Here are two evocative poems by Kootenay Shambhala member David Marshall.

What She Told Me

The river’s voice
tongues these rocks round, or,
rock and water together
make this music. Changing
with weather, the seasons,
dry years and wet,
now a whisper, then
a bleached log roared
high above our heads.

Stories of flood years
told in a river voice.
A quiet engineer
who built on the only dry land
left at flood’s height,
an eleven-year toothache
of a neighbor who built
too cheap to bother.

Our gaze in the mornings
probed water like an ouzel
dipping stone fly breakfast
from quiet pools.

When you look deep,
river water ripples
like muscle
and the woods flow, too.

Rain water, snow melt,
drought in summer.
The river is an artery
pulsing out a mountain’s life.
Floods speak a mountain
stone tongue to the sea;
sea foam becomes salmon
in her answer.

The river tells one story
in many voices. Rocks
hold the riverbank for our house,
flood logs wait upstream.
Bank people rootless
as mayflies, water-dancers.
Not even the river
stays.

* * *
Read the rest of this entry »

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This fall, on the heels of Shambhala Training Level I and Meditation in Everyday Life comes the third program in our core path of practice and study―Shambhala Training Level II: Birth of the Warrior―scheduled to run November 13th to 15th.

For a full program description go to our Shambhala Training Level II page.

Many thanks to Kootenay Shambhala member Barbara Moffat for submitting these lovely examples of her artwork.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

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In this five-class course scheduled for consecutive Thursday evenings starting November 12th, we will use the National Film Board of Canada’s two-part video The Tibetan Book of the Dead to help us appreciate the perils and opportunities that living and dying represent. The course will be led by senior teacher Russell Rodgers. Online participation is possible and everyone is welcome.

For a full course description go to our Tibetan Book of the Dead page.

In last night’s Open House talk, the third in a three-part series presenting an overview of the Shambhala Buddhist path, teacher David Marshall reviewed the first two talks and discussed the distinguishing features of vajrayana Buddhism in general and Shambhala Buddhism in particular. Click on the icon below to listen to the talk.

Download “Celebrating Everyday Life,” with David Marshall (MP3: 44.9 MB; 49 min)

DAVID MARSHALL is a student of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, and has been a practitioner of Shambhala Buddhism since 1997. He has taught meditation and various Buddhist classes within Shambhala and to college students, social workers and prisoners.

Here is more of Robin Higgins’ striking collage work. To view the first set, go to Journey with collage.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

In this article, one of several on the feminine principle in this week’s Shambhala Times feature, Arising from Space: A Celebration of the Feminine Principle, Sangyum Agness Au challenges us to deepen our understanding of sophistication.

By Sangyum Agness Au

I write this from San Francisco, as a grand gathering of family and friends of the Au Clan draws to a close. Five generations have come together to celebrate my father’s 90th birthday, from his 96 and 93 year old Canadian Chinese sisters to his 14 month-old great-great grand niece. It has been a joyful occasion, full of heart connections, the poignancy of reunion, and the endless delicious feasts for which our clan is well known. To complete the opera, there was also the requisite tension and high drama during the planning and preparation of the week-long events.

Before the final festivities began, in the quiet of the restaurant banquet room, I finished a five-foot tall ikebana arrangement with five varieties of potted orchids. My son and I set out large trays of flat Chinese ‘donut’ peaches, which symbolize longevity. In the creation of these offerings, I reflected on the power of the mother lineage to bind clans and societies together. There is a sophistication in the continuity of tradition, developed from centuries of nurturance and celebration.

In 1976, when I met the Druk Sakyong, meditation was not particularly interesting to me. As a young fashion designer living in Manhattan, I was passionate about all things sophisticated. To me, sophistication meant foreign and artistic. So I was intrigued and challenged by this brilliant person, with such great intelligence, power and, of course — sophistication. Through the years, I’ve come to appreciate the profundity of this ‘hook.’

When I first received the Court Vision and Practice manual, I was delighted to find a section titled ‘Sophistication’ in the Sakyong Wangmo chapter. Instinctively, I knew the word wouldn’t have the same meaning as it did in, say, Vogue magazine, but it was relevant enough to keep me hooked. Read the whole article on the Shambhala Times

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On Thursday evenings, from October 8th to November 5th, we’re offering a new five-class course, in a new way.

Designed to complement Shambhala Training Level I, Meditation in Everyday Life uses a range of learning aids―including simple instructions, experiential exercises and strong community support―to help students bring the benefits of meditation into their lives.

This course is part of a potent, new core curriculum―Way of Shambhala―which our Centre plans to introduce gradually over the coming months and years. (Please stay tuned.)

For a full course description go to our Meditation in Everyday Life page.

We just launched our fully revamped monthly newsletter. Available by email (and also on our website), Kootenay Shambhala eNews is designed to provide fast and easy access to Centre-related news and content that is helpful, interesting, or just plain fun.

View the September 2009 issue (shown at the right). We’d welcome your feedback.

To subscribe, go to the “Email News Sign-Up” section on our home page or contact us at info@nelsonbuddha.com. (An unsubscribe link is included at the bottom of each message.)

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Learn more on our Open House page.