The Unfaithful Yes

Posted on May 24, 2013 by admin

by Janet Solyntjes

“Saying “yes” to more things than we can actually manage to be present for with

integrity and ease of being is in effect saying “no” to all those things and people and

places we have already said “yes” to, including, perhaps, our own well-being.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn from Coming to Our Senses

Having a manageable life is a key concern for most adult members of society. Unfortunately, it is becoming a big concern of our children as well. As Jon has often pointed out, we live in society afflicted by Attention-Deficit Over-activity Disorder. We simply have too much on our plate. We want to slow down, do less, have more time for our self, but it’s not happening.

Moving through life at high speed can be addictive. Overcommitting is fashionable. Saying “yes” when we want to say no is often a cloaked desire for approval. In our longing to know that we are lovable human beings, we look outside our self for selfworth. If we take on too much, saying yes to the many requests of friends, co-workers, supervisors, and family, we will inevitably be unfaithful. We must relearn our loveliness and practice saying “no.”

Why do I think that relearning our loveliness comes first? When we fully love our self and know that our nature is open, wise, and caring, the need to establish our identity in the outer world diminishes. We know how to be content in our own being, comfortable in our own skin. Embracing our deeper nature, we know the path of personal integrity. If saying yes to busyness means losing the capacity to truly listen to our loved ones when they have something meaningful to say, why would we do so? If that extra trip to the store to satisfy an urge to acquire something means losing a few precious moments of alone time at home for meditation, reflection, or just simply non-doing, then why would we say yes to the impulse?

When leading MBSR retreats I sense participants’ struggle with surrendering to an entire weekend of accomplishing nothing. Slowing down is like coming off a drug. There’s a withdrawal period that is uncomfortable. Practicing mindfulness asks us to move into a place of faithful yes to our innermost nature. We faithfully say yes to each moment, not compromising it for a future fantasy or the play of reminiscences.

If we want to heal the societies ADOD, feeling, as we do, that its absence would only enrich our experience of living with others, then we should take a look at the times when we offer an unfaithful yes to the world. Only we know when that is.

That’s why it comes down to knowing within our self the feeling of contentment. Living with integrity is much more interesting and satisfying than managing hyperactive over-activity. Don’t you agree?

Janet Solyntjes will be teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction at Shambhala Mountain Center on June 27 – 30.

The Fresh Eye: Red

Posted on May 22, 2013 by admin

by Barb Colombo, 11:11 Productions

The desire to capture the tiniest moments that beat across the human condition cannot be stopped. Whether it’s a mother’s embrace, a bride’s blush, a groom’s tears, or a yoga practitioner gliding into the perfect backbend, the world begs to be captured by my camera. The woman’s connection to her sisters, the blade of grass weeping with rain, or the community of a land, they all call to me to be recorded, remembered, felt. It is my hope that you feel or see things you may have overlooked before only to see them again through these perspectives.

Photographing at the Shambhala Mountain Center drops one right into the realm of feeling divinely inspired. From the minute you step on the land; up that long, dirt drive; a gentle sensation of transformation starts to happen. To say I was greatly impacted and inspired by this time would be an understatement. My immersion has left me feeling a surprising sense of connection in a very short period of time; with images that reveal the magic that occurs here.

Barbara Colombo has an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and works as a freelance photographer in her Boulder based photo business 11:11 Productions Photography. She has won numerous awards and exhibited her work internationally in both galleries and publications. She loves working with people and is also an avid gardener. Her photographic passion for people has also extended into the botanical world revealing deep mysteries of the plant world. One thing you might not know about her is she passed out in midair while on a tandem sky dive jump in New Zealand.

Sit Still & Let Nature Play: An Interview With Acharya Allyn Lyon

Posted on May 21, 2013 by admin

By Brianna Socha

I first met Acharya Allyn Lyon last fall in Los Angeles when she was the senior teacher at a weekthun. A weekthun is an intensive week of group meditation with almost 12 hours spent in silent practice each day. Her morning and evening talks were welcome guidance, grounding us with wisdom and compassion. Whenever the hot boredom set in and I would start to question why I chose to spend my coveted vacation time sitting quietly on a cushion, her example would remind me of the beauty of someone who has followed the path of meditation.

