Shambhala Mountain Center Blog

At Shambhala, runners are enjoying a new high – at 8,000 feet, in fact – and leaving their iPods behind as they learn to enjoy the sound of their own breath. Runners from all over the country gathered recently for “Running with the Mind of Meditation and Yoga” with Tarah Cech, Marty Kibiloski and Jon Pratt. The feedback from participants and press alike was remarkable; specifically Runner’s World, the Daily Camera and the Running Times.

The aim of this course is to help runners connect with their bodies and surroundings, through meditation, yoga and contemplative running. Benefits of such mindfulness include injury prevention and improved performance through increased awareness and thought control.

As Pratt told Running Times: runners “are more inclined than most people to be contemplative, to want to explore their inner experience as you do when you meditate. And to engage in an activity that is as repetitive as running takes discipline and focus. These qualities are also essential to the meditator. So runners seem to have both the natural inclination and skills to be meditators.”

Cech and Pratt’s teacher, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche – a three-hour marathoner – is the author of “Turning the Mind into an Ally” and “Ruling Your World”, and is one of the world’s foremost meditation teachers. He is head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage.

This popular program has been so successful that it has been scheduled again for September 3 – 6th. Click on the link below for more info.

http://www.shambhalamountain.org/programs/1299

Click on these links to see what past participants had to say:

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/1,7124,s6-243-297–13481-0,00.html

http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_15607862?source=most_viewed

Shambhala Mountain Center often hosts Cankatola Ti Ospaye (chan-kha-toh-la tee oshe-pah-yeah), a gathering of  members of the Shambhala community who have established an ongoing relationship with the Lakota tribe. The group’s president is Jim Tolstrup, a Shambhala member who has been involved with the Native American community since he was a teenager. There have been hundreds of sweat lodge ceremonies at Shambhala Mountain Center over the last 10 years (more than 1,000 people have participated).

Click here to read more on the Shambhala Times

Here are some lovely photos of Cankatola Ti Ospaye at the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya.

Yoga teacher Amy Weintraub tells the story of a student who suffers from chronic depression, and descibes the ways her yoga practice visibly affects her.  Amy will be offering LifeForce Yoga® to Manage Your Mood at Shambhala Mountain Center in June.

For three years, Elizabeth knew that something beyond the pain she was feeling in her joints was wrong, but she didn’t know what it was.  A forty-one year-old art historian, she remembered a time when she rode her bike nearly every day, when she had a circle of women friends with whom she went salsa dancing at a Latin club on Friday nights, when she went to sleep with a new idea for an exhibit at the museum where she was a curator and woke up already writing the catalogue copy in her head.  But for the last three years, her bike had leaned against the wall with a flat tire, her friends had fallen away—some married, her best friend moved to Seattle, and the others, well, she didn’t know about the others.  Her phone didn’t ring anymore.  She stopped dancing when her physician diagnosed her aching joints as fibromyalgia and said she might have a degenerative arthritic condition in her spine.

 Though she had enjoyed decorating her house when she’d bought it seven years earlier, it had now fallen into disrepair.  She didn’t call the plumber when her toilet leaked, and the hard wood of her bathroom floor darkened and warped.  She rarely changed her sheets and almost never made the bed.  Most of the time, her shutters stayed closed against the Arizona sun, and when her dishwasher, then her disposal broke down, she didn’t bother to have them fixed. 

Elizabeth suffers from dysthymia, a chronic depression that at times has incapacitated her. In our work together, Elizabeth has found that a slow, gentle practice with longer holdings that also includes some dynamic movements and energizing breathing exercises works best to alleviate her symptoms.  I observe a significant difference in her appearance and her ability to connect with others when she’s practicing and when she isn’t.  A tall, thin woman, when she walks into class after a period of absence, she is hunched forward with her head lowered, as though, if she could make herself small enough, no one would notice she’s come back.  She has trouble breathing deeply into the bottom of her lungs and often sits with her eyes closed, while the rest of the class is taking deep belly breaths.  But during the times she is able to come to class regularly, there is a visible change in her bearing.  Her posture is better, she looks me straight in the eye, and I suddenly notice how attractive she is.

