aligned in fundamentally critical ways and mutually went their separate ways. While Werner’s contributions were invaluable in Lloyd’s process of waking up and growing up, the clarity of this lack of alignment and the process of coming to say “no” to Werner were also invaluable to his growing up and awakening process.
As Lloyd went his own way, he had a breakthrough in his work resulted that resulted in the birth of “The Collaborative Way”. It born from living in the question of “How do you develop an extraordinary way of working together?”. It became clear the answer is, “By focusing on how we work together through selecting a small number of practices that would define how we work together and then supporting each other in learning to work this way”. The next question was, “What would those practices be?”. Again the answer became clear, “Listening Generously, Speaking Straight, Being For Each Other, Honoring Commitments and Acknowledging and Appreciating Each Other”. Each of these practices are focused and trued by what we are up to together. This practice requires each of us to wake up, grow up, show up and clean up. It becomes an enlightenment practice.
Lloyd has been practicing this way of relating since 1990 and there are companies that have been practicing The Collaborative Way for over 25 years.
As Lloyd practiced Mondo Zen, it provided the pathway to the greater and greater depth. Soon after Lloyd’s second retreat, he formed a bond and creative partnership with Jun Po and Doshin that provided additional heft and support for this deepening process. Lloyd deeply appreciates the mutual support and collaborative relationship he continues to have with Doshin and with Jun Po.
Lloyd stands for the Mondo process and he also stands for responsible enlightenment that shows up in the “we” space, the way we relate with each other. He is committed to spreading The Collaborative Way as widely and deeply as possible. It has become clear that The Collaborative Way is a Zen practice. He is also committed to stewarding the Mondo Process and making it available in the world.