Category Archives: Current-Events

Event: Gender Dynamics: Conversations on Gender & Sexuality in the Three Yanas of Buddhism

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

PLEASE NOTE: This course is offered as “pay-what-you-can”. Above are the suggested donation amounts. For more information, see Registration Options at the bottom of this page. 

Buddhism has a long history of engaging the topic of gender and sexuality in ways that were innovative and inclusive for their times and also androcentric (male centered) in nature. We can both learn from Buddhist teachings and recognize certain limitations with respect to gender configurations in sanghas, past and present. Topics include: the liberation stories of Buddhist women at different times and places across Asia, the deconstruction of gender binaries and striking representations of gender fluidity in Mahayana literature, the feminine principle and sexual ethics. In order to create a community that strives to foster safety for all its members, we could learn more about what Buddhism has to say on these topics and what contemporary conversations can contribute. This will allow us to have more informed discussions about gender dynamics and harm prevention in Shambhala and co-create the ground for positive change.

 

Components to this course:

Talks on Gender & Sexuality in the Three Yanas of Buddhism – A series of 30 minute pre-recorded talks (three per yana) by Professor Holly Gayley will provide an overview of gender and sexuality in Buddhist history, sharing stories and exploring shifts in view and practice across the three yanas or “vehicles” of Buddhism.

● Video Library of Key Concepts in Gender & Intersectionality – Guest Presenters will give 5-10 minute presentations on key concepts to help forge a shared understanding and vocabulary for discussions about gender dynamics and its intersections with other forms of social identity.

 

Gender dynamics are the ever-shifting norms and practices around gender and sexuality. The term dynamics points to the ways that gender is cultural and relational, learned through socialization and enacted in everyday interactions—through performing or resisting gender roles and sexual norms. As a result, cultural ideas about these change over time and across each generation. Gender is also dynamic to the extent that it intersects with other forms of social identity, including race, class, and sexual orientation. These dynamics play out in institutional patterns and interpersonal relationships in ways that range from affirming and positive, on the one hand, to harmful and damaging on the other. In order to promote cultural change and harm prevention in Shambhala, our community could understand more about gender dynamics. Please join us for this three-month journey of dharma exploration and community conversations.

 

About the Teacher

Holly Gayley is a scholar and translator of Buddhist literature in contemporary Tibet and Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research areas include gender and sexuality in Buddhist tantra, ethical reform in contemporary Tibet, and theorizing translation, both literary and cultural, in the transmission of Buddhist teachings to North America. Her most recent book is Inseparable Across Lifetimes: The Lives and Love Letters of Namtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Tāre Lhamo, and her new edited volume, Voices from Larung Gar: Shaping Tibetan Buddhism for the Twenty-First Century, is coming out in April 2021. For two decades, she has regularly led meditation workshops and retreats and serves as a senior teacher in the Shambhala tradition.

Guest Presenters include:

Claudia Arnau
Agness Au
Drew Bromfield
Dave Garton 
Dhi Good
Sara Lewis
Charlene Leung
Loden Nyima
Jane Perlstein
Jeff Scott
Judith Simmer-Brown
Aarti Tejuja
 
The Facilitator for the course will be Tara Templin, Director of Community Care and Conduct.

Registration Options

This course is offered as pay-what-you-can, with the suggested donations noted below.

Individual: $0-$49.
This allows us to continue to offer programs and pay our presenters and teachers.

Patron: $0-$99.
The Patron Price allows us to offer scholarships, and pricing such as pay-what-you-can. 

Center: $0-$199. Group: $0-$149.

Image: Eight Auspicious Symbols from the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts, courtesy of Himalaya Art Resources #50808.

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Event: Sacred Path Online: The Four Dignities – Outrageous & Inscrutable

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Saturday, March 25 & Saturday, April 8, 2023

11:00am – 7:15pm Eastern Time

About This Course:

Discover (or rediscover!) the Shambhala Path and come to Warriors Assembly in 2023! The Sacred Path is a series of workshops and teachings where you can deepen your meditation practice, connect with your heart and others, and learn how to meet the challenges of daily life with compassion and bravery.  

Shambhala Online is offering the entire Sacred Path series of retreats up to the “Golden Key” retreat in 2022 and 2023. Take each workshop for the first time or retake the Sacred Path and renew your connection to these timely teachings!

