Guest Post by Jim Infantino:

I started writing and playing songs on my guitar when I was 13 as a way to express my teenage frustration and sadness, and as a way to become popular. To that end, I wrote mostly humorous songs, or breakup songs. And to a large extent, this has not changed.

Songs have a direct access to the mind that is unparalleled. They simultaneously engage us intellectually, physically and emotionally. TV shows and movies cannot engage us in the same the way. In fact these media require music to give their stories the proper dramatic impact. Unlike TV shows, or motion pictures, songs can turn our everyday humdrum world into something dramatic. A walk to the gym, and an hour on the treadmill can become something heroic, or tragic, or funky, or sexy, or funny with the right playlist on our iPod. A bus ride becomes a scene from a movie in which we are the stars, and everyone around us is an extra.

Songs are like candy for the ego.
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The first thing you notice as you walk into the entrance of the Boston Flower Exchange is the abundance of fragrance. The second thing is the shear size of the place. “This place is a candy store for flower lovers!” exclaimed Kathryn Canney, one of the members of Padma Ikebana – Boston Shambhala Center’s flower arranging group.

Last Saturday morning at the early hour of 8:30am, 7 members of Padma Ikebana gathered together to carpool the few miles into the heart of Boston to soak in the Boston Flower Exchange and make some purchases before they closed at 10am. The Boston Flower Exchange is Boston’s largest wholesale flower market, and stocked daily with flowers from around the world. It is basically a warehouse full, absolutely full of flowers. They cater to florists all over the City - Whole Foods, KaBloom, and many of the smaller main street florists all over Boston. We can shop there because we are legally a non-profit organization.

About $70 later, we left the large market with multiple bundles of various greenery, mums, bamboo and thistle flowers. We set ourselves up in the main shrine room and commenced to practice the art of Japanese flower arranging together for an hour and a half. The 7 of us worked individually on our arrangements, occasionally calling out to Hazel Bercholz for a critique or suggestion. Hazel has been arranging flowers for over 30 years - if you ever get a chance to watch “Discovering Elegance”, a remarkable dharma art film about the Vidyadhara, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, you will spot her assisting Trungpa Rinpoche in creating a large flower arrangement at an installation in Los Angeles. In recent years at the Shambhala Center, Hazel has generously led many Ikebana workshops and trainings, allowing new practitioners to get a taste of the art of Ikebana. See our calendar for the next one of these on January 30th.

At about 11:30, we breaked to walk around the room together to look at each other’s arrangements. Hazel offered feedback and suggestions on each arrangement, and we each had the chance to offer our own feedback to each other as well. It was a very soft experience of seeing through each other’s eyes and learning how we each see the wisdom of the flowers and branches. The arrangements were beautiful, elegant, and uplifted. We offered them to the Center and enjoyed placing them around. We then finished by going out to lunch together for some delcious Vietnemese food. The group decided to start meeting once a month for group practice, and we even spontaneously agreed upon a new name: Padma Ikebana!

The members of Padma Ikebana who are responsible for creating the elegant flower arrangements at the Shambhala Center are: Scott Robbins, Mary Lang, Hazel Bercholz, Greg Smith, Rachel Siebert, Timaree Bierle-Dodds, Kathryn Canney, Dawn Davies, Erika Wilton, Linda Brown, and Sarah Lipton. If you are interested in joining Padma Ikebana, please send an email to Sarah Lipton at info@shambhalaboston.org.

Please join us this Sunday, December 20th, from 4-6pm for QBF (Queer Buddhist Fellowship). We’ll be meeting at the Boston Shambhala Center, 646 Brookline Avenue, Brookline. (The Shambhala Center is T accessible on the Green Line D/Brookline Village station.)

Buddhism beginners as well as those more experienced are cordially welcomed. Meditation instruction will be available. The program begins promptly at 4pm, so please plan to arrive early. Suggested program donation is $5.

This month we’re delighted to welcome bestselling author Susan Piver. She is a wonderful, funny and talented teacher. Susan will be discussing her new book – a conversation that will be of value to anyone dealing with powerful emotions in their lives. Books will be available for purchase, and a book signing will follow the program.

A description of the talk follows. We look forward to welcoming you!

Talk Description: THE WISDOM OF A BROKEN HEART

A broken heart is not a problem to be solved, but a remarkable opportunity to discover wisdom. This talk will introduce you to the skills needed to work with these powerful emotions - not to drive them away or tie them up with a bow, but to find the possibility of transforming heartbreak into heart opening. Instead of (or in addition to) collapsing and freaking out, the conditions of heartbreak provide the perfect crucible for developing indestructible compassion and the capacity to love more deeply than ever.

Whether your heart was broken yesterday or years ago, all the elements are there to discover your innate spiritual warriorship. As we talk, you will discover that the dark power of heartbreak can introduce you to gentleness, fearlessness, and intelligence. If you stay with your broken heart, it will surely lead you down the path to wisdom.

Speaker Bio: Susan Piver is an authorized meditation instructor in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, the New York Times bestselling author of The Hard Questions, and the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life. She has been a student of Buddhism since 1995. Her new book is The Wisdom of a Broken Heart, published by Simon & Schuster in January, 2010.