by Dan Peterson, Kadö
Desung Care and Conduct Officer

I turned on the AM radio while driving and was hooked. There was a shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck High School and five students were dead. The school was on lock-down and First Responders were on the scene, as well as local media.

Law enforcement officers went from classroom to classroom, securing portions of the large sprawling campus.  Intermittently classes were released to run about a quarter mile across open fields, across a rural road to a small church, where parents were waiting to meet their children.

I have a friend who is a special education administrator at the Marysville School District. She contacted a few of us who have backgrounds in special education, developmental disabilities, and mental health to be at the High School to provide support on the first day it reopened after the shooting.

My wife asked what I would be doing by going in on the first day.  I was very grateful to recall a Desung Training I attended with Dapon H Simon La Haye. He said to drop all your tricks, all the expertise. It just gets in the way. To be truthful I couldn’t think of any tricks to bring to this tragedy – just a broken heart and a willingness to be present.

Marysville is about an hour’s drive north of Seattle. When the alarm went off at 5:30 a.m. it was raining and dark. Sometimes I wake from a quilted cocoon, and crawl into the morning cocoon of coffee, newspaper, and National Public Radio news. But this morning there was nothing familiar to crawl into.

In the early grey dawn I could see that Marysville homes and businesses were decked out with hand-made signs, some with flowers, ribbons or balloons attached. “We Love You, Marysville-Pilchuck”, “The Alumni Association Supports Our Students,” “Marysville Loves Our Students.” A quarter mile chain link fence bordering one side of the high school campus was completely covered by ribbons, flowers and signs. I later learned that community members and families who didn’t know what they could offer spent the weekend decorating the fence.

I parked and walked towards the main office to sign in. Busses were pulling up and letting out students. Each person arriving was greeted by more students waiting to give hugs, shake hands, and sometimes share tears. I had to pull myself together after witnessing this communal display of love and kindness before entering the school. I busied myself with signing in, getting a name tag, and greeting friends who were arriving to volunteer.

In Desung Training it is said that we are never off duty. Instead of writing about a school shooting, this account could just as well be about the fearless warrior opening the back door of the car and cleaning the papers and miscellany that accumulates there over time. Or about getting up at night to feed the baby, or kissing one’s partner before going to work.

During the shooting, which occurred in the school cafeteria, a first year teacher saw the gun, and saw the students being shot. She saw the young student with the gun raise the weapon and put it to his head. She ran towards him and yelled “No!  Stop!”

I was assigned to sit in on several classes. Without a plan it was easy to make friends. I sat with a fellow and we colored in a thank you poster to send to Arlington High School. They had sent 1200 hand-written notes from each student to the students at Marysville-Pilchuck. Later I accompanied two students who had a job going from classroom to classroom to collect recycling. The school campus has a number of buildings with classrooms that let out into the outdoors rather than into interior hallways. As we walked from class to class I looked out at the fields surrounding the school. It was drizzling, and low mists came down to the damp ground. I was glad for the company of the two students, and I think they were happy to have me there as well. There was a palpable fear in that space between the buildings.

In the last class the teacher read a story about a high school girl who lost her mother to cancer.  The teacher wanted to use that as a springboard to discuss the school shooting. It was very difficult for several students. One student, who might be on the autism spectrum, raised his hand.  He said “My friend is having a problem talking about this so I want to explain something. It is called ‘train of thought’. You started reading about death, and she thought about her friends who died in the cafeteria, and now she is crying. So one thought reminds her of something else, and that is called ‘train of thought’.”

Another student talked about being bullied, and how he has a dream that he can run faster than the wind to a hill in the distance where he has a hiding spot. Fantasies of being a wind runner, a martial arts expert, or packing a gun naturally come to mind when day-dreaming about life-threatening situation. David Whitehorn says that as Desung, which means ‘bliss protector’, we don’t really protect bliss. Bliss doesn’t need protection. What we protect is the capacity to experience basic goodness, protecting avenues so that we can remain open to each other. Our reactive fantasies shield us from a reality that might be just too vivid, however it helps to see them for what they are. Several students had a very difficult time discussing death, and I took them from class and walked with them down to the counseling center set up for students who needed a safe place to be.

The teacher then started a frank discussion about the incident. He said that when the lock-down was ordered, he discovered that he could not lock the classroom doors. He set up a curtain in the back of the room and had the students stay behind the curtain, while he stood by the door to hold it shut. The lock-down lasted four and a half hours, because the school had not updated the map of the campus to give to first responders, and several major changes had occurred on campus to accommodate growth in the last couple of years. Because of how long they were held in class a screen was set up in a corner of the classroom and a waste can with a plastic bag was set behind the screen to serve as a toilet. The shooting happened just before lunch, so the teacher opened up all the classroom treats to share as they waited.

As the discussion opened up the class became animated when they talked about seeing themselves on the news later that evening. They were filmed from a helicopter running from the school to the church. For the first time that day I heard some laughter as they teased the teacher, saying that they could recognize him running because of his bald head.

Our practices, teachings and teachers all work to soften and dissolve the barriers that separate us from others, from our world. I have condensed something Dapon M Dennis Southward said years ago at a Desung Training in Boston. It is something of a Desung slogan for me.