The mother hen in me would like to call her at six a.m. every morning to invite her to class.  But all I can do is be present for her when she does show up.  And her experience in class is always varied.  “Sometimes I come out feeling peaceful,” she says, “sometimes energized and alert, sometimes desperately sad.  But I rarely come out feeling dead or anxious, my usual “presentations” of depression.  Yoga short circuits the downward spiral for me—makes me feel less hateful toward my body, mind, and emotions.”  While I believe that a regular daily practice would make a difference in the way Elizabeth manages her dysthymia, I trust her when she tells me that her mat is “my little island of calm presence, even if I just sit on it.”

Excerpted from Yoga for Depression: A Compassionate Guide to Relieve Suffering Through Yoga (Broadway Books).

Amy Weintraub, MFA, E-RYT 500. Amy is the author of Yoga for Depression and founder of the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute.  She’s a leader in the field of yoga and mental health, offering professional trainings in LifeForce Yoga® for Mood Management, and speaks at medical and psychological conferences internationally. Amy’s evidence-based yoga protocol is featured on the award-winning DVD series LifeForce Yoga to Beat the Blues. She edits a newsletter that includes current research, news and media reviews on Yoga and mental health.  www.yogafordepression.com

Here are some practical benefits of doing things you love, from Tama Kieves, who will be leading the retreat UNLEASHING YOUR CALLING: Create the Work & Life You Love at SMC in May.

Doing what you love connects you to Infinite Love: Every spiritual book tells us that the brightest gold is hidden in the present moment. We have what we seek. Many spiritual paths also tell us that as we give, we receive. It’s easier to feel less fear and constriction, when we’re in the mindset of offering love and sharing our gifts. You will also find that when you follow your inspiration, you tap a sense of being connected to a bigger reality. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, says “Our dreams come from a divine source. Moving in the direction of our dreams moves us toward our divinity.” When you do what you love, you open the doors to serendipity and inexplicable grace. I know that personally I came to believe in a loving God more through writing and teaching. I felt so much love in doing these activities and I felt a presence that always left golden keys and love notes on my path. I enjoy what the wisdom tradition of A Course in Miracles says, “Once you have chosen what you cannot complete alone, you are no longer alone.”  

Doing what you love activates your secret strength:  Love empowers you in ways that nothing else can. Sy Safransky, founder of The Sun magazine, wrote about the bottomless strength he found by pursuing his passion. “Marrying who I am with what I do—earning a life, not just a living—has been an act of the purest magic, aligning me with some raw power in the universe, giving me the strength to stay up late, get up early, do what I ‘d never do just for the money.”  In their book Success Built to Last, Jerry Poras, Stewart Emery, Mark Thompson  pick up this same theme: “You may have noticed that we now live in a global economy where job security is a contradiction in terms. All you have is your personal capital, and we’re not talking about your money. It’s your talents, skills, relationships, and enthusiasm. Making success last takes a level of tenacity and passion only love can sustain. Without it, you’ll collapse under the weight of the hardship or long-lasting adversity that you are bound to encounter.” I’d also like to add, that in addition to wild stamina, you’ll also find you have more genius and aptitude in things you love.

Doing what you love is a clue to your next step: Doing what you love is not a static path. If you love playing the piano, it doesn’t mean you will always play the piano. It means you start with the piano, and the next step emerges. In my career, I started by writing poetry. That led to writing a personally intimate self-help book with poetic overtones. That led to doing workshops and offering individual coaching. That led to traveling and speaking. And I’m still romping onward on this dynamic path. Where you start off is not where you end up. The energy keeps building. But you have to take that first step in order to know the next step.

