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.

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­­­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.

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…

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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.

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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.

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

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.

~~
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!

~~
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.

It’s sunny in London, where it’s usually raining. I’m sipping a gorgeous latte at a beautiful little coffee shop by the Balham tube stop. My cousin’s wedding the other day was perfect, replete with a rousing rendition of Summer Nights. Two nights before that, we sat through soaring, crashing symphonic sounds. The final chords of the Final Symphony as performed by my uncle (on french horn) and over 100 others in the London Symphony Orchestra were tantalizing. We soaked in the rush of violins, the sonic boom of a large gong and the timpani, the gentle peal of a harp and triangle, and the ethereal harmonies of a full ensemble of brass and woodwinds. Though knowing nothing about the Final Fantasy game, we were just as delighted by the music as the rest of the crowd who were obviously big fans with their chicken and wizard costumes to prove it. Seated on one side of me was my beautiful husband and on the other side, President Richard Reoch and Lady Jane Ward. It was a treat of an evening.

That’s right, the Shambhala Times has gone on the road again. Not being tied to an office is helpful at times like these, so I thought it would be fun to share a little slice of my life. A little bird’s-eye-view of a month in the life of your Shambhala Times Editor-in-Chief.

I believe in living as ferociously as possible. So let’s start with today and work backwards. We came to London to celebrate my cousin’s marriage, and later today I will be engaging with meetings at the London Shambhala Center to begin to build a team of reporters so that all of you can feel that you are part of the big Awake in the World festival happening here in September. After our meetings, we’ll gather to celebrate together this evening, London-style.

Sarah as an officiant for the wedding of friends Sarah and James; here – tossing rose petals in the final blessing

The week prior to that, found us at Karme Choling where we were hosting the Sakyong and the Leadership Team for a very rousing weekend of leadership strengthening and visioning with over 200 Shambhala leaders. See Dan Glenn’s article: Invitation to Co-Creation. My role was Secretary to the Leadership Team, so I was kept rather busy serving 6 people all weekend (and on rest-breaks, catching up on emails and skyping with people about future articles). It was a blast, and the Sakyong’s 500-mile-high vision was brought a little closer to earth for all of us. One of the big delights of that weekend was that in one place, I had my two new main editors present. Which brings me around to a big shout of out thanks. I could not be doing what I am doing right now (which is running the Shambhala Times and embarking on 5 months of journeying with my husband) without the enthusiastic, cheerful, competent help of these two editors: Ms. Jayne Sutton, of Washington D.C., and Ani Dawa Chotso, of Saint Johnsbury, VT. The Shambhala Times Team is growing, and growing strong! Join us! Visit the Shambhala Times Team on the Shambhala Network to find out how.

Let’s see, where were we…oh, right, at Karme Choling celebrating the completion of my husband’s two year tenure there as the Director of Development. This celebration was marked with a very rousing karaoke party. And was followed by a couple days of moving out of our wee room at Ashoka Bhavan and waving goodbye-for-now to everyone. Meanwhile, members of the Shambhala Times Team were hard at work creating new advertisements for the Shambhala Times, as well as little snippet-posts about The Shambhala Principle (see the top photo of this article).

Articles being posted around this time included: The Shape of Awake, Reborn in Tibet, part 4, Warrior Tribute to Susan Shaw, Reborn in Tibet, part 3 and Not Just Nincompoops. Just before this, in mid-May, while I was visiting another cousin at her goat farm in central Vermont, articles were streaming in from the California Bay Area, chronicling the many events that were part of the Creating Enlightened Society Festival. Thanks to the great team on the ground there for sending these in: President Reoch, Josh Silberstein, Larry Barnett, Leslie Gossett and Alex Van Gils. Click here to see all the articles that came in around that time on Creating Enlightened Society.

Earlier in May found me in Halifax where I participated in the Meditation Instructor’s Gathering, soaking up the teachings on Shambhala Meditation, and strengthening my own practice in this powerful, embodied realm. Articles from this period included: Life in Orissa, Profound Treasury Tour Nears Completion in Halifax , Stories of Who We Are , Book Release: The Shambhala Principle, Shambhala Principle Book Signing, Basic Goodness Day, Discovering Sound, The Wisdom of Illness, and Message 4 Boston.