The war is over.
We are surrounded by the phenomenal world.
Our job is to surrender,
And to make offerings.

The next opportunity to learn more about the Desung view will occur April 10 – 12 in Tucson, Arizona.  Desung Arm Commander Jan Jercinovic, Rupon and Dapon M Dennis Southward will be offering ‘Entering the Desung Path’.  For more information go to: http://tucson.shambhala.org/program_details.php?id=220945&cid=257

~~

Dan Peterson has been a Dorje Kasung since 1980, and currently serves as a Desung Care and Conduct Officer.  He lives in Ballard Heights in Seattle and works as a Mental Health Resource Manager for the State of Washington.

COLUMN: Dispatches from the Front Lines
by Shastri Jennifer Woodhull
Photos courtesy of Maxine Sidran and Joey Johannsen 

Dispatches from the Front Lines is a bimonthly column initiated by Shastri Jennifer Woodhull of
Cape Town, South Africa. It’s intended to open up dialog concerning the conflicts dogging Shambhala groups and centers all over the world. So far, Jennifer has been the only contributor. What will make this column genuinely helpful to the larger mandala—and, by implication, to all of our local sanghas—is a broader range of contributions. You don’t have to be in an official leadership position in your center or group; you need only to have practiced bringing your local conflict to the path of warriorship, and to be willing to say something about that experience. Please see the submission guidelines, and go for it!

~~

At the moment you begin to complain and produce logic, you cease to be a warrior of the Tiger Lion Garuda Dragon dignity on the spot.

—The Vidyadhara, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

One of my favorite Buddhist stories recounts a sort of jamboree of the enlightened: a gathering of all the buddhas of the various dimensions and eras. Over flagons of inconceivably delectable amrita, the participants trade stories of their respective teaching experiences. “In my dimension,” says one buddha, “I convey the dharma through aromas.” Her listeners nod appreciatively. “Oh, that’s interesting,” remarks another. “The beings in my dimension respond best to melody.” Our own buddha shakes his head sadly. “The beings in my world are so thick,” he laments, “suffering is the only thing that gets through to them.”

Over the course of the past few difficult years, I’ve at times been offered well-meaning suggestions that the painful ruptures in our sangha are somehow “all for the best.” The implication is that since I’m suffering, the Buddha must be getting through to me. But that’s not necessarily the case. Ultimately, this reasoning boils down to the frankly masochistic view of suffering as redemptive—a view dangerously allied with a reward-and-punishment model of personal and social evolution. On the warrior’s path, suffering can certainly generate progress; but when that happens, it’s because of the way we relate to our suffering, not merely because we’re gritting our teeth and enduring it with whatever passes for grace.

I’m not a fan of the “everything happens for a reason” school of thought. For one thing, it strikes me as unhelpfully theistic: whose reasoning is privileged here? I suspect that the Grand Reasoner is none other than our old friends, Hope and Fear. Even though my worst fears are manifesting right now, the logic goes, I’ll ultimately succeed in getting what I hope for. But from the warrior’s point of view, success doesn’t lie in getting what I want. Success means that I wake up.

There’s a maddeningly smug undertone to the reason-for-everything approach, one that flies in the face of compassion. If there’s a “reason” for your suffering, then it follows that your suffering—your divorce or ill-treatment or terminal diagnosis—is reasonable. This, in turn, makes your fear, rage and anguish unreasonable. And that means that I don’t have to deal with it.

The suffering that wakes us up is, by definition, unreasonable. It demands our active engagement, like it or not, ready or not. We’re obliged to enter into relationship with our worst fears, and by the same token, to let go of our fondest hopes. This visceral practice is rooted in the nondualistic riddle of basic goodness. If it’s true that everything is infused with basic goodness, that must include this horrible, awful, dreadful, wretched *&#x! experience. How am I supposed to understand that?

Those of us who have gone through Shambhala Training Level I may recognize in this the infamous Hitler Question: if basic goodness is the nature of all reality, how do we explain such horrors as the Holocaust, or the Stalin or Ceaușescu regimes? What’s basically good about the Rwandan genocide, the beheadings of ISIS captives, or any of the other myriad brutalities delivered to us fresh with each new day’s media reports?

Relative to such unthinkable cruelties, the perceived insults and injustices we suffer in our sangha conflicts pale into insignificance. But although we’re speaking of vastly different degrees of suffering, it’s all suffering. And so the same question applies: where’s the basic goodness here?

To proclaim that painful events happen in order to wake us up flies dangerously close to the “everything happens for a reason” logic I’ve just been refuting. The difference between the two approaches lies in the assumptions we bring to our experiences. To ask why things happen is to approach the question already armed with the assumption that there’s an alternative to the experience we’re having: in a word, that this shouldn’t be happening.

This is the same assumption that fuels our everyday irritation, impatience and grasping. When I knock over the mug
and it shatters on the kitchen floor, my annoyance is rooted in precisely the same assumption as is my outrage at the Hitlers of this world: This shouldn’t be happening!

