Q&A: Susan Piver Discusses the Writer’s Groove and “Fearlessly Creative”

Posted on December 18, 2013 by admin

By Travis Newbill

Susan Piver leads Fearlessly Creative: A Meditation and Writing Retreat, December 20-23

Susan Piver

A couple of common obstacles that most writers–or would be writers–encounter: 1) No time to write! 2) The fear of putting the pen to the page (err, typing words into the computer).

Meditation teacher and New York Times Bestselling Author Susan Piver has a remedy. It involves structuring daily life in a way that is conducive to creative work, and…practicing meditation. Does that sound simple? Impossible? Worth exploring?

This weekend, Susan will be leading a retreat at SMC which is intended to provide a space for writers to find their groove and produce work, and also to model a routine which will allow them to live more fully as writers in their daily lives.

Recently, Susan took some time to discuss the retreat.

So, what is the intended purpose of this retreat?

Susan Piver: If you have something that you want to work on—a book, a memoir, anything—this program is meant to provide a container for you to do so. It’s not learning how to write, it’s not getting prompts and learning writing techniques, it’s for writing.

Who would you say this program is for? Anyone who wants to write?

It’s a program for artists of any kind—although I never say that because people get intimidated, thinking that they aren’t artists, or that they aren’t writers. But, you know, it’s for people who want to reflect, and create art with words.

Will there be lots of discussion, and that sort of thing?

It’s not about talking. I made it that way because, that’s the program that I want to go to. Maybe I’m the only one, I don’t know.

Does this sort of environment somehow help writers overcome the fear to see a work through or to start a work?

Yes, and it’s rather hard to explain how that happens. It’s not that you get a trick that helps you overcome your fear. Meditation practice is the trick. I never say that. But, there’s something about the combination of meditation, companionship of fellow writers, and specific periods of time for work that calls the words forward.

You say this is not how to write, but it kinda seems like it is?

It doesn’t teach you how to write, but it teaches you how to be a writer. Because every writer has to be afraid, and stay. And then allow. And it’s hard for everyone to do that. But this program shows you that you can do it. And you don’t have to be at Shambhala Mountain Center to do it–although that is better.

What’s the takeaway?

You will learn a technique for writing that you can take home. So, it provides an actual container in which to work, and is also informative for the introverts coming together here to take back into their regular rhythms.

So, folks may learn ways in which they can structure their daily lives to allow for writing.

Yes, it will model a routine–that they can replicate at home–for being a writer. No matter what else they do in their life.

Sounds great. Thanks, Susan.

