Shambhala Day at the Boston Shambhala Center this year was full of energy, celebration, laughter and tears. The shrine room was packed with almost 100 people. We started early with the set-up (and a big huge thank - you to the 15 and more people that helped with the Neutral Day Cleaning on Saturday and all the setup work!!!). People started to stream in to the Center at around 10 am in time to practice together the Sadhana of Mahamudra and the Elixir of Life. We had a boisterous and crowded lunch break in the community room and then resumed to watch the Year in Review followed by the Kasung’s presentation of the colors and then a delightful shouted ROAR to the entire Shambhala mandala through Shambhala Online.

Tears and joy were shared by all as we listened to the Sakyong’s recorded message of love and exciting tidings of a Royal Baby. Then the usual assortment of Board and Director addresses, a successful fundraising appeal, the throwing of the I-Ching and various Oaths and De-Oathings. The event at the Center culminated with a rousing rendition of the Shambhala Anthem, we quickly cleaned up, and a few of us even went bowling.

Enjoy the photos! And thank you for celebrating this new year of the Iron Tiger with us!

It was a small voice piping up near the back row: “Are you enlightened?”

They were 66 squirmy but attentive 5th graders sitting in the main shrine room on cushions that seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. The gong rang once, twice, and the group quieted down to silence.

From my position at the back of the room, I could watch them watching each other and watching the teacher, Gail Flynn of the Trident Booksellers and Cafe. Upon receiving meditation instruction, they each settled into a form that looked reminiscent of a meditation posture. What was striking to me mostly was the power of their silence - that 66 10 year olds could quiet down together and begin to question what it might be like to discern their thoughts, questioning what it means to open your heart.

They were curious - about the room, about the Buddha, about the shrine and the water and how to do walking meditation, about the banners on the wall, and about why we keep our eyes open when we sit. Gail rang the gong again and asked them to listen, to listen until they couldn’t hear anything anymore, saying: “Where does the sound go?”. Some of them giggled in response, and another one said: “nowhere, it just goes away.” The same question was asked about anger: “When you are angry at your friend, where does your anger go to?” “We forget about it” was one response, another was: “We feel bad about it so we let it go.” I’m telling you, these kids were insightful.

This was a group of three 5th grade classes - the school called us to see if we could host their students for an hour’s talk and meditation instruction. This wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago! And it was only one of 8 phone calls in a week requesting us to teach meditation to children of all ages. It is apparent that meditation has become a house-hold word, that people have heard of it, and that they know meditation has incredible benefits. Compassion was a word these children had heard of. To be in that room with them was inspiring, moving, and full of lungta. It seemed like the Great Eastern Sun was shining very, very brightly, even though it was a cloudy day.

Come celebrate the New Year with us this Friday, February 19th! Jim’s Big Ego - starring Shambhala sangha member Jim Infantino - will be performing live onstage upstairs at the Boston Shambhala Center. Join us from 7-9:30 for drinks, light hors d’oeuvre, dancing and celebration.

Come prepared: There will be a cash bar, donations will be accepted for the musical entertainment, and Jim’s Big Ego’s CD’s will be on sale.

Please RSVP by registering, so we can plan accordingly.

I am the new editor of our community life news magazine, and I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and the capabilities of this web page. This “magazine” can help us communicate about all aspects of this practice both on the cushion and in our daily lives, helping us stay in touch with and learn from one another. Wherever you are on your path, I hope you will find this forum to be an enhancement to your involvement in this community. I will be updating this page 1-2 times a week, and I encourage you to contribute as often as you would like. Here are some loose guidelines for what sort of content may appear here:

Announcements. If there is an occasion in your life that you would like other members of our community to know about, such as a birth announcement or a wedding announcement, you are welcome to submit it to this page. General community news will also appear here.

Your Experiences. You are welcome to share any experiences you have that relate to this practice. Whether you have just completed a program either here or at another Shambhala center and would like to write about it, or you have just had a thought-provoking experience in line at the grocery store you feel is worth sharing, please submit it to this page.

Art. I know that there are a number of very gifted artists in our community, and my hope is to spotlight one artist each month. We have the ability to upload video, audio, images, and of course text onto this page, so whatever your medium of choice is, you are welcome to showcase your work here.

Interviews and Profiles. If you know someone in this community whose life, experiences, or perspective you would like to spotlight, and you have their permission to do this, you are welcome to submit an interview or profile to this page.

If you would like to submit or you have questions or suggestions, simply email me at magazineeditor@shambhalaboston.org. Feel free to approach me at the center - I am always there on Tuesdays for Under 30 Night, and I will now be present more regularly Wednesday evenings and Sunday mornings. I welcome your feedback, as it will help me create a community life news magazine most beneficial to you.

Yours in the dharma,
Deanna Kaplan

Sitting with Joyful Disappointment, by guest writer Jim Infantino

Recently, one of the bigger mysteries of my life was solved. Not only solved, but tied up neatly, with a big fat happy ending. All of my fears about that situation were, though far from baseless, ultimately not realized. I should be overjoyed, and I am. However, it is also true that part of me feels let down, and I find that fascinating.

