A poem by Jampa Pawo, dedicated to his dharma friend Grace

Bull’s Eye: An Arrow Piercing the Heart of Mara

Listen, brave warrior of Shambhala.
In your battle against the delusions,
Raise the longbow of unborn shunyata
In your left hand of primordial wisdom
And draw the arrow of bodhichitta
With your right hand of vajra-compassion.
Rest your mind in concentration and thusness
On the union of bliss and emptiness
Aim for the heart of great dharmakaya
And release from form into formlessness
The arrow of bodhisattva actions.

Propelled by the enlightened energy
Of spontaneous nondual activity,
The warrior’s aim always remains true
And your sharp arrow penetrates wrong views.
Thus, the courageous warrior triumphs
Over the six realms of Yama’s kingdom
And establishes Shambhala on earth.
I, Jampa Pawo, received this Dharma
From my wisdom mother, Vajrayogini,
When she taught me the art of archery.
Now I transmit her words to you, dear friend.

This poem is dedicated to Grace, a Dharma friend who shot an arrow for me at the sacred place of Karme Choling. These words sprang from your kindness. Thank you! Love, Jampa Pawo.

Calligraphy by Chogyam Trumpa Rinpoche and Kanjuro Shibata XX; it says in Tibetan and Japanese: “Spirit Wind”

The topic of meat eating (or not) is not a novel phenomenon of the vegan-paleo debate. It’s one that human beings have struggled with for the past two million years. 

by Marcella Friel

According to food historian and scientist Harold McGee, we humans began eating meat because of climate change, when much of the vegetation on the planet disappeared and meat eating became a survival necessity. As is true for us today, it wasn’t so easy for our ancestors to look a beast in the eye and take its life for the purposes of food. Early societies responded to this dilemma by developing sacred rituals to atone for the act of harvesting life. It was ~ and is ~ something that those cultures took very seriously. 

As Joseph Campbell writes in the Power of Myth:

Man lives by killing, and there is a sense of guilt connected with that. . . . The basic hunting myth is a covenant between the animal world and the human world. The animal gives its life willingly, with the understanding that its life transcends its physical entity and will be returned to the soil or to the mother through some ritual of restoration.

Lots of work was put into the hunt, so the garnering of the meat was occasion for both ceremony and celebration.

Later, in traditional agricultural societies, farm animals were valued for their labor contribution. Hens laid eggs; cows mowed the fields; hogs processed food scraps. When an animal had lived out its useful life, then and only then was it harvested for food (with the occasional exception of the celebratory harvest of the fatted calf). Just as in hunting societies, the farm family was typically very conscious to utilize the entire animal and leave nothing to waste.

As society evolved from agricultural to industrial, meat animals likewise migrated from farm to feedlot; eating meat evolved from a sacred luxury to an everyday commodity. Urban bourgeois palates favored the muscles of the animal (i.e, steaks and such), while other vital parts went to waste. Commodity meat production valued output and profit margins over the welfare of the animal; this shift in values gave birth to the horrific, setting-sun concentration camps we have today known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations—what Michael Pollan refers to as “cow-schwitz.”

Author and physician Gabor Mate points out that the ceremonial use of a substance is the exact opposite of the addictive use. Whereas the ceremonial use elevates consciousness and connects us to a larger, benevolent universe, the addictive use reinforces isolation and hostility. I think it’s fair to say that our setting-sun society has become addicted to commodified meat consumption. We have no collective consciousness of the welfare of the animal; we expect meat to be available on demand; and the more we eat of it the more we degenerate into lower consciousness and degenerative disease.

As for the ceremonial aspect of meat eating, I personally had a very profound experience of this when I had to butcher, with my own bare hands, two freshly slaughtered goats to make goat curry for 400 people at a regional Community Supported Agriculture conference that I was cooking for.

I had personally ordered the slaughter of these animals and so asked the rancher when the harvesting would take place. At slaughter time I performed Sukhavati ceremony for those two goats. The butchering process took me and another chef 6 hours. I stopped only to drink water, pee, and wring out the blood from my cotton apron. This was childbirth in reverse, a powerfully sacred and profound prana exchange between me and those two animals.

As I broke these two sentient beings down into 1-inch stew chunks, I felt deep in my being the universal truth that death must occur for life to continue. I also recognized viscerally that this act not only shortened my own life but that, at some future point, the karmic wheel would turn such that I would become food for them, and I accepted these as the consequences of my decision. I now know, deep in my being, that having such a connection to the meat we eat can elevate our consciousness and bring about Great Eastern Sun vision of sacredness and appreciation. Conversely, the alienated, inhumane production and consumption of meat can cause society to degrade into setting-sun greed for our own satisfaction at the cost of the welfare of our fellow sentient beings.

(For the record, for those who wonder: Sakyamuni Buddha never told his students to be vegetarian. He advised against procuring food by causing harm. Hence, the Tibetans, who lived in a harsh high-elevation climate with no arable land for growing food plants, developed the “three hands removed” practice of only eating meat after three hands had handled it.)

I don’t believe there’s a “one-size-fits-all” answer to this complex question; for me it helps to understand the historical context of our current predicament, to mix that understanding with my personal experience, and to make the most conscientious and thoughtful decisions I can given what I know.

That, in my opinion, is what it means to be a responsible citizen in an enlightened society.

Marcella Friel is a natural foods chef who has cooked and taught in meditation retreat centers throughout North America. She now runs Tapping with Marcella, a food and body image coaching practice that helps health-conscious adults love and forgive themselves, their food, and their figure. 

Editor’s note: readers interested in learning more can consider taking Marcella’s upcoming  class, “Mindful Eating: Joining Heaven and Earth at the Meal Table,” which opens April 30, 2016 through Shambhala Online. You can also read Marcella’s previous Shambhala Times stories:  Can Home Cooking Restore Enlightened Society?  and Meal Blessings and Great Eastern Sun .

From Imagining Peace four years ago to Awakening Chicago this first week of May, continuing the conversation with Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

by Debra Hiers

When Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche addressed several hundred participants in Rockefeller Chapel Friday evening, he first expressed his gratitude for the work being done in Chicago over the past four years–since he first came to this city for the Imagine Peace conference. He also reflected on the continuing hardships and challenges in the world today, citing not only the increasing level of violence in cities like Chicago, but also the situation with Syrian refugees in Europe, as well as the aftermath of the earthquake in Nepal.

The fact that we don’t have ready answers to these problems is no reason to turn away from them. As the Sakyong said: “I myself am challenged as to what to do in this time. … Humanity is at a crossroads.” Now is the time to connect with our innate wisdom, to determine who and what we are, as a city, as a people, and as individuals. 

We hear so many times of how deeply flawed we are as human beings, how the governments and politicians can’t be trusted, how greed rules the world.  What we are trying to do here instead is “to look at and challenge the existing narrative.” There is a deep level of questioning. On the one hand it seems extremely complicated, but on the other it is actually quite simple: “One of the basic approaches is to regard ourselves and humanity as basically good.”

Chicago cityscape

It comes down to trusting in our own innate wisdom, wisdom that is gleaned from experience. And it takes courage and bravery. The Sakyong said that sometimes, “We don’t want to wake up because we don’t want to ‘see’ things.” To wake up is to challenge the narrative, and to claim one’s basic goodness. If an individual can wake up, then so can a community. As Rinpoche put it, “The city of Chicago itself is like a person, and that person is trying to wake up.”

Building relationships is a key ingredient in transforming society. We start with our relationship to ourselves. By accepting ourselves, we can accept others. “When we feel we are worthy, there is a quality of strength and dignity,” and we can extend that feeling, those qualities, to others. We can join hands, come together, and change the narrative by doing the simple things. “Even the way we look at someone matters,” said the Sakyong. “The dignity we experience ourselves, we give to others. That confidence is powerful.”

Throughout the Sakyong’s talk he affirmed and reminded us of the need for self-acceptance. We can’t change our world without it. An important tool in working with ourselves is being able to self-reflect and keep our cool in stressful situations. He suggested that we ask ourselves: How are you, how do you feel? Be the change you want to see, because we can’t convince others to change if we are not manifesting that change ourselves. So we have to set the example.

The Sakyong at Rockefeller Chapel

In his talk, the Sakyong outlined four stages to developing community: Stage One is the phase of feeling, gentleness and friendliness. “If you live in a city that is not friendly, it is difficult to feel connected so it takes strength to feel, strength to be kind.” Stage Two is engaging what Tibetans call lungta or windhorse.  “When you tap into your own basic goodness, there is power to make change.” This is the power of compassion, the power of virtue. “We have to live our lives according to the principles we admire.” And most importantly, we have to engage with joy! Stage Three is relating with unconditionality. “We don’t know what is going to happen,” said the Sakyong.  Can you be OK with this? Things might get better, but they also might get a lot worse. Can you be in the space of not knowing and still keep your strength? In doing this we establish a sense of equanimity. And through equanimity we build trust.

Stage Four is being in a state of playfulness, of possibility, of imagination, of creation as opposed to destruction. This is a quality of undeniable aliveness. And we are not talking about playfulness as frivolity, but playfulness in the sense of celebration, art, and culture. It takes this kind of holistic approach to build community. We also have to accept that challenges and pain are just part of the journey, part of “the legacy of life.” If we can embrace all of life with an open curiosity, we can “shift the social paradigm,” and we can realize that “It’s not just about getting along, but flourishing. Peace is not the absence of struggle, but the power of possibility.” It is “dynamic and sustaining.”

Based on the transforming principles of the Shambhala Buddhist teachings that the Sakyong received from his father Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, creating a sane society based on basic goodness is possible. Tonight, as we leave the talk, the question we take with us is this: “How do we harness this goodwill that has brought us together?” It is not by accident that we are here.

Debra Hiers is a freelance writer and editor currently based in Atlanta, and has been involved with Shambhala for about two decades.  