Thank you.

~~~

Here’s a video with some folks who participated in one of Susan’s past writing retreats.

Susan Piver leads Fearlessly Creative: A Meditation and Writing Retreat, December 20-23

Seeing the One World with Two Eyes

Posted on November 8, 2013 by admin

By Elias Amidon

Elias Amidon leads Seeing the One World with Two Eyes: A Sufi Experiential Retreat, November 22-24.

Even though we humans live in nonduality, we experience the world with the two eyes of duality. This is because we have the ability to conceptualize. Even to say the word “nonduality” is to conceive dualistically. When we say “nonduality” our minds are already at work, setting up nonduality here and duality over there.

It’s helpful to remember that perceiving dualistically is not a fault — it’s the way we’ve been made. If I say the word “I” it means I have conceived of myself as a subject, and this is natural enough, isn’t it? “I” wake up in the morning, “I” brush my teeth, “I” love you, and so on. It is a convenient way to think, even if it is not exactly how things work. Phenomena arise not as subjects and objects, but as a whole, all at once.

Nevertheless it’s not easy for us to see the wholeness of things because we see — for good reasons — with the two eyes of duality. Making distinctions between “this” and “that” makes it possible to navigate in the world. But if we cannot also see through the convenience of dualistic thinking to the nondual nature of being that is ever-present and all-pervading, we bind ourselves to a life of suffering.

A Zen master once remarked, “We must learn to realize nonduality through duality.” Is this possible? Can the two eyes of duality see the one world of nonduality?

That is to say, can we realize the truth without abandoning this world? Or, in Buddhist terms, can we realize the nature of emptiness without betraying the nature of form? Can we realize, as the Sufis say, that nothing matters and that everything does? Can we grieve the loss of a loved one even while we know nothing is lost?

In nondual teachings we often find phrases like: “everything is perfect as it is,” or “nothing ever happened,” or “this is all a magical display.” Statements like these, while true, seem to deny what we also know to be true: that everything is not perfect as it is, that something is happening, and that, magical display or not, this world is beautifully, heart-breakingly real.

I once held the hand of a young woman as she died. She was wide-awake when the moment came. I could say that nothing actually happened at that moment — it was like the space inside a jar “meeting” the space outside when the jar breaks — nothing really happened — and yet…

There is no way to think about this. Only the heart can encompass it, and the heart doesn’t think. To see the one world with two eyes (Rumi’s phrase), we have to allow the heart to see through those eyes. The seeing heart is like a musical instrument that lets the song be played but doesn’t cling to any melody. The beauty of our lives, the love, the losses, the injustice and cruelty we witness — the only way we can bear all this without turning from it, or hardening ourselves, or becoming overwhelmed, is to bear it in the open tenderness of our heart.

And what is that? What is the heart? Here we have to stop conceptualizing. The heart we call our own is not ours. We might say it’s God’s heart, or the heart of the All-Good, or the One. It’s the heart inside of things. Through it flows all the experiences of beauty and all the despair that has ever been and ever will be. The heart I am trying to point to is not a private thing. It’s vast, boundless. It bears all. It sees the one world because it is the one world. It doesn’t limit or exclude anything. As Jack Kerouac reminds us,

Not with thoughts of your mind

but in the believing sweetness of your heart,

you snap the link and open the golden door

and disappear into the bright room, the everlasting

ecstasy, eternal Now.

Elias Amidon leads Seeing the One World with Two Eyes: A Sufi Experiential Retreat, November 22-24. To learn more, click here.

Healing and Transforming Consciousness Through Sacred Sound, Music and Dance

Posted on November 8, 2013 by admin

Internationally renowned World Music artist, composer, educator and peace activist Yuval Ron will be coming to Colorado for two very special engagements—a concert in Boulder on March 27 presented by SMC in the City and a weekend retreat from March 28-20 at Shambhala Mountain Center. Read more from Yuval below.

This March I will be coming to Boulder, CO and to Shambahla Mountain Center, finally! Over the last 20 years I have met so many people, specifically people who graduated from Naropa who were compelled to comment on how much my work belongs in Boulder. The retreat that I will be leading is based on my work with master spiritual teachers of the East such as Pri Zia Inayat Khan, the head of the Sufi Order International, and neuroscientists of the West including brain researcher, Mark Robert Waldman, who wrote the bestseller, How God Changes Your Brain.

