Susan Chapman

SUSAN CHAPMAN was empowered as a Shastri by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche in July. To learn more about her, go to Susan Chapman: Our New Shastri in Vancouver! on the Vancouver Shambhala Centre’s blog.

CULTIVATING GENUINE DIALOGUE
By Susan Chapman

If we want to create a space that welcomes the soul, we must speak our own truth to the center of the circle and listen receptively as others speak theirs. We must also respond to what others say in ways that extend the welcome, something that rarely happens in daily life.

―Parker Palmer

In the fall of 2008, when I first moved to Vancouver, I started a Monday night dharma study group that focused on the experience of dialogue. Although I formed this group in response to a request to offer a program for beginning meditators, it was also a way of meeting my own need for a sense of community after having lived at Gampo Abbey for the previous seven years. When I lived in Boulder in the early 80’s I loved the delek system that the Druk Sakyong created, groups of about 25 people who got to know and care for one another through conversations about the dharma. So I gravitate towards these kinds of situations.

Last year, in 2009, we launched the Way of Shambhala in Vancouver and I was delighted to realize that this format encouraged the kind of dialogue I’d come to appreciate so much. When we create the conditions for people to turn towards each other and genuinely share their experience of the teachings, a special kind of group lungta is raised. David Bohm, the quantum physicist who also worked with Krishnamurti to explore transformational communication, describes this. He says that when the conditions are right, we can experience “a stream of meaning that flows among, through us and between us.”

According to Bohm, genuine dialogue can occur even when we’re alone. In Way of Shambhala we accomplish this by introducing contemplation as well as short dyad exercises. In Bohm’s view, dialogue is not the same thing as a discussion. I think most participants in Way of Shambhala would agree. The experience of dialogue is more than educational, it is transformative. It can moves us beyond knowing into the wisdom of not knowing. Read the rest of this entry »

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This 11×17-inch poster (soon to greet you at the entrance to the Kootenay Shambhala Centre) represents another step in our effort to convey information about The Way of Shambhala, our core path of training.

In mid-August we hope to launch a series of blog articles by shastris and other senior teachers on their personal impressions of this training.

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We recently updated key flyers and created a Way of Shambhala flyer that summarizes the latest information about our core path of training.

The flyers are based on (and downloadable on) the following webpages:
• Meditation
• The Way of Shambhala
• Membership

Copies of these and other introductory Shambhala Centre materials―printed on 100% post-consumer paper―are available by the upstairs entrance to the centre.

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Calgary-based senior teacher Frank Johns is coming to Nelson to teach Shambhala Training Level I: The Art of Being Human, one of our most important programs, on October 2nd - 3rd, 2010.

Frank outlines the program this way:

“This is the foundational weekend meditation intensive for the entire path of Shambhala Buddhism. The Art of Being Human focuses on setting a correct understanding for what meditation practice is for within the Shambhala path, and in presenting the core concepts, which are based on personal experience—aspects of our experience that are common to all humans but which we have mistakenly ignored or thought were not important.”

For a full program description click here.

To see how this program fits into our core path of training, go to our Way of Shambhala page.

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The Shambhala Office of Practice and Education recently updated its Shambhala Buddhist Path illustration. The update (shown at the left) clarifies how the key elements of the path fit together.

Many of the constituent programs and events are offered at the Kootenay Shambhala Centre, either regularly or occasionally; participation in some of the in-depth training requires travel outside of the Nelson area.

To download the illustration as a PDF file, click here.

For more information contact Jim Northcote, Practice & Education Coordinator, at info@nelsonbuddha.com.

Early last October we introduced a new, integrated Shambhala Buddhist curriculum of practice and study―The Way of Shambhala―and ran it through late April with consistently high participant numbers and other encouraging feedback.

Now, in preparation for the fall 2010 semester, we’re working to boost the effectiveness of the way we communicate information about this training and its importance in the Shambhala community.

See, for example, our Way of Shambhala page. Also, check out blog entries tagged Way Of Shambhala and stay tuned for more…

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We’re happy to announce that Shastri candidate Ben Hines is coming from Seattle to teach Shambhala Training Level V: Open Sky on the weekend of September 10th to 12th.

The role of the Shastri (literally in Sanskrit, “teacher learned in the texts and commentaries”) is primarily to represent and teach the integrated Shambhala Buddhist curriculum, The Way of Shambhala.

For a full program description click here.

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Joy in Everyday Life, the third weeknight course in our new core curriculum, explores the Buddhist teachings on intelligent compassion towards others, helping us discover the joy that is always available.

It is scheduled to run on Thursday evenings, March 25 - April 29 (except April 15).

For a full description, go to our Joy in Everyday Life page.

In this two-minute excerpt from a talk on Shambhala’s new core curriculum―The Way of Shambhala―recorded at the Akron/Canton Shambhala Center (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) on October 13th, 2009, Acharya Adam Lobel speaks about the possibility of living our human life fully.

To view more of this talk, click here.

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Open to all and set to run on five consecutive Thursday evenings, from January 7th to February 4th, this course is part of the Way of Shambhala, a new core curriculum designed to convey the essence of the Shambhala teachings powerfully and quickly. Please join us.

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