Also around this time, I was engaging in a series of large-scale conversations about the Shambhala Times, its role in the Shambhala mandala and the wider world, and new directions that we can go in. A lot of my job is about listening. Listening to you, the readers, and listening to the wider world as well – this is a large part of how I make content decisions.

These conversations have been wide-ranging and deep, propelling changes for the Shambhala Times that will begin to roll out over the coming months. The essence is this: the Shambhala Times has become the central communications hub for the Shambhala community, and to support that even more fully, we are working on three big projects. The first project is occurring in Europe – we are looking for a European Shambhala Times Editor and support staff to round out the reporting coming in from the European mandala. Send us an email if you are interested: editor@shambhalatimes.org. The second project will be a redesign of the Shambhala Times to further reflect our changes, and thirdly we will be launching funding projects so that the Shambhala Times can become a viable organization. It takes a surprising amount of energy to run a news organization, and as we work to build the structure of the organization into something sustainable for the future, it is imperative to broaden the base of support.

So, dear readers, thank you for your support, past, present, and future. The small but growing team of us behind the scenes thank you. We need you, and we are working for you. Your readership and support is, in fact, the Shambhala Times’ “final fantasy”.

Now, time for me to dust off my werma sadhana, and then go for a run on those sunny streets!

~~
Sarah Lipton has been the Shambhala Times Editor-in-Chief for two years. At present, she plans to continue in this role for another bunch of years, even while traveling the world, attempting to write some books, pursuing the Shambhala path, and enjoying her beautiful marriage. See previous editorials here.

Casa de El Gigante statue

by Gabriela Cordova

In the spring of 2008, a group of friends from the Mexican sangha from Shambhalacalli went to Dechen Choling, France, to the Gesar Festival and to Rigden Abhisheka. We were very excited about our brand new practice.

That next fall, we went to a Werma retreat lead by Acharya Allyn Lyon, the first public program at the brand new Casa Werma. This awesome property in Patzcuaro, Mexico, owes its name to the fact that in 1980, during a retreat/vacation here, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche received the Werma Sadhana and wrote it down.

I had never been to Casa Werma and, to tell you the truth, I had never felt a real heart connection with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. He was more an intellectual teacher for me. My heart was with his son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. So I was not prepared to have such a profound experience of “meeting” the Vidyadhara, feeling his presence and, in a very joyful way, his sense of humor. It felt as if a gentle and wise trickster was around me, pointing out important things with humor and wittiness. It was pure ordinary magic that felt extra-ordinary.

In the middle of our program, the most astonishing event happened. My sangha friend Rebeca and I were strolling around Patzcuaro after lunch. Next to the Surtidora restaurant, there was a huge gateway open and the patio inside looked so beautiful that we went in.

At that moment a middle age women told us that it was private property, that we couldn’t visit it. I apologized, telling her that it was a temptation for us to come in because it was such a gorgeous colonial residence. Behind her was another woman, the owner. She was a very old and gentle lady who told us that a member of her family, a cousin, owned another house much more beautiful than hers and that it was just there, crossing the Plaza Grande. She told us “my last name is Diaz but the actual owners of that house are the Guesar Diaz family.”

Imagine our surprise! “Guesar” in Spanish is pronounced Gesar and “Diaz” is an old spelling of dias (days), so “the days of Gesar family”! Incredulous, I asked her to repeat the name and it was “Gesar” Diaz!

She told us to go and visit it. She instructed us to tell the people in the house that it was herself that was sending us. Of course we obeyed even if we were going to be late for the afternoon Werma practice. How many times in your life are you invited to visit Gesar’s house?

The moment we entered the house, we were overwhelmed by its beauty and elegance. It was a 16th century palace. The owner’s widow, another very old lady, was home so she introduced herself. “Mucho gusto. Soy la viuda de Gesar.” That translates: “Nice to meet you. I am Gesar’s widow”! She told us that the palace had been in her late husband’s family for centuries. We visited the patio and then she asked us if we wanted to see the most important element of the house. It was in the first floor terrace that overlooked the patio.

