Lights in the Forest

by John McQuade

This is a birthday remembrance for the great Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson. He celebrated his 75th birthday last year and many admirers celebrated with him. For many decades, Freeman has been a major figure in the Canadian and International world of photography. For this remembrance, the decisive point is not that he is Canadian but that he is a contemplative.

Patterson’s Early Influence on Miksang

Miksang is a Tibetan word that means “Good Eye.” Nalanda Miksang contemplative photography was established by Vajra Regent Osel Tendzin to explore and embody Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s dharma art teaching through the medium of photography. (For more information, please see: www.miksang.org)

Trungpa Rinpoche’s dharma art teachings are the main source for Nalanda Miksang – but not the only source. Indeed, at the beginning of our engagement, in practical terms, the work of the photographer Freeman Patterson was more of a “guiding light.” In that early engagement we sort of worked with a Trungpa Rinpoche view and a Freeman Patterson manifestation.

Michael Wood, a professional photographer, began to engage meditation practice and became interested in how the experience of that practice could be expressed through photography. Michael was influenced by the teachings and images of Trungpa Rinpoche but he was also deeply influenced by the work of Freeman Patterson. In particular Freeman’s early books: Photography and the Art of Seeing and the Photography for the Joy of It.

Freeman portrait

At the time I had finished an M.A. in the phenomenology of perception. Phenomenology is a form of continental philosophy that seeks a way to truth through the experienced phenomenal world rather that the traditional philosophical method of concepts. I was interested in finding a more practical and artistic way to engage phenomenology. I found that way with Trungpa Rinpoche’s dharma art perception teachings and through developing Miksang with Michael.

When we engaged and taught Miksang, Freeman Patterson’s work was a key resource. Freeman realized that what deeply inspired photographers was not so much the making of an image but the experience of seeing. And the joy of that experience.

As well, he discerned some formal properties of the visual field and developed an aesthetic for making an equivalent photographic image. For example, in his approach to landscape photography, Freeman does not orient to the standard “calendar” content of scenic expression but to the formal visual values: the layers of color and texture.

Patterson’s Landscape and Joy

Embrace

Freeman’s approach to visual forms and equivalent images is often articulated through the schematics of visual design. Nalanda Miksang takes the orientation of visual forms deeper: to the visual itself. It explores what constitutes the visual as the visual: color, light, surface (texture, pattern etc). Space and seeing something – a figure on a ground. This is a deeper perception level. It works from the same basic orientation that informs Freeman’s early work.

And the joy of photography. Freeman realized that what deeply motivates photographers and keeps them going is the engagement: the experience and the depth of the experience. The depth of the experience is Joy.

His teaching are oriented to the “Joy of Photography.” Nalanda Miksang engages the same orientation: joy.

Going Forward

John McQuaid self portrait

In retrospect, besides inspiration, the contemplative contribution of Freeman Patterson’s work for Nalanda Miksang is the formal approach to the visual and the orientation to Experience – and in particular the experience of joy.

Personally, I feel a deep appreciation and communion with Freeman. Oddly, we have almost never met.

There was one weird encounter. In the 1986, Michael and I were invited to teach Miksang at the Summer Naropa University program in Halifax. We realized that Freeman would be conducting his annual workshop in New Brunswick. So – full of fantasy of how great this meeting would be – we made the detour and sure enough we spotted photographers with their tripods. We tracked Freeman down at a restaurant. I won’t go into the details but it did not go well: sort of Freeman meets Stalkers.

When we left Michael was somewhat despondent. We needed to cross a river on a ferry. I said something like: “Ok. Now we are on our own.” We were and that was good. After the ferry, we were driving. We passed a “landscape scene” and we both said “did you see that!?” So we went back. It was a small curving river – sort of mauve in the green field. We both made an image. I feel that “shoot” was one of our first cuttings from the umbilical cord of Freeman Patterson. Now we were becoming Miksang as Miksang.

You cut the umbilical cord but that does not mean there was never a connection. That connection continues. Some aspects of his work still inform the teachings of Nalanda Miksang. To this day there are strong and brilliant threads of Freeman’s work in the tapestry of Nalanda Miksang.

In our tradition and language Freeman Patterson is a Shambhala Warrior.

So: belated happy birthday to Freeman – a contemplative photographer.

~~
For more information about Nalanda Miksang, visit their website here: www.miksang.org

We need to enter wholeheartedly into the experiment of imagining that we are going to die. The idea of death implies a sort of ending and beyond that ending is nothing. Otherwise it wouldn’t be an ending. But one of the things I’ve heard is that space doesn’t die. Just imagine this building, this city, this lake and those mountains abide in space.  Even though the mountains will be worn down or the building fall down, the space is going to be there.

What I’ve heard is that the love and compassion, because they are not fabricated or created through effort, are latencies, are almost like they are in the fabric of space itself.

I almost don’t want to say anything at all because I don’t want to create any kind of expectation. But what we do want to do is to cultivate confidence. Otherwise trusting the mind just becomes some pretty slogan.

If we can actually relax and open our hearts, there is a certain experience that arises when we let our guard down. A lot of our anxiety creates pushing. As that begins to relax and open, as we let go of effort, then what’s there?  The basis of these teachings is that as we let go and open our heart what is there is love and compassion. Then what makes death so final and frightening might not be what it is but might be what we assume it to be.

What we are trying to do is like a dry run. We don’t know but if we have assumptions, we are saying we do know. If we don’t know what death is, then why are we frightened of it?

We have an experience of being alive, and there are certain facets of being alive that alarm us deeply. We take certain measures to make ourselves safe. In Buddhist teachings, fear and hope are essentially a skewed way of seeing things. Love and compassion are symptomatic of seeing things clearly. Suffering from the point of view of these teachings is a friction. When we create the notion of a centralized being, that’s solid and real and permanent, in a universe that is in flux, then the symptom is this suffering quality. Suffering is not inherent, not like love and compassion. Suffering is a failure to be in touch with our true nature. The path is first of all the intention and then the application of the methods that bring us into contact with the true nature. When we are in contact with the true nature, things like death and dying appear and are experienced in a different way to when we have a notion of a solid self facing termination.

