I met Stanley Keleman when I was 24 and my 30 minutes of work with him was like a karate chop altering my life trajectory. At the time I was a graduate student in Asian Studies and thereafter spent three years studying Buddhism in South Vietnam. 20 years later, in 1989 living in the Bay Area, I reconnected with Stanley and his work. For the next 29 years I attended almost all his programs, practice classes, including regular individual consultations, and eventually small group interactions about being a male in the 21st century, and for several years sharing lunch in his home discussing implications of the latest scientific research for human formative behavior. I was glad to use my IT experience to connect Berkeley classes and the local Center community with participants around the world, and to also organize an internet wikipedia page for Stanley.

I have continually used Stanley’s Formative approach and practice in my personal life and as co-founder of a public charter elementary school. Formative Psychology provided me a layer of somatic understanding and vibrant internal experience to my Buddhist views. My daily practice of VME and the cultivation of a formative view on endings and beginnings, change and growth, and living what Stanley called an ordinary life provide great satisfaction and meaning to me. I am currently working on a book on Buddhism in Vietnam, influenced by my Formative perspective. I am deeply grateful for having had the opportunity to know Stanley, experience his view of the world and to support an ongoing Formative Community.