Required Text: ‘The Dignities of Shambhala Sourcebook’

Please be sure to purchase the required text at the link above prior to the beginning of the course.

Outrageous, March 25, 2023 and Inscrutable, April 8, 2023

These fruitional dignities refer to the extraordinary skill of a practiced warrior. No longer afraid of making mistakes, the unconventional and visionary perspective of the outrageous warrior combines with the skill of spontaneous inscrutability to create benefit for others on a large scale.

If you have taken the Sacred Path courses in the past, whether last year or decades ago, why not take the time to refresh your understanding by immersing yourself in these precious teachings that are core to who we are as a community and hear some of our most senior teachers speak to these teachings and our paths as peaceful warriors and meditators.

About the Sacred Path Series:

The Sacred Path is a series of teachings for those who’ve completed Shambhala Training Levels I-V. It introduces further practices to develop warriorship and extend the student’s training in meditation. These practices are based on a societal vision and aspiration to help the world. This training cultivates one’s dignity and natural gifts in order to widen one’s sphere of compassionate and practical influence. 

During a series of visionary experiences that took place between 1976 and 1980, Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche wrote down what became known as the Shambhala terma, a series of texts. The Sacred Path of the Warrior is based on these texts and on the extensive commentaries Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche gave on these teachings and on how to practice them in modern times.

What to expect: 

– Daily talks by the Senior Teacher
– Guided meditation sessions
– A lot of meditation practice
– Time to gather and converse
– Opportunity to meet with a meditation instructor
– Specially produced cinematography for each weekend
– Additional free talks by senior teachers between each intensive
– Additional opportunities to gather virtually as a community between each course

Regsitration & Pricing

**If registering as a Centre/Group, please register here

No one will be turned away due to financial considerations. That being said, the pricing below allows us to pay for the production of these programs, which is more robust than you might imagine. Shambhala forms in a unique virtual environment. With that in mind, we’ve tried to create a pricing structure that is not cost-prohibitive, but makes it possible for anyone to attend.

Individuals

1. If you are a member of a Shambhala Centre or Group:
Check with a centre or group leader in your local community to see if they are offering the online Sacred Path, and how you can register with them directly. 

2. If you are a solo practitioner or if your Centre or Group is not offering this Shambhala Online series: Not to worry. You are fully held within this unique meditation practice space. You can register as an individual and get the full experience. In fact, we are building these retreats especially for you. A space to practice, listen, share, and explore your world through the eyes of meditation.

Individual Pricing

$149 per Level – helping Shambhala thrive price
$216 per Level – scholarship sponsor price – this directly sponsors a meditator in need

$79 scholarship price per Level – we use sponsor money to fund these retreatants’ registration

Purchase Required Materials from Kalapa Media separately:  ‘The Dignities of Shambhala Sourcebook’

Further Scholarship – apply here for a further break on the program price.

Centre/Group Pricing and Affiliate Program

If registering as a Centre/Group, please register here

Centre – all 5 Retreats – $2000 
Centre – single Retreat- $499
Group – all 5 Retreats – $1500
Group – single Retreat – $350

**Centres or groups – we hope that this pricing represents a real value for you and your members. Centres and groups that need a break on this pricing, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Andy at Registrar@shambhalaonline.org to discuss your needs. We will find the pricing structure that works best for you, even if it means thinking outside the box. It is important that you and your members are able to participate fully and without worry in these times.

Affiliate Opportunities for Centres and Groups

If your Center/Group does not want to register with Shambhala Online, you can still capture revenue by becoming an Affiliate. This option is recommended for small Centers with a limited number of potential participants. Affiliates will receive 20% of the program price paid by each participant who registers via your Center’s registration links.

 

Contact Andy at [email protected] with any additional questions about being an affiliate.

The Sacred Path courses will be translated to a variety of languages. Please reach out to [email protected] if you need interpretation, so we can make arrangements.

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Event: The Four Dignities of Investigating Whiteness & Racism: Sacred Activism Series Part III

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Live Sessions: Oct. 18, 25, Nov. 1, 8 & 15 from 7:00-9:00pm EST

This program offers an introductory investigation of race, whiteness, and systemic racism for meditation practitioners who identify as white, providing a foundation from which white meditators can begin the path of exploring their own social conditioning and cultivating tools to support them in confronting systemic racism and oppression in our society.