Awaken Chicago. The Power of All People. Together.

by Debra Hiers

Rev. angel with Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche and Acharya Ferguson

During the first keynote address on Friday morning at Awaken Chicago, the Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Sensei spoke to the power of deconstructing the myth of separation. “It is our innate nature as human beings to have curiosity for each other.” That curiosity drives us to connect not disconnect, separation is not what we are driven by.

The problem lies within the systems that are meant to separate us. “Many of us grow up in circumstances that do not reflect ‘oneness.’” And these systems of separation thrive on our acquiescence. So if we choose to connect with each other, to prioritize that effort in our lives, then “we can disrupt the systems of oppression” that keep us separate and in fear of each other.

Rev. angel led us in an exercise designed to bring us in touch with our edge, to sense that place of discomfort in our bodies, at the moment when we want to turn away from the experience of an external pressure. As one person placed a hand on the shoulder of the person sitting next to them, the person receiving the pressure acknowledged the presence of the other, then Rev. angel asked for the person applying the pressure to increase it until the receiver indicated they had reached their edge of discomfort.

The point of the exercise in this controlled and safe environment is to feel the discomfort in your body and not react out of habit, but to stay with it long enough to get some information from the situation.  She suggested that, based on what we learned, we could “think about what happens when you leave here and the unexpected happens.” Where do you go with that discomfort? When you can actually lean into it, you can, as one participant offered, “no longer experience [the person applying pressure] as the other, but just as part of my own experience.”

When we try to ignore that discomfort, or become numb to it, we are actually disengaging with our own selves, and “it is that disconnect with ourselves that is most important,” says Rev. angel. “So often we have a desire to be part of the solution, to fix the external problem, but “as long as we keep trying to fix the other … we give momentum to the myth of separation. There is no ‘fixing’ the system, there is only disrupting it. We disrupt the system by disrupting the sense of separation in ourselves. The best path forward is to include ourselves.” That means including our feelings of loss, anger, loneliness, and separation. This is what enables us to come more fully into relationship with who we are, which increases our capacity to be in relationship with others.

How we respond to circumstances that seem outside our control can be changed, by building our capacity to “reseat ourselves in our basic goodness” rather than responding in conditioned or habitual patterns that maintain this myth of separation. “You have to choose over and over again to reclaim your space. … Your choice is an energetic field.” When we cave into oppression, “when we acquiesce and say it’s just too much, we create a vacuum.”

The question is “Can we experience our full humanity and stay engaged moment to moment?”

Sensei williams offered that “Liberation is not about where I am going to get to, but how I am going to get there. … We were not meant to awaken to this myth of separation. We can choose to connect and engage particularly at the moment of the most pressure … to expand and explore what new information emerges from there.” That’s how we employ mindfulness and develop the skillful means to disrupt the systems that keep us separate.

Debra Hiers is a freelance writer and editor currently based in Atlanta; she has been involved with  Shambhala for about two decades.  

The Kalapa Court Celebrates Jetsun Dzedron’s first birthday and Spring Celebration of Culture and Lineage 

by Norah Murray, with photos by Mike Levy

It was  warm and breezy as guests arrived at the Boulder Kalapa Court on Sunday, April 10. The gardens surrounding the Court were bursting with colorful flowers, the space inside still fresh and sparkling from the previous two days of pujas, and were decorated with bright balloons and streamers. The occasion felt very joyful, like the first breath of spring. It was a day for two parties: the Spring Celebration of Culture and Lineage, and the First Birthday of Princess Jetsun Dzedron.

The children gathered in the bright and cheery playroom for face painting, playing, singing, and stories.  Throughout the rest of the house, Shambhalians mingled and were greeted by the Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo.  The mood was festive and relaxed.

The Sakyong Wangmo and Jetsun Dzedron

The two parties joined together in the great room for poetry, songs and toasts. Two poems by the Sakyong were read, as well as a proclamation from the House of Nova Scotia commemorating Jetsun Dzedron’s birth. The Sakyong Wangmo shared a bit about Jetsun Dzedron as she held her in her arms. Jetsun Dzedron smiled and cooed as her mother told us about her sunny and peaceful personality. Semo Palmo Goldstein gave a touching toast to the Sakyong Wangmo, describing her experience of watching her youngest sister grow into being a wife, a mother, and the Sakyong Wangmo.

Presenting the calligraphy

After a joyful rendition of “Cheerful Birthday” for Jetsun Dzedron, cake was enjoyed, then gifts from the Royal Family were presented. Earlier in the day, the Sakyong had created an Ashe calligraphy for his youngest daughter, which he presented very sweetly. Lama Gyurme Dorje offered a lovely gift on behalf of Lady Kunckok and Lama Paygal. Alan Goldstein presented Jetsun Dzedron with a golden rupa of Akar Werma, a figure from the mind terma of His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche.

Akar Werma

Cara Rich and James Thorpe delighted the gathered assembly with their songs, and we all joined together for “We Are the Warriors.” The festivities ended with the Shambhala Anthem and a warm-hearted thank you from The Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo.

It was a splendid way to welcome spring!

Ensuring the Longevity of the Shambhala Lineage

by Walker Blaine

The start of the year of the Fire Monkey—a year for activity and gathering momentum—was auspiciously marked with the establishment of the first legal endowment dedicated to caring for the Shambhala lineage, the Lady Sharon Hoagland Endowment, which was generously seeded with an initial sum of one million dollars by Lady Sharon and Mr. James Hoagland. For our community, this dedication of wealth is a major milestone, a statement that we are here to stay and looking forward into the future.

The principle of wealth generating wealth is an integral part of the Buddhist tradition.  Just as a stupa, statue of a buddha, or treasure vase exemplifies this quality by being filled with blessings, medicine, and material wealth in order to enable the lineage to radiate and benefit the world, the Lady Sharon Hoagland Endowment similarly enables Shambhala to manifest brilliantly. Knowing such wealth is held within Shambhala is inspiring, as well as directly supporting the community each year.

The Endowment will produce usable income for Shambhala and retain enough of the interest from the principal investments that the seed money grows over time. It is structured to assist core projects designated by the Sakyong and future lineage holders. Because the Endowment is held within a nonprofit entity, the Sakyong Potrang, its wealth cannot be used for the personal activities of the Sakyong or his family.

Lady Sharon remarked on working with money and wealth, “By the time the next Sakyong is ready to take on more responsibility, they will already have an education in the financial aspect of ruling a kingdom, not just the traditional dharma and taking care of the sangha.”

Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

As a Lady of the Kalapa Court, Mrs. Hoagland is a leader in supporting and manifesting the feminine principle of accommodation, insight, and nurturing in the household of the Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo. One of the main aspects of the feminine principle is protection through ensuring the longevity of the teacher and teachings. This is one of the major inspirations behind the Endowment, which she and James see as feminine activity— wisdom in action—caring for Shambhala, its acharyas, projects, and whatever aspects of education or development the Sakyong would like to sponsor.

As quiet benefactors behind many projects initiated by the Sakyong, creating financial stability that continues into succeeding generations is an important concern of Lady Sharon and her husband James. They will assist in advising the Endowment’s development and use, and their heirs will continue this in the form of taking a seat on the advisory board for the Endowment. As James remarked, “When we were finishing our new wills we were struck by the fact that even though there has been talk of an endowment for thirty to forty years, one still did not exist, and instead of waiting to create one in our will we decided to just do it now. It is our hope that others will join us in adding to the fund either now or in the future.”

Anyone who wishes may contribute to the Endowment. The Hoaglands emphasized that it is just one part of the complex network of generosity that supports the Sakyongs and Shambhala. Unified Giving, bequests to the lineage, and other offerings to our lineage holders, centers, and endeavors are all integral to the functioning of our community. However, this fund, which takes a view of a thousand years, is an important a part of the picture we are painting together—an enlightened kingdom that cares for itself and the world as we discover our basic goodness. If you wish to know more about the Lady Sharon Hoagland Endowment, please contact Mr. Landon Mallery of the Sakyong Potrang by email at lmallery@shambhala.org or by phone at 902-425-4275, extension 244.

An educator contemplates social justice as an essential part of learning, and especially of teaching in the arts

Column: Critical Intent

by Joanna C. Horton

I recall the first time I did an arts activity that woke me up. I was in 4th grade and we were acting like were on a slave ship. We were studying history and the lesson focused on American slave ownership and oppression. There were no children of African descent in my class. This was after all Falmouth, Maine, where the vast majority of residents were white like myself. Why didn’t we just use books? Why didn’t our teacher just tell us that slavery happened, and just describe to us the impact on people of African descent, as well as revealing the painful truth that our country is founded on oppression, hate and ignorance?

I swayed back and forth, a “slave” on the ship transported across the sea. The facilitator of the activity was a theatre artist, Gretchen Berg. She was a visiting artist teaching our class, taking the history lesson onto its feet and giving us a way to access the materials – and ourselves in relationship to it – through movement and imagination.

We didn’t have to do history this way. But here we were, lined up along the walls of the classroom in chains, looking out into the ocean, missing our families, not in control of our own destinies, imprisoned. Such was the experience of the people on the boat, such was the reality of the American slave trade, and such was the history being lived out in our minds and hearts. As we rocked on the waves on our way to foreign shores far from home, the power of the story of loss and sadness was palpable within us.

Was this too much for 4th graders?  The question really should be this: why would we teach it any other way? I became committed to social justice and theatre in my adult life. I became a teaching artist myself, and an educator for social justice. I worked with my own racial identity, as a white woman living in the United States, and later living on a Sioux reservation in South Dakota. For the first time a racial minority among a community of Dakota Sioux, I developed awareness of my skin color as being part of my experience.  This is how others look at me: white. White comes with being given things, getting to assume I will have access, having opportunities to try, show up, express and be free in the world: white.  It’s called white privilege. The privilege is to not have to wonder if I was passed over for a job because of my race, or because my name sounded too ethnic. I can shop in stores without a clerk eyeing me to see if I’ll shoplift.  I can get an apartment in whatever neighborhood I choose without being screened or denied because of my race.