During this program, I will be taking participants on an incredible journey into their inner world, providing them with a rare perspective into the worlds of Zen Buddhist masters, mystic Sufi leaders, Kabbalistic rabbis, leading neuroscientists and scholars of the mysticism of Christianity. We will experience introspective and ecstatic practices of four ancient spiritual paths: Zen Buddhism, Kabbalistic Judaism, early contemplative Christianity and Sufi-Islam. Drawing from the hidden wisdom of the Eastern traditions of sacred music chanting, movement and spiritual mindfulness practices, I expect we will have a life-transforming weekend at Shambahla. These practices have been shown to alter the structure and function of the brain in ways that enhance memory, cognition and social awareness. They also help overcome the neural mechanisms that generate stress, anxiety, depression and anger.

In each session, we will focus on a different tradition, demonstrating the deep commonality and love for life and humanity reflected in these spiritual practices. I like to emphasize that these kinds of seminars are experiential and will not be lecture-based. The focus is on providing a deep spiritual healing experience, including walking, sacred movement, ecstatic chanting meditations, storytelling and poetry.

The night before the retreat, on Thursday, March 27 at 8 pm, I will be giving a special intimate concert in Boulder celebrating the divine Sufi poetry of Hafiz and Rumi along with sacred Hebrew music of the Middle East. This will be a unique program. Joining me on stage will be my wife, Carolyne, and my daughter, Silan, playing harmonium and violin, plus one of Boulder’s best percussionists, Ms. Kathleen McLellan. I hope you will be able to join us for these exciting events at the end of March.

Peace be with you,

Yuval Ron

To read more on the concert at the Solstice Center in Boulder on March 27, click here.

To read more and register for the weekend retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center from March 28-30, click here.

Q&A: Naropa Professors Discuss “Artistic Process as Life” and Meditation Practice

Posted on November 7, 2013 by admin

By Travis Newbill

Jane Carpenter and Sue Hammond West will lead Creative Wisdom: Maitri and Art, November 15-17

Jane Carpenter

The idea that artistry begins when the brush hits the canvass and ends when the palette is set down is questionable. An alternative view suggests that eating a pear may be as artistic of an activity as painting a still life. And, in this view, meditation practice is linked to both.

Sue Hammond West

In the upcoming program Creative Wisdom: Maitri and Art Naropa University professors Jane Carpenter and Sue Hammond West will present teachings and practices related to artistic discipline as well as meditation practice in order to guide participants in a process of exploring the ways in which we can be more awake as we create art and how we may live our entire lives in a more artistic way.

In their words:

“This weekend program explores the state before you lay your hand on your brush or your canvas – very basic, peaceful and relaxed. Here art refers to all the activities of our life, including any artistic discipline that we practice, referring to our whole being. This way of working with art is noticing the state before you make art. The potential of artistic creation is to directly point to what is true, the richness and limitless potential of the present moment of experience – nowness. We awaken our appreciation for the richness of this colorful and challenging world. Fear drops away as we engage with direct experience.”

Recently, SMC caught up with Carpenter and West and asked them to elaborate a bit on some of these pithy notions.

Shambhala Mountain Center: To begin with, how does meditation relate to art, and vice versa?

Jane Carpenter: The mind is always giving rise to ideas and thoughts. So there is always material, even on the cushion. When we’re engaged in an artistic discipline, we’re allowing the energetic patterns in that material to be used. So, I actually see a similarity of the mind being a blank canvass, and what arises in it actually being the paint and the color, or the flowers, or whatever it is.

And how about the idea of “artistic process as life?”

JC: I think it’s the ground of presence that is the thread through experiencing one’s life in an artistic way and the joy that one experiences in artistic discipline.

Sue Hammond West: You have to be authentic, and present to that authenticity, in everything that you do–in every part of your life. Then, when you go into the studio to create the art, your mind is clear. You’re not divided in your attention. You’re completely present, clear, and authentic.

How does the formal practice of meditation benefit the process of making art?

SHW: Because you have meditated, you have this incredibly awake nervous system, and clarity of mind. Those are excellent places to make art from.

JC: We are also able to see our emotional landscape or what’s arising in the mind. So when I think of clarity of mind or presence, I also feel that we’re present with what’s going on with us. So, if we’re feeling sorrow, jealousy, or any particular emotion, we actually can embrace that and express that clearly in what we’re painting or building.

There seems to be a sense of going beyond embarrassment in this approach.

JC: I see embarrassment as sort of an overlay to our authenticity. We are experiencing something, and we overlay it with a “should.” Then, what’s reflected in the painting is the “should” rather than the actual, authentic, direct experience. That’s where the problem comes in because the artist is actually expressing aggression towards themselves and that aggression translates into the artwork and then into the viewer.