The workshop follows the path of the Four Dignities, a central element of the Shambhala teachings and framework for the meditator’s journey. Integrating Dharma teachings and embodied contemplative practices with material from the study of race, peacebuilding, and history, we will employ these teachings as a guide for how we can show up with fearlessness and gentleness to address racism in our community and society. We will invite curiosity and concerns about racism and create opportunities to increase our awareness of what we as white people often don’t see in ourselves and in our communities.

Meditation Experience: This course is for people who have an established meditation practice in any lineage of meditation and who identify as white.

Why a class for white people?

In creating a more awake society, we all have a responsibility to apply the dharma to addressing suffering in our world. This includes white-identified meditators investigating their own social conditioning as white people and how this impacts people of color in our communities and society at large. Many people of color throughout the Shambhala community and other meditation communities have urged white people to do this important work in a setting that does not burden people of color with being the educators. We offer this course in that spirit.

For more information on the reasons for conducting some racial justice and awareness work in an affinity group among people identified with the same race, check out the following resources below. 

Resources:

  • In Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out, African American Buddhist teacher, author and educator Ruth King recommends exploring “the ignorance and innocence of our racial conditioning and racial character with those of our same race” in what she calls “racial affinity groups.”“ 
  • On pp. 204-206 of her international bestseller Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (2017), Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum discusses the importance of creating spaces for white people to meet in white-only groups to educate themselves about issues of race and white identity. Dr. Tatum is president emerita of Spelman College, a historically black women’s liberal arts college. 
  • The organization White Awake, whose multi-racial advisory council includes meditation teachers Rev. angel Kyodo williams and Tara Brach, offers lengthy discussions of the value of white people meeting together to investigate whiteness and racism. 

This article in The Arrow Journal by Shambhala Educator, Alex Vlasic is an excellent read on How White Caucuses Contribute to Racial Justice.

Still have questions or curiosity? Don’t hesitate to reach out.

About the Teachers

Gabe Dayley has designed and led dharma workshops to examine whiteness and racism, to investigate toxic masculinity, and to address our personal and collective ecological footprint. He currently works on climate action in local government, with a focus on ensuring that strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation are equitable, inclusive, and just. Gabe also founded and edits The Arrow Journal, which investigates applications of contemplative wisdom traditions to confronting pressing social and ecological challenges. Previously, he served as Executive Director of the DC Shambhala Center, and was raised in the Shambhala tradition by students of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Gabe received a master’s degree in international peace and conflict resolution from American University, where he focused on the application of conflict transformation to addressing environmental harm.

Alison Pepper, LCSW, has been studying and practicing meditation and Buddhism as a part of the NY Shambhala community since 2006. Her social justice work began in high school and anti-racist work deepened in grad school at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter in NYC. Today Alison mixes her passions for art, body work, social justice and meditation in her NY therapy office as a Buddhist psychotherapist. She continues to co-facilitate a monthly white group with fellow Racial Justice and Dharma warriors (check us out if your interested in knowing more https://www.rjdharma.org/home ). When Alison isn’t in the shrine room or therapy office you will find her outside, playing with friends or home with her sweet cat Pickles!

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Event: Living with Resilience: How to Become Gentle and Tough

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Live Session TBD

You will have access to the course material immediately after registering.

Meeting the demands of modern life in an increasingly complex world has been challenging for some time. Currently, however, we are beginning to experience a phenomenon called hyper-complexity driven by technology, overpopulation and a looming climate emergency, which could greatly destabilize our already fragile and unsustainable systems.

Rampant materialism, consumerism and individualism are not only creating an existential, environmental threat, but they are also tearing the very fabric of society and provoking dangerous levels of political divisiveness and economic disruption.  How are we to survive much less thrive in these uncertain times?

Click here to view Fleet Maull’s video message about this course!

In this course, we will explore strategies for increasing our reservoirs of resilience through a deeply embodied approach to mindfulness-awareness practices and mindful presence in daily living by actualizing our innate capacity for interoceptive awareness.

The course consists of five pre-recorded talks. It also includes guided meditations, contemplations and suggested readings.