My racial identity extends beyond me into my whole life, beyond the lives of my parents and our lineage into the history of this country.  You see, my middle name is Calhoun, which happens to be the last name of one of America’s pro-slavery vice presidents, John C. Calhoun. He was my grandmother’s grandfather’s cousin. I am personally connected to the oppression of slavery, through my blood and family. Seeing my race, my very skin, as being a tool of oppression stirred up white guilt at that being a part of me, beyond my control.

Or was it beyond my control? What if I used my privilege for change?   If whiteness works to my advantage, maybe I can leverage it to better society, to further the mission for equality.  Start by giving a name to it. White privilege. Racial injustice. I have the opportunity to speak up against racism. Micro-aggressions are the most frequent forms of racism. For example: last month a well-meaning white lady said of the Black Lives Matter movement, “what about ‘all lives matter?’”  White folks are killing black folks, and while it’s true all lives matter, saying it this way denigrates the issue of equality and injustice – especially coming from a white person.  I feel now it is my responsibility to use the privilege to speak truth to power, to not let aggression and racism pass me by unnoticed.  It is my responsibility to help change it.

Privilege works on a larger scale than we even know. As an educator, I teach acting and live a social justice mission in my own life. School to me is a place, gratefully, where our students explore questions critically by doing project-based learning and service to others.  We can examine the world around us — those who run the country, in politics, law enforcement, schools, the job market and housing market — and discover that the leaders and decision makers are in the vast majority, white.  With white students in particular, I use identity work as part of locating ourselves in the social justice world. If our whiteness gives us power in society, based on the luck of the draw, what are the implications? What about folks who aren’t white? How do we understand the world from a place of justice and equality? What is our role?

There are many buzz words educators use to describe good education: critical-thinking, hands-on learning, student-centered classroom, and 21st Century skills. As an acting teacher, I educate and inspire students to feel compelled to work on solutions to problems like racism and economic disparity.  We create an environment in which we trust the space and each other to explore the life of the character. Who am I? What do I want? What is in my way?  Using our bodies and minds. we live out the experience physically in the moment, we explore emotions through scenes like a slave ship or an example of modern day police brutality. We imagine the desire to be free, the real fear of losing our rights and the control over our destiny, of being forced into slavery, or jail, or worse.

You are chained on the boat, pulling hard at the sores on your hands and feet, for days. You are starving because you haven’t eaten. You are desperate because your young child is far away, alone, and you are in the middle of the ocean off to some foreign hell. What this does to the mind and heart is important: to feel what injustice inspires, real, personal learning about compassion and other peoples’ perspectives.  We can use this to help us understand our history, what matters about the past, and what still matters today. Most importantly, we can use it to help us understand how we want to live our lives, and who it is we want to become.

Joanna C Horton is an arts educator with a background in acting. From age 16, she has led in-school theatre workshops about social issues with non-profits companies. She has worked as a professional actor in the eastern U.S. before opening her studio to train actors in Florida. Joanna specializes in teaching the Meisner technique through her organization: artsleadershipintl.org. Joanna received her Master’s degree in Arts Education from Harvard University. She is a Shambhala practitioner, guide, and Assistant Director. Currently, she lives and teaches in Sedona, AZ. For more information, visit joannachorton.com.

How dharma can ease the experience of isolation when caregiving

by Andrea Sherman and Marsha Weiner

We continue to explore how dharma can help mitigate caregiver burnout. In this article we explore how practicing unconditional friendship with yourself can increase your resilience and overall health and well-being, especially when caregiving.

Isolation can be one of the pitfalls of caregiving. We get isolated not only because of the tasks and chores of caregiving, but also because of the strong emotions that arise such as guilt, anger, resentment and fear. Dharma provides us with a perspective on those “dangerous” emotions and reveals that isolation is one of the paramount illusions that can add to our suffering. In a state of mind that is infected by isolation, the quality of care we deliver is diminished.

When you are a caregiver and recognize when the wall of isolation begins to rise around your mind, and your heart, sometimes just taking a pause is a powerful way to befriend yourself and to remember that you, yourself, as much as anyone in the entire universe, deserve to have your love and affection. Caregivers are often in situations of acute emotion. Even in these situations, a simple pause to befriend oneself as form of selfcare can have great benefit.

We were working in the Bronx, New York with a group of family caregivers for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Some of the soldiers had experienced multiple deployments.  The group of parents, spouses and friends of the veterans were living with the confounding and frightening effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They witnessed their loved ones caught in turbulent and violent flashbacks ignited by unpredictable triggers, frequently accompanied by severe and often frightening mood swings.  These caregivers continued to experience the kind of powerful emotions that can easily fortify a sense of isolation. For them, a selfcare program was more than just a good idea, it was vitally important since they were also vulnerable to secondary trauma.

Here are a few of the gap practices we discovered with the caregivers which helped them befriend themselves, so they could maintain their own well-being and continue to give the best care possible to their loved ones:

A cup of tea, some love for me

As you reach for a cup of tea with one hand, place the other on your heart as a gesture of tenderness to your own open and loving heart

Notes to Self

As you make the various caregiving lists of doctor’s appointments, medications, etc., include a list of Notes to Self. These are messages of selfcare, such as:

Breathe

Right here, Right now – what are you feeling?

Remember anicca (impermance) – the feeling is impermanent and it will pass.

More Notes to Self :

• Thirsty? Drink some water.
• Stretch
  • Where is the tightness? Try to let go.
• How can I help you?
  • What would you advise your best friend?
• Hi there, friend!

These  simple Notes to Self can easily become habit forming, in a gentle, positive and powerful way. You can write them out and place them in your car or on the bathroom mirror, carry them in your pocket, or even stick them in your shoe!

When caregiving, we can’t always take time on the cushion for formal practice. But we can always steal a quick moment for self care, which will cultivate the seeds of our greater aspirations and ease the sense of isolation that can easily arise.

As the Dalai Lama famously said, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”

So, remember to be kind to yourself; it’s what your best friend would tell you!

Andrea Sherman and Marsha Weiner created Seasons of Care, a selfcare program for caregivers using the contemplative and expressive arts. They are currently working on a book about harvesting the spiritual fruits of caregiving.  Andrea is on the Shambhala Working Group on Aging and Co-Chairs Conversations on Aging at NY Shambhala.  Marsha leads informal meditation groups, including groups for people in recovery. 

Editor’s Note: This is the next-to-last installment in our series on Dharma Tools for Caregivers. Andrea and Marsha are working on a book about harvesting the spiritual fruits of caregiving. You can follow them @SeasonsOfCare.

Images courtesy of Pixabay.

Using dharma and expressive arts to relate with transition when your role as caregiver is over       

by Andrea Sherman and Marsha Weiner

There’s a profundity to caregiving.

Caregiving demands that we make sacrifices of our time and resources. If we yield to the process of caregiving, compassion in action can become a spiritual discipline, opening doors of insight. It can reveal the remarkable power of compassion, through the practice of loving-kindness meditation, tonglen and more.

But eventually your role as a caregiver will come to end.

The person you are caring for may get well, and with dynamic willingness re-enter the stream of life.  In that fortunate scenario, what you experienced as a caregiver may recede as a loving and intimate memory, as you integrate into your life the spiritual fruits you have gathered. But we all know another scenario is also possible; the person you have been caring for may die.  When that happens, the caregiver is often left with a unique avalanche of feelings, sometimes conflicted, always deep and often cloaked in grief.

There are bookshelves chock-a-block full of books about grief and grieving. People have written beautiful memoirs that provide islands of comfort and inspiration; there are  “how-to” books that chart the course of loss.  There is a wide range of devotional books brimming with prayers and meditations, offering guidance for the seeking soul.

In tandem with the torrent of loss and grief, the ending of one’s caregiver role offers unique opportunities for dharma practice and growth. After all, if you’ve embraced caregiving as compassion in action, as a spiritual discipline, there may be fruits to harvest.  The predicament is, how to remain open to the moment, when the moment is steeped with grief to a level that leaves you feeling separate, isolated, lost, angry. You may possibly feel betrayed, or at least have a sense of being adrift.

Journalist, screenwriter, humorist and memoirist Nora Ephron used to quote her mother Phoebe Ephron, who always told her “Everything is copy.” She meant that one’s ups and downs are fertile material for writing and creating, and for shining light on the breadth and depth of human experience, even the deepest of losses. In that spirit, we’d like to suggest that the expressive arts have much to offer when your role as a caregiver is over, even when in the depths of your grief.

There are many expressive forms: writing poetry and prose, theatrical arts (including music and dance), visual arts such as painting, drawing, coloring, sculpting, making collages and assemblages. Cooking and gardening are also expressive. When combined with contemplative practices, the expressive arts give form and breath to feelings; they present opportunities to use those feelings to bring you back into the moment.

Here’s how it worked for me. [Andrea Sherman]

Seven years ago I lost my father. As accomplished as he was, as loved as he was by our family and a broad community of friends and colleagues, he was also suffering for years from a series of chronic conditions. At 87 years of age he made a conscious decision to die. He chose to stop taking all of his medications, and to be at home, to listen to his favorite music, sip  diet coke, and spend his remaining conscious time surrounded by family: his beloved daughters, and their equally beloved spouses.

I adored my father. We shared a deep spirituality and a love of poetry and music. We spent many, many hours talking and sharing on that level, so I understood his choice, and  I was prepared to honor it. But I was unprepared to accept a new reality.  I was unprepared for what life would feel like without him. That was a rude awakening. I missed hearing his voice, and I missed his warmth. I also missed his true wisdom, which had been forged through a lifelong commitment to social justice, and expanded by his enormous compassion for humanity.

This was inescapable grief, and I did not have the means to express the deep, profoundly raw and sad feelings I struggled with while trying to accept that my father was gone. In that separate sense of time and space mourners often find themselves in, I began to collect images — words and pictures that captured my attention. They captured my attention because they reminded me of him.

