Dear Friends,

Warm Summer Greetings! The Director’s Updates (formerly the Director’s Blog on a separate part of the website) are now fully incorporated into our blog “Wake up Boston.” When you click on the “Director Updates” tag on the left it will give you a listing of all of my previous updates. Using this online blog as a way to communicate should be easier and more enjoyable for all of us. Below is a snapshot of what’s been happening the last few months – which is a lot! In the future, I will be updating via this blog more frequently.

Also, don’t forget to click the “Expansion News” link in the tags section to see updates about the expansion process.

Councils & Committee’s Updates:

The Shambhala Center has been busy!

We’ve completed a number of facilities projects including:

• For health and possible mold issues, tore out the carpet from the stairway and one of the offices
• Brought in an indoor air specialist to test our air quality and fixed problem areas – the center is now mold free!
• Added brighter lighting to the stairway
• The Vajrayana (Small) shrine room was painted by volunteers Michael McLellan, Glenn Proteus, Simon Spiller and Bill Wooding.
• Pine Street Inn was coming through-out the winter to check under our front stair for homeless persons. The area has now been enclosed.
• The stairway ceiling will need to be replaced in the coming months – we are currently collecting quotes

Thank you to Alyssa Marino (facilities coordinator), Simon Spiller and other volunteers for all of your hard work in this area!

Practice & Education Committees have also been very busy as well

• A newly formed Visiting Teacher Support Cmte will be supporting all upcoming Acharya, Rinpoche and other visiting teacher visits by finding coordinators and staff and helping to train them.
• Tom Ericsson and Mary Lang officially stepped down as Warriors of the center, but are still chairing the Kalapa Council until new chairs take over. The Kalapa Council will continue to put on events and Werma feasts.

Community Updates

• The Care and Conduct Policy has been reintroduced and is posted in the community room of the center
• The Health and Well Being Group are working together to support the community. Please contact them at healthandwellbeing@shambhalaboston.org if you want to request support.

Finance Updates

• See our past Financial updates on this webpage, including 2008 & 2009 Year end documents
• Caitlin Cianflone was hired as a short term, part time paid Finance Coordinator to help me with a backlog of financial projects.
• Our finances are very steady. On average our gross income per month balances with our expenses – so we break even.

Spring greetings from Brookline! I’m writing to introduce and welcome our new Family Coordinator for the Boston Shambhala Center, Jennifer Lacy. Jennifer and her husband Dan have two adorable little girls, Isabella (6) and Kitty (4). She has been a practitioner for more than 10 years and is inspired by bringing children more frequently into our practice at the Boston Shambhala Center.

Jennifer will be reaching out to understand how to best serve the families in our community, and to see who is inspired to contribute his or her talents to child or parenting-focused programs. Her email is jenniferlacy2@gmail.com if you would like to welcome her or to help in this area.

Our first step is to survey the community to find out what interest your family has in supporting more family activities, parenting programs, or other activities at the center. Please take a few minutes to fill out this short online survey. Note: if you already filled out the paper survey, there is no need to fill out this online survey.

Click here to take the survey

Thank you! We will be contacting those who fill out the survey with the results in the coming weeks.

Yours in Community,

Jennifer Lacy
Family Coordinator

Jill Blagsvedt
Executive Director

Dear Boston Shambhala Community,

Spring greetings! The center has been full of energy lately with current events and for planning our future. It’s great to see so many people inspired and connected!

I’m writing to announce a new development in our local teaching structure. The position of “shastri” has been announced by the Sakyong. Shastri literally means, “teacher learned in the texts and commentaries.”

From Acharya Simmer-Brown’s message:

The shastris’ portfolios will include strengthening and developing our teaching mandala, bringing current understanding of the Shambhala Buddhist curriculum vision to their centres, and mentoring and training other teachers. Shastris will also support the leadership in Shambhala Centres in building community, and strengthening the vision of enlightened society so important in Shambhala.