We went up the stairs, really majestic, and then we saw it, the “most important element” – a huge wooden column, 3 or 4 meters high. The column was a 16th century sculpture of a warrior… A WARRIOR! He was dressed as a Roman centurion with a sword and had a black mustache and big black eyebrows.

We couldn’t believe it, it was too extraordinary, pure magic. Rebeca and I, well … we couldn’t utter a word, we just stared at the warrior. Having such a thrilled and silent audience, Gesar’s widow kept on talking and told us that this palace was known in Patzcuaro as “la casa del Gigante” (the Giant’s house) and that her late husband used to say that the warrior was their family protector and that everybody was convinced that it was true.

When my friend and I finally could react, we thanked the old lady and ran back to Casa Werma, giggling like teenage girls. We had the feeling that we had entered a parallel reality and also we were so, so late for the practice. When we came into the shrineroom, dear Allyn just gave us a supposedly “angry” look.

Because we were late, we didn’t hear the announcement that after dinner there would be a bonfire to celebrate that today, October 15, was the anniversary of the day that Trungpa Rinpoche received and wrote the Werma Sadhana. When around the fire they told us that, I understood that the extraordinary event of finding Gesar’s house was a “wink” from the Vidyadhara. And with that wink, I fell head over heels in love with Casa Werma and Trungpa Rinpoche’s all-pervading presence there.

The epilogue of this anecdote is that two days later I bought some flowers and brought them to the owners of the two houses to thank them for their hospitality.

In Gesar’s house there was nobody that answered, but adjacent to the main gate was an artcraft shop (Casa de “el Gigante”). The goddaughter of Gesar’s widow was the attendant. We chatted about the house and she told me that the family name is really Guizar (sounds almost like Gesar), an old Spanish name that is quite ordinary in Patzcuaro, so … ordinary magic. She also told me the full name of the owner’s widow: la señora Auxilio Días de Guizar. “Auxilio” means “help.” If you translate the whole name, it’s: “Help Guizar’s Days.” Symbolic, isn’t it? She even gave me a business card and a marker with the photo of the giant that I keep with my Werma Sadhana to remind me that it really did happen, that ordinary magic happens.

~~
Gabriela Cordova has been a practitioner in Shambhala Buddhism since 1996 and worked in her own center in Tepoztlan, Mexico. She has also spent extensive time at Dechen Choling as a volunteer and core staff. She is a founding member of the Casa Werma board where her heart is set on opening Casa Werma for more teachings in Spanish for the Mexican community. She taught a weekthun there last year and is planning another one for next July. Presently she is the Director of the Tepoztlan Center and an active Shambhala teacher.

cherry trees along the Charles River, photo by Terry Rudderham

Among those of us committed to building an enlightened society, there is a widespread perception that our failure to “fix” the personal conflicts that arise in our communities somehow takes us in the opposite direction from enlightenment. Therefore, goes the assumption, that we ought to get our act together and figure out how to resolve the conflict. The community will often enthusiastically support this interpretation of “enlightened society”, since it confirms the conviction of all involved that the troubled relationship is responsible for their suffering.

Where there are humans, there will be conflict. Even those of us who are sincere meditators, pacifists or activists dedicated to building a kinder world will inevitably run up against situations where we simply can’t get through to one another. Our best efforts at honest, courageous communication backfire, fueling a dynamic that serves instead to exacerbate our suffering. Parties on both sides of the divide feel unheard, misunderstood and even deliberately sabotaged. Finding ourselves in such a situation can lead to intense feelings of failure and shame.

It’s at times like these that we can draw significant guidance and support from the foundational teachings of Buddhism. The Buddha taught that suffering is part of the human package. It’s not the result of anyone’s error or failure; we can simply expect it as an aspect of ordinary experience.