***

Oh, I hear the restless murmurs in the background already. They spit, “Are you crazy, write poetry in an economy like this? Take salsa lessons? Play video games with my grandkids?”  Yes, by all means step away from your somber, limited mindset. You can always go back, if you like. But meanwhile step into the light. You were given your desire for a reason. You were given the talents you have. I wonder just how rich your life will be, once you tap your ultimate security.

Tama J. Kieves, an honors graduate of Harvard Law School, left her law practice to write and to encourage others to live fulfilling, meaningful lives. She is a sought-after speaker, career and transition coach and best-selling author of THIS TIME I DANCE! Creating the Work You Love (Tarcher/Penguin.) She is currently the founder and president of Awakening Artistry, an organization dedicated to inspiring and supporting a global family of creative souls, visionary minds, daredevil entrepreneurs, and empowered leaders. Visit her popular website at www.AwakeningArtistry.com and sign up to receive her free monthly e-newsletter filled with support for living your inspired life. Download her free transformational report on “Finding Your Calling Now” at www.AwakeningArtistry.com

By Tama Kieves, who will be teaching UNLEASHING YOUR CALLING: Create the Work & Life You Love at Shambhala Mountain Center in May. Next week we will feature some practical benefits of doing the things you love.

Here is my dearest hope for our changing times. I hope more of us will turn our eyes away from the crumbling wreckage of conditions we knew, and turn our eyes toward what is now available.  Alfred Lord Tennyson said, “The shell must break before the bird can fly.”
 
Many of us put our dreams on hold to take care of the “more important” matters of earning a living.  Many got comfortable in the postponement fantasy of “retirement.” Someday, in utopia, over the rainbow, we’d be able to do what we’d really want. We’d grind our teeth on Mondays meanwhile, or sleepwalk through the week and collect our paycheck. I think the Universe is now saying, now or never. You didn’t come here to planet Earth to wait for your chance. This is your chance. You have more love, genius, and invincibility inside you than you realize. Do what you love now. Tap your secret advantages. Doing what you love isn’t just fun. It’s crucial. 
 
I’m not saying you have to quit your job or abandon all attempts to support yourself. I’m saying that it would help you immensely to take things you love off the back burner and put them on the front one. Think about it. How can it be that the activity that gives you the most aliveness and fulfillment is extraneous to your life? It’s not just that you’ll enjoy the hours you spend on painting or playing chess. It’s that doing what you love changes your brain chemistry, your energy levels, and your entire outlook on life.
 
 If you’re in a rocky situation, doing something you love, even for 30 minutes can take the edge off of everything.  I don’t know about you but when I’m starving, it’s hard for me to be a civilized human being. I may not howl at people or snatch ice cream cones out of their hands like a chimpanzee, but the thought does cross my mind.  Now, when I’m fed, I’m absolutely charming. I have latitude. I have manners. I think of philosophical things to say or write. I can bear to wait in line without imagining throwing someone’s cell phone out the window and twisting their head off. You see, it’s just best to feed me.

It’s the same on a soul level. If we’re not doing what feeds us most, we’re walking around starved, with secret dry grasses, and then everything seems to enflame us. One of my clients hated her job, hated every nanosecond she had to spend there. But an interesting thing happened when she started to make writing her novel a priority in her life. She noticed that on the days she wrote, she felt calmer, like she’d gotten a massage for the tension in her soul. It wasn’t that she now loved her job. But she didn’t feel as though a thief had come in through the window and stolen her most cherished goods and even hope, day after day, leaving her with debris, regret, and forms to fill out.

Oh, I hear the restless murmurs in the background already. They spit, “Are you crazy, write poetry in an economy like this? Take salsa lessons? Play video games with my grandkids?”  Yes, by all means step away from your somber, limited mindset. You can always go back, if you like. But meanwhile step into the light. You were given your desire for a reason. You were given the talents you have. I wonder just how rich your life will be, once you tap your ultimate security.