Our local Boston shastris are Carolyn Krusinski and Frank Ryan. Welcome! They will participate in a training this summer and begin work in their roles as shastris late summer. Acharya Bower will continue in her broader role as our senior teacher. Carolyn and Frank are both honored and look forward to supporting the community in this capacity.

Please read the Shambhala News Service message from Acharya Simmer-Brown below for more information.

I would also like to re-iterate what Acharya Simmer-Brown says in her message - we need all of our skilled and committed local teachers to work with students and present the Shambhala Buddhadharma.

Yours warmly,

Jill Blagsvedt
Executive Director
Shambhala Meditation Center of Boston

Read the rest of this entry »

What a busy and exciting winter we had at the Boston Shambhala center! We hosted Acharya’s Adam Lobel and Richard John for public programs, ran a number of Shambhala Training programs, hosted Sophie Leger who led us in Qigong, hosted visiting teacher Kevin Griffin, a family gathering and a number of classes and community gatherings including Shambhala Day.

Here are some more community updates:

Practice & Education Committees Updates:
• The Curriculum & Programming Cmte has developed the calendar through the summer and is now working on the Fall 2010-2011 programming.
• Shambhala Training have been hard at work developing the 2010-2011 calendar and putting on the Heart of Warriorship. Mary Coonan has stepped into being the Board chair, so Barbara and Greg are now creating an “Executive Council” which will give much needed further support to Shambhala Training.

Community Updates:
• Community meetings around homelessness have been held, and a dedicated group of practitioners have decided to volunteer at Haley House.
• We hosted a Shambhala Household event to hear Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s teachings on what a Shambhala Household is, and have discussion. Click here to read the transcript of the teachings.
• Shambhala Day was a fantastic gathering of over 40 community members. We engaged in practice, celebration and community updates. More information about the expansion process was shared, which is accessible on the Blog by clicking “Expansion News” under the “subjects” heading.
• Lodro Rinzler and Josh Silberstein visited Boston in March to share insights about the Sakyong’s Year of Retreat and to take questions from the community. Over 40 people joined us for an insightful evening. Here is an article from the Shambhala Times about the visits.

Finance Updates:
• See our past Financial updates on this webpage, including 2008 & 2009 Year end documents

See you around the center soon!

Council/Committees

The Shambhala Council has been hard at work planning our Harvest of Peace community celebration and Fall membership drive. The Membership Drive is an opportunity for Council members, and other volunteers, to call all members to thank them for their continued financial support, update them on the state of the center, and to ask for an increase in dues. The membership drive will end with a Members’ Social on October 23rd. All members are invited! Ravenna Michalson, dharma singer-songwriter, will perform.

We are also working on preparing for this winter when homeless persons may again try to take up residence under our building. Kasung are preparing steps to follow if you see someone (who to call, etc.). This is coming soon and will be posted for the community in the Center Coordinator/Kasung office.

Scott Robbins joined the newly formed Programming & Curriculum Committee. Welcome Scott!

Community

Our teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, will soon enter a year-long retreat. We are hosting two events where we will celebrate the Sakyong’s life, and make financial and practice offerings in support of his year of retreat:

Essential Practices in Advance of Kongma Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s Year of Retreat will be held October 25th from 9am-1:30pm

Long Life Blessing, Tenshuk, for Kongma Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche Prior to his Year of Retreat will be held November 10th. Please join us for these auspicious events!

I will be attending the Shambhala Congress in early November, which is hosted by Shambhala International and held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. All members are invited to attend! The theme this year is “Exploring Community.” Click here to learn more about the Congress, and here to read a recent Shambhala Times article about it. Click here to learn more about Shambhala Governance and the Working Groups and here for the Working Groups latest activities. Please contact me if you have questions, issues or topics you are interested in bringing up with me, to bring to the Congress.

The Upcoming Move

As outlined in the BSC Vision and Mission for the Upcoming Move, there are two streams of activity taking place in support of the upcoming move: Community Building and Move Committee Research.