The same dynamic is in play when we go looking for the tranquil meadow of our sangha, only to find ourselves instead
alone in a vacant lot, standing barefoot on broken glass. To say that this shouldn’t be happening is a no-brainer. Of course people should be treating each other with compassion and respect. Of course people shouldn’t be hurting each other. The worse the violence, as in the Hitler example—or the higher our expectations of the perceived perpetrators, as with our dharma siblings—the more justified we feel in rejecting such acts. Yet no matter how legitimate our indignation, or how convincing our arguments for why this shouldn’t be happening, the fact remains that this is happening.

Most unreasonable of all, the fact that this is happening is basically good—not thanks to some labored logic that magically aligns things with some imagined ideal, but because this has the capacity to happen. Because it involves sentient beings capable of feeling and thinking, and the conditions that permit us to choose how we’re going to conduct ourselves. It’s basically good because we have those choices and the agency to act on them.

Certainly, none of our teachers has ever suggested that we should passively allow harm to continue unchallenged. But from a purely practical point of view, our attempts to stop harm seem too often to escalate our conficts. Perhaps that’s because we’re confusing our dualistic version of goodness with the much more profound reality of basic goodness. From that deeper perspective, our notions of how things ought to be are at best irrelevant. What’s real is our brokenheartedness, our ability to experience it, and our yearning for a kinder and more loving world.

According to this view, the heartbreak of the situations in which we find ourselves is nothing other than the unreasonable calling card of basic goodness.

~~

Shastri Jennifer Woodhull

Jennifer Woodhull grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and returned there after 30 years in the U.S. She took refuge at Karme Dzong, Boulder in 1984 and was empowered as a shastri in 2012. Jennifer is a full-time PhD student in religious studies at the University of Cape Town.

On 16 March, the Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo conducted ceremonies to purify and bless the new Kalapa Centre offices in Halifax. In the Sakyong’s new office at Sovereign Place overlooking Halifax Harbour — surrounded by the staff of the Sakyong Potrang, Shambhala, the Kalapa Court, Centre East Media, and Kalapa Media — the Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo led a lhasang which was then carried to offices throughout two floors of the building.

Following the ceremony, all re-gathered in the Sakyong’s office where the Sakyong Wangmo presented him with a magnificent Gesar thangka she had carried from Nepal, to protect and gather energy for the expansion of Shambhala everywhere. Then all enjoyed sparkling wine, toasts and warm conversation.

The Sakyong spoke of the importance of this new space to Shambhala with its vast views, how it would energize the expansion of not only the international offices it houses, but the Halifax Shambhala Centre and all our centres throughout the world. All present were reminded of his encouragement to us in his recent Shambhala Day address:

As we take this moment globally, letting the sun of Shambhala extend out, let us make an aspiration to be of benefit: to strengthen those who need to be strengthened, to help those who are suffering, and to create a culture based on the principles of strength, kindness, and intelligence.

To view some video highlights of this event, please visit this site. Please note that Shambhala is now at the following address:

Shambhala
Sovereign Place
5121 Sackville Street Suite 601
Halifax, N.S. B3J 1K1
Canada
(902) 425-4275
email: shambhalaint@shambhala.org

Photo by Benny Fong

by Ian Bascetta, Continuity Kusung

On a sunny and slightly frozen Saturday afternoon, Jetsun Yudra celebrated her second birthday with a festive and cheerful gathering at the Kalapa Court in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Just before the celebrations began, the Sakyong bestowed birthday blessings upon Jetsun Yudra in the company of the Sakyong Wangmo and Jetsun Drukmo in the court shrine room.

Jetsun Yudra exclaimed “Yayyyy!” as her friends arrived in the late afternoon to help her celebrate turning two. She donned a blue chuba and a sparkling silver birthday hat with pink fur around the edges that read “Birthday Princess.”

The festivities began with a Treasure Hunt that required the young Shambhalians to follow the clues via photos of different places around the court. Jetsun Yudra led the way and didn’t miss a beat, but not without help from her older four-year-old sister, Jetsun Drukmo, who seemed to enjoy roaming her home and letting others find the clues rather than ruin the surprise. The Jetsuns seem to have perfected the art of hosting at the very young age of four and two! 

Photo by Ian Bascetta

As the treasure hunt came to an end in the family dining room, the children gathered for food, cake, and gift presentations. Following gifts, the Potrang Players (Amateur puppeteers Jeff Rosen and Kelly MacLean) put on a short puppet show inspired by Disney’s Frozen, with a Shambhalian twist (Disney meets Downton Abbey meets Shambhala). As the children sat in silence and awe at the inspired production, Jetsun Yudra decided to take a look behind the curtains and see how it was being done. When she appeared backstage, the cast and crew were delightfully surprised and got many laughs from the entire audience of children and parents.

As the play ended, and the lights came up Jetsun Yudra managed to steal the show with an amazing rendition of Disney’s “Let it go,” which she has memorized. Just as everyone thought the party was dying down, the Sakyong presented a poem he had composed for Jetsun Yudra that morning in honor of her second birthday: 

Photo by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Now You Are Two
Now you are two.
It is good to be two,
For you have always been two.
Even in the beginning you were two,
For mother and father made you two.
And when you were born,
The sun and the moon were there too.
Now being two you can run up,
And down too.
You can touch earth,
And sky too.
You can have cake,
Now You Are Two
And juice too.
Even in the future when you are many twos
You will still be two,
For the world and you will make two.
This and that will be two.
Love and compassion will always make you two.
For on this day,
Your sister and you make two.
Your mother loves you too,
And your father loves you too.