It’s incredibly sad what we do to ourselves. We pollute the water in our own well for no good reason.  Opening, relaxing, trusting and being are just drinking from that well. What that water tastes like is love and compassion, joy and equanimity.  That is what it tastes like; it’s not something that you have to put into the water.

From: Good Morning Burlington!

Andrea: Could you tell us about your background in terms of the dharma, the arts and how aging fits into all of this?

Lanny: I’ll go back to when I first heard about Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, because it was an important turning point for me. I was on tour with Meredith Monk doing Education of The Girlchild and I realized I was longing for some kind of practice. I went to hear Trungpa Rinpoche and his teachings spoke to me; there was a lot of…connecting the dots when I heard him.

I could never separate myself as an artist and myself as a Buddhist practitioner. Not that you do these things at the same time. When you are sitting you are sitting, when you are dancing you are dancing, but the view, the mindfulness awareness and extraordinary intelligence, that’s why many artists connected to the path.

Chogyam Trungpa said it is a choiceless matter. Once you put your foot on that path…he said, “I’m going to haunt you.”

How do I connect to the world as an artist? An artist teacher, who can speak to people’s suffering? How can the creative process soothe the heart and soothe the body? Certainly I had experienced that in my own life, with my students, with my friends who are artists and their students. I’ve experienced that for many years.

Andrea: How does this relate to growing older?

Lanny: I just turned 70. I realize that as I am getting older everything is the dharma. It permeates everything that I do – mindfulness awareness practice, the practice of sitting meditation and experiencing the vibrancy of now, experiencing the body getting older, the law of impermanence and how sometimes it can shine. Yes we are getting older, but each moment has life.

As I get older, my eyes, my ears, are more attuned to the suffering of the world because I am realizing that I need to hear the whole story – about something that happened in India, like the stoning of a woman, like the drones killing women and children. I feel, as I am getting older that I need to educate myself all of the time in terms of what is going on in the world.

The fear factor is starting to lessen, and the curiosity, the discovery factor is becoming fuller, even though the depression factor at times is greater. I’m not going to die from depression, about how hard the world is sometimes. I am going to pay attention to it. It is like your antennae get honed and they can move in a lot of different directions as you get older. Sometimes if I find myself dipping into darkness, I sit, I lean into it, and as Pema would say, I breathe, it moves, it’s not solid. I dance.

Speaking of dancing, in some ways as I am getting older I feel that my dancing is fuller, more interesting, even though I have more physical limitations. I feel like the limitations move around so they are not always the same ones. Some are, but you can work with them, that’s the other great teaching. Trungpa Rinpoche always said everything is workable. And that includes the aging process. We work with it and it is difficult, but – so it’s difficult!

I am also more and more interested in what lineage means, and this summer I will be teaching with Jerry Grannelli and Barbara Bash at the ALIA Institute in Halifax. We are leading an intergenerational group about lineage, about how young peoples’ voices can rise. We are teaching spontaneous performance, improv based on what can be contained within structure. So we are going to be working with young people, because it is our responsibility – which we are embracing.

Andrea: You mentioned curiosity, and I know from your improv class, “Characters in Motion,” that this is helpful for people as they are aging, that sense of improvisation.

Lanny: What’s great is that we have quite a big age span. The ones on the older end, perhaps physically, they won’t be rolling around on the floor, doing somersaults, but it doesn’t matter. What they are getting is a chance to practice strongly with mindfulness awareness through their physical bodies, synchronizing body, speech, and mind.

How can we practice synchronizing body, speech, and mind? These are all deep muscles, deep parts of ourselves and when we work them, it is like massaging that imagination muscle, moving through the space, connecting with others in that same way. We are honing sensitivity, spontaneity, joy – and we are connecting all parts of ourselves. We are practicing on so many different levels and sometimes our selves are just our ear, sometimes our selves are movement throughout space, and sometimes our selves are in a duet with someone else, feeling the other in the space.

Andrea: Sometimes it’s hard to articulate the effects of the aging process. There are losses along the way, and it seems that your class offers opportunities to express these primordial emotions.

Lanny: I think there is a misconception around this issue of aging and creative expression. Maybe you will retire from a job, but in terms of retiring from creating, from your own being, you don’t need anything, it costs very little, but it pays big.

Everyone can express themselves, and you can do it until you die. My mother had dementia, she was 95, and we were still singing together. She would start singing a song and she would say, “What are the lyrics?” Or we would just hum. That exchange was important to her until she died. We keep on challenging ourselves through creative expression. As Chogyam Trungpa said, you get “feedback from the phenomenal world,” and it does not have to be confirmation. That’s an important point. We are not practicing for confirmation in the workshop – “oh you were so good.” We don’t talk that much about results here. We are being with each other, tending to each other, watching, doing. We are challenging ourselves to dig a little deeper. Through practice we are digging deeper.

And I think it makes for a kind of flexibility, which the Sakyong talks about too. He talks about flexible mind…well it’s about how we are we viewing this, holding this in our mind, processing this in our mind.

Andrea: I remember reading recently that Trungpa Rinpoche said that meditation is celebration – joy. How does that relate?

Lanny: It’s not just challenges, discipline. I think that as humans we want to dance. As humans we want to dance with each other, we want to create with each other, and I love the word celebration because it is an ongoing thing. It isn’t always goal oriented. In the workshop we don’t know how it is going to pan out. It’s an ongoing celebration, and at times we are all laughing – the juxtaposition, the commitment between people doing something ridiculous and sublime together.