The story goes like this: In my teenage years, I had a friend, who was a girl - not really a girlfriend, but someone that I spent tons of time talking to. She seemed to really get me, and I felt like I really got her, and we drank copious quantities of coffee in diners and cafes between classes, and after school all over lower Manhattan. She was a dancer, and very pretty and had a sharp perception that cut through all my bullshit. I was enthralled. Gradually, I began to notice that her life had taken a darker turn. She had quit dancing, started smoking more, stopped eating. She came to school less and less, she cut her hair short, died it black, spent nights out with her older aunt in punk clubs, all the time getting thinner and thinner. I was scared for her. I tried to talk to her, tried to help in some way, but the forces in her life moving her in this direction were beyond me. Our talks became more and more rare, her depression seemed to deepen daily. Then she stopped coming to school at all. Her phone number was disconnected. I asked around about her, but no one knew anything. I stopped by her house, walked around her neighborhood repeatedly, but there was just no sign of my friend anywhere.

Months went by. As I began to accept that my friend was gone, and since I had no further information, I began to make up stories about why she was gone. Read the rest of this entry »

To one and all
Among the snowflakes
settling on each other
like accumulations of karma or of understanding
or of neither,
To everyone who will enter this year -
every foot fall, every glance, every opening
that lets the wind come in -
May you be at home in the warm and vast
freedom to which the dharma points
with everlasting kisses for everyone.

~ poem by Arthur Dion

“The poem is intended as a salute to our sangha on the first morning of 2010. It was composed spontaneously as written; this is the original. It emulates the tradition of spontaneous poetry within our lineage, which I understand to have been given to us by the Vidyadhara.”

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

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.

It’s that time of year again: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and Momma Stanburg Relish, pickles, sweet potatoes, squash, apple pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, hot mulled apple cider. And: family.

We love them, it’s great to see them, but sometimes they can drive us crazy, right? We witness layers of habitual mind suddenly rearing up and running away with us. So, when we’re all gathered around that laden table tomorrow, how can we hold our seats and maintain our sanity? How can we radiate peace to the friends and family who have gathered? How can we touch in with our hearts, our love for these people, and respond to them with a genuine experience of tenderness?

In 1975, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche spoke about Surrendering Your Aggression. This video is about what happens when you experience aggression, let go of aggression, and begin to “give and give and give.” What dawns in the process of giving? “Real clarity.”

So as you prepare to face the reality of your family, watch this video. And when you sit down to feast, take a deep breath and taste every bite as you watch the scene unfold. You could be surprised!

Wishing you all a cheerful holiday celebration from the Boston Shambhala Center!

KI KI SO SO!

Nearly thirty people from all parts of the Boston Shambhala sangha gathered Tuesday night for a long and moving celebration to support the long life of our Kongma Sakyong, Mipham Rinpoche.

The evening began a few minutes late, but on time, Shambhala time that is, as we scrambled to arrange the shrine room after the weekly yoga class, and people started streaming in. Acharya Emily Bower lead us in opening chants and gave a short introduction to the Tenshuk, or Long-Life Ceremony that had occurred in Halifax early that morning. We then turned the lights low and sat mesmerized for nearly an hour and a half while watching a video sent to us by Shambhala International that showed various highlights of the day’s events. The room felt close and warm, the energy vibrant as we oo-ed and ahh-ed the snippets of the blessing, seeing familiar faces in the people presenting their offerings to the Sakyong, Sakyong Wangmo, and His Eminence, some of us moving closer to the screen to watch the Lingdro dancers. We cried out when we thought we saw our Director Jill Blagsvedt flash by the camera!

It was incredibly moving to listen to the Sakyong’s address at the end of this video. You could tell that he didn’t quite know how to say goodbye for a year and three months, the length of his upcoming retreat. His messages were of deepening our practice, developing our kindness and compassion for each other within our community and strengthening ourselves to then turn the flower outwards, offering Shambhala to the world at large which so desperately needs our teachings of sanity and kindness. He also mentioned having “garuda bumps”. He left us with the request to devote at least one practice session a week to him, that through our practice we could connect with his mind, and therefore never be far apart.

Once this video finished, servers passed around delicious goodies, and Co-Warrior of the Center, Tom Ericsson gave an impassioned request for offerings to His Eminence for all that he has given to our community, and all that he is offering for the long life of our Sakyong. After that, we again dimmed the lights to watch “Joyful Vajra”, highlights from a feature documentary work in progress on the remarkable life and times of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. Tears streamed down some faces, and giggles were also shared - especially at the funny way media reporters pronounced the Sakyong’s name or Shambhala. It was such a joy to see snippets of Rinpoche’s life. We concluded with chants and a very rousing Shambhala anthem, the last note held out long and strong. The lungta in the room was palpable.

We cleaned up quickly and sat around on the couches for possibly another hour, just sharing in the radiance of the evening. I don’t think we left the Center until nearly 11:30pm, on a Tuesday night, the Kongma Sakyong, strong in our Boston hearts.