The word “gone” and the picture of a record (yes, vinyl!). Pictures of a bowtie and a hat that could have come right out of his closet. Images like these began to litter my desk. I’d clip out more words: “vanishing,” “anywhere,” phrases such as “keep smiling,” the word “father.”  As I moved the images and words around, I moved through my feelings.  Juxtaposing words and images helped bring some design to my sadness. Sweet memories   would continue to rise in waves along with the tears of being bereft, then smiles as I remembered his antics and his immense appetite for practical jokes

Over the next few weeks of moving around words and images I ended up with a series of collages. Through collage I was able to give form, voice and movement to the deep feelings of grief and loss. Giving them voice lit a light on the path back within.  As I re-embraced my practice  I came to understand what I had once read about; I was able to bow to my grief.

Loss can be a rude awakening. While caregiving we’ve fine-tuned ourselves to be responsive, to anticipate the needs of the person we are caring for, right down to the subtlest degree. When that resonance of intimately responding to another is suddenly gone, the reverberation can be rude and harsh. It’s easy to feel suddenly alone, lost, and separate.

Avail yourself of the expressive arts to help integrate your caregiving experiences.  In keeping with the non-judgmental approach of meditation, your creative expressions are not to be evaluated or judged. There is no contest in this practice, no comparison, no winning and losing. Practiced in this way, expressive arts can bring you back into the moment. The arts can transform a rude awakening into a “good grief.”

Andrea Sherman and Marsha Weiner created Seasons of Care, a selfcare program for caregivers using the contemplative and expressive arts. They are currently working on a book about harvesting the spiritual fruits of caregiving.  Andrea is on the Shambhala Working Group on Aging and Co-Chairs Conversations on Aging at NY Shambhala.  Marsha leads informal meditation groups, including groups for people in recovery. 

Editor’s Note: This is the final installment in our series on Dharma Tools for Caregivers. Andrea and Marsha are working on a book about harvesting the spiritual fruits of caregiving. You can follow them @SeasonsOfCare.

Images courtesy of Pixabay

The Sakyong Wangmo shares appreciation for precious events

The Sakyong looks on as the Sakyong Wangmo lights the shrine on the first day of the puja at the Kalapa Court

As I reflect from the Kalapa Court on recent events, I’m filled with appreciation for the ceremonies, celebrations and culture we all share as Shambhalians.

One of the most special and powerful events was the consecration of the Shambhala lineage thangka at the Boulder Shambhala Center with the Sakyong presiding over the ceremonies. It was the first opportunity for the Shambhala community to practice with the lineage thangka.

In addition, we were especially fortunate to have the Sakyong perform two pujas over two days at the Kalapa Court for the benefit of all Shambhala. The first was a Medicine Buddha puja to strengthen physical and emotional health and dispel obstacles to well being. Many people attended but even those who could not attend were acknowledged as each name was read aloud.

Jetsun Yudra sits on the Sakyong Wangmo’s lap during the second puja day

The next day, again with the diligent and cheerful assistance of Lama Pegyal and Lama Gyurme Dorje, the Sakyong performed the Gesar Dorje Tsegyal puja of enrichment. This powerful puja invokes Gesar as Dorje Tsegyal to bring about prosperity and success in whatever areas of our lives we wish to enrich. Like the Medicine Buddha puja, the Dorje Tsegyal puja is intended for all Shambhalians, enriching our aspirations so that our lives are meaningful and have a positive impact on the world. We are all so fortunate to receive the blessings of these powerful pujas, with their benefit radiating out from the Court and into our lives and the lives of others.

The Sakyong and Sakyong Wangmo present a crystal sheep to Jetsun Dzedron on her birthday

With the energy at the Court strong and good, we gathered again the following afternoon for a springtime celebration of Shambhala lineage and culture and to celebrate Jetsun Dzedron’s first birthday. I was especially happy that my sister, Semo Palmo, and her husband Alan Goldstein could attend these events. In keeping with tradition, Semo Palmo and Alan offered Jetsun Dzedron a magnificent golden Gesar rupa designed according to the mind terma of His Eminence Namkha Drimed Rinpoche. This tradition of offering each of our children a special Gesar rupa on their first birthday is something the Sakyong and I treasure. Also according to tradition, the Sakyong presented Jetsun Dzedron with a calligraphy and poem celebrating her birthday.

Celebrating Mother’s Day

It’s amazing to see that Jetsun Dzedron is already a year old. I feel so happy and fortunate to be her mother and to share the privilege of raising a family with the Sakyong. I also take great delight in the love and affection Jetsun Drukmo, Jetsun Yudra and Jetsun Dzedron all share. Jetsun Drukmo and Jetsun Yudra are alternately protective and playful with Jetsun Dzedron, and enjoy every minute of being her big sisters.

I feel so fortunate to have this path of parenthood, for it’s a wonderful opportunity to practice love and kindness as well as exertion and discipline, which is both challenging and rewarding.

As children and families flourish in our community, so too will our community flourish. May the strength of our sangha and the blessings of our lineage bring benefit to the world.

With love,

The Sakyong Wangmo, Dechen Chöying Sangmo

Sharing a personal experience of racial identity as an Asian American Buddhist

by Bryan Mendiola

Fingerprint with flag of the Philippines

There is one important caveat: I don’t know how to talk about race. The term Asian American was never spoken in my home growing up, and this quietly implied that it should not be talked about, that this was not how we should think of ourselves. In contrast, there was never any doubt that we were Filipino. This was celebrated and honored through food, family, religion, and community. These were the cultural waters we swam in. But race was on the periphery, like a ghost that no one wanted to name or acknowledge. Even as I write this, I feel my anxiety well up over being misunderstood or being misperceived as representing more than myself alone in my views. I even struggle with whether or not my story is really about race or deserves a place in a dialogue about race. But, before I had any words for race in early adolescence, my experience was about sadness, loneliness, and depression. And however uncomfortably, I do know how to talk about those things.

My depression was rooted in never finding a place to call home. There was a perpetual sense of not belonging anywhere, never quite fitting in, even in my own supposed social groups. I often felt too Asian to feel completely a part of the white suburbs that surrounded us, and too white or too American to be fully integrated into Asian communities or other communities of color—even into my own family at times. I longed to be able to look into the world of television and magazines to see and hear someone who looked like me, talked and thought like me, and could give me an example of what I could become. In my young mind, the only way I could make sense of a world that didn’t have “me” in it was that “me” didn’t matter.

And so I quietly began to tear myself apart—feeling tortured by who I was and what I looked like. This is a nuanced and slippery, but hallmark, feature of my own experience of being Asian American. My painful experiences around race feel less about overt acts of racism and discrimination, less about systemic injustices, and more about a perpetual experience of feeling unseen and silenced. One of the great challenges in finding a voice in the dialogue of race is that, as an Asian American, it is remarkably difficult to name the “problem,” because it is one more of absence than presence. It feels less a problem of having an identity undermined or marginalized, and more a problem of not having an identity—visible, coherent, or identifiable—in the first place.

In my experience, there are many factors that contribute to this sense of invisibility. While never directly stated, the perceived message from my Asian and Asian American communities is that I’m not supposed to have a distinct voice in sharing who I am and what my life is about. There is a natural inclination toward a collective mindset and to gauge properly whether or not my experience appropriately represents the collective—a compulsive checking in with the group for approval and permission. And the implicit message from the group is: “Don’t speak for the rest of us—especially if you’re going to talk about our problems.” I was often left feeling alone and voiceless as an Asian American, without clear role models in the media or popular culture, and I was given few historical figures of social change to identify with. Even widely known Asians in history who represented social causes have been marked by a seemingly stereotypical passivity, meekness, or unemotionality, qualities that I did not wish to embody in my own life. Moreover, there was no singular, tangible source of injustice that spoke to my experience as an Asian American. As a first-generation Asian American, I grew up with significant economic and academic privilege. Issues of money and education were never at the forefront of my struggles, which often left me wondering if my own suffering was even justified or valid.

And yet, I felt it—as real and as true as anything in my life. At the heart of my struggles as an Asian American has been a tremendous internal conflict, if not an external one. This conflict within is built around a profound and unrealistic pressure to succeed at a societal game I might not even feel a part of, but that may be the chief means by which I judge my own worth. At the end of the day, when the game is not being played, maybe I’m the one who doesn’t have a home to go back to. I can adapt and blend in just enough to get by, but never enough to actually belong. So maybe I end up belonging only to the game itself—only to an illusion—even if it’s not one I value, agree with, or buy into. Perhaps because I can play it, I never stop to ask myself if I should play it. And what seems to be the fallout is an invisible experience of suppressed frustration, passive-aggressive competition, hidden identity crises, and underlying emotional turmoil: a powerful storm brewing just under the surface of a peaceful, calm façade.

Put simply, what depression and race largely meant to me during those formative years of my life was an experience of self-hatred. Hatred of the shape of my lips and nose, the coloration of my skin, the lack of proper physique, or the hair that would never quite look like a white person’s. Hatred of the way I talked or never talked. Hatred of my self-consciousness and lack of confidence, as well as of my pretending to be confident. Hatred for always feeling alone, regardless of how many friends I had or how much family or community surrounded me. Hatred for even the ways that I was loved by others, because I knew in my heart that their love was misplaced. Hatred of my constant comparisons to others, even within my social circles, because I, too, succumb to the pressure to succeed and perform and perfect myself. Hatred toward this life of mine in which there was no other person in the world mirroring back some clear semblance of myself and my experience. Hatred, at times, of myself for wanting to give up on life altogether.
Bryan Mendiola is a Filipino/Asian American psychologist and a student of Shambhala Buddhism. He lives with his wife and son in Western Massachusetts.

Editor’s note: this story was previously published in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and is reprinted here by permission of the author. It was part of a segment on engaged Buddhism as a follow-up to the Buddhism and Race Conference at Harvard Divinity School in March of 2015. Videos are available online from the March 2015 conference (http://hds.harvard.edu/news/2015/03/06/video-buddhism-and-race-america-intra-sangha-racial-dynamics) as well as the April 2016 conference (http://hds.harvard.edu/news/2016/04/23/video-challenges-being-poc-largely-white-sanghas).