~~
­­­Lanny Harrison is a character actress, dancer and cabaret artist. She began her career in the New York Pantomime Theater in 1966, has performed a number of theatrical duets, and has been a member of The House, Meredith Monk’s theater company, since 1969. She has an ongoing workshop at the New York Shambhala Center and has taught at Naropa University for many years. Since 2000, she has been a member of the Shambhala Arts team at the ALIA Institute in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is also on the faculty of the Gallatin division of NYU where she teaches a theater course integrating Eastern contemplative disciplines and Western theatrical technique. Since 1973, she has practiced Tibetan Buddhism as a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and is certified as a meditation instructor.

To read more articles in this Column, please click here.

Camille Gwendolyn Talbot McCoy

Camille Gwendolyn Talbot McCoy was born on Sunday June 9th at 7:05. She is amazing! We just got home with her last night (Wednesday, June 12) and are in complete bliss.

Kim McCoy, Jason Talbot, and Camille

From: Portland News Magazine

John, Adam and Makar the beagle

Greetings Portland Sangha!

The motivation of this blog post is two-fold: First, as a means of introducing myself, and second, to ask for a small measure of guidance and assistance from the Portland Shambhala community.

My name is John Kozel – I currently reside in Burlington, VT. Excitingly, however, my partner Adam and I will be moving to Portland at the beginning of September along with our beagle Makar. I will be starting a masters program at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine, and Adam is currently looking for work with community-based organizations, preferably ones catering to Portland’s LGBTQA community. Makar will be along to smell flowers and distract passers-by with his charm. (I am on the right-side of this photograph).

My connection to Shambhala began in 2008 with a brief stint as a development intern at Shambhala Mountain Center, followed by a 2.5 year residency at Karme Choling as a member of core staff, working sequentially as painter, registrant, and development coordinator. Upon leaving Karme Choling I moved to Burlington to complete a bachelor’s degree at the University of Vermont. During my time here I helped to form a weekly meditation discussion group for young people at the Shambhala Center which I have been guiding for the past year. I am a Shambhala Guide and practice a great deal of qi gong.

If Portland is anything like Burlington, finding a reasonably priced apartment or house to rent through the internet can be a veritable trial – the best deals always seem to pass through direct connection – which gets me to the second aspect of this blog entry: Adam and I are looking for some help in finding an apartment, preferably in the Northeast or Southeast areas of the city, two bedrooms, that allows dogs, and is reasonably priced for an indebted grad student and a non-prof community activist. If anyone there at the Portland Shambhala Center has ideas, recommendations, or connections you would like to share, we would be genuinely grateful!

Thanks for reading. I am immensely excited to be moving to Portland and to be joining with the Shambhala sangha there. I look forward to sharing time, space, and practice with many of you come September.

My very best,

John Kozel
j.e.kozel (at) gmail.com

From: Portland News Magazine

VCTR pointing photo by Ann Spruyt from the Chronicles of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

In 1974 Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche invited His Holiness the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa to visit his fledgling sangha and its centers in the United States. In the roughly four years Rinpoche had been in North America, he had been quite successful attracting a devoted following of students. He was equally successful in gathering spirited controversy about his behavior and methods.

As news of the impending visit of His Holiness the 16th Karmapa spread, the controversy surrounding Trungpa Rinpoche intensified. There was a network of western “tibetophiles” who had spent time in Nepal and India with Tibetan teachers, and considered themselves expert, or at least knowledgeable about who was who in Tibetan Buddhism. One camp of those critical of Trungpa Rinpoche held that he had become corrupted by the west as his dissolute lifestyle demonstrated.

HH Karmapa and VCTR with Regent, Shambhala Archives

Well, how did that one turn out?

I’ll get to that in a minute….

First, closer to home: For months, Rinpoche worked tirelessly, and worked us tirelessly, transforming our familiar, furry, casual hippy culture to formality, to suits and ties and satin and gold leaf in a few short months. He said he was preparing us to meet a true dharmaraja, a dharma king.

One night shortly before His Holiness arrived, I was sitting with Rinpoche in his room at Tail of the Tiger. I asked Rinpoche what he wanted us to learn from His holiness’ visit. He was quiet for a few minutes, then, peering over his glasses, he said softly, “Well….for one thing…. you’ll see how you’ve been mistreating me all these years.”

HH Karmapa and VCTR golden handprint, Shambhala Archives

What was our considered action to show Rinpoche that we really appreciated him? It was to buy the more expensive of two shower curtains for his house at Tail that we recently renovated. We’d go for the deluxe $60 maroon shower curtain rather than the cheaper $12 plastic one.

I kid you not. A shower curtain…..that was the best we could do…

As for the Karmapa’s triumphal visit, it was a huge success, traveling to Boston, New York City, Tail of the Tiger in Vermont, Boulder and Shambhala Mountain Center, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Literally several thousand people met His Holiness at one of his Black Crown Ceremonies. And the effect on our community was profound. In many ways, this was when we started to grow up.

As for the Karmapa’s evaluation of Trungpa Rinpoche, take one guess which side of the controversy he supported?

At the conclusion of his visit he issued a statement. It was entitled: “Proclamation to all Those Who Dwell Under the Sun Upholding the Tradition of the Spiritual and Temporal Orders.”

It read as follows:

The ancient and renowned lineage of the Trungpas, since the great siddha Trungmase Chokyi Gyamtso Lodro, possessor of only holy activity, has in every generation given rise to great beings. Awakened by the vision of these predecessors in the lineage, this my present lineage holder, Chokyi Gyamtso Trungpa Rinpoche, supreme incarnate being, has magnificently carried out the vajra holders discipline in the land of America, bringing about the liberation of students and ripening them in the dharma. This wonderful truth is clearly manifest.