I have been inspired by the many ways in which community already exists, and thinking about ways we can deepen and strengthen. In order to do this we need to think about how we individually want to progress along our paths of meditation, and how much financial and volunteer support we can give. Having said that, now is a time when we need everyone’s help! I need volunteers to staff and coordinate programs (we will train you!), help with office program support, cleaning, and help updating the community blog. We also need your ideas and inspirations so please don’t hesitate to contact me about any of this!

The Move Committee held the first community meeting of what they hope will be a series of meetings, on October 15th. After I outlined “how we got here” (the decision to move the center), the Committee shared inspiration in the forms of other spirited Shambhala Centers, and shared about the Sakyong’s “Shambhala House model.” They also showed financials and potential available properties. The second part of the evening was spent sharing our hopes and fears about the move, and what we could personally offer towards making the move happen.

Finances

The center’s finances are stable, which we can be happy about. It has been a difficult year economically for many people and we have seen some members reduce or stop paying their dues for this reason. But, due to out Fall Membership drive, and the inspiration of new members, our total dues are increasing overall.

Membership dues and donations currently cover just over 50% of our base operating expenses (staff, shrine and office supplies, building maintenance, etc.) and program profits make up the remaining 50%.

Council/Committees

The Shambhala Council is receiving quotes to get new lighting installed around the center, in hopes of dissuading homeless persons from living here. Click here to read more updates about the homeless situation. Other facilities upgrades and fixes are also being considered. A portion of the front steps cement needs to be repaired (update: repaired) and we are gathering quotes on the cost of replacing the stairway roof (update: is being repaired).

The Health and Well-Being Council continues meetings to discuss ways to support the Shambhala community. They have compiled two resources:

- Resource Handbook which includes information on Cancer Support, Domestic Violence, Elder Care, Mental Illness, etc.

- Death and Dying Handbook which includes sample memorial service information, the Shambhala International instructions, and information about sukhavatis.

These are both located for your use in the Center Coordinator/Kasung office.

Finances

The Shambhala Center has completed making back payments of 4% of our gross income to Shambhala International for 2007 & 2008 which was upwards of $10,000. We are very happy to be caught up and contributing to support the center of the mandala!

Councils/Committees

Committees met to discuss programming and curriculum for Fall 2009 through Winter 2010. Shambhala Training, Programming / Curriculum (see below), and Practice & Education committee members were involved.

I am forming a Programming & Curriculum Committee, with members Janet Romaine and Diana Evans (so far), to help me look more closely at the centers offerings of classes and weekend programs. The questions we are looking at are: what is being offered, how could our offerings be improved, who is taking our classes, what could be added?

Three new members have joined our local kasung squad. If you are interested in the kasung please contact me or Bo Williams.

Community

April 4th marks the Vidyadhara’s Parinirvana which we celebrate as a community each year. This year Dorje Loppon Lodro Dorje joined us for the feast and community celebration. An auction fundraiser was also held to raise funds needed to complete our Chogyam Trungpa CD Archive. Over $3,000 was raised- thank you to everyone who participated! Click here to read the story and see pictures. Furniture is being purchased to house the archive.

The community held our first meeting to discuss the homeless persons living around the center. Click here for those updates.

We held a fundraiser for Konchok Foundation- the Boston Shambhala Triathlon. We were the first Shambhala center to hold the triathlon and raised over $1500 for the Konchok Foundation. Click here to read more on the community blog and here to see pictures.

Council/Committees

Kris Talluto joined our Shambhala Council as Technology Manager. He has finished up through Level Great Eastern Sun and is excited about his position! He also regularly attends and helps organize our Under 30 Tuesday evenings and staffs programs. Welcome Kris!

Andrea Sparks joined our Shambhala Council as Membership Coordinator. She has finished the Shambhala Training Levels and recently (Summer 09) completed a dathun. I am very excited to have Andrea on board!

