Enlarge image

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 info@nelsonbuddha.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.

Enlarge image

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.

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 »

Below is a selection of photos taken at Kootenay Public Weekthün 2009: Touching the Earth, this year’s annual public one-week meditation retreat at Senge Ling (our retreat land near Nelson), which ran from June 27th to July 5th. Many thanks to Tom Baker for sharing his work. More photos may be posted as they’re submitted.

In a talk at last night’s Kootenay Shambhala Centre Open House, senior teacher Russell Rodgers led participants in an exploration of the cultural and perceptual underpinnings of current ecological problems and described three Buddhist practices for addressing these problems at their root. Click on the icon below to listen to the talk.

Download “Buddhism and Deep Ecology,” with Russell Rodgers (MP3: 57.5 MB; 1 hr, 3 min)

To explore this topic more fully, please join us for this year’s annual Kootenay public one-week meditation retreat at our retreat land near Nelson, from June 27th to July 5th. A full program description is available on our Kootenay Public Weekthün 2009: Touching the Earth page.

This article was submitted by Russell Rodgers, director of this summer’s Kootenay Public Weekthün 2009: Touching the Earth program, in response to a request for more information about the program’s theme.

Russell Rodgers writes:

One of the key commitments in vajrayana Buddhism is to experience the world as sacred. Sacred in this context doesn’t mean that some deity proclaimed it so; it just is, primordially, in the present moment of fresh pristine awareness. In our busy existence, however, we tend to see our thoughts and concepts about the world rather than the world itself. Therefore we lose touch with its sacredness and basic goodness. Our concepts can be so subtle and pervasive that we don’t even realize that they are there. We just feel deadened and disconnected from the magical, living quality in our surroundings. As a corrective, and because we have buddha nature wakefulness buried somewhere within us, we feel haunted by the feeling that something is missing. Read the rest of this entry »