With impressive grace and manners, Jestun Yudra could be seen and heard in the front entranceway saying, “bye bye” to all the guests as they departed back into the frozen magical land of Halifax.

COLUMN: Aging in Enlightened Society
by Jackie Roberts

Reb Zalman and Sara Davidson discussing “the December project” (photo by Carl Sudna from www.saradavidson.com)

In 2002, I moved back to my native home of Denver to assist my elderly parents who were in their 80s.  Mostly a dutiful daughter, I had stayed in frequent touch by phone and visits, yet had not truly noticed the changes in their health and lifestyle.  How had they gotten so old and frail?   I was catapulted into the deep end of the pool. My father died within a few months after a stroke, and my mother began a six-year journey down dementia lane.

My parents rarely spoke of old age and death. They both embodied an optimism, fortitude and stoicism sown in childhood. Mom’s family homesteaded in Montana, and dad’s family immigrated to Wisconsin from Germany. Families were rearranged by wars and necessity and deaths. I barely knew my grandparents – perhaps this is one reason why I did not easily recognize the passage of time knocking on our family’s door.

Through life’s grace, I crossed paths with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi through reading his seminal book. From Aging to Sage-ing: A Revolutionary Approach to Growing Older was first published in 1995 with co-author Ronald S. Miller. I immediately sought out a workshop to learn more about “conscious aging” and landed at a Sage-ing Circle® Facilitator training in South Bend, Illinois in 2004.

When Reb Zalman was approaching 60, he realized he had no role models for the coming years of his life. He went on a forty-day retreat to contemplate this situation. The result was the beginning of a conscious aging movement in America. The Spiritual Eldering Institute, founded in the 1980s, has evolved into today’s Sage-ing International (http://sage-ing.org).  Their commitment is to transforming the current paradigm of age-ing to sage-ing through learning, service and community. Facilitators are trained to share the tools, techniques and philosophy of sage-ing, Reb Zalman’s “profound new vision of growing older.” Biennial conferences are open to anyone with an interest in the sage-ing philosophy, and they collaborate with a growing number of like-minded organizations.

If you participate in a Sage-ing® workshop, you will experience Reb Zalman’s wisdom and compassion firsthand. The Sage-ing Workbook contains the key spiritual exercises he designed for becoming a conscious elder. I’ll just mention one here – Our Lives as One Cycle of a Year.  This journaling exercise uses a Biblical framework of seven-year cycles that span January (0-7 years) to December (78–plus years). We are invited to look back over our lives, examine the details of past experiences and reconsider their meaning.

Reb Zalman walked his talk. He shared the spiritual contemplations of his “December years” through a series of conversations with Sara Davidson, which she recounts in The December Project: An Extraordinary Rabbi and a Skeptical Seeker Confront Life’s Greatest Mystery. Sara writes: At eighty-five, Reb Zalman proposed that we have a series of talks about what it’s like “when you’re in the December of your years and you know you’re coming to the end of your tour of duty. What is the spiritual work of this time, and how do you prepare for the mystery?”

Over two years, they met and conversed about facing mortality and appreciating life. The book also includes sketches of his family’s escape from the Nazis, formative years as an orthodox rabbi in the U.S., marriages, relationships with other faith leaders including Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama, and the founding of the Jewish Renewal Movement. I felt inspired to reflect again on Chögyam Trungpa’s story told in Born in Tibet, and Sakyong Mipham’s pivotal conversations with his father in The Shambhala Principle.

Reb Zalman was a Professor Emeritus and for nine years held the World Wisdom Chair at Naropa University. The University of Colorado Library in Boulder now houses the Reb Zalman Legacy Project that archives a large body of his articles, books, photographs, audio and video recordings. Visit their website at http://www.rzlp.org.

Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi died peacefully in his Boulder home on July 3, 2014, just short of his 90th birthday. I think he would have appreciated this aspiration: May the gifts of his legacy outlive the bristlecone pine and upload to the matrix beyond time!

~ ~

Jackie Roberts is a new member of the Shambhala Working Group on Aging. She is currently the Director of Service for the Shambhala Meditation Center of Denver. Last but not least, she has 64 years of life experience!

As the birth of the Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo’s third child approaches, many people have inquired how to contribute an offering or send best wishes. In response to these requests, we have set up a registry where greetings may be sent to the family, and contributions offered to an education fund or for family travel around the birth.

The registry may be found here.

Please include your full name and city so that the Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo know of every visitor to the registry site. They are so appreciative of kind thoughts for their family at this time. You may also send cards to:

The Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo
Office of the Sakyong
Sovereign Place
5121 Sackville Street Suite 601
Halifax, N.S. B3J 1K1 Canada
or email Secretary Jeanne Cain at goldenbirth@gmail.com

COLUMN: Shambhala on the Move
by Margaret May

This is part one in a two-part series on the transformation of the Toronto Shambhala Center. 

November 2012: Wendy Friedman (Director of Shambhala Culture and Decorum) and David Mukpo (Kusung Commander for the Dorje Kasung) are in town to lead an experiential workshop on bringing the court principle into everyday life. On the third floor of the building where the Toronto Shambhala Centre has lived since the late 1980s, a group of us stand on the landing outside a heavy orange door.

