Ken McLeod was born in Yorkshire, England (1948) and raised in Canada. He holds an M.Sc. in Mathematics from University of British Columbia. In 1970 he met Ven. Kalu Rinpoche at his monastery outside Darjeeling, India and began studying Tibetan Buddhism. Kalu Rinpoche became his principal teacher and thus began a long association between the two. Other significant teachers included: Dezhung Rinpoche, Thrangu Rinpoche, Gangteng Tulku Rinpoche, Karmapa XVI, and Kilung Rinpoche.

In the 1970s and 80’s, McLeod received training, plus travelled, translated, and worked on Kalu Rinpoche’s many projects. He was the translator for Kalu Rinpoche’s first two tours of the West (1972 and 1974-5). Also, he translated texts: Writings of Kalu Rinpoche; A Continuous Rain to Benefit Beings; and The Great Path of Awakening by Jamgon Kongtrul. In 1974 he gave this last, privately published text to Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who then used it in his seminary teachings, making it part of the Buddhist canon in the West. When Shambhala Publications published it in 1987 as The Great Path of Awakening, it cemented McLeod’s reputation as a skilled translator. In 1976, he joined Kalu Rinpoche in Central France to help establish and then participate in the first 3-year retreat for Westerners (Kagyu Ling). This was the first of two three-year retreats (1976—83). His fellow retreatants included others who also went on to become senior Western teachers and translators, Sarah Harding, Ingrid McLeod, Richard Barron, Anthony Chapman, Denis Eysseric, and Hugh Thompson. In 1985, at Rinpoche’s request, McLeod translated and published The Chariot for Traveling the Path to Freedom: the Life Story of Kalu Rinpoche. Also in that year, Kalu Rinpoche authorized him to teach, and asked him to be the resident teacher at his Dharma center Kagyu Donga Chuling (KDC) in Los Angeles.

After several years at KDC, McLeod saw that the traditional, religious center approach wasn’t meeting his students’ needs. So he began evolving a new, non-traditional model based upon regular, one-on-one practice consultations; small, highly interactive teaching groups & meditation retreats; the notion of the individual practice path; an informal student-teacher relationship; and a “pragmatic” way to present material. These key elements would become the core of his teaching.

In 1990, he left KDC to set up a non-profit organization, Unfettered Mind, as a vehicle for this approach. At the time, the notion of a Buddhist teacher establishing a private practice went against accepted convention. It caused much controversy in 1996 when he presented the idea to the Buddhist Teachers Conference but has since been adopted by many teachers. During the 90’s, McLeod established a corporate consulting business, organized three conferences on Buddhism and Psychotherapy, and developed the curriculum that eventually became his book Wake Up To Your Life: Discovering the Buddhist Path of Attention (2001).

After 15 years, he realized that this model couldn’t accommodate the ways in which Unfettered Mind was growing and evolving. His practice as a business consultant gave him an understanding of how the flaws that characterize organizations and institutions could also be found in Unfettered Mind and most other Buddhist organizations. So in 2005, he went on sabbatical; in 2006, he re-invented Unfettered Mind. In an effort to avoid the structure & hierarchy of most Buddhist institutions, UM is now modeled as a network. In addition to the usual, teacher-driven activities (classes, workshops, retreats), UM is developing a wide range of web-based resources from which a practitioner — local or non-local — can find information, guidance and teachings that meet their own individual needs and enable them to shape their own, specific path, outside of the established, institutional framework.

Ken McLeod is highly regarded for his ability to present the traditional Buddhism — its philosophy, teachings, method, instructions & practice — in clear, lucid language that makes them more accessible to Western students He also has pioneered new class, retreat and dharma center formats, and has reworked the student-teacher relationship and the individual practice path.

Two principles underlie his work:

• Direct Experience. Conceptual understanding is no substitute for the kind of knowing that comes from direct experience. Buddhist material must be presented in a way that transmits, points to or elicits direct experience.

• Transparency. The customs and traditions associated with Buddhist practice in other cultures have been an obstacle for many Western practitioners. The solution is to distinguish the teachings from the overlay of medieval, Asian, cultural forms.