Acharya Lyon has a long history with Shambhala Mountain Center, starting in the 70s as a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and then serving as staff in the 80s for dathuns (month-long meditation retreats). In 1995, she became the center’s director, a position she held for five years before being appointed an acharya, a senior most teacher in the Shambhala tradition, by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. It seemed only fitting to sit down and talk with her again in the beautiful terrain of SMC, where she is now spending a good portion of the year as an acharya-in-residence. Her presence is profound and witty, dignified and outrageous, open and humble.

Why do you think it’s important to take moments to slow down?

I think the world has speeded up so fast and there’s so much electronic communication, so there’s no time between things. And you react. Push the “send” button and get a response right back. You can start a war in five minutes with unskillful emails. So it’s out of balance in a lot of ways with speed and materialism. There’s not much respect for the soft sciences—culture, the arts, compassion, empathy. Judgmental mind is very active. Generally speaking, most people are not very in touch with nature. So it leads to a lot of unhappiness, a lot of suffering and bizarre things.

How does nature factor into the retreat experience?

Being in nature has always been a huge part of the SMC experience. The seasons are not theoretical. You feel them. You’re part of it. When the wind blows, you can hear it quite a distance away through the trees. You can see the weather in advance, feel it approach and then it lands on you. It’s very dramatic much of the year because the temperatures can be extreme but always changing, just as clouds are always changing. Then we have animals and they’re changing too. When you come here for a program, a retreat or just a little R and R, you’re always in touch with what’s happening outside. I remember we were having this very intense program in the Sacred Studies Hall last summer and out the back windows you could see a mother and two new fawns wandering around the garden. It was really delightful because it was just part of the whole thing.

As the senior teacher for numerous weekthuns and dathuns, how would you describe the challenge and benefit of attending these programs?

Sometimes the discipline is challenging—silence and sitting in your posture and doing your meditation for hours and hours. It’s hard but you are doing it with other people who are going through the same thing. There’s a sense of humor that comes really quickly because some of it’s absurd. And you can do it. You discover you can do it. Furthermore, you begin to learn about yourself and what you do that is helpful for being happy and what makes you miserable. And you learn that don’t have to do that. You have to do it a little bit to discover that it makes you miserable but then you stop.

People often feel stretched thin with obligations. Stepping away and spending a week or even a month with yourself can sometimes feel awkward…

It’s the kindest thing you can do for the people around you—become a gentler person.

You’ve mentioned you like watching the news. How do you stay connected with all that’s going on these days without getting caught up in feelings of anger and darkness?

I feel the desire to punch somebody a lot. And I recognize it and yeah, that’s the environment. You don’t want to contribute more aggression to it. But it’s good to touch in so that you’re not Pollyana, thinking everything is love and light. “It’s all good.” No, it’s not! That’s not what basic goodness means.

I think if you really keep in touch with your feelings and see the cause and effect, it’s very easy not to get caught. If you are being mindful of your feelings, you can remember to let go. And maybe you actually want to turn it off because enough is enough.

What final advice do you have for getting back in balance?

Sit still and let nature play. Get out of your office and your car and go sit somewhere and watch the squirrels and clouds and slow down a little bit. We let people do that. That’s not wasting time. That’s actually part of your job. Usually.

Acharya Allyn Lyon will be leading the dathun meditation retreat this summer at Shambhala Mountain Center. You can do it! Attend for a week or the whole month.

Reawakening Amazing Inner Places

Posted on May 15, 2013 by admin

by Erica Kaufman

This year I traveled quite extensively in India. So much teaching…and of course I learn from each student. Regardless of their spoken language, I learn from their ways and this helps me to teach accordingly.