Wendy asks us to notice how it feels to stand here and to imagine how it feels for a person coming to the centre for the first time. We step through the door (it is heavy isn’t it?) and see a black lacquered nook with a shelf and a photo of a smiling man in robes. Below the photo is a lovely arrangement of flowers; to the right, a wall with double yellow doors and elaborately painted borders. We struggle to manoeuvre around a very large desk covered with books. We pass a door and then a hallway stretching away and down a wider hall where double doors suggest another room.

Wendy asks us: What does this feel like? What is this big black shelf with flowers on it? Who is that? What does this calligraphy mean? Do you have to give money to come here? What are these books on this big desk? What’s behind those doors? Can I go in there?

We’re only five steps in and already we can see how confusing and inaccessible the centre seems. And we thought the only accessibility issues were the two flights of stairs and no elevator! We continue through the entire centre. Is this Toronto or Tibet? What is Shambhala? Why are the pictures faded? Why are there two of the same image—is one not strong enough to speak for itself?

For at least a decade, many community members felt the change the centre needed was to buy our own building. Suddenly there was another path to change—something we could actually accomplish. Wendy challenged us: “If you want to create something meaningful, you have to make it look like what you want it to become.” And so we began to open ourselves to a fresh experience of what was oh-so familiar and so unchanged in a very long time.

January 2013: Stephen Vosper, chair of The Sakyong’s Panel on Shambhala Environments, leads about twenty of us in an exploration of the environment through the principles of lha, nyen, and lu; heaven, earth, and man; outer, inner, and secret. We sit, walk, and stand throughout the centre. We feel each room, corner, and space, noticing where we feel connected (or not). We open up to understand the dynamic energies in the relationships we each have with this environment.

We thought we needed more space, more storage, and more kitchen. Then we noticed how the space we have is poorly used and very cluttered! A large closet by the front door is used to store cleaning supplies, ladders, and paint cans; the doors to the community room nearly prevents people from getting in or out; a massive desk we use as our “bookstore” blocks the entrance. A large trestle table and grubby sofas pressed up against the walls make it awkward for people to talk to each other.

In groups we tackle specific areas where we can play around and discover how moving, removing, or adding something different changes how the space feels. We are redefining space and noticing more details. We carry things from room to room and even throw some things out. Stephen says it’s not about throwing away treasures but knowing where they belong. He also shares the Sakyong’s view on manifesting a Shambhala environment—the need for food, conversation, and meditation—and his own understanding of the history and meaning of some of the symbols and interior architectural elements in our shrine rooms, which date back to the late 1980s.

Shortly after Stephen’s workshop we form the Sacred Spaces Team, charged by the Council to come up with a plan to renovate our space. We start decluttering by emptying and reorganizing closets and cupboards. We innovate new storage space without adding walls or cabinets. We give items away. We consult with the community, inviting everyone to share their wish lists. There’s a notebook for comments and a mural outlining the process and possibilities. Markers and sticky notes are nearby so people can join in the conversation as they comment on ideas, floor samples, or wall paint. People share ideas over tea.

The working group’s process involves revelations on multiple levels. We explore ideas and discuss feedback (improve the lighting! paint! new floors! get rid of the frayed carpet and sagging sofas!). We concur, then reconsider. Doubt arises and feelings get intense.

But we agree on the principles and the vision. We want the space to be welcoming to everyone, as well as accessible, comfortable, and intuitive. We want it to make sense to people coming to the centre for the first time. We want to eliminate barriers, both physical and symbolic, and manifest kindness. To realize our aspirations for the space, we on the Sacred Spaces team recognize we have to apply these principles to our interactions with each other. We sit with each other, feeling what we feel and sharing it—being kind to each other in the midst of intense feelings.

What is the Earth expression of this Heaven we envision? It takes time to figure it out. Everyone has a different priority. We realize that we have to carry out the plan in phases, focusing first on the community spaces—entrance, community room, coat room, and bookstore. But it is an entirely other activity to actually join Heaven and Earth. We bring in samples and then more samples. We so want Stephen to just tell us what colour to paint the walls! It depends on the light, he says. We have to trust ourselves. We get stuck. We learn how choosing the flooring is a key for the colour palette. We get more playful. We go shopping. We keep asking how things feel when it comes to paint colours and lighting options. And then we roll up our sleeves and start the work.

It takes two weeks to demolish, rebuild, repaint, and reopen. With a crowbar in his hand, a founding member asks more than once, “Are you sure we want to take this down?” Yes. We’re sure. Then he leans into the task and pulls the Tibetan-inspired decoration off the wall. There are over thirty volunteers and one contractor. The new furniture arrives. We welcome 80 participants to Rigden Weekend into our new space. The community celebrates at Harvest of Peace.

~~

Margaret May is a student of Sakyong Mipham and is active in three of the four pillars of Shambhala. She currently holds the position of Director of the Toronto centre, where she feels honoured to be part of a community inspired by the Sakyong and the Shambhala teachings. Being involved with the Sacred Space Team was a delightful experience for Margaret—particularly in terms of learning that when one lets go, brilliance arises. She is thrilled by the spontaneity and joy of her three- and one-year-old granddaughters. Margaret worked in the cultural sector for 30 years, more than half of which as a planner for an international museum-planning firm.