In addition to the recordings, there will be a live session with Fleet Maull, date to be announced.

Course Outline

Talk 1: The Challenge: Why We Need Deep Reservoirs of Resilience

  • Modern life: Materialism, Individualism, Consumerism, Speed, Aggression
  • Social Media & Breakdowns in social cohesion
  • Hyper Complexity – Causes & Conditions – Macro Economic/Cultural Forces
  • Climate Emergency & Social, Economic, Political Disruption
  • Possibilities of Collapse & Extinction

Talk 2:  Ownership in Service of Self-Empowerment & Resilience

  • Pain/Shame Body Identities
  • Radical Responsibility: Ownership vs. Blame
  • Empowerment Zone vs. Drama Zone
  • Shambhala Warriorship: Bravery vs. Cowardice

Talk 3:  Deep Embodiment: Mindfulness & Interoceptive Awareness

  • Mindfulness of Body
  • Interoceptive Awareness
  • Presence and Nondual Being
  • Internal Resonance Supports Healing and Resilience

Talk 4: Heart-Centered – Intersubjective Awareness

  • Shifting Locus of Perception from the Head to the Heart
  • Vulnerability and Presencing Others
  • Symbiosis of Interoceptive and Intersubjective Awareness 
  • Heart-Mind of Interbeing and Social Resilience

Talk 5:  Earth Conscious Living & Cycle of Resilience

  • Reconnecting with Earth through the Body
  • Reconnecting with Earth through the Heart
  • Joining Heaven and Earth
  • Shambhala Heart Warriors Protecting the Earth
  • Taking Action – Shame and Blame Free Individual & Collective Action
About the Teacher

Fleet Maull, PhD has been a Shambhala practitioner for more than 40 years. He has served as Acharya and has led Shambhala programs and retreats throughout North America, Europe and Latin America. Fleet is a Roshi (senior lineage teacher) in the Zen Peacemaker and Soto Zen lineages. He is a consultant, executive coach, an internationally renowned social activist and founder of numerous engaged organizations including Prison Mindfulness Institute, Engaged Mindfulness Institute, Center for Mindfulness in Public Safety and the National Prison Hospice Association. He is the author of Dharma in Hell, The Prison Writings of Fleet Maull and Radical Responsibility: How to Move Beyond Blame, Fearlessly Live Your Highest Purpose and Become an Unstoppable Force for Good.

Registration Options

Individual: $108.

Patron: $149. This rate helps our efforts to extend generosity support to those in need.

Centers: $449. Groups: $349. (Please use your Center or Group account to register. Follow these instructions if you need to create an account.)

Generosity Policy. We want to make the teachings available to all and will work with you to ensure your participation. Click on the Request a Discount link before you register, to receive a discount code to use at checkout. For a further discount or scholarship, write to [email protected].

Click here for our Refund Policy.

 

 

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Event: Chögyam’s Odyssey: Exploring the Open Secrets of Trungpa Rinpoche’s Poetry

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Nowhere is Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche more self-revealing than in his poems. They bear unique witness to the inner journey of his epic, multifaceted, ever-evolving career. Yet, like much good poetry, they contain subtleties and ambiguities that take some effort and knowledge of his life to appreciate.

In this session of reading and sharing, recently recorded by the Boston Shambhala Center and now offered for on-demand viewing via Shambhala Online, two experts in Trungpa’s poetry will provide context and commentary to illuminate his unique creative process and unlock some of the hidden meanings of this rare treasury. 

About the presenters:

Tillie Perks is a Ph.D. student at McGill University who studies the history of Buddhist modernism(s) and Tibetan Buddhism outside of Tibet with a focus on the life and works of Chögyam Trungpa (1940-1987). Her master’s thesis, THE SKYLARK’S SONG, focused on the Tibetan literary influences in Chögyam Trungpa’s English Poetry. She was born into the Shambhala community and has been a practitioner of Buddhist meditation for 25 years.

David Rome, Trungpa’s personal secretary, was both scribe and editor for hundreds of his poems and edited four collections of them, including FIRST THOUGHT BEST THOUGHT and TIMELY RAIN,both published by Shambhala Publications. He has served as President of Schocken Books and Senior VP for Planning of the Greyston Foundation, and as a senior fellow with the Garrison Institute, a Hudson Valley research and retreat center applying contemplative methods to solve social and environmental challenges. He is the author of Your Body Knows the Answer: Using Your Felt Sense to Solve Problems, Effect Change, and Liberate Creativity (Shambhala 2014), a guide to the practice of mindful focusing (www.mindfulfocusing.com).