I teach the eight limbs of yoga, they are portals into the intuitive home. Life is a journey and the eight limbs of yoga are a beautiful guide into intuitive clarity.

That journey is of central interest in my life, and in teaching Lila Yoga.

I am here, solo and not. I am sometimes alone but I am not lonely. As I relax into new-ancient rhythms, I experience the home of GENEROSITY.

I will explain:

Generosity flows naturally, when we understand the inter-connectivity of it all.

Tat Tvam Asi. We are That…That which Is… No need to horde…impossible to hold onto anything…what could we hold onto?

When we live sensitive to this,

it breaks down defensiveness and possessiveness and Generosity opens.

Generosity of Spirit, Love, Patience, Time…

We have within us/around us/between us, an endless source of these qualities.

No need to ration. Fear of loss from Giving looses potency

when we realize the true nature of Generosity.

Home unfolds wherever you are.

I am here. I am there. I am home.

Know a home so deep that land does not matter, a familiarity so clear that wherever you go you feel the strength of curiosity, respect, and joy. As you meet new friends, join new families, and feel the give and take of interconnectivity, know that you have blessings within you of excited ease.

I invite you to join me for the Lila Yoga Retreat: Accessing the Brilliance Within.

Our weekend will explore the boundless joy of gratitude, the ability to feel thankful to BE.

Please join me for a Lila Yoga Retreat June 28-30.

Love Blessings Faith

OM NAMA SHIVAYA

~ Erica ~

Portrait of a Rinpoche in 350 Words

Posted on May 13, 2013 by admin

He sees that the fundamental error of our time is materialism. Instead of accepting the Dalai Lama’s invitation to represent his lineage in the exile government of Tibet, he came to the West to teach. He was shocked by the amount of garbage his small groups of western students created while meditating for a week, equal to what a monastery in India creates in over a month.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche believes that our complete subservience to wealth – material wealth – will be undermined when everybody has more sense of who we are. It will answer a lot of questions and alleviate a lot of confusion and suffering just by having an understanding of the stillness, silence, spaciousness at the core of experience. Having taught all over the world, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche has used Buddhism and the wisdom heritage of Tibetan Bon to help others make contact with their own luminous minds. From a lifetime of study, teaching, and practice, he is convinced that there are more awakening experiences to be found inside oneself, and it leads to enlightened actions, creativity, and peace without passivity.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche characterizes Bon–the earliest religious tradition and practices of Tibet of which he is a scholar, teacher, and advocate–as being “very earthy”. Bon works with nature and the elements, it is sensitive to the environment and healing practices. Yet it also has dzogchen, a meditation of pure awareness. It is an awareness-of-inner-light practice and the highest achievement in this practice is said to be a body of light. So, he will tell you with a smile that comes as much from his eyes as his mouth, Bon is earthy and illuminating at the same time.

He was born in the first generation of Tibetan emigres. He became a monk at age ten and earned his Geshe, the Tibetan doctorate awarded after an eleven year program of study, in 1986. He founded the Ligmincha Institute, an international community for the preservation and integration of Bon Buddhism into the modern western world. And on May 31st to June 2nd he will be teaching dzogchen at Shambhala Mountain Center.

Pelicans and Programs, Passing Through

Posted on May 13, 2013 by admin

As usual springtime in Colorado has been a battle between winter and summer with blithely absurd weather predictions like “Snowy, High of 57” which should mean “Rainy” but actually means that it will snow and then climb up to 57 degrees, or vise versa. Some first-timers to SMC came in the middle of such a snow storm. These American White Pelicans stopped for a rest from their migration. While they are seen regularly in the lakes around Fort Collins at this time of year, we have been very lucky to have them visit us for a day or two.

Shambhala Mountain Center is a constant, physical reminder that we are at home in the world, regardless of a moment’s inconvenience or a freak snow storm. Our pelican friends are not the only ones practicing patience. At SMC, a cloud will come over the mountain ridge, like a bad mood, spitting sleet, and pass through the valley but this barely dampens our sunny valley. This is the perfect place for Anthony Lawlor’s Dwelling in the Sacred program to examine the qualities of place and placement that wake us up and instruct.