In meditation we cut through our fantasies and relate with life as it really is. Then something magical can happen. In an article published in March’s issue of Shambhala Sun Magazine, Judith Simmer-Brown says it’s exactly the same in our relationships. Here’s an excerpt.

Judith will be exploring these themes at Shambhala Mountain Center in April.

Romantic love, no matter how delicious, is the primary symptom of cultural malaise, the central neurosis of Western civilization.

By romantic love I mean that which focuses upon the loved one as an object of passion, devotion, and fixation. The loved one becomes the answer to all of life’s problems, the source of all our happiness, and potentially, the source of all of our woes. But, if we are honest with ourselves, we can see that romantic love is deeply unhappy love, addicted to misery and suffering, cloaked in fantasy and separation.

Romantic love has become a kind of religion in Western culture. In his landmark book, Love in the Western World, Denis de Rougemont traced the development of romantic love in the courtly tradition of the Middle Ages, describing it as a Christian heresy. He described how Christian nobles transferred their devotion from the unattainable god to the unattainable lover, imbuing her with ideal traits beyond any mortal woman. He argued that such a view of romantic love survives today; even now, one of the most pervasive and unacknowledged forms of theism is our romantic life. We have made the lover into a god, and we are in love with love rather than with the lover. The lover is cast in a specific role in order for him or her to remain a god.

What are the qualities of romantic relationships? First of all, romantic love thrives on separation. The unattainable love is the most attractive one—someone who is married to someone else, living in a distant city, or in a nexus of the forbidden. The girl or boy next door is not a good candidate for romantic fantasy, and neither is one’s spouse. Separation makes the heart grow fonder and more passionate, because with separation the fantasy of the lover can be kept alive. The reality of the person cannot threaten the fantasy. For this reason, many newlyweds become quickly disillusioned over the mundane realities of married life. The courtship was so exciting, but marriage is too real, too ordinary.

Because romance thrives on separation, it is sexy but never sexually fulfilled. If one were truly satiated sexually, then the romance would be threatened. Often, the lover chooses the mystical option of desire, giving up the living, breathing sexual partner for the fantasy of the unattainable lover. Illicit love affairs are hot, but are rarely resolved in marriage.

Secondly, romantic love is frightfully impersonal. We are looking for our “type”—an intellectual, a jock, an ethereal blonde. Our typing can become very subtle, including our lover’s taste in clothes or way of walking. But we are in love with a fantasy; the person of the lover is absent. It actually helps not to have the person around too much, because they might destroy the fantasy. We have a terror that love may become too real.

Making the lover into a god, we foster a sense of poverty in ourselves. This is a lack of completion, which manifests as insatiable desire. We feel inadequate and helpless without a lover. When we have made the lover into a god, we can never join our lover. We are stuck in a situation of desperate longing, of neediness and insecurity. This is why de Rougemont called romantic love a Christian heresy; passion means suffering, and we have misplaced our devotion onto a fantasy, which has trapped us forever in unhappiness.

To explore how we can see through fantasy, find the gifts of disappointment, and relate with the magic of reality, click here for more information  on Judith Simmer-Brown’s weekend retreat at Shambhala Mountain in April. 

 An excerpt from the March 2010 issue of Shambhala Sun magazine. Shown here by permission of Shambhala Sun magazine, a non-profit publication of Shambhala Sun Foundation, www.shambhalasun.com

Sue Frederick talks about using your own intuition (and some of her valuable tools) to hone in on the unique way you can contribute to the world through your next career direction.  One of the things she explains is how examining your birthday can lead to a profound alignment between who you are, what you will excel at doing, and how you can benefit the world by doing it.

CLICK HERE to watch Sue’s Interview on YouTube

If you’re in need of forward direction, Sue will be teaching the workshop See Your Dream Job at Shambhala Mountain this month! Simply follow the program link for more information and to register.

