Heartfelt Change By Anthony Kilner
“…there were two major changes in Nick’s life where his heart energy exploded from him…”
You don’t have to be perfect to be a monk! It’s the impression ShirleySienna and I got while interviewing Dr Nick Ribush (pronounced Ree-bush). ShirleySienna suggested it as the name of the story, however its way too long. Heartfelt Change is relevant as there were two major changes in Nick’s life where his heart energy exploded from him and he knew what course to follow. One was with music and the other was his first foray into Buddhism in Nepal at a monastery in Kopan. The interview, linked in the story, runs through a major part of Nick’s journey into Buddhism. We’ve selected a snippet of this information for the story however it doesn’t do justice to hearing Nick recall his stories from a child born in Melbourne,
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Supernal Magazine
Camberwell 1944 through adolescence and into adult hood as a practicing doctor. Dr Nick was born in Melbourne (1941) to Russian Jewish immigrants from Latvia and grew up in Canterbury speaking mainly Russian until he went to school and began to learn English properly. At a young age, mid-teens, Nick decided he was going to become a doctor. He graduated from Melbourne University Medical School in 1964. Nick explains his heritage in detail in the video, however his father wanted to be a doctor before coming to Australia and while that didn’t work out for him, he encouraged his sons to go down that path, consciously or otherwise, with Nick’s brother also graduating from med school in 1968.
Melb Uni Jazz Band 1960 In the meantime, Scotch College was the home for Nick’s schooling prior to uni. In 1958 Nick’s world changed on several fronts. On a personal level, his father passed away, it was his last year at Scotch and the epiphany above all was finding jazz music. Prior to this Nick’s world was classical and opera and he wasn’t keen on it at all.
“It was like my first religious experience!” Nick heard some jazz at a friend’s place and he was taken by it. One Friday he and a friend went to the Melbourne Jazz club in Burnley, Richmond, where it was being staged at that time. In Nick’s words, “I really got off on it!” He explained that, “It was like my heart chakra