Accordingly, I empower Chogyam Trungpa Vajra Holder and Possessor of the Victory Banner of the Practice Lineage of the Karma Kagyu. Let this be recognized by all people of both elevated and ordinary station.

HH Karmapa and VCTR, Shambhala Archives

And the rest as they say, is history…

~~
Do you have memories and stories that you would like to share? Please do. Send us an email: editor@shambhalatimes.org

photos by Alex Van Gils

As the children came into the center that morning, their excitement took on a certain movement. Weaving in and out of adult conversations over tea, and simultaneously dissembling the circle of cushions in the second shrine room to orchestrate various towers and games, they were all buzzing. When I asked how they were doing, “excited” was the answer I continued to receive.

It was clear to me that the children were not alone in their excitement. Everyone seemed to have a little glimmer in their eyes.

Fourth Sundays are always special mornings at our center in Silicon Valley. We offer a Family Practice Day each month. During open house, when the adults practice and then converse, I lead the children in the other room in mindfulness activities, games, movement, music, and anything that arises.

On one of these Sundays, the children and I were engaged in a found art project when a certain conversation began. The children were telling me how glad they were to be there, and how they felt grateful to have this community of each other and a space to explore together. They were asking if we could meet every Sunday instead of just once a month. I told them I was working on that. They seemed really eager, though, to bring the adults into the magic they were creating. They wanted to invite them into our world. I was listening as they talked this through with one another. It seemed to them that they should arrange a way to connect us all.

“Let’s dance!” they decided. So they planned something incredible. One morning, after open house, they said, we will all go out for lunch at the restaurant next door. Then, we will come back here and have a huge dance party. The adults will come, but they will have to dance. And we will organize games for them to play as well! The children proceeded to talk out which songs should be on the playlist, how they should arrange the dance floor, and every other detail.

Inspired by their desire to bring this magic to our entire community, I found a date that would work, and added our first ever Family Dance Party to the calendar. The parents of one of our children came through with the playlist, and the rest unfolded with great ease.

The children created, out of gomdens, a series of games. Using cups, balls, and various other objects from the center, adults were invited to pay a fee in order to play a game. The prizes included artwork created by the children, and zafus (for use only at the center). The children decided that all of the proceeds should be placed in the donation box. Entrepreneurs that they are, they were planning how best to use this money for the next dance party. In addition to games, there was a meditation station (in case one wanted to sit rather than dance), and a napping station (of course, because dancing is tiring). All this was on one half of the shrine room floor. The other half was the dance area.

Children young and old had a blast that afternoon. Moving, laughing, playing, truly luxuriating in this capacity we have as human beings to express ourselves through our physical bodies. Some danced atop gomdens, others with scarves, and everyone with each other. It was a blessing to see so many smiles, to hear so many laughs, to see the freedom and space blossom in such celebration. I could see the tension in people’s shoulders just melt away. And I could feel the joy and pride the children felt at having had the power and the support to bring their vision to fruition. They had wanted to share this magic all along.

Afterward, I received so much positive feedback from everyone in our community. To be able to offer the space in which these types of events arise, come to fruition, and are thoroughly enjoyed is such a blessing.

The movement within Shambhala is to create a space that welcomes and includes children and families. The how of this will vary from group to group and area to area. The important thing is that we have these conversations, make connections, and try things out. It doesn’t take much – just a few interested families.

Last month, at the Creating Enlightened Society event, the Sakyong, in answer to a participant’s question about the role of children in the community, said, “As we grow up, we become harder and tougher, but it’s clear that that sensitivity is still there… if we can allow children not to feel embarrassed about that, and if that sensitivity and curiosity can be encouraged, then as we age, that element is still there as opposed to being shut down.” And in light of creating a space for this sort of encouragement, Rinpoche voiced his hope that we could have more and more events and occasions that included and supported children and families.

So, let’s explore what is already happening in our community for children and families, and all the ways in which we can open up and grow this vision. It is vital at this time to come together and celebrate our confidence. If you don’t know just how to do that, ask a child. You never know, you may just find yourself dancing in the shrine room.

~~
Leslie Gossett is a student of all things human. She lives in Silicon Valley where she works with children, words, mind, and body.

photo by Daniel Boyce

by Irini Rockwell

Co-emergent Wisdom and Mandala Principle

The two most powerful and transformative aspects of the Five Wisdoms perspective are, 1) co-emergent wisdom: wisdom born from confusion, intensified emotions transmuted into brilliant sanity, and 2) the mandala principle: the totality of interconnected dynamic energy constantly in flux. The depth of these understandings were yet to be revealed to me.

Co-emergent wisdom is the interpenetration and inseparability of confusion and sanity. The implications for this is that we need to embrace the chaos of our confusion because the sanity emerges from it. It invites us to liberate our primary emotional fixation(s). Only then are we are able to have a more expansive view and include other energies. This not only brings us into energetic balance with our personal mix of colors, but we can see the dynamics of the mandala.

Trungpa Rinpoche calls the mandala principle “orderly chaos.” The chaos is the juice; our awareness sees the order. I like to call it “the situation.” So we are not trying to stop chaotic situations, but get into them. We discover there are five types of intelligence, with infinite variations and combinations, and each experience is layered, interdependent and interlinked. We can begin to see a pattern in each situation: how we color it and how others do. It is not so hard to see the inevitable outcome of people’s relationships and situations. When we see the interconnectedness of energies, we see the Five Wisdoms mandala.

The beauty of the mandala system is that there is no one to blame! When we look at “the situation” from an energetic perspective, there is a predictable dynamic between energies. What’s happening is happening. It’s just energy, sometimes constricted, sometimes flowing. This is incredibly liberating. It allows us to see others more clearly, without laying our trips on them, and most importantly, it makes us more available to them.