Susan Piver, who this month published her latest book The Wisdom of a Broken Heart was recently interviewed on CBS Early Show. She will be teaching a workshop, Wisdom of a Broken Heart,  at Shambhala Mountain Center on January 22-24th.

Today meditation has to be practiced collectively as a family, a city, a nation, and a community of nations.     – Thich Nhat Hanh

Folks are initially attracted to Shambhala Mountain Center for the pristine land and the opportunity to meet and study with the many brilliant teachers from various traditions thatvisit each year. What I personally find most surprisingly delightful about every program that I have attended–and there have been many–is that participants invariably create a heartfelt, caring community. Whether it be an introductory meditation program, a Qigong intensive, or the women’s annual cancer retreat, I am always touched by the kindness and care everyone has for each other — even though many of us just met.

In Buddhism, we talk about taking refuge in the three jewels: the Buddha (teacher), the Dharma (teachings), and the Sangha (community). These three jewels are the foundation for all forms of Buddhism. In the West, we have a tendency to focus on the teacher or particular teachings, often neglecting the third jewel that allows these first two to flourish. As Thich Nhat Hanh predicts:

“The next Buddha may not take the form of an individual. In the twenty-first century the Sangha may be the body of the Buddha. We have the power to bring the next Buddha into existence in this century.”

As we begin not only a new year but a new decade, we have the power to create an enlightened society. And it is only through compassion and loving-kindness that we will survive the immense challenges that now threaten our planet.

We invite you visit Shambhala Mountain Center and experience the magic of the land, the profundity of practicing with our incredible teachers, but most importantly, the preciousness of sharing this journey with one another.

Also, if you have been to Shambhala Mountain Center, please share your story. We’d love to hear from you.

Brian Spielmann

Tina Patterson, who runs our international travel program, is currently in Iran working on our 2010 Iran trip. Here’s her report.

I have been traveling in Iran for 4 days now and I thought some of you might enjoy reading about what I have experienced so far:

Sunday. Landed in Tehran at 2.00 a.m. Immigration and customs goes very quickly. Nobody is allowed to bring alcohol into the country. Women must wear head scarves but the dress code in Tehran is very liberal. Women wear jeans and boots and heels but he whole body is covered (no t-shirts or short skirts!)

Tehran is a city of 15 million people and aside from the beautiful museums there is not much to see in Tehran. However, I was struck by how modern and progressive the city looked. It is a clean city (except for the air) and surprisingly, the architecture is very Western looking. But the most amazing part of Tehran are the mountains that ascend from the city everywhere you look.

We visited the Shah’s old palace which is located in Northern Tehran which happens to be the most affluent part of town. The cost for an apartment in Northern Tehran is about $ 500 per square foot. And if one wants to buy one you have to pay cash. There are no mortgages in Iran. As for owning a car, it costs about $ 8 to fill up a tank. Our guide told us that someone in Tehran just brought in 250 Porsches from Germany which will be sold here within a week or two. Iran is the source of the second largest oil reserve in the world but has only the capability to refine 35%. This means they end up importing gasoline mostly form India.

Although Iran has all that oil money, the infrastructure and the tourist facilities and nowhere near as developed as they are for example in Dubai or the Emirates. Although the money is there, the government does not allow for it to be used for private investments in hotels for example or up scale restaurants.

We don’t see a lot of poverty here though. The only beggars so far were illegal immigrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The best thing about Tehran was a visit to one of the tea houses where people go to socialize, have tea and smoke water pipes. Women are allowed inside. As a matter of fact, women in Iran enjoy pretty much the same rights as men. Women own businesses, there a 9 women representatives in Parliament, women go to college etc. Only the clergy positions are strictly reserved for men. Marriage is often still arranged but less and less so. When a couple gets married the husband and wife agree on the dowry i.e. the value of the dowry. If the husband divorces the wife he has to pay the dowry (and only then does he have to pay it) plus alimony. Divorce is allowed by both parties so it’s not as strict as we think!