March is Shambhala Arts month, and the Shambhala Times is celebrating with articles from community members about creative expression. Today’s submission comes from Miksang teacher Hiltrud Enders of Dusseldorf, Germany (Translated by Susanne Lück). 

“Tomorrow we will have a nice last walk on the beach,” I think and try to reconcile with our all-too-soon journey home. Recreation has just begun to work. There have been many hours outside, far away from the computer. There have been marches through the sand making our heads empty, our conversation airy, our words few. The sea is calm these days. The sunny, windless weather lets us feel the spring as early as February. Again and again I stop, collecting shades of blue. I like when there’s just water and sky. Sometimes the horizon is crystal clear, then again it is hard to make out at all. It’s worth a closer look. In Miksang photography we call that a “motif”: looking at and depicting the same, unchanging thing. It may be the view from my window each morning, or the view of the sea when I arrive. I also like to abandon it. Keeping to a strict concept is not important to me. People do funny things at the beach. The space invites us to play.

On our last morning, I take one look out of the window and know that everything will be different today. When I arrive at the sand dunes, I hardly can see the stairs leading towards the seashore. The intense blue from the past days has turned into the dainty grey and white of a thick fog. From the wall of fog, a cheerful man emerges with a dog. “In an hour, the sun will come through and the fog will show itself in all its beautiful layers,” he announces. As if to clarify, he puts his finger on the glass wall of a beach restaurant and draws a wavy line that immediately freezes. My camera can hardly focus in this heavy mist. Nevermind. From not too far, a runner appears. Encounters now seem strangely personal. I chat with a man hiding inside a huge hood. His chair, easel, and ready-mixed colors stand untouched. “My motif has gone,” he says. Yesterday he started painting the beach. When I come back a while later, he is painting again. He simply turned around to face the town. He paints the houses and the reddish brown winter sea buckthorn in front in aptly beautiful colors. “I just added a bit of white,” he says. “Yesterday the sea buckthorn was freezing white.” He chooses vibrant colors for the houses, just as they will look once the sun chases away the fog. Unfortunately, we do not experience this dissolution on the beach, but on the highway. Suddenly the sun breaks through and the view is clear again.

~~

Hiltrud Enders is the Miksang Coordinator for Germany. She has completed the course of study developed by the Miksang Institute, and and also attended a five-day Teacher Training workshop offered by the Insititute in July, 2012. She also attended further Teacher Training in June, 2014 in Boulder, Colorado. Hiltrud speaks both German and English. 

March is Shambhala Arts month, and the Shambhala Times is celebrating with articles from community members about creative expression. Today’s submission comes from Melinda Rothouse on the Miksang Contemplative Photography Gallery Show in Austin, Texas.

by Melinda Rothouse

Photo by Kent Samuelson

Over the last month, the Dougherty Arts Center, run by the City of Austin, has featured a gallery show of contemplative photography, organized by local Miksang teachers Jessica Winslow, Jake Lorfing, and Patrick Larson. According to the show description, “Contemplative Photography is the art of seeing and appreciating the world, moment to moment, through a camera’s viewfinder. Contemplative Photography aims to move past our habitual ways of seeing in order to relax into the present, which allows the vivid and beautiful world to blossom in astounding ways.”

The show includes 66 images from 17 Texas-based Miksang practitioners, and represents a major step in bringing Miksang and the contemplative arts to the general public. Also represented are works by student photographers from the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center who attended Contemplative Photography classes from 2011-2012. Winslow explains, “For incarcerated youth, using a creative medium such as photography opened up an experience of the goodness of the present moment, despite being in a tightly controlled environment.”

Sangyum Cynde Grieve and Acharya Moh Hardin – Photo by Jake Lorfing

The gallery opening was attended by over 150 people, and the show has been very well received in Austin; the organizers even received feedback that it was one of the Dougherty’s finest shows to date. According to Winslow, “The photographs reflect Nalanda Miksang members’ experiences of meditation and direct perception. Some have extensive training as photographers, artists, and meditators, while others came to the society simply wanting to take better photos that reflect their lives accurately. All of us are developing a keen interest in seeing clearly what the present moment offers… Personally, I am thrilled that our show was accepted at this major gallery space in Austin. The aesthetic quality of the work is striking, enhanced by the quality of mindfulness that emanates from every image.”

Photo by Jessica Winslow

I was honored to be one of the featured photographers in this show, along with such a talented group of fellow contemplative artists. As both a Miksang practitioner and Shambhala Art teacher, I feel that the show beautifully illustrates the power of Trungpa Rinpoche’s dharma art teachings, and what a meditative approach to creativity can yield. The show also represents a truly collaborative effort among our local Shambhala community in the service of mindfulness, creativity, community, and the arts.

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More on Miksang: The Miksang Institute has just posted a new video of comments by some of its Institute Summer Intensive participants speaking about how Miksang has affected their experience of seeing in their day to day living, and their approach to artistic expression altogether.