How does one avoid that?

JC: Well, it’s something that very important to notice. It’s not so much that it won’t happen, but I think one can discriminate in the process and actually develop an appreciation for recognizing when one enters shame or embarrassment and sees that as path rather than making it into a problem. I hope that’s not too complicated. (laughs)

Jane Carpenter

Would you say that the activity of making art is itself a meditation practice?

Sue Hammond West

SHW: Well, making art could be meditation in action. You could actually go at it for all the wrong reasons–for all the self-loathing and neurotic tendencies–and actually come out on the other side with clarity. It could take a while, depending on the depth of the feelings that you’re working through, but there’s always that possibility.

So, it can be beneficial like sitting…

JC: Absolutely, it can. For some people, sitting is not going to be their choice to experience their life fully. Art is a method, we could say, for bringing oneself into the present moment. It can be contemplative practice, or, as Sue was saying, meditation in action.

So, making art and meditating can have similar results. I have the feeling, though, that striving for that result may not be the point.

SHW: Well, the nice thing about meditation, and art as well, is that you can do it for no result. When you surrender to the fact that there’s no right or wrong answer, and simply allow whatever is happening to happen, that’s when something shifts in your being.

What would you say are some of the most common obstacles to the artistic process being a meditation in action?

JC: One thing that comes to mind is self-consciousness, or a goal-orientated approach. If there is any expectation–of perfection, or getting a particular concept across to the audience, or any outcome at all–then one is a bit ahead of themselves.

SMC: Can you describe an alternative approach?

JC: We can be willing to look at something that looks really strange and be curious about it as opposed to labeling it “bad,” or “not as good as the other person’s.” So I think with a true artist, with this approach, we’re going beyond a dualistic, “good” and “bad,” view.

So, are all works of art equal?

JC: It isn’t some kind of naive “everything is great” attitude. Some pieces will work, and some won’t. But the process is much more alive.

Finally, how will the practices utilized in this retreat work with the obstacle of self-consciousness and goal oriented-view?

SHW: We’ll be doing some sitting practice. We’ll be exploring the five wisdom energies, or emotions, in terms of embracing life. And so, I would say that we’re going to be covering the different types of thinking processes and we’ll be talking about the dualistic tendency of those and giving some experiential training on how to become non-attached to those–how to create the clarity of mind that we’re talking about that is the quality that we want to come at making our art from.

JC: We’ll explore questions like: What if emotions do arise when we’re doing art and we don’t reject them? Could we actually feel joy or delight in expressing ourselves fully? So, I think that we’ll be inviting people to play, actually. There will be different disciplines, and when you put it all together, it allows people to be fearless because there is no judgment in the environment. So there is no need to be self-consciousness.

Seems like nourishing situation.

JC: When we work like this we actually find that people retrieve parts of themselves that they haven’t experienced for a long time. Things can actually fall away–that judgment, or even judging the judger. So, we hope that there is a sense of inviting people to really enjoy themselves.

Discipline and enjoyment seem like sort of an odd couple.

JC: There’s an expression that Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche used, which is “discipline and delight.” So often when we talk about discipline we think about burden and sacrifice and this heaviness. I think in the workshop we’re going to be doing, the discipline of meditation and art brings delight. That’s why we do it!

SHW: Ultimately, it’s creating an environment for people to arise completely from where they are and just to notice who they are in the moment.

Sue Hammond West is a painter and mixed media artist who explores consciousness, quantum physics and the phenomenology of being. Her exhibitions include Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art; Beacon Street Gallery, Chicago; and the University of Notre Dame Isis Gallery. She is director of the School of the Arts at Naropa University.

Jane Carpenter began the study of Tibetan Buddhism and Maitri Space Awareness with Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1975. She has taught the practice as an Associate Professor at Naropa University and internationally for over 25 years. Jane leads workshops on Dharma Art, Ikebana, and Contemplative Psychology.

Jane Carpenter and Sue Hammond West will lead Creative Wisdom: Maitri and Art, November 15-17. To learn more, Click Here

HOW TO BEGIN: Some notes upon arrival

Posted on November 1, 2013 by admin

By Bhanu Kapil

Bhanu Kapil leads Describe a Morning You Woke Without Fear: A Writing Retreat, November 8–10