Additional course tuition information:

If you would like a discount on the tution price due to an unfavorable currency exchange, or for any other reason, please enter the coupon code below at the time of registration, for a 25% discount:

Coupon code: Xu6JLS

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Event: Learn to Love Yourself

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

A Self-Paced Retreat with Sabine Rolf

Discover or rediscover your connection to meditation – and to yourself. This self-paced retreat is a powerful way to reconnect with our minds and hearts, and to open up to ourselves and our experience in a way that is more connected, caring, and kind.

Life can be chaotic, with increasing demands on our time and attention. We are stressed by our own and other’s expectations, and struggle to accomplish everything we need to do. The Learn to Love Yourself course offers an antidote to our constant busyness and frustration. In this course we will connect with our soft hearts, into our inspiration and creativity and leave feeling more alive and refreshed.

If you have never meditated before, you will be given clear instructions on how to meditate, and be guided through how to develop a regular meditation practice. If you are a seasoned meditator, this self-paced retreat offers the opportunity to slow down and reconnect to the simplicity of meditation practice. There will also be exercises designed to open our minds and hearts to the beauty and power of being in the moment.

Talks themes throughout the course include:

  • Making Friends With Yourself
  • Working With Anxiety & Difficult Emotions
  • Developing Confidence and Trust In Yourself

This course is ideal for first time meditators and for anyone wanting to develop a deeper relationship with themselves and the world around them.

 

Full Tuition: $199

Subsidized Scholarship Tuition: $149

Center Tuition: $299

If you require additional financial assistance, please contact: [email protected]  

 

Register now and discover a whole new relationship to yourself! 

 

About the Teacher:


Sabine Rolf is a senior teacher and has been practicing meditation and contemplation in th
e Kagyu and Nyingma Tibetan Buddhist lineages and in the Shambhala lineage for more than 20 years. She teaches internationally about Buddhism, Shambhala, Contemplative Psychology,  Maitri Space Awareness, and Mindful Communication. Sabine studied Philosophy and German Literature in Hamburg andworks in leadership teams in Adult Education and Preventive Environmental Protection. She lives in the countryside in Germany.  



 

 

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Event: Gender Dynamics: Conversations on Gender & Sexuality in the Three Yanas of Buddhism

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

PLEASE NOTE: This course is offered as “pay-what-you-can”. Above are the suggested donation amounts. For more information, see Registration Options at the bottom of this page. 

Buddhism has a long history of engaging the topic of gender and sexuality in ways that were innovative and inclusive for their times and also androcentric (male centered) in nature. We can both learn from Buddhist teachings and recognize certain limitations with respect to gender configurations in sanghas, past and present. Topics include: the liberation stories of Buddhist women at different times and places across Asia, the deconstruction of gender binaries and striking representations of gender fluidity in Mahayana literature, the feminine principle and sexual ethics. In order to create a community that strives to foster safety for all its members, we could learn more about what Buddhism has to say on these topics and what contemporary conversations can contribute. This will allow us to have more informed discussions about gender dynamics and harm prevention in Shambhala and co-create the ground for positive change.

 

Components to this course:

Talks on Gender & Sexuality in the Three Yanas of Buddhism – A series of 30 minute pre-recorded talks (three per yana) by Professor Holly Gayley will provide an overview of gender and sexuality in Buddhist history, sharing stories and exploring shifts in view and practice across the three yanas or “vehicles” of Buddhism.

● Video Library of Key Concepts in Gender & Intersectionality – Guest Presenters will give 5-10 minute presentations on key concepts to help forge a shared understanding and vocabulary for discussions about gender dynamics and its intersections with other forms of social identity.