In this life, conditions will reliably continue not to meet our preferences. Our reflexive tendency in the face of the resulting discomfort is to blame the conditions that give rise to it — and when those conditions originate with other people, we imagine those others need only change their attitude and conduct for our discomfort to be resolved. In fact, the greater our discomfort, the more convinced we are that those others have a duty to resolve their conflict. We’re typically very skilled at justifying our opinion that, as the source of the “problem”, they should “fix it”. We can get quite angry at them for not doing so, further spreading our distress to others who compulsively react to their anxiety by adding their blame to our own. The all-too-familiar result is factionalism fueled by assumptions and gossip.

The dharma — and by extension, the Shambhala teachings — urges us instead to make a relationship with whatever discomfort life brings us, and leave others to work on their own conflicts as best they can.

An enlightened society is not one in which everyone gets along. Rather, it is one in which all do their best to be authentically who they are, to take care of themselves with as much kindness and as little self-delusion as they’re capable of, and to organize their lives so that they can be of as much service to others as possible. Thus, an important quality of an enlightened society is that it’s spacious enough to accommodate conflict for as long as it takes for that conflict to realize its own resolution. This view of conflictual situations doesn’t absolve the parties involved of the responsibility to do their own work, but it challenges everyone affected to do likewise. Rather than applying pressure to the warring parties to stop warring, community members can create a strong, caring container for the chaos of war by taking responsibility for their own hopes and fears.

One or more people engaged in conflict might decide to suspend social interactions and restrict their contact to necessary business exchanges — or even to refrain from any contact whatsoever. In an enlightened society such a choice would arise, not out of hatred or rejection, but rather from an honest realization that attempts at mediation, communication and other forms of contact are not yielding the intended results. When instances of contact are clearly triggering further conflict, both the parties involved and the entire community are best served by minimizing such trigger points. Perhaps counter-intuitively, suspension of contact in such situations may not be a sign of cowardly withdrawal from the challenge, but rather an expression of loving-kindness, compassion and sanity.

The lojong teachings of Mahayana Buddhism offer us another helpful practice: abandoning any hope of fruition. From inside the fire of conflict, we can’t see what its resolution might look like. But we can be certain that approaching it from an insistence that conflict and confusion be banished will only create more conflict and confusion. Given the truth of impermanence, we know that the situation will continue to move — if, that is, we refrain from freezing it to fit our hopes, fears, preferences and preconceptions. Getting interested in its movement may prove to be the best way forward.

How, then, might those of us proceed who are affected by conflict between people we care about? How can we best support their efforts to move through the messy, painful territory that lies before them? How do we deal with our distress, our longing for the warring parties to resolve their differences, our nostalgia for how things were before the conflict arose? How can we support one another in working with the fear and anger that inevitably arise when others’ failures of sympathy make our own lives more difficult?

Shastri Jennifer Woodhull

The personal conflicts in which we find ourselves and those we love are a reflection of our world: basically good, and doing its best to meet its challenges by bringing its innate intelligence to creating the conditions in which kindness and sanity can flourish. This world never ceases to lavish its generosity upon us. When conflict arises, we can show our appreciation by recognizing it as an expression of our humanity, and resolving to use it to become more fully and genuinely the quirky, loving, unconditioned, provocative, heartbroken, brilliant beings we truly are.

edited by Ani Dawa Chotso

Shambhala Publications was born at Ground Zero of the 1960s counterculture: in the back of a bookstore on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, California. The Times asked Sam Bercholz for more details …

How did it all get started?

“In 1967, Michael Fagan and I had both been studying buddhist and occult things. We and some other friends came up with this idea of starting something with the name ‘Shambhala,’ and so started a bookstore/meeting place called Shambhala Booksellers in Berkeley in 1968. It was a bit later that we decided to start a publishing house and called it Shambhala Publications.” Shambhala Publications actually existed before they had heard of the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and before Rinpoche’s teachings were widely available.

It was later in 1968, when Sam was visiting England that he was shown their first manuscript by Vincent Stuart (who later became an editor for Shambhala Publications). It was entitled Meditation in Action. Sam read it and was, as they say, “wowed.” He wanted to meet the author while he was in England, but a railroad strike on the London to Edinburgh route prevented the journey, and so it was published without the new publisher having ever met the author.