Key elements:

Living Awake

“Living Awake” is the ability to practice attention in every aspect of one’s life:Buddhism is fundamentally a set of methods to wake us up from the sleep in which we dream that we are separate from what we experience. “Everything that [we] experience is original mind; there is nothing else. ...Rest in original mind, not separate from the experience that is your life... Cultivate attention in everything you do, and, until your last breath, live in the mystery of being.” Unfettered Mind is structured to support this intention — as an individual on the cushion and in daily life, and in all elements of the UM network, from administration to practice and study.

Cultural Overlay

As Buddhism penetrates the West, there are difficulties in trying to transfer the institutions, language and terminology of a medieval, agrarian, Asian society to the post-modern, industrial, multi-cultural society of the West — with its own overlay of individualism, lack of hierarchy, and psychological preoccupations. The Western teacher must bypass the cultural overlay, go to the heart of the teachings and find simple, transparent language and methods to elicit direct understanding in the student.

Translation must be transparent.

“Ken McLeod is well-known as a translator of texts, practices, rituals, and structures into forms suitable for this culture.” The Tibetan language was specifically invented as a vehicle to transmit Buddhism. Because of this, it embodies understanding and it speaks to experience. However, a straight across, literal translation to English loses this resonance and instead becomes formal and conceptual — and intellectual ideas don't have the power to penetrate to the part of ourselves that truly knows. In translation, teaching and writing, one must use simple, direct English that’s natural and non-academic; use intuitive, emotional language and accessible terms; translate for the person who’s going to practice, not for the linguist or academic; and use everyday language that the practitioner can relate to from their own experience.

A contemporary, Western model for Buddhist teaching and practice must integrate the traditional and the modern.

McLeod’s traditional training immersed him in Tibetan language, texts, ritual, and technique. He realized that some practice obstacles arose because, in the context of contemporary American life, Tibetan Buddhist methods can’t easily be practiced in the classical manner. So he set about reexamining everything he’d learned and practiced. As a result, Unfettered Mind is faithful to the dharma but steps beyond convention, is non-institutional, and emphasizes an individualistic approach to practice. “My aim is for Unfettered Mind to provide a rich reservoir of resources so that each of us can find our way without sacrificing faith to a set of beliefs, individual questions to institutional answers, and a practice path to a set system of meditations.”

Practice is individual-centered, not tradition-centered.

The practitioner doesn’t follow a set system, but instead shapes their own unique path of practice and development that may lie outside the curricula in established institutions. As the Buddha said, you have to work things out for yourself.

The teacher-student relationship is informal and one-on-one.

Students relate to the teacher as a person. The teacher’s function is to point the student to their own knowing, not to set himself up as special. As a meditation consultant, the teacher offers guidance, support and instruction specific to the student’s unique experience.

The UM retreat format integrates traditional and modern.

Traditional teachings and meditation instruction are presented in Western language and framework. Innovations include daily individual interviews and practical application exercises that move the practitioner into their own experience.

Unfettered Mind is envisioned as a network for the development and distribution of resources for spiritual awakening.

• Unfettered Mind has no temple, center, or formal organization.

• There are no members, only participants, both local and virtual via the internet.

• Teacher and practitioners share responsibility for initiating and running projects.

• The sole purpose is for the participants to create resources & opportunities for practice.

• The core element is an "Environment of Awareness": any situation in which one or more people are directing attention into the mystery of knowing and helping each other to wake up. Examples: practice groups, study groups, group or individual retreats, practice consultations, workshops, classes.

• Another element is to provide web-based resources that are direct aids to practice. These include: book recommendations, practice guides, text & prayer translations, podcasts of retreat teachings, podcasts of classes, the opportunity to ask practice questions directly to Ken McLeod, and podcasts of Q&A sessions between Ken & students.

• Another key element is the teacher training program. McLeod trains long term practitioners who have significant experience and understanding, and whose paths lie outside established institutions.

He has written, “We feel that most people, when provided with the right training and guidance, will naturally seek to create environments in which they can transform conceptual understanding of spiritual teaching into experiential knowing, and thus resolve their deepest questions about how to make freedom, compassion and awareness alive and active in their lives.”

Books

Articles

Podcasts