 

Gender dynamics are the ever-shifting norms and practices around gender and sexuality. The term dynamics points to the ways that gender is cultural and relational, learned through socialization and enacted in everyday interactions—through performing or resisting gender roles and sexual norms. As a result, cultural ideas about these change over time and across each generation. Gender is also dynamic to the extent that it intersects with other forms of social identity, including race, class, and sexual orientation. These dynamics play out in institutional patterns and interpersonal relationships in ways that range from affirming and positive, on the one hand, to harmful and damaging on the other. In order to promote cultural change and harm prevention in Shambhala, our community could understand more about gender dynamics. Please join us for this three-month journey of dharma exploration and community conversations.

 

About the Teacher

Holly Gayley is a scholar and translator of Buddhist literature in contemporary Tibet and Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research areas include gender and sexuality in Buddhist tantra, ethical reform in contemporary Tibet, and theorizing translation, both literary and cultural, in the transmission of Buddhist teachings to North America. Her most recent book is Inseparable Across Lifetimes: The Lives and Love Letters of Namtrul Rinpoche and Khandro Tāre Lhamo, and her new edited volume, Voices from Larung Gar: Shaping Tibetan Buddhism for the Twenty-First Century, is coming out in April 2021. For two decades, she has regularly led meditation workshops and retreats and serves as a senior teacher in the Shambhala tradition.

Guest Presenters include:

Claudia Arnau
Agness Au
Drew Bromfield
Dave Garton 
Dhi Good
Sara Lewis
Charlene Leung
Loden Nyima
Jane Perlstein
Jeff Scott
Judith Simmer-Brown
Aarti Tejuja
 
The Facilitator for the course will be Tara Templin, Director of Community Care and Conduct.

Registration Options

This course is offered as pay-what-you-can, with the suggested donations noted below.

Individual: $0-$49.
This allows us to continue to offer programs and pay our presenters and teachers.

Patron: $0-$99.
The Patron Price allows us to offer scholarships, and pricing such as pay-what-you-can. 

Center: $0-$199. Group: $0-$149.

Image: Eight Auspicious Symbols from the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts, courtesy of Himalaya Art Resources #50808.

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Event: Fearlessness in Everyday Life

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Please note: This “open enrollment” course may be completed on your own schedule. The discussion area is not active and there is no facilitator. The price is reduced from $149 to $99. We recommend that you keep a journal about the class and meet with your Meditation Instructor to discuss the contemplation topics. Questions? Contact [email protected].

A 5-week Course

Learning to work with our anxiety, we are not blocked by fear. Through an exploration of the Buddhist teachings of mind and the nature of reality, we learn to see clearly. We dare to face life and death as they are. The meditator, open to uncertainty, goes beyond the emotions of hope and fear to experience equanimity.

Prerequisites for this Course

Joy in Everyday Life and Contentment in Everyday Life courses.

About the Teacher

Gaylon Ferguson, PhD, is a senior teacher in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition who has been leading meditation retreats since 1976. He is a member of Naropa University’s core faculty and the author of Natural Wakefulness: Discovering the Wisdom We Were Born With. Additionally, his article, “Making Friends with Ourselves,” was selected for inclusion in The Best Buddhist Writing 2005 and his essay “No Color, All Colors” appears in the book, Mindful Politics.

About Our Courses

The Way of Shambhala courses are designed for those who don’t live near a Shambhala Center, or who need a particular course in order to continue on the path. Each course in the series is led by a senior Shambhala teacher. Over 5 to 8 weeks, course participants view recorded teachings, then contemplate and engage in exercises aimed at deepening their understanding.

When Does the Class Meet?

The course is asynchronous. You may view the recorded talks at your convenience. The recommended schedule is to view one talk each week and complete the associated readings and exercises in the module. There are 5 talks.

How Much Time Does it Take?

Most participants spend 2 to 3 hours per week on the course. The talks average 45 minutes in length. Allow yourself time to do the readings, meditation practices and other assignments. It’s a good idea to schedule the time on your calendar as you would for a face-to-face class.

Registration Options

Regular Amount. The regular course rate is $99.

Patron. The Patron rate of $149 supports our efforts to connect teachers and learners through online programs. In particular, it helps us offer the generosity policy to those in need.

Generosity Policy. We want to make the teachings available to all and will work with you to ensure your participation. Click on the Request a Discount link below, to receive a discount code to use at checkout. For a further discount or scholarship, write to [email protected].

Centers and Groups, please register here.

Meditation Instructors and Shambhala Guides, please see Shambhala Educator Resources to register for a Study/Review version of this course.