It became the first book published by Shambhala Publications in 1969.

Where did the name Shambhala come from?

“The name Shambhala came from a combination of readings and it came to me in dreams. My friend Michael and I wanted to do something with this name that kept fascinating us. It was emblematic of an enlightened way of living in society, but we had no connection to anything other than that the name was haunting us.”

Coincidence?

The Tassajara Bread Book was their first bestselling book, the book that put Shambhala Publications on the map. All the books that came out in the first months were a mix of Buddhism and other subjects. It was only coincidental that Meditation in Action was the first book. But Meditation in Action was what put them on the map with Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

“I got a phone call in early 1970, after the book had been published. One of Trungpa Rinpoche’s people said he was in North America and would I like to arrange for him to give some talks in San Francisco. I said sure.”

Sam was given a date and he set up some talks. He also agreed to host him there. When he went to the airport to pick him up, however, he was surprised by who he met – he wasn’t at all what he had had in mind! Not this blue blazer with Oxford crest tie and Oxonian speech.

“My connection with Trungpa Rinpoche came about because I had started Shambhala Publications and I was his publisher. It was that circumstantial.” Sam continued. “Most people looked for him, but I was the only one he looked for, Larry Mermelstein said of me. He was gathering his disciples. For all of us, it was an immediate, amazing connection.”

Core Vision of Shambhala Publications

The core vision of Shambhala Publications was no different than the core vision of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s Shambhala vision, except missing a Sakyong. It was to bring enlightened living and enlightened teachings into the western world.

Trungpa Rinpoche served as an adviser for Shambhala Publications for many years and was also a member of the board for Shambhala Publications. He was known to say that the the best people came through Shambhala Publications. Certainly, before the Shambhala teachings were shared widely, many of his closest students worked at Shambhala Publications over the years, including the Gimians, Larry Mermelstein, Emily Sell and Emily Bower.

Going forward?

“Currently I am chairman of the Board. It’s my children running the company these days.”

The basic vision has continued through Ivan and Sara who decided it would be better that they continue it than sell it to a large conglomerate. Every large conglomerate made a bid for it, it’s just the consolidation of an industry. But Shambhala Publications has remained an independent family business, owned by the Bercholz family. It has been extremely successful, incorporating SnowLion Publications, and starting Roost books.

About a year or two before the Vidyadhara passed, he met with Sam and asked Sam to make sure that two things be published. The first was his book on Lojong, which was published shortly thereafter, with Judy Lief as the editor.

But the main thing that he wanted to be sure happened was the publishing of the three volumes of the seminary talks. It was extremely important to have this published for the world, to have the complete nine yana path published with concise details.

“That was the main thing he asked of me as a publisher and student. That his various volumes of special teachings as the Dharma Ocean series be published. After years and years of hard work it has happened. I’m now the happiest publisher on the planet!”

There is an amazing amount of material left. There was an incredible outpouring of the lion’s roar of dharma that will continue to unfurl for many, many years. He is to the west what Padmasambhava is in the East. He taught so extensively wherever he went. Like Padmasambhava, many of his works are for future generations, not necessarily for the present generation.

“However, I’ve done my job, now it is the next generations turn.”

~~
To learn more about Shambhala Publications, visit them online by clicking here.

In an effort to share the wisdom that many of us experience in our daily lives, meals, and our own kitchens, this column will be including voices from around the sangha, Please continue to join us as we expand our view and hear the many voices of Kitchen Wisdom.

article and photos by Shambhala Times Columnist
Lisa Harris

Spring is revealing itself – as the leaves unfurl, as the blossoms open and fade, in the anxious cries of mother birds looking for their fledglings off the nest.

Spring is also alive and unfurling itself in the woods and fields, at the market and in our kitchens. The waves of the season pass along garlicky wild leeks and the first dandelion greens and flowers in the yard. Next come the wild mushrooms, asparagus, and rhubarb. Halibut shows up at fish markets this time of year, along with the Copper River Salmon.