Pelicans spend most of the year in coastal regions, but the American White Pelican migrates inland to the midwest and western mountains (us!) in order to breed. The bumps on their bills tell us that they are in mating season. The bumps will actually fall off their bills once the mating season is over.

Bumps, lumps, and other awkward parts rise and settle constantly whether you’re a bird, beast, or flower. Chogyam Trunpa Rinpoche compared the cultivation of fearlessness to a reindeer growing horns. At first soft, rubber, awkward–very unlike horns–until the reindeer realizes that it should have horns. So too a person going beyond fear comes to realize that they should feel tender and open. Such change is nothing to fear. If you have seen a friend change over the course of a meditation practice, you know this.

In this season of transitions, we are preparing for lots to come and depart. The summer Set-Up crew has arrived to populate our valley with tent villages. We’ve hosted programs on major life transitions and will be hosting more teachers who are familiar with the work of transitioning.

We will probably even host more migratory birds.

What kind of transition has helped you wake up to this miraculous world we share?

Memories of Mexico, SMC, and Writing a First Novel

Posted on May 8, 2013 by admin

by Maria Espinosa

A group of us walked along a narrow path to a deserted beach near Zihuatanejo, Mexico, which in 1971 was still a village of only several thousand inhabitants. The moon was brilliant and the ocean glistened with reflected light. Inspired by the moonlight, the waves and the soft sand under my bare feet, I began to dance. As I moved, I was working through problems that felt tangled. These were thoughts for which I could find no words, but which my body moved through as I danced.

Many years after that night on the beach, I began to practice Tibetan Buddhist shamatha meditation and I experienced an enormous breakthrough. For years I had been struggling to complete my novel, Longing. I had written four drafts, but they were brittle. I could not get beneath the surface. After a few weeks—or perhaps months—of focused shamatha practice, I was able to get beneath that frozen surface. Heart and insight began to expand and soften. I threw out the first four drafts and the fifth became meaty, fluid, and real. It would take four more rewrites to get Longing into its final form, but the fact that meditation practice gave such power hooked me.

Last summer as I meditated inside the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya at Shambhala Mountain Center, I had a similar kind of illumination. I had been attending a weekthun, a week-long meditation intensive, sleeping at night in a cabin where I snuggled under layers of blankets, absorbing the beauty of the land, the wilderness, the mountains. All this had prepared me for the Stupa, which emanates a feeling of tremendous brilliance and purity.

As I meditated there, my mind—often cluttered, anxious, and diffuse in daily life—seemed to transform in an alchemical way. Ideas became objects I could shift and maneuver inside the luminous space of my mind. Thoughts were clear and visualizations were lucid. Words, visual art, music, life changing decisions, all could flow more easily in this state.

For me, there is a connection between that moonlit night on the beach, meditation practice, and the illuminating experience within the Stupa. While the dance and the Stupa experience were brief, they fostered creativity that came from a deeper source in which body, mind, and spirit are connected. Regular meditation practice is far more gradual in its effects, like burning a log after the fire has been lit. That dance on the beach in Mexico and meditating in the Stupa were the matches, while my regular meditation practice sustains my writing like the burning log sustains the fire.

Learn more about Maria Espinosa’s up-coming writing workshop: Finding Your Voice: A Mindful Writing Retreat.

Many Forms of Mindfulness: Indelible Presence Meditation Retreat

Posted on May 6, 2013 by admin

By Acharya Dale Asrael and Cynthia Moku

Touching the Moment: Indelible Presence meditation retreat begins soon–May 15–19. We practice mindfulness in many forms throughout the day: sitting meditation, outdoor walking meditation in the heart of nature, hatha yoga, periods of silence, and contemplative brush practice. The images below are from our outdoor brushwork, led by master teacher Cynthia Moku.