We could say that a family is a mandala, a co-created, fundamentally interconnected and dynamic system, constantly shifting. Family roles – father, mother, children – have defining characteristics and assumptions that exist within an intricate web of relationships which is delicately balanced to create harmony. Or not. When things are going well, roles function naturally, there’s a sense of well-being and everyone is enlivened. When the family system becomes unbalanced, either due to external or internal reasons, the tendency is for everyone to become self protective. The self protective stance is small minded and no longer sees the whole.

Both from the mandala perspective as well as family systems therapy, it is easy to see that at times a family becomes like a pressure cooker. When it is not possible to openly process unexpressed emotions, intensity builds and everyone blames someone else. The atmosphere becomes toxic. There are two habitually ways we deal with it: we either act out, using our emotions as a defense, or bottle them up, denying them their life. When we act out we become the escape valve on the pressure cooker and perpetuate the confusion. When we absorb the energy, it becomes locked in our mind and body and we become physically sick.

The challenge here is to open to the dynamic play beyond self-protecting ego. It is like living on a razor’s edge.

Healing the Family Mandala
Over time, I began to see the profundity of these teachings and how they were applying to our family, but I could not do it alone. I feel enormously indebted to my children, Julian and Karuna. The three of us have shown a willingness to live on the edge with each other and have transparency in our communication. It has allowed not only healing to come about but an unparalleled sense of closeness between us. Even in writing this article, they have given wise and heartfelt feedback.

My daughter and I chose to live near each other, both in Boulder, Colorado and then in Vermont. Our discussions about family and life are enriched by our mutual interests as psychotherapists and Buddhist practitioners. As well, Karuna has worked in the field of Equine Facilitated Psychotherapy and I with the Five Wisdoms. We have a deep appreciation for energetic, embodied therapeutic approaches as most effective in unraveling deeply engrained patterns and fixations, which are somatic. Her understanding comes from working with horses and mine from working with the five wisdom energies.

With our passion for congruence and authenticity, we inevitably sought to bring that out in our relationship. With our training, you’d think that we could solve all our differences in a jiffy. But our differences are the point. To this day, we still trigger each other because of our style differences. For example, my karma “let’s move forward and make this happen” is jarring to her more luxuriously buddha/ratna settled contentment and “let’s just be,” which frustrates me…until I relax into it, which so nourishes me.

So we persevere. By exploring how our family had been challenging for us, huge shifts began to happen. Disclosures led to insights, which led to a deepening love and respect for each other. Most poignantly, I began to see that with a predominance of ratna energy, she needed a much more present mother and active family life. Having both her parents traveling for work, for months each year from when she was very young, was not a good situation for her. I had known for years that ratna, at least in its domestic manifestation, was not very developed in me, but I did not realize the impact it was having on my daughter. At one point I resolved that whenever I was with Karuna I needed to hold her in the warm embrace of ratna, with a good dose of buddha, giving her space to be who she is. I had to consciously learn this and practice this. Karuna’s sensuous, earthy, feminine embodiment has taught me about ratna in a very visceral way.

After receiving her masters degree, with uncertainty of what was next, Karuna moved into the apartment in my house. This allowed us to go even deeper, or bust! What a dramatic shift it made in our lives! As she was dealing with an auto immune illness and needed to rest, I realized I was having a second chance at being a mother. She expressed, to our amusement, that she was teaching me to mother! We also realized that as I was manifesting more as a mother, we were both learning how to mother, both ourselves and each other. My own family of origin was likewise impaired. I have no memory of my mother or my sister cooking or being domestic. So she commented that we were healing intergenerationally!

Throughout this time, Julian became a very much needed big bro and eldest son. He has become a primary confidant (padma) and strategist in work situations (karma) for Karuna and I have relied on him for family council. Though at times he can be pushy about his viewpoint (vajra/karma), we have learned to give that space (buddha). I discovered that often my impulse had been to go to neurotic buddha, “I think I will hang up now” but disengaging from someone who really wants to engage does not work. So I have learned to stay in the conversation and let things unfold. At best, he is extremely intuitive about people and relationships and since we all have a lot of padma, we have had many talks about our family dynamics and various relationships over the years. As well, I see him take his seat as the president of his thriving and very people conscious organization.

Finally, there was/is another ingredient to healing the family mandala. Practically to the day ten years after my husband and I decided to part ways, I met a man who almost effortlessly came into my life. What’s more, he brought ratna! Having had a 45 year marriage, putting his family first, and caring for his wife in the year she was dying, his heart was wide open. I basked in his capacity to love. As well, I was learning a lot. At one point a conversation went like this: I said, “Okay, I’ll focus less on my Buddhist practice, study and teaching and devote more time to family.” He (not a Buddhist) responds, “Family is your Buddhist practice.”

I feel blessed by the healing that has gone on in recent years. It has been heartening to have such deep and transformative experiences. From a Five Wisdoms perspective the change in me came about when I transmuted what was binding me. The very things I was most attached to – my husband and my dharma teaching – had me in a padma/karma knot. There was not much room for the richness of ratna: home, hearth, cooking. What most healed us as a family is communication and the willingness to enter each others world and see it from their side. Having the shared language of the Five Wisdoms, giving us more awareness of both self and other, and an understanding of how to develop empathy for one another was very, very helpful. Our journey, both singly and collectively, has allowed us to have more appreciation of our family mandala.

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Read part one of this article by clicking here.

Four of us from Portland

I was determined to share some notes  about us, about our time there, and about the Seattle practice situation.  So here goes.  It was wonderful that there were people from all up and down the West coast — from the Bay Area to Alaska.  One thing you realize is that a week of practice is very rich from a meditation perspective, but it’s also an opportunity to learn about other things as well.  For example, Nora recalls:

“I finally found out how to cook hard-boiled eggs so that they peel, which is going to help a lot for preparing breakfast at our center. This is Martha in Seattle’s technique and it worked for all the times we had boiled eggs at the weekthun: Put the eggs in a pan with cold water and turn on burner. When they start to boil turn burner off and let them sit covered for 20 min and then put them in COLD water…even with ice and cold packs and then when they are completely cold take them out of the water and they will peel. The first one I peeled was a little hard but after 15 minutes they all peeled perfectly.”