Some years ago, in India, I was walking down an ordinary residential street behind my mother’s house – hard-baked pink dust, wilted jasmine flowers underfoot, shimmering blue oblongs (the Himalayas) in the distance. I was very far from home, from Colorado (now my home) and from everything that might function as a kind of psychic or practical ground. Perhaps you have walked down a street like this. Perhaps you have experienced the distance as a quality in your own body. On that day, there was too much space, too many contrasts between the different kinds of colors that the world is composed of in any instant: the pale silver of the sky punctuated by the emerald and scarlet flare of a child’s kite above me dipping and tucking on a roof. Perhaps I am simply describing a kind of homesickness in reverse; the way an immigrant might experience the strangeness of not being “at home” at the instant that they find themselves in the place that they are “from.” Perhaps this happens when you return to Texas or wherever it was your particular geography and history made a bright tangle: before you were born or afterwards. In other words, perhaps you don’t have to go all the way to India to experience a sense of being “unhomed” in an eternal and foreign landscape! I am not sure why I am bringing Texas into this. My dog (Porky) is from Texas; my neighbours are from Texas. I think I am trying to say that the U.S. is composed of vast spaces and that it happens, in a way that resembles India, that a person might find themselves thousands of miles from the place where they began – by nightfall; by twenty, thirty, forty years old.

I have been thinking about writing practice as a way to link myself to the earth, to the vibration of a landscape, the notebook, the time that the writing is happening in.

Schizophrene

Whenever a pen lifts off the page, or a fingertip from the keyboard, there is a way in which – abruptly – one finds oneself in the element of unbounded space again. Is writing, in the simplest set of gestures that it is composed of – space to page to space to text again – a way of generating contact with the ground of one’s life itself? I recall my time in India and how it was writing that returned me to a sense of my own body’s place in all the space that surrounded it – what, in other ways of thinking about the body, is called proprioception. I used to walk to the Shiva temple at the end of the street and tuck myself into a corner, next to the banyan tree tied with so many red threads, hemp lamps flickering as dusk fell in the winter-time, and write: sentence after sentence, in my notebook, until the feeling of not belonging –in a version of India both shattered and shattering – diminished. These fragments became, in part, the source text of my fourth book, a work founded on a history of migration and its trans-generational effects, Schizophrene.

Perhaps here, because – after all – the Shivalik foothills are at the end of the street I am describing — I could say something about pilgrimage, the idea, in India, that a ritual journey reconstitutes the body of the goddess – of all the places where the parts of the goddess’s body, Parvati’s body, fell, after her ritual dismemberment by her father, who was upset – to cut a long story short – that she had fallen in love with as unkempt and wild person as Lord Shiva, with whom she lived on a remote mountain top. The idea here – we are now a very long way from Texas – is that if you visit all the places where Parvati’s fragments lie, you make her whole again. The wholeness resides in you, something evoked by the mantra or song you might recite upon arrival. A way to release the vibration of the fragment – and allow it to circulate once more: in time.

Next week, I am coming to Shambhala Mountain Center to teach a two day writing retreat. I want to practice an attention to cyclical sites and to what unfolds when, at each site – each of the twelve questions we will write into and through – we sing back. We answer. We write.

There is more to say. There is more to desire. To long for. To remember. To attempt. But perhaps I will pause there until it time to begin. To embark upon a journey to the space of the gold Buddha. To the north. Or south. Depending on whether you are coming from Denver or Laramie.

A pilgrimage of another sort.

Will you join me?

Bhanu Kapil leads Describe a Morning You Woke Without Fear: A Writing Retreat, November 8–10. To learn more, click here.

Photography and Unconditional Expression

Posted on August 21, 2013 by admin

With Opening the Good Eye: An Introduction to Miksang coming up October 10-14, we’d like to offer here a little glimpse into the way of seeing that will be the focus of this upcoming program.

“In order to notice our world and see it clearly, we have to simplify our minds. We make a choice to be fully engaged with one thing at a time. This allows us to be fully present in each moment.”
-Julie DuBose

Miksang contemplative photography was developed as a method for seeing the world in fresh ways. Instead of emphasizing the technical aspects of the art form, it turns photography into a practice for waking up by bringing together mind and eye to see the world directly. Julie DuBose is the founder of the Miksang Institute for Contemplative Photography and Miksang Publications and has studied and then taught with founder Michael Wood since 1998, who works with her at the Miksang Institute, developing and teaching the Miksang curriculum. She will be teaching Opening the Good Eye: An Introduction to Miksang at Shambhala Mountain Center October 10–14. This unique retreat will offer valuable tools for recognizing direct visual perception through visual exercises, assignments, discussion and sharing of images.

