Unassuming and irreverent, Graham White has been coming to Hawaii for a number of years teaching meditation practice at the Palolo Zen Center and other locales. A native of Sydney, on the surface, this Aussie surfer dude seems an unlikely meditation master. Perhaps that’s just another lesson in why stereotyping doesn’t necessarily work.
Grahame’s great gift is to make Buddhism accessible to Westerners. He has a knack for taking everyday trials and tribulations, say being stuck in traffic, and turning it into a “learning moment”.
I’ve taken several of his retreats and never fail to be impressed with his homespun sagacity.
Grahame began meditating in 1969 while in England on a youthful world tour, which is a rite of passage for Aussies. His spiritual odyssey led him to BodhGaya, India, where in 1971, he spent a year as a Buddhist monk.
The rest as the bromide goes, is history.
Last year I decided last year to produce a short video, with the idea of distilling the essence of his practice. I wanted people to know who Grahame is and what he does. I had the very good fortune to run into Kim Huynh, a filmmaker and the daughter of Xuan and Thanh Huynh (who I meditate with here in Hawaii). Kim also had the intention of doing a video on Grahame and we decided to collaborate on this project. Kim agreed to edit any footage that I could come up with and the short video below is the fruit of her labor.
On Target Hawaii 