The heart that is broken has been broken open.

- Susan Piver

Practically everyone has an opinion about the healthcare debate currently raging in Congress. Undeniably, it’s a heated issue. But despite all the discussion, it seems that one critical element is consistently overlooked: compassion.

Dr. David R. Shlim, who will be teaching our upcoming Medicine & Compassion retreat, has devoted his life’s work to making compassion a more prevalent focus of Western medicine. In the introduction to Medicine & Compassion: A Tibetan Lama’s Guidance for Caregivers, Dr. Shlim explains:

“It’s ironic that this lack of overt compassion in medicine comes at a time when medicine can do more for a patient than at any time in history. Despite…remarkable achievements, few people seem as happy as they should be with the way medicine is practiced…A piece of the puzzle is missing, and that missing piece may be compassion.”

As a society, we have the technology to perform open-heart surgery but we lack the guidance to open our hearts with strength and empathy. 

Compassion literally means “to suffer with,” implying that we actually extend our experience of ourselves to include the suffering of others. Faced with the immense suffering going on all over the planet, it’s a daunting concept. For most of us, the idea of opening to suffering conjures up fears of overwhelm and emotional exhaustion. But here’s another irony: Studies show that bringing compassion into our daily lives actually makes us more competent, focused, and present.

Millions of years of evolution have taught us to shut down to pain and suffering. Perhaps it’s a necessary defense mechanism but, at a certain point, this defense begins to harm us more than it protects us. And at a time when compassion is crucial, we need support to transcend these habitual responses. As New York Times bestselling author Susan Piver, who will lead our upcoming Wisdom of a Broken Heart retreat, reminds us, it’s a truly courageous step to embrace the dark power of heartbreak as a means to open the heart of compassion.

At Shambhala Mountain Center, this support is available to you. Whichever of our programs feels right for you, we invite you to take advantage of this support – because the world needs us to bring compassion back into the discussion now more than ever.

Continuing to meditate, he got sober with the help of a 12-step program. He attended his first meditation retreat in 1991 — with Jack Kornfield, an influential Buddhist teacher who trained as a monk in Thailand and Burma.

Levine liked Kornfield’s message — he went on to study with him — but he said he felt a little out of place.

“I was the only 20-year-old there and certainly the only punk rocker,” he writes. “Looking around, I didn’t see anyone even close to my age. This was my father’s scene, not mine.”

After 10 years of studying Buddhism, Levine was certified to teach by Kornfield. But he wanted to create a new scene — for people like himself, the kind who liked to rock out to bands like Suicidal Tendencies and slam-dance in mosh pits. So he began leading meditation groups in Santa Cruz and San Francisco and in 2003 launched a Dharma Punx group on New York City’s Lower East Side. He moved to Los Angeles three and a half years ago and founded Against the Stream last year.

Though he draws inspiration from many strains of Buddhism (including Thai, Sri Lankan and Burmese), he said, he has tried to tear down the hierarchical difference between teacher and student that is common in those forms.

“I tend to present the teachings as a peer, as, ‘We are all in this together seeking happiness,’ ” he said. “We are all the students. Can we take the wisdom and the compassion of the Buddha’s teachings and roots and leave behind some of the other things that I see as corruptions — the dogma, the power, the patriarchy and superstition?”

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As with most natural health practices that draw from spirituality, in order to harmonize the mind and body, like yoga and traditional Chinese medicine, feng shui must be taken seriously in order for it to work. Buying a plant for your entryway, a table fountain for your dining room, painting your kitchen red, and keeping a lucky penny on your mantle won’t help to bring you fortune or good health unless you invite the actions of feng shui.

Learn how to integrate feng shui into everyday life. Join Eva Wong as she teaches you how nature’s energy can bring balance to your life. Through talks, discussions, slide shows, and walks at Shambhala Mountain Center, Eva Wong will present the principles of landform and the nature of the carriers of energy in the land—dragon veins in the mountains, earth dragon in valleys, and water dragons in rivers and lakes. Contact Shambhala Mountain Center to learn more.

Developed thousands of years ago in China, feng shui is a combination of art a science, whose intent is to create a balance in all parts of life. The energy balance that takes place in feng shui is often ignored in the West where feng shui has merely become a way to arrange a room according to harmonizing colors and calming doorways.  When practiced fully, living in feng shui brings more than good decorating; it brings positive fortune and long-standing good health.

Learn how to integrate feng shui into everyday life. Join Eva Wong as she teaches you how nature’s energy can bring balance to your life. Through talks, discussions, slide shows, and walks at Shambhala Mountain Center, Eva Wong will present the principles of landform and the nature of the carriers of energy in the land—dragon veins in the mountains, earth dragon in valleys, and water dragons in rivers and lakes. Contact Shambhala Mountain Center to learn more.

Qigong has the power to improve your  health, enhance well-being and expand life. Developed by ancient Chinese shamans, Taoists and Buddhists, Qigong is a spiritual discipline that brings harmony and peace into your life.

Aside from achieving a calm state of mind and reducing stress, Qigong has many other health benefits, such as treating cancer and heart disease. Following are some of Qigong’s remarkable health benefits.