Our guide is fantastic! He lived in the U.S. for over 12 years and went to college in the U.S. He has a Masters in Business and he is incredibly knowledgeable. His English is perfect and he has taught us more in 4 days about the history of civilization in general, Islam and the politics in Iran than I will ever be able to remember. He is very liberal, speaks his mind about the political situation which he opposes (he watches CNN, BBC.. he even gets FOX TV which he does not think much of and VH1… he is totally up on today’s music scene!) He knows about everything… history, culture, politics, social issues. I hope some of you will have the pleasure of traveling with him and getting to know him. He is an exceptional guide with a great personality.

Many of the people here are reformists, and some are monarchists and do not  agree with the political structure currently in place and… not everyone is religious! Our guide, our driver, many of the people at the hotel they do not pray three times a day and they do not go to mosques! (Shiites pray 3 times a day, Sunis 5 times.. there are no Sunis in Iran). As for their views when it comes to the West, our guide told me that many Iranians, the majority, are looking for a way to establish a harmonious relationship with the West and with Israel and yes, they like America and Americans! At the moment, they feel completely isolated from the rest of the world. By the way, Iran has the second highest population of Jewish people in the Middle East after Israel and the Jewish population is even represented by two people in the parliament.

We were lucky to have been here during the last few days of Ashura, the holiest day of the year in the Shiite religion. During this time people honor the martyrdom of the third saint Hussein. People walk through the streets and flagellate themselves with small chains. This tradition dates back for thousands of years.

On the second day we flew to Kerman where one of the most important Sufi saints is buried. From there we set out on an amazing drive across the desert to Yazd. Iran is surrounded by beautiful mountain ranges and you can see them in the distance as you drive through the desert. Many of the mountains are snowcapped. It’s amazing to think that we are in the cradle of civilization. Mesopotamia is only a few hundred miles away and so, by the way, is the Afghan border.

Yazd is home to the Zoroastrians. This is an ancient religion which honors and worships fire (Thus spoke Zarathustra) and used to have sky burials (just like the Tibetans). The fire in the Zoroastrian temple is said to have been kept lit since the 1600s. Yazd is also home to one of the most beautiful and well preserved Friday Mosques in the country with incredibly intricate and magnificent tile work.

Today, New Year’s Eve we are driving for 6 hours to Shiraz with a stop at the ancient site of Pasargadae. Nothing but desert as far as the eye can see. Our guide is giving a talk on the evolution of civilization in this part of the world and on the evolution and origins of writing and settlements. The first signs of civilization in Iran date back 8000 years!! Yesterday we learned about the old Silk Road as we drove by a caravanserai in the desert which once was used to provide food and shelter for the merchants and their camels. The Silk Road began in China on to Mongolia, on to the steppes of Transoxiana (Northeast of Iran), then down to Samarkand and Bukhara in Uzbekistan then Turkmenistan, then to Isfahan and Shiraz in Iran, then to Baghdad, then to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Ethiopia. Fascinating!

I’m sure everyone is interested about the immediate political situation but I don’t feel comfortable addressing that on the internet. All I can say is that many of the “myths” created by Western TV and news have been shattered within a few days of being here and interacting with the local people who have been nothing but friendly, curious and welcoming. I feel completely safe here.

When we visited the site of Pasargadae today, which marks the beginning of the Persian history, our guide said that if all the Iranian people understood and appreciated their long and rich cultural heritage, there would have never been a revolution in Iran!

On that note I leave you all with a Happy New Year’s wish from one of the most fascinating places in the world! Enjoy the photos!

Tina Patterson is the founder of Authentic Asia and has been leading trips to Asia, Europe and the Middle East for the past twenty years. Besides Iran, 2010 upcoming trips include Bhutan, Nepal, Mustang, Tibet & Nepal, and India & Sikkim.