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Jonathan Figueroa Velez
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Where to start… I’ll take it back to da birthplace of none other. Da BX Borough where I rest my head, so many flashes as I try to put together a page or so on my life and how I ran into this pair of compassionate warriors (the white guy from the farm and the Puerto Rican who came up around my way). Coming up, there was a clear message of limitation on what I can do with myself. Part of that message came from my family most of it came from where I’m from but those messages never stopped me. |
At
the age of 14, I dropped out of high school - Stevenson - one of the worse
schools in the city; that was a clear message of failure. I went on trying to
find a way to get a GED at my age and came upon this school for young adults who
drop out and are looking for a chance to get a GED or High School Diploma.
I studied there for about a year and got a better message of what I can do with
myself along with a GED at 16 years old - and a chance to go to college. Which I
took advantage of that same year. Not doing to bad: my family where real proud
of me. My loving girlfriend thought very highly of me and very soon after
accomplished the same battle.
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I started my first semester at Bronx Community College, overwhelmed myself with
classes and took a fall. I realized it was a different game, putting that much
on my plate called for some better study habits. I was told to study to pass,
which bored me. Studying what I didn’t like gave me an aversion to doing it.
I’ve learned to revise what is of interest so that it is as enjoyable as
possible. I stopped going to college because of some trouble in my back yard and moved out of my crib to my uncle’s where I started my martial arts experience. I was out there for a few months trying to get a job and developing myself mentally and physically though Kung Fu and my uncle’s own experience on the street. |
Soon after things had cooled down back in the Bronx I found myself moving back
in with my parents. On my arrival I went on a job hunt with the help of my
girlfriend who brought the local employment paper to my attention just about
every day. I got a few gigs here and there but none of which challenged me as
much as working for Peace on the Street.
I was introduced to Peace on the Street, Ultimate Karate and Uptown Meditation
though Maestro Richard Garcia, spring of 2005. I met Rich on the train and our
relationship started as I began working for him on the marketing team. On the
day of the interview, I got the chance to meet Stan Koehler (the white guy from
the farm). Getting this job helped me see my talents and made me aware of areas
that I needed work on. All of my gifts and areas of improvement began to
uncover.
Some of what helped me see my strengths and weaknesses was Stan’s beginner
eight-week meditation workshop. The workshop dealt with psychic self-defense,
energy management and my favorite, thought control.
What I got from psychic self-defense was how to defend against psychic punches,
such as what to say when my friends or family see this bio and try to give me a
new identity based on what I know. For energy management I became aware of
persons, places and things that give me energy and drain energy from me. I also
learned how to control situations with people and events so I can save the most
energy.
Last but not least thought control; I picked a big piece of reality when I
experienced that, like every thing else in the universe, thoughts come and go. I
learned that the more I stop thought, the more confusion and ego suffering
decreases. Often I’ve asked what is there to be confused about when the stream
of thoughts that gives me confusion is gone. Or who is there to be confused when
the thoughts that give me identity have disappeared.
While I trained physically with Richard, I continued my mental training and
completed Stan’s second eight-week workshop. Before I started that workshop, I
was exposed to a very impressive meditation protocol –ego deconstruction. This
protocol is a way of deepening awareness in a very short time.
This experience is profound. It gives me a tool to use when repetitive arguments
come into my mind and affect my decisions. This awareness provides a
psychological foundation to handle the local police when they harass me on the
street. It also shows me who in my life doesn’t support what I want to do which
lets me consider how much I will keep them around.
During my time at Peace on the Street I also built on my emotional training
though the Mankind Project (www.mkp.org). MKP showed me the different aspects of
being a man. With out a shout of a doubt I walked out of that weekend with a new
sense of maturity. The weekend gave me a chance to define what a man really is,
one who never stops inquiring into his life.
Once I can see a part of me that needs development I’ll never deny, suppress or
hide from it. In fact I will choose to go directly into the core of the
difficulty and look out for the part of me that wants to look the other way- the
shadow.
After my MKP weekend I surrounded myself with different ways of doing inquiry.
What lay ahead of me was just that, one full week of meditation at Hollow Bones,
a formal Zen retreat. A few weeks following my weekend I was presented a
challenge to sit in silence for seven days. Word!! As I was born I was dead real up
for the challenge. And during my retreat the only time I spoke was to check in
with one comment. When I was asked to give one word that described the
experience of wordlessness, the word I used and still use today is “Foreverness”.