I find myself gazing lovingly at the fresh foods of spring. They sometimes seem surreal in their vivid colors and textures, vibrant and strong, compared to the recent greyness of winter. And I often remind myself that the farmer’s market isn’t a museum. It’s an interactive and tangible place that is inviting me to pick and choose, and take home some of the resilience of the season.

It also is fleeting…the fruit of the plants show themselves boldly, then quietly disappear into the next wave. Asparagus only lasts for a moment in time. Rhubarb tries to accelerate it’s exit by sending up numerous flowers on their stalks. Wild mushrooms seem to be the most elusive of them all. Some years they push up through the leaves in abundance in the woods, other years they never appear.

There are times when I buy the freshest spring peas and wrinkly spinach, green and vivid and so alive – and I just watch them wilt and die on the counter or in the refrigerator, because I can’t quite decide how best to prepare them. I’m almost afraid of eating them, because I know they won’t be here forever, and I hate to see them go.

Once it all begins, I also find myself anticipating the next edible leaves, and the next fruits, and the next seed pods. Again, a perfect time to just be in each moment. Fully experience the heady scent of the first sprigs of thyme, musky earthy mushrooms, the pungent aroma of wild leeks. Feel the crisp and crunch of lightly cooked tender asparagus. Know that these are all markers of the spring thaw, how much sun lights our day, the result of a long winter nap.

The kitchen is a magical place. The Sakyong holds the kitchen in high regard in relation to the household. The beautiful thing about food is that not only do we have the kitchen space to learn how to be in the world, but those places where the food comes from can also teach us how to be in the world. Beauty, impermanence, energy, life, mindfulness and waking up are all possible to witness and experience as the world moves through the seasons that are marked with successive harvests.

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Lisa Harris is a free-range chef, freelance writer, and consultant. She is always on the lookout for seasonal, local foods, and the farmers who provide them in Northern Indiana, where she currently lives, and wherever she travels. You can find more of her experiences and stories in her blog, earthskybelly.wordpress.com and other food related publications. She can be reached at TheSavoryMuse@gmail.com.

To read other entries in this column, please see: Kitchen Wisdom.

photos by Rick Fiske
Shambhala Times photographer

Over 200 leaders from the Shambhala community gathered this past week at Karme Choling for the Three Pillars Leadership Gathering with Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. The event was facilitated by the core leadership team of President Richard Reoch, Kalapa Acharya Adam Lobel, Executive Director Carolyn Mandelker, Chagdzo Kyi Khyap Connie Brock, Kalapa Envoy for Enrichment Robert Reichner, and Director of Center and Group Support Anna Weinstein.

The four-day program was highlighted by three addresses given by the Sakyong, in which he continued to elaborate on and further unpack his vision for Shambhala Centers around the world. He emphasized food, conversation and meditation, which he correlated with body, speech and mind, respectively, as three key components that are essential for moving forward in the continuing evolution of Shambhala Centers. Additionally, the Sakyong outlined that the next step in this evolution will be centers manifesting increasingly as cultural centers, which includes but is not strictly limited to being places where people can come to learn meditation. He drew from the Latin root of the word culture, and said that Shambhala Centers can be “a place where the cultivation of human qualities can flourish.”

The gathering began on Wednesday evening with opening remarks by Executive Director Mandelker. Ms. Mandelker spoke about the immense change happening at almost every level within the community and how this can often be quite challenging and uncomfortable. She asked the assembly to contemplate what it means to be a leader at this particular time in Shambhala, which the Sakyong has repeatedly referred to as a time of historic transition.

The participants also created a geographical map within the Pavilion at Karme Choling by standing with others in their city or region. While there was a strong contingent from the Northeast region, including over twenty people from Boston as well as a similar number from Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, there were leaders that had come from as far away as South Africa, Belgium, and the Western and Southeastern United States.

On the morning of the first full day, the program officially began with a lhasang ceremony on the front lawn, followed by a guided meditation by Acharya Lobel. The members of the assembly then renewed their Shambhala Vow and Enlightened Society Vow, and contemplated and discussed a section of the Treatise on Enlightened Society.

Click on first image to view all as a slide show.