Coming to terms with personal identity through the spiritual practice of Buddhism

by Bryan Mendiola

Illustration by Yuko Shimizu

Though I was not fully aware of it at the time, it was all this hatred that led me to psychology as my profession and to Buddhism as my spiritual practice. In both, there was a discipline and a path to realize my own mind and heart, to learn how to create a space in my life where I could come to terms with who I was and how I felt. Buddhism in particular provided me with a view of life that simply made sense and validated my experience of confusion, suffering, and emptiness. It allowed me also to find refuge in a life of quiet reflection and stillness that felt so natural to who I was, yet which, for so long, I had judged as deficient or unworthy. It even gave me something to be proud of in my Asian identity, as I could look upon images of a calm, wise, and beautiful Asian man who could live simply, think radically, and affect countless people. I, too, could be Buddha. Perhaps in my more naïve moments, I thought to myself that I, too, could shave my head, smile nicely, sit still, and feel worthy. As misguided as that might have been, it meant something important to me, something I had been missing for much of my life. I was learning that I could actually make a home with myself.

Moreover, Buddhism by its nondualistic, dialectical nature, gave me permission to honor all my contradictory feelings about race—both hating myself and loving myself; both identifying with race and deconstructing race; both grounding and empowering myself in identity and continually questioning it and allowing it to fall apart. Still, as I began to expand my spiritual path and embrace community, I would spend years exploring different sanghas and battling old demons of feeling different, out of place, and not understood. Time and again, I would find myself in predominantly white sanghas with predominantly white teachers, often the only person of color at a gathering or a retreat. I was very much accustomed to assimilating to white culture and acting my typical quiet, accommodating, and polite self. But with each passing year I had a longing for things to be different. At the time, I had yet to hear a teacher’s voice that resonated with my own heart, particularly when it came to issues of culture and identity.

Boston sangha

What I found in the Shambhala Buddhist community was not altogether different—but it was different enough. In the local community of Boston, where I was living at the time, many other young people filled the meditation hall each week, people of various colors, genders, sexual orientations, and economic backgrounds. Gatherings were rooted in the practice of being authentic, genuine, and openhearted. While the community at large was still predominantly homogenous and white, there was a felt sense of open-mindedness and curiosity toward exploring difficult, messy topics. I was immediately drawn to Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche for his unconventional style and his openness about deeply emotional experiences of loneliness, anger, and sadness, and how transformative they can be. Here was a teacher who I felt was speaking directly to my experience as a human being, at a raw and heartfelt level. His teachings, and the teachings of his son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, challenged me to be fully myself by not rejecting any aspect of myself. I did not have to become another silent, faceless, uniform addition to a Buddhist community. I could be myself, find my own voice, and share my own truth, with all the messiness that comes with that.

My first several years as a vipassana and Zen practitioner provided the early stability of sitting practice and the foundational teachings of Buddhadharma. I gradually learned what it meant to be with myself and my emotional life more directly. But what I also gained through my study and practice in Shambhala was how to work with my view of myself on a practical and basic level. At the core of Shambhala teachings is what is called basic goodness, a term coined by Trungpa Rinpoche. My understanding is that it points to an innate and fundamental sense of openness, purity, wholeness, and workability underlying ourselves and all of existence—what can also be thought of as Buddha-nature, egolessness, absolute bodhicitta (awakening mind), tathātā (“thusness,” or things as they actually are), and jñāna (knowledge, as in the Greek gnosis). Every teaching and practice is meant to promote awareness and trust in this primordial nature, and by doing so, we learn to not be afraid of ourselves, our experience, or the suffering of the world.

The times that I have realized glimpses of my own innate goodness have been deeply emotional and healing experiences. I’ve seen the myriad of ways that I hide from myself and from others, out of fear, embarrassment, and shame. And I’ve learned that confidently proclaiming who we are, in our full humanity, is truly an act of spiritual warriorship. At its basis, our experience is dignified, worthy, and workable. What this has meant for me is that not only are the realities of race fundamentally workable, but also that seeing and moving beyond my racialized existence is fundamentally workable. I’ve learned that the spiritual path is all-inclusive—and that I already have everything I need to continue moving forward.

As I continue to engage in dialogues in my professional, community, and home life about issues of race, culture, and identity, I see how some of my life’s deepest meaning is found in working with that which has been the source of some of my deepest pain; in ultimately facing the question in my own life of what it means to actually be seen and heard. Who am I if I am no longer invisible and silent? What story will I share of myself? What will people see and hear in it? I’ve learned that no matter what our particular cultures and identities may be, they can be both a source of power and privilege and a source of suffering and stuckness. They can keep us small and silent, and they can wake us up and empower us like nothing else, if we allow them. I believe the stories we tell of our cultures and identities, whatever they may be, can help ourselves and others to have a grasp and appreciation for the greater truth of reality. Perhaps it is the therapist in me—or maybe the Asian American Buddhist in me—but in my experience, this is how social change comes about: by unearthing and awakening that which has remained hidden within us and among us, and mourning, healing, and growing together. It is a process of embracing ourselves by giving voice to our stories—and having that voice heard and honored.
Bryan Mendiola is a Filipino/Asian American psychologist and a student of Shambhala Buddhism. He lives with his wife and son in Western Massachusetts.

Editor’s note: this story was previously published in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and is reprinted here by permission of the author. It was part of a segment on engaged Buddhism as a follow-up to the Buddhism and Race Conference at Harvard Divinity School in March of 2015. Videos are available online from the March 2015 conference (http://hds.harvard.edu/news/2015/03/06/video-buddhism-and-race-america-intra-sangha-racial-dynamics) as well as the April 2016 conference (http://hds.harvard.edu/news/2016/04/23/video-challenges-being-poc-largely-white-sanghas).

Lead illustration by Yuko Shimizu: http://yukoart.com/

Finding joy and compassion for others in a time of personal suffering

by Karen Lundy, with an Introduction by Shastri Christine Heming

Introduction: In a recent article for the Times (Think About It; Beliefs Matter) I wrote about Rebecca Solnit’s book, A Paradise Built in Hell – a book about how ordinary people respond to disasters by pulling together, finding community and compassion, and even experiencing joy in those times of total upheaval.  Karen’s story is about personal upheaval, and when she told me about this experience I thought it clearly showed how we can find Solnit’s paradise in the disasters of our own lives.  We can connect with the suffering and pain of others, and in doing so, find solace, compassion and community.  I encouraged Karen to share this story with the Times.

Karen’s Story:

I had been in my room for about five hours when I heard a woman’s voice calling out repeatedly from down the hospital corridor. One word I couldn’t make out. But she was loud.

I was in isolation after taking a radioactive iodine treatment that was to purge my body of any remaining thyroid cancer cells after my surgery four months earlier. Leading in, I had been on an extremely limited and boring diet. The two meals I’d had so far at the hospital were just an extension of the same: bland and almost unpalatable. In two to three days I would be allowed to get back to a normal diet.

I came prepared for isolation: books, Kindle e-reader, paper to write letters, Samsung tablet to watch Netflix at night, a bag of raisins (one of a few snacks allowed). Now a patient down the hall was making my stay worse.

A nurse finally went in to her, and she quieted down for a couple of hours. Then it started again, until a nurse came with her next dose of whatever medication she was taking. It’s hard enough to be in hospital. Harder still to be isolated.  I resented that she was making my ordeal more difficult.

About ten o’clock, as I was watching the end of a movie, she called out once more. Here we go again, I thought. Soon, I heard a nurse speaking to her, and again she quieted down. I put my tablet away, got ready for bed, and called my husband. For the duration of my stay of two to three days, he could only visit for a total of twenty minutes. He had to stand down the corridor while I stood in the doorway of my room. Earlier, I’d heard an ambulatory patient ask a nurse why there was a barrier in front of my room and why there were warnings posted about radioactivity hazards. The nurse said something or other, and I felt like a pariah, as if I had leprosy, an untouchable.

I didn’t sleep well. In the morning, I was suffering from nausea that increased significantly if I got up and moved around. They put me on Gravol. I was not to vomit into a toilet or sink but into a wastebasket. My vomit was a biohazard. I pretty much skipped breakfast — only drinking some of my tea. Then I lay down on my bed for a long day.

The woman down the hall started calling out again. Still loud, but I now could make out that she was shouting ‘hello.’ Why was she doing that? And then it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard her once in the night. Soon I heard a nurse in her room speaking gently to her. There was no impatience in the nurse’s voice, just kindness. That struck me. I was alone except for a nurse rushing in at eight to quickly take my vitals. No one was going to come into my room and offer kind soothing words. What a crappy position to be in. Was I jealous?

Since I could do little more than lie down, I found myself listening for the woman to call out again. She did, every couple of hours or so. I thought:  Couldn’t she just press the button to summon the nurse? Maybe not. So why not? And why was her voice so garbled?  Then it occurred to me that I was on the cancer ward. If this woman couldn’t speak properly or ring her buzzer, what condition was she in? It began to dawn on me that she might be in very serious condition indeed.

I took stock of my own situation. I was able to get up and walk about, eat if my nausea passed. I had entertainment. I’d be out tomorrow or the next day. Why was I feeling so sorry for myself?  I heard nurses go to this woman off and on all day.  I listened to their kind tone, and was glad this woman had good people taking care of her. But it made me feel lonely and sad. I’d have gone to the door of her room if I could, just to see her.  I longed to see her, to share our mutual situation.

By mid-afternoon I was still pretty nauseous. My arms ached from trying to hold my tablet, e-reader or book above my head. Drinking a ton of water to flush the radioactivity out of my body had me going to the washroom every half hour. When the woman called out, I hoped someone would go to her quickly. I could feel her loneliness, her helplessness. As I let that sink in, I turned on my side and cried. My situation was not as dire as hers, but it was my situation. No matter that she might suffer more; it didn’t make my suffering non-existent. I was suffering.  I was lonely.  These were natural feelings.  Silently, I too was calling out for sympathy, for kindness.