ICHI RIVER
After several days of meditation and basic brush practice, we passed our brushes through thin films of water feeling the rhythm of our breathing. ©cmoku/IP

ICHI EDGE
Snow was coming, so paper was laid down before nightfall. The next day we did brush practice on the paper buried beneath this snow cover. ©cmoku/IP

Come rediscover the world with fresh perception with these two skilled teachers in their upcoming meditation retreat: Touching the Moment: Indelible Presence May 15–19.

Acharya Dale Asrael and Cynthia Moku will also be teaching together May 23–27 for Taming the Wild Horse: Riding the Energy of Emotions. This retreat will present techniques to expose core belief structures that perpetuate emotional confusion, meditation practices that foster clarity and insight, daily Hatha Yoga classes and contemplative brush-and-ink sessions.

Bringing the Retreat Experience Home – Courageous Women, Fearless Living

Posted on May 2, 2013 by admin

By Sarah Sutherland

Thanks to a generous grant from the Shambhala Trust, Courageous Women, Fearless Living has launched its first-ever website: www.cwfl.org

The new website will make it easier for women touched by cancer to find out about the Courageous Women 5-day annual retreat and access resources that help extend the retreat into everyday life.

Unlike many retreats for women with cancer, the Courageous Women retreat not only offers respite and renewal in a beautiful setting but also teaches participants meditation and contemplative practices to work effectively with their mind and emotions.

“The basis of the retreat is that everyone has the courage, gentleness and strength to relax and find joy in the most difficult circumstances, even a cancer journey,” says Adana Barbieri, who runs the retreat together with Judith Lief, Victoria Maizes, and Linda Sparrowe. “This unique retreat offers women a supportive, nurturing environment and effective techniques to discover the courage to be fearless in the midst of a life-changing cancer diagnosis.”

Shambhala Mountain Center has supported and hosted the summer retreat since 2006 and its website has been the main source of online information about it. By launching its own website, CWFL hopes to reach a broader audience of participants and donors.

After this summer’s retreat, the new website will also include a robust “resources” section that will include access to talks, videos and instructions on meditation and yoga taught during the retreat. Integrative medicine and natural health information, including articles and recipes, will be featured as well. A secure social networking page will give retreat participants a way to stay connected, feel supported and nurture their friendships.

“With the website, we can extend the reach of the retreat into participants’ lives when they return home,” says Barbieri. “That way, they can continue to benefit from the wisdom, compassion and community they experience at the retreat.”

The generous grant from the Shambhala Trust—whose mission is to support projects that promote the creation of enlightened society—will also fund a promotional video. Intended primarily for healthcare professionals, the video will show the essence of the retreat to people who are unfamiliar with it but are in a position to recommend it to their patients. The video is expected to be completed by the end of 2013.

In addition to the extraordinary support and retreat discounts offered by Shambhala Mountain Center, CWFL is sponsored this year by the Eileen Fisher Community Foundation and the Beanstalk Foundation.

Upcoming: Courageous Women, Fearless Living is hosting three morning retreat samplers on Saturdays from 9-12:

May 18 – Ft. Collins
June 8 – Boulder
July 13 – Denver

Why Partner Yoga?

Posted on April 26, 2013 by admin

By Elysabeth Williamson

Shambhala Mountain Center is delighted to offer a special partner yoga training with Elysabeth Williamson on May 29-June 3. Whether you’re a student or teacher of yoga, this five-day intensive is for all levels of practitioners interested in sharing a new form of yoga with others. Couples, friends and individuals are all welcome. Elysabeth is the developer and founder of Principle-Based Partner Yoga™, a powerful style she describes in her own words below.

Let me begin with a simple introduction of Partner Yoga for those of you unfamiliar with this practice. Partner Yoga is two or more people joining together to deepen the impact and experience of a Yoga practice. The primary component that differentiates partner practice from individual practice is touch. We touch and are touched by others. We use traction and leverage, and the kinesthetic awareness that comes from touch, to open to greater depths in our bodies and all the levels of our being.

