Last spring Russell Rodgers, author of Essays on the Shambhala Buddhist Chants (PDF), taught a five-week Earth Dharma course at the Kootenay Shambhala Centre. He has revised the syllabus and is willing to share it with anyone interested.

The course is outlined below. It is designed around a basic buddhadharma understanding of mind, and much of the material could be applied to any social issue.

If you are interested, contact Russell Rodgers at nelsonbuddha@gmail.com.

EARTH DHARMA COURSE OUTLINE

Class I: Duality, the Source of the Problem
The foundation of our ecological problems begins with the human mind. Conventionally, our ecological problems are ascribed the human proclivity for grasping, aggression and ignorance. In this class we’ll take a deeper view: the nature of the mind and how these tendencies come about.

Class II: Sacred World
If we do not view the world as sacred and basically good, there will be consequences to our relationship with nature. In this class we’ll look at our monotheistic cultural background, and its division of the world into the material and the spiritual. We’ll look at theism’s successor, science, and its view of the world as mechanical, dead matter. Then we’ll look at polytheistic cultures and their view of the earth’s sacredness, and finally the non-theistic attitudes to the earth according to the Buddhist views of basic goodness, ultimate purity, and non-theistic sacredness.

Class III: Practices for Interbeing
We will work with Thich Nhat Hanh’s concept of interbeing, or interdependence, from the point of view of how the nature of our conceptual thinking functions to isolate us from the cosmos. We’ll also look at how thoughts can lead us back into a sense of being connected. We will work with the notion of soft spots where the world can touch us and the practice of tonglen to explore our inter-connectedness on an emotional level.

Class IV: Presence and Drala: The World Speaks
In this class we will look at how the world speaks to us. We’ll look at drala from the point of view of depth of perception and from the point of view of drala as unseen presences. We’ll look at the gods and nature spirits of other cultures and how we can relate to them non-theistically.

Class V: Buddhist Activism
In this class we will look at Buddhist responses to environmental problems and at how one can engage in movements to help the planet without experiencing reaction, anger, frustration and burnout. We will introduce some lojong slogans as a guide to compassionate action.

Each class will have a contemplation question for the week preceding the class. The classes will begin with participants splitting into dyads to discuss the question. The meditation period before the class will also have contemplation questions and meditation exercises in order to stimulate students to look at their experience during meditation.

Shambhala President Richard Reoch was interviewed on CBC Radio on August 3rd in a segment titled A Royal Birth at the IWK Health Centre.

Here is an excerpt from President Reoch’s remarks:

The whole point of the Shambhala teachings, you could say, is that there is no fundamental difference or separation between the sacred, on the one hand, and the secular, on the other hand. So this sense of a royal seat at the centre of the Kingdom of Shambhala is a symbolic way of stating that the temporal and the spiritual are not separate; they are unified in one family and in one sense of leadership. [...]

Many of us see a tragic or even catastrophic split in contemporary society, where we think that some things are sacred or deserve respect and the rest is somewhat inanimate. Where we really see this in the largest form is the environmental catastrophe that we are living through, where modern society is literally devouring its mother, the earth.

So this is really a symbolic way of healing that split [...].

You can listen to the interview in the CBC Archives: A Royal Birth at the IWK Health Centre

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The Kootenay Shambhala Centre is pleased to present Earth Dharma, a five-class course with Russell Rodgers, on Thursday evenings, from May 20th to June 17th.

We will explore our relationship with the earth, our present ecological predicament, and how meditation and other practices can help.

Everyone is welcome. Online participation (through audio recordings and other resources) will be possible. For a full program description click here.

Jane DiGiacomo, a key member of the Kootenay Shambhala Centre’s environment working group, submitted this article.

By Jane DiGiacomo

The Kootenay Shamhbala Centre is taking part in the Transition Nelson Expo and Gathering at the Prestige Lakeside Resort and Convention Centre from May 14th to 16th, and I hope to see you all there!

Transition Nelson is a grass roots movement aiming to organize all sectors of the Nelson area community to plan for a community that can easily and joyfully meet the demands of a future world impacted by climate change and decreasing dependency on fossil fuels.