I felt a kinship with this stranger down the hall and a sudden gratitude to her for helping me with this insight. I began to send healing thoughts to her.

I passed another restless night, but my fellow patient didn’t disturb me. In fact, I listened for her; I invited her in.  After breakfast, I heard a nurse in her room talking encouragingly. She was getting out of bed! I listened for a while. Then I heard the nurse ask if she would like to keep walking or go back to bed. I didn’t hear the reply but I heard the nurse say, “Then we’ll keep going.” I felt joyful at the woman’s courage and determination. She was up and moving about!

I found out around noon that I would be released from hospital that day. I was still somewhat radioactive and would have to keep my distance from others for a couple of days. Well, I could manage that just fine.

I packed up. As I was leaving, I walked past the woman’s room. I wished I could go in. Wished I could thank her for the gift she had given me, share my story with her.  I will never know what she looks like or what her name is but I will never forget her, or how she unknowingly helped a stranger get through a difficult time.

Dharma Sagara Clinic’s 20th Anniversary slogan: “Build it and they will come.”

by Lee Weingrad

You wake up one day, both your children are in college, your black hair has turned silver, and your fledgling Tibetan health project is twenty years old. This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Surmang Dharma Sagara clinic.

It was 1992 and I thought, “Who would ever give us money for a clinic if we didn’t have permission from the Chinese government to build in Tibet?” What started out as a dream became a very real contract with the Qinghai government, with the help of Governor Huang Jing Bo. Not so long after we signed the contract, it morphed into a grant from Caritas. We broke ground in 1993, and completed construction in the summer of 1996. Since then, there have been twenty brutal Khampa Tibetan winters, as well as a devastating earthquake that took down the 400 year old monastery assembly hall but didn’t scratch the clinic.

Back in 1995 when I spoke to the head of Mother and Child Health at UNICEF Beijing, she asked me, “How do you know that anyone will ever come to the clinic?” I asked her, “Did you see the movie ‘Field of Dreams’? Kevin Kostner’s character is told by a ghost to build a baseball diamond in his Iowa cornfield. “What makes you think they will come to play?” he asks the ghost. “Build the field and they will come.” That is what I told her.

And come they did. In the past ten years alone over 120,000 patients have come. I have to admit that some of the success was just driven by plain old stupidity. I was told by several experts in international development that we would end up like Rodney Dangerfield (and get no respect!) if we didn’t charge for our services. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how much to charge, or to whom. By looks alone, I couldn’t tell the difference between a wealthy nomad who had 200 horses and a poor one that had only 20. They dressed the same, and looked the same. The only thing that made sense was to charge everyone the same low fee, and for me and the foundation to work on getting the funds to make a universally low fee structure possible. Years later Damchu Rinpoche, brother of the late exiled Abbot of Surman, Chogyam Trungpa, wrote a very touching memorial about our generosity, emphasizing that generosity is a key value for Tibetans.

The clinic is an odd building for China: high passive solar gain, which means it is a heat sink. It has walls that are two layers of brick on one side and on the other, with about a foot of volcanic ash in between. It has double-paned windows. It was designed in Boulder, Colorado by Adrian Sopher and Paul Cloppenburg. It was a tough project to do because the blueprints had to be translated into Chinese. Then we had to find a contractor who could read a blueprint. That eliminated traditional Tibetan rammed-earth builders, even if we could find one. We had to find one who could not only read a blueprint, but could read it in Chinese!

We ended up with a contractor from Chengdu. He was the scion of a Chinese feng shui lineage. Before we chose a site, I asked him, “What’s the best place around here to build?” He looked around and said, “Anywhere. The place has a lot of power. It’s a counter-clockwise conch. But be careful of the tiger in the mountain. It can eat the cow.” We had the monks do a consecration of the site, and we were ready to go.

In the four years before the building was completed, before we had our own permanent structure, we would hold clinic in tents, and in monks’ quarters that we could rent. It was OK, but finally at the end of 1996, the building was done. We had had over 150 volunteers participating in the construction process. We went through two phases, one from 1996 to 2002, and another phase after that.

In 2001, volunteer doctor Julie Carpenter asked, “Where are the women and children in this clinic?” That question was a game changer for us, because until then we had no idea why all the patients were men, all with arthritis or stomach pain.

It had become a joke among our doctors:

Doctor: “What’s the problem?”

Patient: “I have a stomach ache.”

Doctor: “How long have you had this problem?”

Patient: “Ten years.”

It was no coincidence that in 2003 we hired a second doctor, Sonar Drogha, who would specialize in mother and child health.

In 2003 we signed an agreement to do a survey of four hundred nomadic women in the Surmang area. In 2004, eleven volunteer doctors, along with their interpreters, horses, trucks, motorbikes, sleeping bags, and tents, set off to find out what was keeping these women from seeking medical care. We found out that the problem was immobility. The women were dying in great numbers along with their babies, at rtes perhaps as high as anywhere on earth. There were 3,000 maternal mortalities for every 100,000 live births; one in five babies would not live past the second birthday.

Through the World Health Organization, we soon found out that more than 6,000 women per year suffer a similar fate. Tibetan society seems to be at risk from a totally invisible killer, one that every Tibetan woman knows quite well: death in the process of making life. As Laurie Garrett noted, there are no celebrity endorsements available for pregnant Tibetan women who bleed to death. We found ourselves at the locus of a public health nightmare.

In 2005, we began to train forty community health workers. They were training to be village first responders, particularly for mother and child health. In 2009, we contracted with Peking University to conduct a survey comparing our clinic with township hospitals. We found that patient satisfaction at our clinic was higher, that patient visits were much more frequent, and that our operating costs were significantly lower, even though we were including free medications. With two doctors and 732 monthly visits, and a budget of $150,000 per year, we had a per-visit cost of only $17.07, including births and well-baby visits.

A foreign organization creating an institution in a Tibetan region has to walk on eggshells. In addition to the obvious political downsides, there are cultural obstacles as well. By 2005, we had an ultrasound machine, thanks to Siemens and United Family Hospital. But doing gynecological exams was another matter. Like many traditional people, Tibetans seldom undress; they never undress in front of others. Conflicting with this prudishness was their practicality, understanding what was at stake for their survival, and witnessing the results of our clinic. After about three years, Tibetan women were no longer resisting gynecological exams.

In April 2011, a major calamity befell Yushu Prefecture: an earthquake that nearly wiped Yushu/Jiegu off the map. Our own traditionally-constructed second building was destroyed, but our clinic survived. The Surmang monastery assembly hall, four hundred years old, was ruined beyond repair.

At that time, we signed an agreement with the government to export the success of our Surmang model to four additional townships: Mouzhang, Xialaxu, Xiewu, and Longbao — the epicenter of the earthquake. The prefecture was in a world of hurt, and we were there to help. We would train their doctors just as we trained doctors Phuntsok and Drogha at the original clinic.

In the five years since the earthquake, we’ve done as we promised. The ability of our small foundation to impact the operating procedures of the rural public health system is limited by very different operational styles and processes. To some extent, I’d say the graft didn’t take, and what we’ve done at Surmang hasn’t been completely replicated. But for the doctors we’ve trained, their exposure to the very talented providers who came all the way from the West to help has had a big impact. Our volunteer doctors can add their expertise directly. This has been appreciated, especially in Xiewu, which is fifty kilometers north of Yushu.

In 2011, we held what was perhaps the world’s first rural health festival, a peer-led conference. All forty of our children and women’s health workers were there, and government representatives were there too — sixty people in all. There were eight experts in home-based health care, coming to assess the results. It was at this conference that future plans were devised for our work, and it was there that the children and women’s health workers announced a major success: in 2010-2011, there had been no maternal mortalities — not one.

Although we’ve been able to operate at the same level since 2011, the future is hard to predict. Political pressures in Tibetan areas are a factor, excluding almost all foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs). On the other hand, longevity of a program like ours is always a plus in China. Supporting that longevity, we have not had the backing of any foreign government, university,or  international NGO, and no religious support or religious agenda. To be honest, sometimes I wish we did.

I ascribe this lack of institutional support to our plain meat-and-potatoes approach to rural health care. What we do has no sophisticated theory of public health behind it. It amazes me how sophisticated other projects and their theories can be, when all you really have to do is help the women survive — by giving them rapid intervention and access to quality care.

While this simple approach can keep us separated from the big institutional funders, it has also kept our work out of the political limelight. I’m proud of the fact that our foundation is still there, still flourishing after twenty years. I think that as long as we continue in this clear, compassionate way, we will continue to help. This continued work is possible only through the generosity of many individual private donors.

More than a year ago now, I received a phone call from my friend Maurice Strong. His own efforts are almost exclusively on the environmental side of things, so his support has mainly taken the form of encouragement. He told me he’d been to the Ford Foundation in Beijing, and had spoken to them about our work. He told me to call Susie Jollie, the former mother and child health director at UNICEF that I mentioned right at the start of this story. So, I called her up. When she picked up the phone, what was the first thing she said? “Build the field, and they will come.”

Editor’s Note: to support the continued work of this foundation, visit their web page: http://www.surmang.org

Cutting through embedded patriarchy

Column: Critical Intent

By Alex Vlasic

In my first couple of years working with the Shambhala teachings and community, gender didn’t arise as an issue for me. I heard “basic goodness” and it all felt very inclusive. Luckily, basic goodness is all-inclusive. As I have gotten further along the path and more involved in the community, however, the vestiges of cis-gender, heteronormative, male dominance within Shambhala have become more and more apparent. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. We are steeped in cultures and histories of oppression (not just in regard to gender) and the stench follows us into our centers. This oppression expresses itself both structurally in our community and interpersonally in our relationships. The aim of this article is to point out some of these structural problems, in the hope of expanding our community’s awareness and promoting further discussion. 

What initially caught my attention were the remnants of binary, gendered language within the Shambhala teachings and chants. Binary, gendered language is the construction of feminine and masculine; she and he; her and him. The power of language to reinforce power dynamics can be subtle, for example: here I have put the feminine first, while usually these binaries are presented the other way around.