In the afternoon, President Reoch presented an overview of “where we’re going” as a community and spoke about the way in which the Sakyong often “gestures” in the direction of the metaphorical horizon, which he called an “invitation to co-creation” for the leadership and the community. Following President Reoch’s talk, the participants engaged in a dialogue exercise that is part of the “Preparing for The Shambhala Principle” event that many centers will be holding in the near future. The dialogue included an exploration of our own personal experience of basic goodness in difficult, or even catastrophic, events in the world and in our lives. People spoke openly about the challenges in that, the doubts and questions that arise, and the beauty that can be discovered within darkness. The day concluded with a panel discussion with four participants about how they personally bring or see the principle of basic goodness in their professional lives.

On Friday morning, Ms. Mandelker introduced the notion of our Shambhala Centers as villages, and discussed the shift in model from being primarily a “school” to being a “village that includes a school.” The assembly broke into smaller groups and did an exercise in physically enacting this transition as a group, which brought much laughter and delight.

Friday afternoon focused on “the villages within the mandala” and included Mr. Reichner offering reflections on our relationship with wealth as a community and Shambhala’s finances as “basically good.” Mr. Reichner has prepared a report on wealth around the mandala which outlines a proposal for strengthening our resources, which will be shared with the community soon. Ms. Mandelker then introduced the “Unified Giving Model Project,” which will be underway throughout the summer. The project involves five teams looking at different aspects of the view of Shambhala as an integrated mandala and how our funding model can express that relationship. This includes explorations of how this view can be reflected in the way we welcome people into our centers, the way we think about and talk about membership, and how our finances flow.

The Sakyong’s Saturday and Sunday morning talks were the highlight for many. In addition to his presentation on Shambhala Centers, the Sakyong also spoke about his experience meeting the members of the Ceasefire organization during the “Imagining Peace” event in Chicago. He also taught on “confidence-based leadership,” saying that basic goodness could be likened to “basic confidence.” He said that contrary to how it is often thought of in Western culture, confidence is “not bravado, but immense, deep relaxation and trust in our mind.”

The weekend also featured a talk by Karme Choling’s Executive Director Jane Arthur, who will be retiring this fall after seven years of service as the Director. Ms. Arthur offered a heartfelt, personal reflection of her experience of leadership and how she has grown and changed over the course of her tenure.

The gathering had a feeling-tone of incredible inclusivity, and the leadership team very much embodied the Sakyong’s teachings on leadership. They manifested with a gentle confidence that was rooted in palpable vulnerability and tenderness. Although this was often expressed through each person’s way of being and speaking, a concrete example that was set after each presentation or talk, was the presenter sharing the process decisions that she or he made in choosing how to approach the session. Since many of the people assembled would return home to their centers to find themselves in similar leadership positions working with others, this was a very helpful approach and created a feeling of transparency and mentoring.

The program concluded on Sunday evening with a Shambhala Sadhana feast with the Sakyong, followed by a rousing late-night group cleanup session. Magic and blessings were in the air, and the leaders assembled left with a great deal of inspiration and forward movement to bring back to their home centers.

“I definitely feel more clear about what our vision is,” said Caitlin Cianflone, Shambhala Boston’s Program Manager and Head of Finance. “It feels more inclusive than ever. The whole approach of personal, cultural, and societal transformation will allow for more and more people coming from various backgrounds and experiences to be affected by Shambhala.”

There will be two more Three Pillars Leadership Gatherings held this year: in June at Shambhala Mountain Center and in September in Cologne, Germany.

by Adam Sinclair
photos by Chris Luginbuhl

Each year, Hope Martin leads a week long retreat at the Shambhala Center in Atlanta. It’s a weekthun in the traditional sense of seven days of intensive meditation practice, silent meals, and a deliberate withdrawal from the stimulus of the outside world. But in addition to that, it’s a week-long examination and practice of the Alexander Technique, of which Hope is a master teacher. This is what makes it unique, and what made it such a profound experience for me, and for my fellow students.

