The Seeker
By Sue Mayfield Geiger
Transformation. Change. Move in a different direction. Go in search of things. All of these projections are things we think about at some point during our lives. With the beginning of a new year, perhaps there are those of you who intend to take a road less traveled in the months to come or explore options that will change your life entirely. Transformation comes in many varieties, depending on how big of a risk taker you are. You can approach it like a slow moving train or you can jump in head first with gusto. Whatever the case may be, making the move takes courage, commitment and most of all passion. Belief is a powerful word; if you believe, it will happen.
There are thousands of transformation stories to be told, and you no doubt have friends who have lived them; maybe even yourself. This is the story of a young man who grew up in a devout Catholic home in the Upper Midwest, attended parochial schools, including a Catholic college in Texas where he was a wild and crazy guy. He had a serious relationship with his college sweetheart, but broke it off after graduation and a move to Los Angeles where he spent the next decade living the Hollywood life as a screenwriter/story editor. He dated glamorous women, dined at trendy restaurants, partied, experimented mildly with drugs, made good money, and life was good. Or was it?
Something would happen to turn his focus inward. To search his soul and take a journey that would lead him far beyond anything he ever knew existed. Today Steve Krieger (now called Gento) is a Buddhist monk and lives in a Zen Buddhist monastery in the California hills far above the bright lights of tinsel town. He has no worldly possessions, resides in modest quarters and his curly dark locks are gone. As a Buddhist monk, his head is shaved.
The boyish good looks and eager grin portray exactly who he is - a likeable and friendly guy. That part, he says, never changed. But what did change was, well, just about everything else.
Tell me about your growing up years.
I was born and raised in the suburbs of Brookfield, Wisconsin, and then out in the farmlands of Hartford with my two brothers and three sisters. My father owns Krieger Barrels, a gun barrel factory in Germantown. I've recently been told by a non-Buddhist friend that this latter fact alone is enough to drive a man to the monastery.
Were you a true believer of Catholicism when you were growing up?
I was raised a strong Catholic. It was all I had and all I knew, and I was very fond of much of the custom, philosophy and practices of this faith. Where we use the word religion, in the East many traditions use the Sanskrit word upaya, which approximately means "skillful means" or "expedient." Catholicism was the upaya or tool I had to work with, so I used it the best I could to try and figure out how to be happy and live an authentic life.
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