Click here for our Refund Policy

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Event: Wisdom in Everyday Life

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Please note: This “open enrollment” course may be completed on your own schedule. The discussion area is less active, but is still open, and there is no facilitator. The price is reduced from $149 to $99. We recommend that you keep a journal about the class and meet with your Meditation Instructor to discuss the contemplation topics. Questions? Contact [email protected].

A 5-week Course

Meditation sharpens our intelligence and uncovers our wisdom. When we touch the world directly, we discover ordinary magic. No longer deterred or depressed by obstacles, we can include everything as part of the path and play with whatever arises. The challenges and richness of daily life become opportunities for both contemplative practice and social and ecological action.

Prerequisite for this Course

Fearlessness in Everyday Life. Shambhala Training Levels I-IV recommended but not required.

About the Teacher

John Rockwell has been a student of Buddhism and the Shambhala teachings for 30 years. He was professor of Buddhist Studies at the Naropa Institute for 12 years, co-director of Karmê Chöling Meditation Center for 4 years, and Director of Shambhala International for 5 years. He is a member of the Nalanda Translation Committee, which translates Buddhist texts and liturgies into English. From 1996-2019 he served as an acharya (senior teacher) for the Shambhala community. After living at Karmê Chöling in Vermont as the resident teacher, he now lives in Nova Scotia.

Reading List for this course:

Ruling Your World: Ancient Strategies for Modern Life, Sakyong Mipham, Harmony, 2006

Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chögyam Trungpa, Shambhala Publications, 2010

Journey without Goal: The Tantric Wisdom of the Buddha, Chögyam Trungpa, Shambhala Publications, 2010

About Our Courses

The Way of Shambhala courses are designed for those who don’t live near a Shambhala Center, or who need a particular course in order to continue on the path. Each course in the series is led by a senior Shambhala teacher. Over 5 to 8 weeks, course participants view recorded teachings, then contemplate and engage in exercises aimed at deepening their understanding.

When Does the Class Meet?

The course is asynchronous. You may view the recorded talks at your convenience. The recommended schedule is to view one talk each week and complete the associated readings and exercises in the module. There are 5 talks.

How Much Time Does it Take?

Most participants spend 1 to 2 hours per week on the course. The talks average 45 minutes in length. Allow yourself time to do the readings, meditation practices and other assignments. It’s a good idea to schedule the time on your calendar as you would for a face-to-face class.

Registration Options

Regular Amount. The regular course rate is $99.

Patron. The Patron rate of $149 supports our efforts to connect teachers and learners through online programs. In particular, it helps us offer the generosity policy to those in need.

Generosity Policy. We want to make the teachings available to all and will work with you to ensure your participation. Click on the Request a Discount link below to receive a discount code to use at checkout. For a further discount or scholarship, write to [email protected].

Centers and Groups, register here.

Meditation Instructors and Shambhala Guides, please see Shambhala Educator Resources to register for a Study/Review version of the course.

Click here for our Refund Policy

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Event: Shambhala Sunday Gathering – Celebrating the Spring Equinox

>>> See the event details and register here >>>

Sunday Gatherings are live every week at 3:00 p.m. EST

Donations are welcome! 

Open the door, and walk outside.

“Glory be to the blade of grass

That carries extra frost

Turning into dew drop.”

– excerpt from poem “Burdensome” Timely Rain 

All of us, all ages will celebrate Spring with Ihasang, music, floral crowns, and rejoicing around the element of WATER, bright, lively, refreshing, wet water… We will explore the wetness.

Planting seeds and the splish splash of Spring. Join us and show us your expressions of spring! Touching the Earth, touches water this Nyida Day! 

About the Teacher

Irene Woodard is a co-founder and coordinator of The Shambhala Touching the Earth Collective. Director of Practice and Education, 2013-2018, at Sky Lake Shambhala Meditation and Retreat Center, and presently on Sky Lake’s Governing Board. A GreenFaith Fellow and current Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of GreenFaith, established in 1993, is one of the world’s oldest interfaith environmental organizations. Loving mother of Max and Catherine, grandmother of Amelia. A casual baker, a haiku poet, essayist, impersonator, dreamer, and at 70, a romantic on the hiking trails of life.

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