As with any spiritual practice, there are many benefits we can receive from Partner Yoga. Along with a deepened self-awareness, profound openings in our postures, we also strengthen our ability to enter into and remain in relationships in ways that are authentic and joyful. Relationships are the area where we most directly experience the dualistic nature of existence, as well as our most extreme emotions. When our relationships are flowing, life takes on a glow and we perceive everything through the eyes of love. And when our relationships are strained, we can often experience painful emotions that can feel difficult and overwhelming.

We experience this duality most profoundly in our intimate relationships, but it is true in all our connections – with parents, children, siblings, friends, society, even with Nature and the Divine. The desire to experience loving, vital and healthy relationships is with us our entire lives. From birth to death, we are constantly learning about relating to others, although sadly in our culture, we are given few tools or models to guide us. Yet despite our lack of skill in this area of our lives, there remains a deep yearning in each of us to experience love and acceptance in all of our relationships, including the one with ourselves.

Partner Yoga practices help bring our relational patterns into balance. In our partner, we have a mirror, a physical presence, that brings us into the present moment and paradoxically, more fully into ourselves. This presence supports us to integrate our insights into the very cells of our being, not just as a mental concept, but as a fully embodied awareness. Just as in our relationships off the mat, in Partner Yoga we experience directly what it feels like to build trust, compassion and intimacy with others. Our partners reflect back to us the qualities that we express.

One of the foundational practices I introduce is Back to Back Sitting Meditation. The power and intimacy of this simple posture comes as quite a surprise to almost everyone who experiences it. Here are some general instructions for this practice:

Both partners sit in an easy crossed legged positions with sacrams firmly pressed together. Maintaining a strong sacral connection is the focus of this posture. To strengthen the sacral contact, both partners first lean forward, shift hips back until pelvic bones connect and then then return to an upright position. Draw the lower abdomen up and in to strengthen the sacral connection. Make sure you are not leaning against your partner, instead engage the natural curve of the lumbar spine to lift sternum. Allow shoulder blades to lightly graze your partner.

Direct the breath into the back body and allow the breath to release tension from the inner and outer body. Sense the distinction between awareness of yourself and awareness of your partner. Let go of all preconceived ideas concerning yourself and your partner and instead rest in the experience of your essential sameness. Notice the deepened self awareness through conscious contact with another. Rest and meditate in this position for as long as comfortable, being aware that you are not leaning on your partner.

For many of us, there is a belief that most endeavors (Yoga practice included) are simply easier to do on our own – we can avoid dealing with the needs and feelings of others. Partner Yoga practices unravels this belief and reveals the beauty of our interdependence. We see that when we take the risk to reveal our vulnerability in the presence of another, we are empowered to go much deeper with much less effort. This is also true in life. We can accomplish much more, with much more joy and ease when we willingly and joyfully support each other.

Partner Yoga is not a substitute for individual practice. It is a newly emerging visionary, healing art that teaches the fundamental value of joining and sharing with others. It demonstrates how we become more authentic and empowered through our willingness to open and connect with the world around us. I’d like to emphasize that Partner Yoga is NOT FOR LOVERS ONLY – it can be practiced by any two or more willing participants – friends, acquaintances, siblings, parents and children. Previous Yoga experience is not even required although it can be helpful for some of the more advanced practices.

The need for practices that open our hearts, heal our sense of separation and show us how we are all the same is more urgent than ever – and I am honored and deeply grateful for the opportunities to share this practice with others.

Click here to learn more about the upcoming Partner Yoga program May 29-June 3

Elysabeth Williamson is the founder of Principle-Based Partner Yoga™ and the author of ‘The Pleasures and Principles of Partner Yoga’. She also released a state-of-the-art iPhone app ‘Partner Yoga Touch’ both award winning projects. For more info: www.partneryoga.net