The use of language is not neutral. It has inherent power. I am concerned by the use of this language because 1) it excludes people who do not identify as masculine or feminine: i.e. genderqueer and gender non-conforming people, and 2) masculine language such as “He” is still used to refer to ultimate principles such as the Rigden, perpetuating a male-dominated culture.

I have been grappling with why Shambhala uses this language. What is its purpose? In an effort to deepen my understanding, I approached a dear senior teacher in this lineage with my questions and she told me something that I found both simple and clarifying. She said that we use the concepts of the feminine and masculine principles to illustrate how through duality and the unification of these principles we come to understand the primordial, or ultimate. It is through the relative, the THIS and THAT of our every day experience as represented by masculine and feminine, that we come to know the ultimate. She also emphasized that the face of the Primordial Rigden is not androgynous, but rather represents the perfect integration of the feminine and masculine.

As a side note, but an important one, a friend of mine confided to me that while attending a Shambhala program, the teacher claimed that although the Primoridal Rigden is displayed as both feminine and masculine, it is actually a King (facepalm! heartbreak!). Why would the INTEGRATION of masculine and feminine manifest as a King? Can you imagine for a moment how that might affect someone who doesn’t identify as male? How sad or devastating that might feel? I’m under the impression that even our senior teachers are not all on exactly the same page.

Let’s return to the purpose of this feminine and masculine language as it relates to Shambhala dharma. We are using duality to understand the ultimate. What’s interesting is that it seems that these dual principles don’t totally merge into oneness. The feminine and masculine integrate. They unite, but in their union, they do not disappear. Within the ultimate we have the relative, and within the relative, the ultimate.

I would like to bring in an ally, Sera Beak, who in writing about the interplay of feminine and masculine divinity between Jesus and Mary Magdalene states:

“This spiritual Love Story isn’t a high-five to heterosexuality or a kudos to Christianity. It represents the spiritual relationship between the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine that struggles to flourish and integrate within every single one of us, no matter what religion or sex or gender or sexual orientation we are.” (Beak, 2013, Red Hot & Holy: 188)

THIS is what we should be emphasizing within our teachings and community: that divine feminine and masculine is within each of us and is not attached to some gendered hierarchy. We can all help elucidate this truth and wisdom regardless of how we identify. We can be allies for each other, and help bring this understanding forward instead of getting stuck in an antiquated notion of a masculine King.

This notion of the divine masculine and feminine in each of us, which struggles to “flourish and integrate,” can explain the use of gendered language to some extent. It offers us a way to present the teachings in ways that can be inclusive. We still have to be careful, however, with how we use this language, as well as how we present its meaning. Gendered language is triggering to many people, especially those who experience gender as a spectrum. People who do not conform to the feminine/masculine binary experience a lot of hardship, judgment, and oppression in our culture today. Just look at the recent bathroom legislation in North Carolina.

There are A LOT of other ways to express duality, and if gendered language is triggering or not helpful to you, I say go for the other options. We have the sun and the moon, space and form, emptiness and skillful means. How can we as a community support people in using the language that works best for them? And what language do we really want to use as a community if our goal is to be inclusive?

Our use of language in Shambhala not only affects genderqueer folk, but those who identify as female as well.

In my experience, the masculine principle is emphasized over the feminine in the teachings and the way the teachings are taught. I don’t think that this is a static fact, but rather a fluctuating dynamic. My senior teacher friend described the movement of this dynamic as “glacial.” So while it may be changing, it is changing very slowly. I think that it’s safe to say that this imbalance is due in large part to the inherited patriarchy of Tibetan culture and of our own cultures in the West.

One of my most recent experiences of this imbalance was the unveiling of the Shambhala lineage thangka. It is exquisite and sacred, and took 10 years to paint. I truly appreciate it. However, the Rigden King is front-and-center while the Rigden Queen, who is less than half his size, is off to the side. There are many ways to explain that, and you can remind me that these are representations of principles rather than people, but in my eyes there is still an imbalance. Visual representations hold meaning and express value. I see this image valuing the masculine over the feminine, holding it as more central and important. I see it and feel it as a continuation and reproduction of oppressive power relations within a patriarchal culture and society.

Visual representations are important and so are the subtle and sometimes obvious ways that we emphasize the masculine over the feminine within Shambhala. When I watched the recent teachings on Shambhala Meditation for Shambhala guides and instructors, the opening chants included “The Supplication to the Rigden Father” and did not include “The Supplication to the Mother Lineage.” This might not seem like a big deal, but it sends a message, and the accumulation of these little messages creates our culture.

Alex Vlasic is a white, cisgender, woman and a student of Shambhala Buddhism. She currently lives in central Vermont where she studies medicinal herbalism.

The energy of depression can be endemic. But we have the power to flip the switch.

by Sarah Lipton

The dishes aren’t done, the laundry needs folding, dinner needs to be cooked and the baby won’t go down for a nap. Oh, and that long list of things I needed to get done three days ago for my business, well, forget about that, at this rate, I don’t think I’ll ever get it done.

The laundry list continues: husband is too busy with his own work and play, I feel ignored, undervalued, and am so overworked taking care of everyone else, that I’m fraying at the seams. I’m coming undone, and there’s nobody else who is going to take care of me. The longing for someone else to swoop in and take care of everything will go unanswered and unheard – there is nobody else to turn to.

And yet…the tomatoes are ripe, the carrots are chopped and the herbs are ready to grace the roasting chicken.

And yet…I am okay. In the midst of it all, I am okay!

Why? Because the sky is gorgeous with sunset colors, the high clouds curving through the scenery and illuminating trees that frame the meadow. My husband loves me, and even after 15 years, I still need to remember that he demonstrates it instead of saying it. My baby finally is asleep and the dishes will be done.

But even deeper than that, I am okay because I am alive. I draw breath and can dance, my body healthy, full if not fit, strong if not cute. I am on the earth, surrounded by trees and wind and sky. The subtle power and strength of my heart is true and on cue, rising up to remind me of my primordial okayness.

I breathe again, and can feel joy begin to surge. For no reason whatsoever.

I have flipped the switch.

No longer, in this moment, will I be drowned with sorrow and unanswered emails, laundry and floors to sweep. No longer, in this moment, will I feel unloved and unworthy. Because I am.

I am loved, I am worthy, and I am alive in myself, full and strong, powerful, beautiful, and frankly, unstoppable.

If others around me feel their limitations and believe them – I do not need to take that on for them. What I can do instead, is draw that deep breath, feel the earth beneath me and remember that I know how to dance this powerful, majestic dance of simply living. My role is to invite others to dance as well.

The more we remember to flip the switch, the lighter we will become.

Sarah Lipton is founder and owner of The Presence Point, LLC, through which she offers leadership mentoring to individuals and organizations. 

Editor’s note: this article was previously published as part of Sarah Lipton’s blog. Find more of Sarah’s work at her website: http://www.thepresencepoint.com/blog/ .

Practicing mindfulness through synchronization of mind and body

by Jennifer Wang

Mindfulness is one of those words that seems to be everywhere these days, but how many people really know what it means? Many people associate mindfulness and meditation with sitting quietly for hours trying desperately to shut out the world and turn off thoughts and sensations. But that’s not necessarily what it’s all about, and on top of that, it takes a whole lot of effort and struggle to accomplish something that seems counterintuitive to what it means to be a human being. What if we could use mindfulness to explore what it really means to be human, to be who we are in this very moment and not who we think we should be? What if, instead of trying desperately to shut out our sensations and experience, we could gently and lovingly pay attention to them and allow mindfulness to bring us down from our heads and into our whole being?

Paying attention to sensations gets us out of our heads and into our bodies, and into the world around us. How we experience everything in this world is through our bodies and senses, yet so many of us live in our bodies without paying attention to the small things, what it feels like to breathe, to move, to hear, to speak. Or if we do, it’s in a way that is hard on ourselves, or struggling to fix or change something. The truth is that through our bodies, we can experience the joys of the present moment, of being alive. We can indulge in seeing the colors around us, hearing the sound of cars as they drive past, smelling the freshly cut grass. We can experience movement and exercise as ways to synchronize our minds with our bodies and to enjoy the feeling of being alive!

There are a number of practices which have been used for thousands of years to combine mind and body work, ways to combine mindfulness and movement. These include yoga, qigong, tai chi. But practicing mindful movement doesn’t have to be limited to these activities – you can practice mindfulness during any form of exercise, or even just by walking outside and connecting with nature. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the head of the Shambhala lineage, is a marathon runner and lifts weights and enjoys golf.

This all sounds great, but how do you practice mindful movement?

If you’ve tried a new form of exercise before, you know that your focus in the beginning is on just doing it right and getting through it. Once you’ve mastered form and technique, you can relax and your mind can be expansive. You need less of your mind to stay focused and the movement feels more natural. This can be the first 10 minutes of your workout, or the first few sessions. Once you start to get into your groove, you can introduce the mindfulness aspect. Start off by bringing your attention to the breath.

Then you can train in developing a level of panoramic awareness. With panoramic awareness you feel your internal environment – your rhythm, the pounding of your heart, your feet hitting the trail, your muscles stretching, points of tightness and looseness in your body. At the same time you tune in to your external environment – the room, the sky, the air, the sounds of life. Panoramic awareness coming from mindful movement is different from being just focused on form. It is a larger, more relaxed and open awareness. Sakyong Mipham says “Panoramic awareness is not zoning out, completely distracted by the fantasies in our head. Rather, it is a way to connect to our surroundings, an indication of being alive. It is the healthiness of the mind expressing itself through the healthiness of the body.”

