THE BULLY AND THE BUDDHIST
A former schoolyard bully, Jeff Zlotnik found a new identity through Buddhism. A classmate wonders why he changed—and if he remembers the pain he caused.
When I tell my dad that I’m on my way to go hang
out with Jeff Zlotnik, he laughs. “Once, when you were a kid, I asked why you were so scared of Jeff. You said, ‘Because he’s so much bigger than me.’”
In reality, I was easily a head taller than Jeff. But he was so confident and aggressive that he may as well have been twice my size.
Jeff always loomed large in my life. My earliest memory of him is from kindergarten. It was recess, and a bunch of us were playing in the sandbox. I was busy
digging up dirt with a little plastic shovel, making tunnels to push toy vehicles through. I’d loaded up a Fisher-Price trolley with action figure passengers and was having a great time. Out of nowhere, Jeff ran up, swiped the toy from me, and threw it out of the sandbox and into the nearby plants. He smiled, but it was a mean smile—Jeff’s signature smirk. It was the first time I remember feeling like someone wanted to make me feel bad. I went home and cried to my mom...
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