Some people took notes on their smartphones.

I was impressed that the book-keeping got done right during the last afternoon of the retreat:

This is “the gathering of all the receipts from the Weekthun” ceremony. On the left is Alice Kelly, the weeks’ coordinator, Director Tom Gaylord is in the middle doing the heavy lifting, and former Director Marcia Oberg is sitting on the right advising on various matters great and small. Breakfast cook Martha Silverspring is on the far right.

One notable practice achievement for me was to reach a new level of silliness during the celebration at the end.  I’ve always felt like Shambhalians are admirable in their ability to let go and be completely fearless after a long period of practice and I’ve always felt quite inadequate in that department.  So in honor of all the discussion about hard boiled eggs and the teachings about “the enemies of the four directions,” I came up with this silliness:

From: Portland News Magazine

photo by Charles Blackhall

The Mahayana Buddhist tradition is defined by the supreme thought of bodhichitta, the intention to bring all sentient beings to enlightenment. Those who vow to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of others are known as bodhisattvas. Their path is based on the six transcendent perfections, the paramitas.

Paramita is a Sanskrit word meaning “arriving at the other shore.” On the bodhisattva path, one’s view, practice, and action are based on simultaneously benefiting self and other. The bodhisattva is likened to a ferry operator whose sole purpose is to take passengers across the water. Yet while taking others to the other shore, the ferry operator is crossing too.

The paramitas are generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and prajna—wisdom or “best knowledge.” They are the supreme way to attain merit, giving one the fuel and strength to take all beings across the waters.

Only with prajna are the other paramitas transcendent. Without prajna they are simply ordinary generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, and meditation. The paramita of prajna is like the ferry operator keeping an eye on the other shore, which we could equate with great emptiness and great wisdom. Prajna always sees the purpose of the journey. Therefore, prajna keeps the boat from going adrift. Generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, and meditation are like the oars of the boat.

In practicing the paramitas, bodhisattvas progress along the bhumis, the stages of realization. Through generosity, they create favorable conditions. Through discipline, they become excellent at knowing what to accept and what to reject. Through patience, they retain all the previous merit. Through exertion, they progress joyfully. Through meditation, they exchange self for other and create equanimity. Through prajna, they understand reality. Thus, the paramitas become the bodhisattva’s view, action, and meditation — all fueled by bodhichitta, the supreme thought.

We should not confuse bodhichitta with buddhanature, the inherent possibility of becoming a buddha. Everyone has this seed and is fully capable of attaining enlightenment. Since bodhichitta leads to full enlightenment, it too could be regarded as a seed. However, while all beings have buddhanature, we do not all have bodhichitta.

While the seed of all beings is buddhanature, at the core of bodhichitta is the exchange of self and other. The two elements that enable one to exchange self and other are loving-kindness and compassion. Loving-kindness is engendered by the thought, “May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.” Compassion is engendered by the thought, “May all being be free from suffering and the root of suffering.” When we unify these two, we have bodhichitta, the vow to bring all beings to the perfect state of buddhahood.

Love and compassion are essential to the teachings of the Mahayana and the way of the bodhisattva. Love and compassion lead to buddhahood because for beings to be truly happy, they must understand the true source of happiness, and for beings to be free from suffering, they must understand the true source of freedom from suffering. If beings do not understand the source, they might have a temporary state of happiness, but they will not have a permanent state of happiness.

The bodhisattva exists in order to help others. One is not helping others simply because one is inspired and wants to do it for oneself, for the bodhisattva does not believe in the self. Rather, the bodhisattva helps others because they are utterly confused about the source of both happiness and suffering. Trying to be happy, sentient beings act out of self-interest and engage in nonvirtue — that which benefits self instead of others. In fact, it is said that within samsara, the cycle of suffering, sentient beings act as though it is virtue that will destroy them. And in a way that is true, for if we define virtue as a lack of self-centeredness, virtue ultimately does destroy the self.

The bodhisattva sees that entire realms of beings are going up and down the ladder of existence, trying harder and harder to achieve happiness: in the hell realms through anger, in the ghost realms through jealousy, in the human realms through desire, in the god realms through pride, and in the animal realms through ignorance. Clearly these beings are perpetually suffering and utterly confused about how to free themselves. Therefore, the bodhisattva sees an urgent need to apply bodhichitta and liberate them.

Bodhisattvas make a vow that they will remain in this cyclical place of pain and suffering until all these beings have perfected view, meditation, action, and the six paramitas. When all beings have perfected those, the bodhisattva stays to ensure that they attain the noble qualities of perfect buddhahood. In this way, the bodhisattva is like a shepherd, remaining until every being in samsara attains the perfect state.

Bodhisattvas attain buddhahood themselves as a means to lead all beings to rouse the mind of bodhichitta and attain buddhahood too. In this light, the bodhisattva is said to be like a monarch, first demonstrating the principle so that other beings will follow. Otherwise, they may not follow and, since they do not know what buddhahood is, they might even fear it. Therefore, bodhisattvas perfect the state of buddhahood for the benefit of all.

The ferry operator, the shepherd, or the monarch — all these virtues of the bodhisattva stem from bodhichitta. In the sutras, the Buddha says that arousing bodhichitta protects the mind like a suit of armor. With bodhichitta, the mind is free from fear. As well, having bodhichitta brings perpetual joy, and arousing bodhichitta gathers unimaginable merit. Once one begins to understand the awesome potency of bodhichitta and its benefits, one starts rousing the mind to generate it. This potent switch from a subjective orientation toward the self to an objective orientation toward others yields vast results.