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Melinda Rothouse is a professional creativity coach, consultant, and educator, as well as meditation and contemplative arts teacher, based in Austin, Texas. She is also a singer/songwriter/bass player and practitioner of Miksang contemplative photography. Her creative and professional work embrace a lifelong love of learning and an emphasis on journey and process. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in psychology with a specialization in creativity studies at Saybrook University; her doctoral work focuses on creativity, embodiment, mindfulness, and resilience.

Report by Shambhala Times Editorial Staff

Acharya Noel McLellan with his fencing trainer

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche announced on Monday that he will put his acharyas through a rigorous series of physical fitness competitions at this year’s Acharya Retreat.

The Sakyong said in the announcement, “It has been three years since I released Running with the Mind of Meditation. That should have been enough time for them to get in shape. Now it is time for them to demonstrate it.”

Acharya Retreats have a reputation for being intense and demanding for the senior teachers, with full days of practice, along with required memorization and testing of the acharyas knowledge and understanding of the teachings. However, this year’s Olympics-style physical competition brings the intensity to a whole new level.

When asked if he was concerned about pushing the acharyas, many of whom are in their sixties or seventies, too hard, the Sakyong replied, “They should know at this point in their lives as practitioners that genuine practice brings about physical radiance, strength and durability. And they should understand fearlessness.”

The announcement drew mixed responses from the acharyas.

Acharya Mitchell Levy has been training for months with an experienced javelin coach

“Personally, I am very much looking forward to it,” said Acharya Mitchell Levy. “I am particularly excited about the shot put and the javelin event. I have been training for months.”

Acharya Noel McLellan also indicated he had hired a personal trainer to teach him fencing and had been working with the trainer daily for over a year.

Acharya Jeremy Hayward was less certain. “I think it’s rather silly,” he said. “He’d be better off testing our ability to perceive non-physical beings.”

Acharya Emily Bower expressed confidence in her ability to win the hurdles event. “I’m fast. Most people don’t know I’m very fast. I’m more concerned about whether any of us stand a chance against Acharya [Christie] Cashman in the long jump competition. I’m pretty sure she has developed some siddhis – and levitation may well be one of them.”

Acharya Cashman could not be reached for comment.

Acharya Michael Greenleaf said he’s ready to wrestle. “I was quite thrilled to hear the news that wrestling would be included…. wrestling’s my favorite!”

The events of the Acharya Retreat will be broadcast live on Shambhala Online.

Report by Shambhala Times Editorial Staff

When asked after he took his Presidential Retirement Oath what he was going to do now, Shambhala’s former President Richard Reoch jokingly gave the cliché response, “I’m going to Disney World!” It turns out he wasn’t joking. Mr. Reoch took a trip to Japan to celebrate the conclusion of his tenure as President, spending full days at both Disney Tokyo and Sanrio Puroland, a Hello Kitty theme park. He said that the trip to Sanrio Puroland in particular was something of a pilgrimage, returning to his roots, as he grew up in a family that practiced Pure Land Buddhism. 

“It was certainly a release for me to be there,” Mr. Reoch said. “It’s been a long twelve years, but I feel like a new man.”

When the theme parks found out Mr. Reoch would be visiting, Tokyo Disney arranged for a special parade on his behalf, while Sanrio Puroland invited him to give a speech, which he titled, “Hello Kitty, Hello Society.”

“Both events were quite an honor,” Mr. Reoch said. “Riding on the float was the experience of a lifetime. And while I am not convinced everyone
at Sanrio Puroland understood my message connecting Pure Land Buddhism and Enlightened Society – well, I’m used to that kind of thing anyway.”

Mr. Reoch said he has no further celebrations planned, but that the Hello Kitty memorabilia he received at Sanrio Puroland that is now covering every inch of his home will make every day feel like a celebration.

The winter is a special time for practice at Surmang Dutsi Til, the monastic seat of the Trungpa Tulku lineage in eastern Tibet, particularly after Losar or the Tibetan new year.

The Konchok Foundation is delighted to share photographs from the annual Chakrasamvara dance and from the graduation ceremony for the Children’s Education Program at Surmang, both which took place this year in the weeks following the Tibetan new year.

The Chakrasamvara dance is a celebratory occasion that annually gathers up to a thousand local people at Surmang to watch the festivities over three days. Since 2009, the Twelfth Trungpa Chökyi Senge Rinpoche (featured to the left) has led off the dance, and more than forty monks participated this year in its performance. The Chakrasamvara dance is an annual tradition that goes back several hundred years to the early days of Surmang Dutsi Til.

The Tibetan new year also marks the culmination of the winter session for the Children’s Education Program with a festive graduation and awards ceremony. The ceremony includes traditional Tibetan dances performed by the students and attended by their families from the surrounding Surmang Valley. This year, the graduation was presided over by the Chökyi Senge Rinpoche, who gave colorful silk scarves (called khatas) to students during the award ceremony.

Surmang has already started its spring session of the Children’s Education Program. As usual, monks serve as the teachers for local children, who are fed two meals each day while the school is in session, seven days a week.

View more photos of the Children’s Winter Session and Graduation and Awards Ceremony.