Well-being and improved health
Qigong works with your entire body, affecting all health aspects. While Qigong has been said to cure specific illnesses, the primary reason for practice is not just to add years to your life, but life to your years.

Clear and tranquil mind
Key to reducing stress is getting your mind at peace. A peaceful mind leads to a peaceful universe in which you can heal and transform others just through your presence. When you achieve a peaceful mind you will make better decisions and have the skill to know when to act and when to be still.

Deeper, more restorative sleep
Qigong will help you find the deep relaxation and mental quiet necessary for sleep.

Increased energy, including sexual vitality and fertility
People who practice Qigong have more energy. Consistent practice can increase energy and restore youthfulness.

Comfortable warmth
Qigong is great for cold hands and feet. Your circulation will improve causing your body to generate more internal warmth when it’s cold.

Clear skin
The skin, like the intestines, is an organ of elimination. According to Chinese medicine, as your Qigong improves, your body eliminates toxins, and the skin becomes clear.

Happy attitude
There is an old Tibetan saying, “You can tell a Yogi by his or her laugh.” Correct and moderate Qigong practice usually creates an optimistic and joyous disposition.

More efficient metabolism
Practice Qigong and you’ll experience improved digestion and increased growth in your hair and nails.

Greater physiological control
This means that aspects of the body that were imbalanced or out of control begin to normalize, for example, breathing rate, heart rate, blood pressure, hormone levels, and states of chronic inflammation or depletion.

Spiritual effects
Advancement in Qigong is often accompanied by a variety of spiritual experiences. When the ‘Qi’ is abundant, clear and flowing, the senses perceive and are permeated by sweetness.

Want to try Qigong? Shambhala Mountain Center is offering a beginner and intermediate Qigong retreat. Practice with renowned instructor Eva Wong and learn to cultivate strength of body and calmness of mind. Contact Shambhala Mountain Center to learn more about its upcoming retreat,  Traditional Chinese Qigong: Levels I & II with Eva Wong.

B. Alan Wallace and Shamatha
Recent studies show that meditation practices have a positive result on stress management and emotional stability. B. Alan Wallace has been working with neuroscientists and psychologists in a long-term-study that measures the effects of intensive meditation on attention, cognitive performance, emotion regulation and health. His studies have helped him to develop training methods that include deep, intensive meditation that fosters attentional vividness and stability as well as compassion, loving-kindness, empathetic joy and equanimity.

Experience the teachings of B. Alan Wallace at the Shambhala Mountain Center, where he will be leading the weeklong retreat, The Way of Shamatha: Soothing the Body, Settling the Mind and Illuminating Awareness. During the retreat you will explore the power of Shamatha which will lead to active engagement in loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity.

About B. Alan Wallace
Wallace has been teaching Buddhism, philosophy and meditation in Asia, Europe, North and South America and Australia since 1976. He has served as interpreter for many Buddhist contemplatives and scholars, including the Dalai Lama, and has written dozens of books and essays. His education and training started in 1971 when he left college to pursue a passion for Tibetan Buddhism. He has since studied at the Library of Tibetan Works & Archives in Dharamsala, India, the Institute of Buddhist Dialects, The Tibet Institute in Switzerland and the Center for Higher Tibetan Studies in Mt. Pelerin, Switzerland. After completing his BA in 1984 as an Independent Scholar in Physics, Philosophy and Sanskrit, he enrolled in the graduate program in religious studies at Stanford University, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1995. During these years at Stanford, he continued his studies of the philosophy of science and of the mind. His main research centered on integrating Buddhism with Western science and philosophy with the aim of achieving a more comprehensive understanding of consciousness.

In 1997, he joined the faculty of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he taught courses on Tibetan Buddhism, language, and culture, as well as the interface between science and religion. In 2003, Alan established the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, a non-profit institution concerned with synthesizing scientific and contemplative inquiry into the nature and potentials of consciousness.

As a young clinical professor at San Francisco State University, Villoldo studied the use of energy healing to increase the production of endorphins, the natural brain chemicals responsible for reducing pain and for creating ecstatic states. At the time, his primary tool for research was the microscope. But it did not take long for Villoldo to realize that there were people around the globe obtaining the same results without of the use of Western science. With this realization, Villoldo hung up his lab coat, put on a pair of hiking boots and bought a ticket to the Amazon to meet the Inca in Peru.

While with the Inca, Villoldo studied shamanism, a five-thousand year-old energy medicine that heals through spirit and light. For more than ten years he traveled the Amazon and trained with jungle medicine people. What he discovered was a set of sacred technologies that transform the body, heal the soul and change the way we live and die. The medicine people explained to Villoldo that we are surrounded by a Luminous Energy Field whose source is located in infinity. The Luminous Energy Field is a matrix that maintains the health and vibrancy of the physical body.

Today, Villoldo teaches us through seminars, retreats and books that the experience of infinity can heal and transform us and that is can free us from feeling trapped by illness, old age and disease. By understanding that you are more than flesh and bone but more spirit and light, Villoldo believes you can change the way you heal and age.

Come experience the wisdom and power of Alberto Villoldo’s teaching at Shambhala Mountain Center’s upcoming course, The Shaman’s Way of Healing: An Introduction to Healing the Luminous Body. Contact us today to learn more.