In this light, if one is drawn toward bodhichitta and develops faith, that propels the mind for many lifetimes into the future, laying the ground for enlightenment. Obviously, if one does not know the value of such an intention, one will not generate it. It is also said that the minor effort it takes to arouse bodhichitta is vastly outweighed by the benefits. Thus, the bodhisattva — whether sitting, eating, walking, or talking — raises this attitude, accumulating infinite clouds of unseen merit.

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For more teachings from Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, please visit his website: www.sakyongmedia.com

Astrid Aurelia Infantino yawning

The Mukpo Family is happy to announce the birth of Lucien Henry Samten Mukpo-Wilson to their daughter Chandali Mukpo, husband Eric Wilson, and grand-daughter Dechen. Lucien was born at Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island on May 27, 2013 at 12:22 am, weighing in at 8lb 3.6 oz. Lady Diana Mukpo and Acharya Mitchell Levy were present at the birth, which went smoothly without any complications. Everyone in the family is doing well. (photos below)

Jim and Catherine Infantino of Boston, MA are very happy to announce the birth of their second daughter Astrid Aurelia Infantino on May 29, 2013. She arrived 2 weeks early but still full term at 6lbs 2oz. She and mother are doing spectacularly well, and Zoë Sophia is enjoying being a big sister.

Rachel Haynes Coombs and Jeffrey Slayton of Norwich, Vermont are delighted to welcome Eleanor Fern Haynes Slayton, born March 4, 2013 at 6:17pm. Born at their home in Vermont under a half moon and the quiet fall of snow, and in the care of Midwives Cindy, Samantha, and Sarah, and Doula Katie, Eleanor Fern weighed in at 7lbs, 3.5oz. Rachel, Jeffrey, Hayden, Ezra, & Viggo are enjoying the blessings of this new arrival.

Click on photos to view as a slideshow.

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Do you have a new little one to announce? Did you just get married? Lose a loved one? We want to know! Please share your life’s milestones with us, and send an email to us at: editor@shambhalatimes.org

My friend’s cat as unperturbed model. Just sitting and enjoying and at the same time awake and alert. photo by Sjoukje Postma, Netherlands

In Shambhala, we embody the tradition, practice and lineage of clear perception, true seeing, direct awareness, true expression. This is incorporated in every expression of basic goodness, and can be captured through the practice of photography. Capturing those moments of presence is a big part of our path in Shambhala, and sharing them is a big part of our societal expression. Hence: Snapshots of Basic Goodness.

Share your moments of basic goodness with us! Visit us on Facebook: Shambhala Times Magazine.

(Click on each image to view larger.)

San Miguel De Allende, photo & story by Cara Thornley
Walking in the Jardin, the town square in San Miguel De Allende, Mexico, I find myself again in that groundless space where opening or closing to the experience of the moment hangs in the balance.

Looking intently at the digital image I’ve taken, she points to her hair saying “Blanco, Blanco” and for whatever reason, laughs – her tired face transfigured. Repeating “Blanco, Blanco,” I point to my own white hair and we laugh together sharing a moment no longer hanging in the balance.

We invite you, our readers, to contribute.

See a moment of basic goodness in your life? Share it with a photo. Send your submissions to the Shambhala Times at: editor@shambhalatimes.org. The best three for each month will be featured, but it’s not a competition. If you have more that you want to share – contact your local Shambhala Center and see how you can get involved with your local blog, and visit our Facebook page to see more: Shambhala Times Magazine.

To see previous posts in this series, please click here.

From: Kootenay Shambhala Blog

a painting by Karuna Rockwell, given to Irini for a birthday. The message reads, “Our Family. The energies meld together, clash against each other, and complement each other. Together they make a beautiful picture.”

by Irini Rockwell
Director, Five Wisdoms Institute

My husband and I decided to part ways. Actually, we didn’t decide: we knew in an instant that the time had come. It catapulted me into the most challenging time of my life. Sound familiar? For several years after that we worked together as practitioners to bring about the sanity in our decision. Not comfortable with the traditional notion of divorce, so imbued with a sense of rejection, we found other ways to talk about it. We both wrote short sadhanas (practices) for this process. Mine was called “The Sadhana of Dissolving a Relationship.”

During the transition, we also had family vacations sometimes with our two children, Karuna and Julian (my son from a previous marriage), and sometimes just the two of us. Five years into it we did a ritual with our children which we called “Appreciating the Dissolving and Aspirations for the Evolving.” Ten years later we are both with new partners and enjoying a new life.

Sound good? Yes: genuine, caring, respectful. Orderly. Yet there was some incongruence in our brave attempt to align with sanity: we were all hurting. The subtext was much more chaotic. At times I felt so totally distraught I was almost dysfunctional.

What we fail to realize is that dissolving a marriage is a death. Whether it is a good thing to do or not, it has many aspects of acknowledging death: grief, anger and remorse, to name a few. It’s gone. Over. The slap of impermanence. Whatever do we do with all those family photos, those possessions that proclaim “ours?” I wondered, “Why isn’t there a Buddhist practice or ceremony for dissolving a long-standing relationship?” Wouldn’t that make sense? It would really help to bring about more sanity and dignity around this event. It is such a significant marker in so many people’s lives: birth, old age, divorce, sickness and death.

I spent a good deal of time being angry. I blamed him. Got me nowhere, just more anger. Besides, was he more to blame than me? Blaming him was absolving me of any responsibility to look at my own stuff, clean up my own act. At one point, Pema Chodron, on a phone call I made to her from a retreat, said, “You have to get into the nerve of it.” Yes, that was certainly what was happening! Big time! I had to deal with the turmoil of emotions, the intensity of fears and the solidity of my neurotic limitations. It was beyond anything I had ever experienced, yet I stayed open to it.

