November 2025: I’m exploring the possibility of teaching yoga / meditation. I’m completing my 200 hour training soon.
I’m a very informal guy. I buy used clothes and wear them until they are worn out. I don’t own a proper suit. So I’ve decided to make this page less formal, or at least way shorter than it has been, so it better reflects who I am, rather than so much detail on how I imagine I got here!
I was born in Boston in 1957 to a mixed couple: Cyrus Kano was Japanese, Dorothy Weinz was white. She was temporarily disowned by her dad in the process of them getting married. I always really respected her for going through with it anyway! I’m divorced. I have 3 sisters (I’m #3 of 4), and 2 amazing daughters, born in the 1990’s. My daughters are my biggest blessing to date, beyond life itself. I’m a very lucky dad!
When I was a boy I always loved building things with my dad, who was a mechanical engineer (now passed). I still love inventing and making things!
I retired from years of computer programming in 2012, much to my relief. The pace of technology is accelerating more than fast enough without my help! There is more information about the social context of my life in my longer history page.
Meditation has been an important aspect of my life since I learned Transcendental Meditation in 1972. I’ve practiced meditation of one kind or another for 20-30 minutes, twice a day, ever since. In 1996, (the year my mom died and my daughter Rose was born), I started a practice of non-judgment. Starting in 2015, I took the intention to go “full time” with my mindfulness practice: I stayed with the sense “I am” with every breath throughout the day, as I worked as a one year intern at Koinonia Farm. In the last few years, as my working meditation practice has matured, there are some days, that I don’t do seated meditation. Now I take everything I do throughout the day as meditation. Such as hikes in the woods, doing the dishes or riding my electric motorcycle. Physical yoga has become a more important aspect of my practice. I’ve started to take a yoga teacher training at Asheville Community Yoga.
I’ve enjoyed many benefits of meditation, large and small. At first it just kept my mental health much more functional and happy. The more significant benefits started in 2012, when I realized the radiant beauty of all creation. I’ve enjoyed various states of bliss, which began as an unconditional Love of everything and everyone in 2015. I’ve experienced what I call the “awesome block of reality” from time-to-time. In 2018 I started to experience moments of spiritual ecstasy, triggered by every day beauty such as backlit clouds.
In February 2025, I did a four week, solo silent retreat. The spiritual ecstasy became steadier by the end. While this state has been associated with enlightenment, I’m not there yet! I feel very blessed.
I attribute none of the fruits I’ve harvested to the seeds of practice I’ve watered through the years. God/Source/Universe provides all the power to make those seeds grow, blossom and ripen! David (ego and “addicted” body/mind) has impeded this process more than anything, as he shed the illusions and hurts he has suffered through the years. The fruits are not just mine either, which is why I originally created this website. My prayer is that the fruits of my practice benefit everyone.
As I update this page in November 2025, I’m learning to teach physical yoga asana. Yoga as it is known in the west is becoming more of doorway to spiritual practice again. For a while (and sometimes still) it was often more of an exercise class. May this trend continue and strengthen!