Mary Coonan, Greg Smith and Barbara Hopcroft step into new leadership roles. They are now our Shambhala Training Resident Directors. Mary and Barbara recently completed Warrior Assembly, and Greg part of a dathun. Welcome!

Kathleen Hallissey is now working with me part time as our bookkeeper. Paul Adams’ family had twins, so he has temporarily stepped down from his position as Finance Manager on the Shambhala Council. I and the Board also felt that the finances needed to be tended to by a professional in that we are growing and getting ready for the move.

Finances

Financially we are now reporting based on a model suggested by Connie Brock, member of the Sakyong’s Council and Treasurer of Shambhala International. Click here to learn more about Connie.

I have changed our payments to Shambhala International for our Liability Insurance, and Building Insurance, to a monthly automatic payment, rather than giving it in a lump sum at the start of the fiscal year.

The Shambhala Center is giving 4% of our gross income to support the center of the mandala, Shambhala International. This is a monthly payment.

Community

We hosted a wonderful Shambhala Day celebration in February. How we would spend our $4000 Sakyong Foundation Matching Grant was announced: updating our shrines and shrine rooms. The day was highlighted by a members party with community member Jim Infantino’s band: Jims Big Ego. Click here to see pictures of the Shambhala Day community party.

Major Events

At the beginning of this month we hosted a very successful visit by H.E. Kilung Jigme Rinpoche. 75 people came for his Friday evening talk and then 35 stayed on for each of the day-long programs. The genuine connection between Rinpoche and the Boston sangha was reinforced with this visit and we hope to host him again in years to come.

We also had a very strong Shambhala Day with 70 people coming out on a workday in the snow to participate.

Environment

We recently had an electrician in to fix all of the sockets in the Shambhala Center. We also unfortunately have been having problems with our upstairs heating system and after five visits in the last week the problem was identified as a cracked heat exchanger. The part was under warranty but with labor, new filters, and miscellaneous costs the total for the work was $3250.

On a more positive note Bill Wooding has agreed to head up transforming the small shrine room. He and I have met and gone over the recommendations from Eva Wong. He is now going to meet with Hazel Bercholz to get a designer’s eye for this work and we will begin to contact other individuals in the community to move this project forward on a practical level.

Last but not least it is worth noting that Maureen O’Drisceoil has taken up the final portion of categorizing our tape library. After this last task is completed we will load information about what we have available online so community members can browse our tapes, CDs, and mp3s and a volunteer tape librarian can pull items out for members upon request. We hope this will go live in the spring.

Practice and Education Updates

Following on the Practice and Education Council meeting we now have a very full calendar for 2008 and into 2009. One unique aspect for the 2008 calendar is that we are wrapping up the first and second cycles of Stage 2 of the Path of Awakened Life (the Heart of Warriorship Levels/TLGD classes) such that they can start Stage 3 classes in the fall as one large group.

The Intermediate Offerings Committee has also grown exponentially this month to insure that various aspects of our programming that were handled by miscellaneous people are now championed by someone specific. Dawn Davies is now representing Shambhala Art, Jim Gussen Acharya visits, and Patty Sutton Shambhala holidays. We will be looking to add two more people to this committee, one to co-coordinate the Path of Awakened Life with Sarah Lipton, the other to oversee our more scholarly programs, such as Andy Karr’s visit in April. In addition both resident directors of Shambhala Training sit on this committee.

In other news Anne Carter, Dawn Davies, and Sarah Lipton have all just returned from Sutrayana Seminary.

Financials

John Bailes and I met with a CPA this month and, given the fact that I am transitioning from my role, John is away until March, and Paul Adams is traveling a good deal at the moment we agreed that it would be fruitful to regroup in April and begin to work with him then. Meanwhile Paul has generated 2007 year-end reports which will be made available to our membership shortly.

Community Meeting

Over two dozen tantrikas met this month to discuss the potential transition to a new building. Overall they were incredibly enthusiastic and the Board ought to consider how to move forward with presenting this enthusiasm to the rest of the community and forming an exploratory committee.