The Alexander Technique, practiced and developed for over a century now, focuses on bodily alignment, freedom of breath, and ease of motion. It begins with the endeavor to give careful, loving attention to the ways we have come to hold our bodies over the course of our lives. Each person does this differently, though themes emerge: many of us hunch forward to shelter and protect ourselves (and to type); many of us taught to have “good posture” stick our chests out and hold ourselves rigidly in place. Unless you’ve managed to grow into adulthood without the least stress or strain, you’ve got your own pattern, and chances are it interferes with full, calm breath in everyday life.

Alexander Technique isn’t about “correcting” these patterns in order to have the “right” posture. It is, at least as Hope Martin teaches it in concert with meditation practice, first a means to come into compassionate awareness of how deeply our habitual bodily patterns shape our habitual mental patterns. In fact, what Hope teaches, and what has made such a profound difference in my practice since I attended her retreat in Atlanta, is that the mental and bodily patterns are one in the same thing. The cocoon Chogyam Trungpa writes about isn’t just a mental cocoon. It is quite literally a physical restraint between us and the freedom of openness to the world.

There were about thirty of us who participated, from as far away as Canada and New York and as close by as the Decatur neighborhood where the Atlanta Center is located. They have a beautifully light, spacious, and open shrine room set amongst a group of buildings on a lovingly tended, sloping bit of land where we did our outside walking meditations each day. The week is an urban retreat, which is to say that all but a few of us left the center each night to stay with friends or other Sangha members who were hosting participants for the week. This comes with the daily practice of moving between the quiet container of the retreat and the outside world, but it’s all arranged in such a way by the staff and volunteers that made it feel quite seamless.

On the first Sunday, Hope introduced us to the basics of Alexander Technique and then, throughout the week, we learned more about it through her afternoon teachings. But the retreat and her approach is about far more than abstract knowledge. Perhaps the single most valuable and transformative aspect of the experience for me and many others was the hands-on work Hope did with each of us every day as we meditated.

For years, I’d sat on the very front of my cushion, supporting my weight partially through the contact of my knees to the floor. This led to lots of pressure and even pain in my legs but I’d decided that’s what I had to do to remain “properly” upright. With her gentle touch, and the gentle guidance of her hands, she allowed me to experience directly how this pattern was interfering with my breath.

It’s hard to describe in words how deep, and deeply awakening it was to be allowed to let go of that pattern, which it turns out was caught up with all sorts of ideas I had about being “a good meditator” and “doing it right”. I’m a too-tight meditator, not a too-loose one. I knew this intellectually, and through loving kindness practices endeavored to let myself go. Meditation is an intensely physical experience for me. I hold so much of my tension in my muscles, even when focusing on my breathing. Put simply, what the week with Hope taught me, was that the physical letting go, the unclenching, was the meditation itself. When the muscles in my neck relaxed, so did my thoughts. They didn’t disappear, of course, but they began to lose some of their tyrannical force.

For me, observing this kind of change in myself is tricky because I easily fall into being hyper-vigilant and over reading the signals from both my mind and body. But what was amazing about this practice in a group setting was watching similar transformations take place in my fellow students. The retreat’s name is “The Shape of Awake” and it’s no exaggeration to say that I saw people awakening into their own bodies before my very eyes. To see another person let go of a habitual pattern of holding, and see the sudden ease and relief in their faces — it’s quite moving. It’s not about speech or language. It’s direct and palpable. You see it in them and you feel it in yourself.

It’s not easy work. The cocoon, after all, is a comfortable place. But never before have I felt the possibilities of leaving it behind so viscerally and immediately. That week in Atlanta has changed the way I sit for good. Naturally, I still clench and hold myself in myriad ways, on the cushion and off, but the difference between having a simple, practical means of noticing, attending, and letting go of that, and, on the other hand, just feeling that it’s a drag to be uncomfortable or in pain, is enormous. Enormous and quite liberating.

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Hope Martin is a meditation instructor and teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition. She has taught the Alexander Technique for more than 25 years, trains teachers at the American Center for the Alexander Technique and operates Hope Martin Studio in New York City. Visit www.hopemartinstudio.com.