At that time, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche was an e-mail away. He has been a primary Buddhist teacher for me and I was engaging deeply in his teachings. Quite auspiciously a few times I saw him under totally chance circumstances – like his showing up at a retreat I was leading on the Greek island of Aegina! We had several interviews through the years and he would write verses for me. One went like this:

Whatever it is you are attached to, that is what binds you.
This agent of bondage is also self arisen and self liberated.
If you do not know what binds you is self arisen and self liberated,
You will never be free from bondage’s net.

There was also a helpful intervention from the late Virginia Hilliker, who I consider the grande dame of Contemplative Psychotherapy, my own training (read more about her here). After a few sessions with her and again going on and on about how confused I was, she said, “You’re not confused; you just don’t accept.” This was extremely helpful. I had kept trying to logic it out. What I needed to do was to see things as they are. Accept.

And my life kept going, kept me busy. My first book came out just two weeks after my husband and I decided to split up. As I had written about relationships, I fervently looked through its pages to see if I had gotten it all wrong. “I think I’m good,” I said to myself. The book launched me on a two-year tour from California to Istanbul which then led to developing the personal and professional development training Wisdoms@Work. I was traveling and teaching extensively and the teaching was nourishing me. There is nothing like teaching the dharma with a broken heart. So sad. And so joyful! Bittersweet. Real.

The Five Wisdom Energies
As blessed and supportive as I felt with so many wise teachers a phone call away, the day-to-day nitty-gritty work, the moment-to-moment truth of suffering and potential for liberation, was left to me. For decades, I had been practicing, studying and teaching the powerful body of teachings, one of Trungpa Rinpoche’s gifts to the world, called the Five Wisdoms. These teachings became particularly potent at this time. Moreover, they took me to a profound understanding of our family dynamics.

The Five Wisdoms, a system based on energy dynamics, is a language for understanding personalities, emotions and relationships. We have the potentiality of all five, which can make us somewhat predictable, yet have our own mix which makes us unique. Each energy has both its wisdom and its confusion. The energies are easily identified by their colors, which hold the essence of their qualities. Here they are, in brief:

• Vajra, whose essence is clarity, reflects a blue energy like a crystal-clear mirror. Vajra sees clearly without bias; this is its wisdom quality. It also has a self-righteousness that can harden into cold or hot anger; that is its confused quality.

• Ratna, whose essence is richness, exudes an earthy golden yellow energy that encompasses everything. The wisdom quality is being deeply satisfied, fulfilled. Yet it can be needy, indulgent and prideful, which is its neurotic quality.

• Padma, whose essence is passionate connection, glows with the vitality of red energy. At its best, it is finely tuned into people, places and situations and full of compassion. It’s neurosis manifests as grasping; it can cling obsessively to what gives pleasure.

• Karma emits a green energy, swift and energetic like the wind. It is all-accomplishing action for the benefit of others; this is its wisdom quality. It can also become power-hungry, manipulative, competitive, and envious; that is its confused quality.

• Buddha, white energy, is all-pervasive, spacious and peaceful; this is its wisdom quality. It can also be solidly immobile with the density of ignoring or denying; that is its confused quality.

Our family speaks this language. Over the years we had come to a fairly good idea of the energies at play, where each of us would shine and where we got stuck. Yet, when enmeshed, as any family is, we are often too close to see clearly. By perpetually projecting our version on others, we become blind to them. We ride our assumptions and expectations and live in a bubble of relative harmony. However, relationships can either be complimentary and supportive or toxic and exasperate each others neurosis. When toxic, things can get very, very difficult, as we know. So we had never plummeted to these depths as a family. We never got to the nerve. Too scary. Though a family is an opportune place to see how personalities, emotions and relationships play out, it really needs a facilitator to hold the space for that to happen.

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The two most powerful and transformative aspects of the Five Wisdoms perspective, co-emergent wisdom and the mandala principle, will be discussed in Part 2 of this article. Stay tuned…

by Sean Raggett, London

The London Shambhala Centre welcomed back Gyetrul Jigme Rinpoche for the second annual cycle of teachings on Gesar of Ling. In an event attended by students from both the Shambhala and Ripa sanghas, we listened as Jigme Rinpoche presented these rich teachings in a contemporary and straightforward way.

The life of Gesar of Ling is the Tibetan national epic and the last living epic in the world, celebrating an enlightened warrior king. It is of particular importance to our community, in particular the Dorje Kasung, since Gesar’s story relates with the notion of protection, not in terms of warfare, but rather of awareness and appreciation of our lives.

During the weekend, Jigme Rinpoche presented the principles of living our lives like an enlightened warrior, engaging the qualities of confidence, brilliance, vitality, gentleness and wisdom as cornerstones. Rinpoche also emphasized the importance of starting where we are, and relaxing in the face of a culture dominated by speed, materialism, individualism and isolation.

He told us to relax.

Since Gesar was an enlightened leader who practiced full engagement with all aspects of the world around him, Jigme Rinpoche emphasized the importance of not becoming overwhelmed with the speed and competitiveness of modern life, but rather to cultivate our inherent noble, fearless qualities in our day-to-day lives. Through many down-to-earth examples, Rinpoche presented Gesar’s view of enlightened leadership as a basis for our true nature, basic goodness, and inherent compassion for others.

We were so lucky to have Jigme Rinpoche present these teachings, and look forward to him developing and deepening these fresh and vital allegories in years to come. Through his modern examples, and down-to-earth teaching style, Rinpoche’s presentation of the epic of Gesar helps us manifest the Shambhala vision of societal transformation through cultivating the wisdom of a historical epic in this modern age. Thank you Rinpoche!

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Gyetrul Jigme Rinpoche is the son of H. E. Namkha Drimed Rinpoche, the supreme head of the Ripa Lineage, and the brother-in-law of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. He is known for his fluency in English and his lively, direct, fluid, humorous and down-to-earth teaching style.