The Expo and Gathering weekend will include celebrations of Nelson’s progress in this process, reskilling workshops, booths hosted by individuals and organizations participating in the process, and most importantly, a professionally-facilitated community conversation to plan for this future.

The end result of the weekend will be an Energy Descent Action Plan, which will guide the Nelson area community in taking immediate and long-term steps towards a more sustainable and resilient future.

Our Centre is hosting a booth on Friday, May 14th. This will give Expo participants a chance to learn about who we are, what we offer, and how our offerings are relevant to Transition Nelson’s focus. Our upcoming Earth Dharma course, for example, may be of particular interest.

Stay tuned for more details about our participation.

Our upcoming Earth Dharma course is highlighted in the May issue of Kootenay Shambhala eNews.

You can subscribe to eNews in the “Email News Sign-Up” section on our home page or by contacting us at nelsonbuddha@gmail.com. (An unsubscribe link is included at the bottom of each message.)

The document linked here―Practices for the Earth (PDF)―contains an essay written by senior Kootenay Shambhala Centre teacher Russell Rodgers outlining the teachings he presented at last summer’s Kootenay Public Weekthun 2009: Touching the Earth meditation retreat, and describing the approach used to deliver the teachings.

He submitted the document for the possible benefit of Shambhala teachers, environmentalists and others.

Topics include:
• Container Principle
• The Root of Ecological Problems
• The Senses: Our Gateways to the Natural World
• Making a Heart Connection to All Living Beings
• The Eco-dharma of Emptiness
• Drala: Working with Presence
• Introduction to the Lhasang

An “Afterthoughts” section provides additional material.

You can offer feedback by leaving a reply below, or by emailing Russell Rodgers at info@nelsonbuddha.com.

Responding to climate change effectively requires understanding it deeply.

For a Buddhist view on the roots of climate change, read the excerpt from the new book A Buddhist Response to the Climate Emergency, featured in yesterday’s Shambhala Times post Buddhadharma and the Planetary Crisis. Also, see the other Shambhala Times articles tagged Buddhist Response to Climate Change.

If you’d like to join in the Kootenay Shambhala Centre’s efforts to bring this view down to earth through practical action, locally and beyond, contact Russell Rodgers or Jim Northcote at info@nelsonbuddha.com.

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The Kootenay Shambhala Centre is hosting a “Sounds of 350″ gathering in support of a binding climate change agreement at the December United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

The gathering will include time for silent contemplation, chanting practices designed to clear obstacles, and 350 recitations of a mantra from the Heart Sutra, which helps dispel fixed modes of thinking.

Everyone is welcome.

For more information go to 350.org/node/13088 or contact Jane DiGiacomo at info@nelsonbuddha.com.

Buddhism and Green Living is one of the themes of the September issue of Shambhala Sun magazine. So: how can we go beyond platitudes and into collective and individual action that can make a real difference? Ethan Nichtern and his community, NYC’s The Interdependence Project, are doing just that, every day.

Listen to Ethan explain how—and how we can do the same—in this Shambhala Sun audio interview.

The message below was posted on the worldwide Shambhala email announcement service earlier today.

For information about the Kootenay Shambhala Centre’s environmental activity, click on any of the related subject tags in the sidebar―e.g., protecting the earth―or contact Russell Rodgers, our Touching the Earth liaison, at info@nelsonbuddha.com.

Dear sangha,

A cheerful summer to you! This spring and summer have been exciting times for environmental action within the Shambhala sangha. The Sakyong, Jamgön Mipham Rinpoche offered his mindful instructions on Protecting the Earth in support of Earth Day 2009 and in July urged sangha members to sign the Buddhist Declaration on Climate Change.

Along with the Sakyong’s encouragement, the Touching the Earth working group launched the 2009 Shambhala Green Commitment initiative. We have been delighted so far at the positive actions centers are taking throughout the world and eagerly await responses from the remainder of the mandala. Read the rest of this entry »