When Henry Shukman was 18, he read "Mornings in Mexico," a collection of travel essays by D.H. Lawrence. The essays contain, in part, descriptions of Northern New Mexico, where Lawrence traveled and lived for several years.
Shukman grew up in Oxford, England, the son of two university professors and former spies. A self-described "total rationalist" throughout adolescence, he wrote a lot, finishing his first book at age 19, the same year he started studying at the University of Cambridge.
It was also the same year Shukman described an "awakening" he had, caused in part by the elation he felt finishing his first book.
"It was as if I had discovered a level of my own consciousness on which I was inseparable from everything else," Shukman told New Mexico Inno. "I had no idea what it was. I just knew that in some way it was real."
Another feeling Shukman knew was real was his captivation over New Mexico, which started after he read D.H. Lawrence's descriptions of the state in "Mornings in Mexico."
So, in 1991, when he was 29 years old, Shukman came to New Mexico. He had previously spent extended periods of time traveling in various parts of the world, including a backpacking trip in South America that inspired his first book, so it wasn't his first time outside the British Isles.
It was, however, his most long-lasting. That's in part because New Mexico — Santa Fe, specifically — is where Shukman met Natalie Goldberg, an author who first introduced him to Zen, a particular path toward the sort of awakening Shukman had when he was 19.
Shukman had already practiced meditation since he was 24, but Goldberg started him down the path of Zen.
That path would eventually lead to The Way — a Santa Fe-based startup focused on helping other people explore the same path he and his nephew, Jack Shukman, co-founded last year.
The Way launched its flagship mobile application in March. A few months later, in July, it announced a $1.5 million seed investment led by Palo Alto-based True Ventures and Kevin Rose, a partner in the California firm.
That app, Shukman said in a statement, "is the result of everything I've studied and learned in 35 years of meditating and training." He was trained as a Zen Master in New Mexico and has taught courses at the Institute of American Indian Arts and New Mexico State University, and he led Santa Fe's Mountain Cloud Zen Center for over a decade before leaving to help launch his startup.
Since launch, the app has accumulated more than 11,000 users, Shukman said. It's paired with a book called "Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening" that he published in early July.
New Mexico Inno sat down with Shukman later that month to hear more about his journey to New Mexico, his connection to the state and his startup's new mobile app.
This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
New Mexico Inno: Do you remember what your feelings were like when you first came to New Mexico? Was it everything you had imagined it would be?
Henry Shukman: It's corny, but it was sort of like a homecoming. I felt so at home here, and I just loved it. I didn't really expect that I'd be here 30 years later. I thought I'd be here for six weeks. I first actually went to Cloudcroft near Alamogordo and stayed in a trailer there. Then I realized I was still curious about the northern part [of the state] where D.H. Lawrence had been, so I got a bus up to Taos from Alamogordo. I didn't have a car; I just walked around. I loved it. Then I went down to Santa Fe and met Natalie Goldberg. She introduced me to Zen.
Not being from New Mexico originally but coming here, discovering Zen here, have your thoughts on the state evolved a lot over time to where you are now, especially with founding this new company? My sense of New Mexico is constantly evolving. But some pillars of it have been, number one, friends I've had in the Native community, especially through teaching at the Institute of Native American Arts. A sense of remarkable rootedness and groundedness and connection to the natural world, and connecting to deep ritual life and ceremonial life, is part and parcel of this state. It's an amazing thing to have within New Mexico — that number of people who are really connected in that way to this place. Also, an ongoing, developing appreciation is just how creative it is here, whether it's in science or in the many, many arts and crafts that are represented here. Especially Santa Fe — it's such an intensely creative place.
That rootedness and groundedness you mentioned in New Mexico — why is that something you personally appreciate about the state? When I was a kid, I used to roam around the country where I grew up, sleeping out with friends. This was between the ages of about 13 and 18. I really discovered what it was like to form a bond with the land and feel my psyche being shaped by the land I was getting to know. Out here I've had a similar experience. I hike a lot, and I love camping and getting out into the wilderness. The fact that there are all these peoples, societies, in Pueblos, that are modeled on durable, sustainable ways of doing that, it's a rare thing. You won't find that in many parts of the world.
Do you think it helps you as a startup founder, as well? 100%. What I've discovered as a founder is that state of mind is so important to a business. It's critical. So having things that can replenish your spirit, so to speak, and staying aware and connected and not feeling isolated — that's a really good thing.
Speaking of the startup — what do you hope the app and the company more broadly can offer folks? Our research showed us there was no app that existed that did two things we wanted to do. The first was eliminate decision fatigue, because all the other [apps] are full of choices. It's like a Netflix model — "what do you want to watch, how do you want to meditate?" But actually meditation can be taught, and it makes sense to have a guided path that teaches you how to do it. We wanted to have a single, no-choice pathway. Secondly, there's a lot more to meditation than just mindfulness for stress reduction, which is what most of the other apps are about. There's a whole world of deeper experience that meditation can lead to, which traditionally falls under the name "awakening." Our app is attempting to offer guideposts to exploring that deeper territory.