After the Chakrasamvara dance, practice at Surmang Dutsi Til continues with an eighteen-day intensive, referred to as a “great attainment” or drupchen. It is a closed practice. No one can either enter or leave the monastery during the drupchen. The first half is dedicated to practices from the treasure tradition of Chokgyur Lingpa and the second half entails a practice revealed as treasure (or terma) by the first Rolpe Dorje. Approximately, one hundred monks are performing the drupchen this year and also about one-hundred lay people, both women and men.

View recent photos from the Annual Chakrasamvara Dance, held at Surmang Dutsi Til in March.

Following the drupchen, the next practice period in the liturgical calendar is a five day chöd practice, designed to cut through ego-clinging. This is followed by a five day period for performing the Kagyu Gurtso or Rain of Wisdom, a collection of songs (or dohas) by the great masters of the Kagyu tradition.

Please visit the Konchok Foundation website for more news and photographs: www.konchok.org

April 4 is Parinirvana Day, the day when we commemorate the passing of  Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. This piece by Frank Ryan of Boston shares a personal memory of Trungpa Rinpoche and the Sixteenth Karmapa. The Seventeenth Karma is currently on a tour of North America. 

by Frank Ryan

Among the vast wealth the Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche passed on to his son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, was the capacity to enrich and instruct in every situation, not simply from behind a microphone. This was particularly evident in the Vidyadhara’s deep relationship with the Sixteenth Karmapa, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje. When he first invited the Karmapa to teach at Karmê Chöling (then called Tail of the Tiger) and other centers in 1974, the Vidyadhara demonstrated first-hand how to mix profound respect for the Kagyü and Nyingma lineages with insight and relaxed graciousness.

It was His Holiness’s experience with the Vidyadhara’s training of his closest students, and his son, the Sawang Ösel Mukpo, that revealed how deeply the wisdom traditions of Tibet were interpenetrating and taking root in the minds and hearts of students throughout North America and the West. Several years later His Holiness memorialized this unfolding dynamic with the discovery of the Namkhyen Gyaldar, or “Dream Flag” during his second visit to the West.

In 1981 His Holiness was diagnosed with terminal cancer at a hospital in Hong Kong. The monks at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim immediately began preparations to care for His Holiness in the final months of his life. To their dismay his Holiness announced that instead he would be traveling to the heartland of America to be cared for at the American International Hospital in Zion, Illinois. Within a short time the entire Kagyü lineage was transplanted to this small town fifty miles north of Chicago.

The Ven. Tai Situ Rinpoche, Ven. Sharmar Rinpoche, and Ven. Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, along with attendants and cooks all took apartments in Zion close to the hospital. Striking was the fact that all of these apartments looked out over the panorama of the tree line and the forbidding towers of the Zion Nuclear Power Station. An incredible array of master teachers such as the Vidyadhara also traveled to Zion to visit with His Holiness, express their love, and explore this daring break with tradition.

Serving as a Dorje Kasung in Chicago at the time it was my honor, and duty, to accompany the Vidyadhara on a number of his visits to see His Holiness in Zion.  Many accounts of magical events later surfaced regarding His Holiness’s final days, but the interaction between the Vidyadhara and His Holiness in early November, 1981 was remarkable in two ways: the power of their mutual presence and an ordinary quality rich with simplicity and compassion.

The Vidyadhara closely monitored the care His Holiness was receiving through his constant communication with the Lamen, Mitchell Levy, but during all of his visits he never drew undue attention to himself, always focusing on what was needed for His Holiness on that given day. On some days there would be heartfelt conversations but even when His Holiness wasn’t speaking the sense of communication and trust was palpable. At one point when a visiting physician failed to notice that the heart monitor display for His Holiness was flatlining, the Vidyadhara gently drew his attention to the malfunction as he moved closer to moisten his lips.

The evening the Lamen informed the Vidyadhara that His Holiness had passed into paranirvana the final trip to Zion was marked by a palpable sense of sorrow and loss. For students and attendants this continued throughout the three days the body of His Holiness remained in samadhi.

On November 8 the casket of His Holiness, whose body was to be transported back to Rumtek, was momentarily kept on the tarmac of O’Hare airport before being loaded onto the plane. As the Vidyadhara approached an attendant removed the grey tarp revealing a brilliant Dream Flag meticulously placed over the casket. With tender silence the Vidyadhara touched his head to the Dream Flag and motioned for the rest of us to draw close. The message was clear—this was no time for burrowing into hesitancy and doubt. The fearless display of His Holiness’s compassion in coming to the heartland of North America for his final weeks planted a powerful seed. Depth of the monastic tradition was respected in the construction of Rumtek in Sikkim, but the past didn’t define and contain the vibrancy of the wisdom lineage. Just as His Holiness XVII Karmapa now engages with the youth of North America and the world, our vow is to perpetuate the world of authentic presence.

A stanza from the poem the Vidyadhara composed on the occasion of His Holiness’s first visit to Tail of the Tiger sprung to mind:

The Dawn of Karmapa
The only living monarch on earth
Be kind to us
We wait for your lion’s roar
Tiger’s claw
Gentle smile
Ostentatious display of your presence
-Supplication to the Emperor, 1974

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Frank Ryan is a longtime student of the Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. He and his his wife Susan live in Boston. Still active as a Shambhala teacher, Frank also sits on the Board of the Prison Mindfulness Institute.