Wednesday

Report from the Desung Command Group Conference at DDL

It is a pleasure to send this very brief report from the Desung Command Group conference that is taking place at DDL. The weather here in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia has been delightfully sunny. Spring has come to the Maritimes and the dralas of DDL are cheerful and spacious.

The conference brings together all seven of the Regional Desung Commanders, two land centre desung and the Desung Council, along with the regimental desung from Halifax. With the GES regional commander and the local regimental commander sitting is, we have fifteen people in our circle in the shrine room.

We arrived on Tuesday evening (May 12) and began sharing stories of our personal and desung lives. On Wednesday we participated in a lhasang, with DDL staff, to support the start of the Sakyong’s retreat. During the day, in addition to doing Werma and Dorje Dradul practice, we identified the key issues that are arising in each of the regions. In the late afternoon the Dragon Dapon Barry Boyce joined us and led a lively discussion of the Sun Tsu and it’s application to desung practice, particularly in regard to working with chaos and conflict. The conversation continued over dinner in the shrine room and on into the evening until our curfew at 10pm; (they go to bed early at DDL).

This morning (Thursday) we had nearly an hour of drill, led by Sgt Mitchell; more practice and more discussion of desung view, practice and action.

It’s late, so I will close with the promise to send a more detailed report later. Tomorrow (Friday) we close the conference after lunch and drive to Halifax (2 hours) where we begin a weekend program, open to everyone, on the topic of “Protecting Primordial Harmony”.

–originally posted on desung@shambhala.org on May 13, 2009

From: Desung Training