Many of us have all sorts of storylines and emotions attached to exercise, which can impact our motivation and experience. Rather than pushing away these storylines, we can be curious about them, noticing how they affect our relationship with fitness and ourselves. If we feel discomfort or pain during a workout, we can try detaching from the storyline about the pain, and instead just feel the pain in its raw state. Locate where it is and notice how the discomfort moves through the body. What kind of pain is it, burning, stretching, soreness, pulsing? When we stop viewing pain and discomfort as an enemy we can allow it to be a kind messenger. Then we can decide what to do about it from a place of clarity and intention.

Through it all, it is VERY important to maintain an attitude of gentleness. Yes you are exerting yourself with your exercise, but if you find yourself pushing too hard, you will likely not want to exercise again because your experience has been painful and unenjoyable. It is important to exercise with a sense of compassion toward yourself and to listen to and attend to your body. If you are feeling on the point of exhaustion, don’t beat yourself up. If you’re feeling good, push a little harder. Sakyong Mipham says “If we do not push ourselves enough, we do not grow, but if we push ourselves too much, we regress. What is enough will change, depending on where we are and what we are doing. In that sense, the present moment is always some kind of beginning.”

Tuning in to our bodies and our sensations is a way of bringing us back down to earth, back to our hearts. Whether we’re running a marathon or practicing yoga, paying attention with a sense of gentleness and intention are all ways to practice mindfulness. Our senses and our breath are always with us, so when you feel challenged, touch in to them and allow them to bring you home, to the present moment.

Jennifer Wang is co-creator of a blog called The Tasteful Pantry, a resource for those living a healthy, delicious and mindful lifestyle. 

An examination of dissent as it relates to concepts of masculine and feminine in Shambhala culture

Column: Critical Intent

by Larry Barnett

Mural depicting one of the Rigden Kings

Both American and Shambhala culture are value-laden, and their differences sometimes come into uncomfortable contact; at this edge dissent arises. How does Shambhala culture, steeped in feminine principle, work with forms of dissent encouraged in an American culture steeped in masculine principle?

To answer this question it’s helpful to examine and understand the roots of each culture, but the method of observation itself — the point of view — in part influences the nature of conclusions. A utilitarian, “needs-oriented” approach often dominates cultural analysis. In America, the idea of satisfying identified “needs” finds its complement in the idea of exercising identified “rights,” and from there the idea of dissent naturally emerges. Thus the American focus on values associated with freedom and individualism gives rise to the right and validity of dissent.

Alternatively, I suggest that using a “values-oriented” approach in examination — which shifts the analytical perspective — will prove more useful. Cultural values actually are the ground of all but the most basic biological needs, forming and underlying, in the words of cultural anthropologist Dorothy Lee, a culture’s particular “codifications of reality.”

Queen Lhamo Natsok Yum

In considering dissent within Shambhala — expression, suppression, tolerance, acceptance, and/or encouragement — I’ve also found it worthwhile to explore the character of both Shambhala and American culture from a psychological-transformational perspective. In his book Masculine and Feminine (Shambhala Publications), Jungian analyst Gareth Hill introduced the terms “patrivalent” and “matrivalent” to capture the psychological workings of what we in Shambhala refer to as “masculine” and “feminine” principles. These are not gender-specific classifications, but rather signifiers that are metaphysical in nature. Hill’s terms indicate attraction and attachment to a particular style of feeling, thought and organization within individuals and society.

American culture may be described as primarily “patrivalent,” strongly oriented toward manifesting masculine principle. The societal manifestations of the patrivalent masculine principle generally include deep power-based hierarchies, rigid social structures and dependence on written rules of law. Individually, patrivalence encourages a sense of autonomy, relies on competition, rewards self-direction, attends to personal needs and initiative, stimulates individualism, and supports the exercise of “rights,” including dissent. In its unhealthy, exaggerated aspects, this orientation can result in suppressing sympathetic feeling and empathy, increasing scapegoating, promoting violence, and encouraging actions of unrestrained greed.

Shambhala culture generally manifests a strongly “matrivalent” feminine principle: a political and social orientation favoring unity, inclusiveness and societal cohesion, with less reliance on deep hierarchy, more emphasis on group welfare rather than that of the individual, and dependence upon intuition, convention and ritual rather than written rules of law. Individually, matrivalence encourages empathy, reinforces tribal relationships, promotes cooperation, employs joint problem solving, and values consensus, generosity, and awareness of the common good. Its unhealthy, exaggerated aspects can include smothering of personal initiative and discouragement of individual actions perceived as harmful to group cohesion, such as dissent.

These are, of course, highly simplified summaries of complex psychological/social structures. Hill suggests that each of us traverses a path continuously drawing us through the expression of both masculine and feminine principles, including their healthy and unhealthy aspects, in an attempt to establish a place of psychological equilibrium. Collectively, society traverses a similar path towards equilibrium, and thus we see swings in American social policy between “welfare states” and “free markets” for example. In Shambhala terms, we might see these societal swings as manifestations of the ebb and flow of confidence in basic goodness.

Coming back to the topic of dissent, I would propose that in general terms, Shambhala’s matrivalent cultural values are bound to generate dissent because they are embedded within the larger, primarily patrivalent American culture and its values. Those of us who have been raised in America have absorbed many of its cultural values, including its corresponding behavioral emphasis on personal freedom and dissent. Tellingly, America’s patrivalent values are conveyed in the triad of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” while Shambhala Buddhism’s matrivalent values are conveyed in the triad of “Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.” There is a reason the Dorje Dradul moved Shambhala’s capital out of America to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

There’s no escape from the reality of cultural difference, or the tensions it creates. As people are exposed to Shambhala’s matrivalent culture they will naturally encounter the ways in which Shambhala’s cultural framework comes into contact with the larger and more dominant patrivalent American cultural framework. If intellectual or emotional discomfort arises, which it often does, an evaluation of this experience leads to inner and outer questions about one’s feelings, preferences and opinions. If voiced, these questions may be heard by others as forms of dissent.

There are those who come to Shambhala carrying the wounds of serious trauma with them, people who have suffered physical or psychological abuse, or who struggle with various forms of emotional instability such as depression, addiction or severe anxiety. This sort of situation often prompts forms of dissent which are far more personal rather than cultural, and these forms often pose challenging circumstances requiring special identification and expertise.

Ultimately, no precise formula exists to resolve the challenges of dissent, particularly when one adds ethnicity, sexuality and economic diversity to the mix. To impose a set of fixed rules governing dissent within Shambhala would be resorting to a formulaic, patrivalent solution. Merely dismissing or “tolerating” the issue as a matter of individual personality quirks runs the risk of absorption within a matrivalent solution. Ultimately, given our mix of cultures, the best and most workable approach to engaging dissent is one of openness and curiosity.

It might be said that curiosity and active listening are matrivalent functions, and I think that’s true. Our patrivalent American culture will, I believe, benefit from an infusion of more matrivalent activity. Within Shambhala, our training is oriented in this direction, both towards ourselves and others.

Thus, when it comes to dissent, the opportunity exists to be neither merely tolerant nor actively hostile, but to be curious instead — to use our training in examining our own reactions first, identifying and acknowledging them. In doing so, we develop the capacity to identify and acknowledge the feelings and experiences of others. Engaging with dissent in this way will not resolve all its complexity or issues, but does carry the potential to incorporate dissent into our ongoing — and lifelong — practice of learning to work with difference.

Larry Barnett is Shambhala’s former Director of Communication, a past Center Director and a past SMC Board Member. He lives with Norma, his wife of 40 years, in Sonoma, California. Larry has two children and three grandchildren.

Being a parent generates opportunity in each moment, opportunities to create everyday ceremonies that celebrate and enhance our lives together

by Melinda Haselton

The sun peeks through the blinds and I hear the words, “Hi mama.” They draw me out of my deep sleep. Heavy eyes open, and I see a sweet smile that fills my heart with instant joy. A new day greets us.

My daughter was born in February 2014. Before her birth, my meditation instructor told me that parenting would be my practice. She was right. By design, my days are filled with ritual and countless opportunities to slow down and enjoy the present moment. For what feels like the first time, I see the world around me. This is our ceremony. Each morning we wake up and we go downstairs, open our blinds, and look out into our yard. We point to the grass and the trees. We take note of the color of the sky and see if any animals are out and about.

In The Shambhala Principle, the Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche talks about looking at life as ceremony. He shares memories of how much he loved setting up tents and living outside at Shambhala Mountain Center for seminary retreats in the summertime. At the end of these meditation programs, he would feel sad to pack it all up and go back to regular life. “Thus when we headed back into the everyday world, I realized that it was up to me to create my own ceremony. . . Now I knew I preferred being awake to being asleep, and I understood why my father emphasized the need for discipline and structure at our summer encampment–insisting that we pay attention to how we dressed, how we spoke, what we did, and how we engaged with others. It was all part of creating an awake ceremony.”

I have found in two short years of motherhood that we are creating a ceremony in our home each and every day. The rhythms and rituals that are so comforting to my daughter serve as anchors, not just for her, but for all of us. We have rituals around meal time, cleaning, getting dressed, and bedtime. My husband and I continually ask ourselves, “What kind of home do we want to create? What kind of atmosphere?” We find that there are many activities that nourish us, and others that shut us down.

I couldn’t have imagined the incredible depth that parenting would bring to my practice. There are times when I am so content to be present and engaged, and there are other times when I want to check out. But so often that’s just not possible. I have to sit with my irritation, with my boredom, and with the paradox of wishing time would speed up and slow down at the same time.  My daughter, with her contagious laugh and bright blue eyes, is constantly bringing me back to the present moment, to what’s before me.

The Sakyong goes on to say, “All actions in life are done with some intention. What is the basis of that intention? For the warrior it is always to engage in an activity with confidence and goodness.” We don’t have to be perfect parents. In fact let’s let go of perfection right at the start, and in every moment. Practice means meeting ourselves and each other where we are. Just like in shamatha practice, we bring ourselves back to the breath, again and again. We do so with kindness and compassion for ourselves, our partners, and our children.

May we practice ceremonies of wakefulness.
May we recognize basic goodness in our children, our partners, ourselves (and the world).
May we create homes where enlightened society will flourish.
May we be of benefit.