“We have an innate ability to connect unconditionally with our world. This means that we can be wide open and receptive, free of ideas and preferences. We can work directly with our world with our wisdom guiding us.” –Julie DuBose

“If we begin with an open, receptive, curious, attentive mind, free of judgment and the desire to interpret, the impulse to express will flow through us, vibrating with possibility. From this openness, unconditional expression is born.” –Julie DuBose

Click here to read the Shambhala Times interview excerpt with Julie DuBose and Dan Hessey about Julie’s new book, Effortless Beauty: Photography as an Expression of Eye, Mind, and Heart.

Free Your Genius From Myth

Posted on June 20, 2013 by admin

It has been said of Vincent Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, John Nash, Franz Kafka, Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Michael Jackson, Nick Cave, Kurt Cobain, Billy Stayhorn, Billie Holiday, Roman Polanski, Marlon Brando, Winston Churchill, Caravaggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, well…anyone famous and Russian. The myth of the Tortured Genius dates back to the ancient Greeks who attributed to the god Dionysus the realms of music, wine, inspiration and madness.

Dr. Ronald Alexander sees it differently.

“The idea of the Tortured Genius is both a reality and a perpetuated myth.” He points out that the lives of many accomplished and inspired individuals, like those listed above, were afflicted with mood disorders. Depression and bipolar disorder, usually. Most of them suffered at a time when psychology was ill-equipped to address their needs, and society had little understanding of how the mind and body work together to create a personal experience. But it is important to separate the myth, and its false perceptions, from the reality.

The myth was that people believed the extreme moods, behavior and general affect were the source of a person’s creativity. Without suffering, there would be no inspiration. But in 1974, Dr. Alexander was doing clinical work in Hollywood, California. He introduced meditation and other mindfulness practices to patients who often came from creative industries: the recording industry, the film industry, fashion and media. And what he witnessed when his creatively inclined patients gained the evenness of mind from regular contemplative practice was that they could “dig deeper and more regularly” into the creative state of mind.

So much for the myth of the tortured genius. The reality is: Rather than lose one’s creativity, a regular practice of opening the mind and grounding personal experience reveals that one’s creativity is never conditional. This rang true with Dr. Alexander’s experience too. His father was bipolar, and he suffered from bouts of depression. At 20 years of age, he began to meditate. At 23, he went to see Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Nowadays, he maintains a practice grounded in Zen, Dzogchen and Vipassana, which he finds especially helpful for unblocking his own creative obstacles.

So how do we debunk our own myths about creativity? Dr. Alexander says the first step is identifying hinderances. Anything in our experience of consciousness can be blocking a richer, more playful way of thinking. Then, we cultivate the ability to tune-in to receive what is available. This stage is called Open Mind in the Zen tradition. To move into the next stage, called Wise Mind, we discover the capacity to let go of fixed positions/attitudes/forms. This allows us to play wholly in the present moment and be creative.

Creativity is not the sole property of the famous artist. In every life circumstance, there is the opportunity to open up and receive the wisdom and the joy contained in the present moment. Whether you work in the arts, play with art, or want to live your life artfully, the conditions required to do so are, in fact, unconditional.

Dr. Ronald Alexander welcomes you to his retreat based on his book, “Wise Mind, Open Mind” at Shambhala Mountain Center from July 5-7

Meditation with Rhythm

Posted on June 7, 2013 by admin

by Christine Stevens

Ever since I heard world-famous sound healing expert Jill Purce say, “The purpose of sound is silence”, I have been asking myself: What could meditation and drumming possibly have in common?

In meditation, placing our attention on the breath occupies the mind. In drumming, the rhythm becomes a mantra that captures our attention. You can’t drum while thinking. Both act as mind sweepers; to clear the mental space of worries and negative thought patterns. Both help us get out of our heads and into our hearts.

Meditative states are quite natural and simple, but not easy. Both meditation and drumming are practices that focus on remembering rather than learning. Within the rhythm of the drum, we remember our heartbeats in the womb and rhythms our bodies long to express. Meditation and drumming are both tools to connect with spiritual realms and the non-physical. We travel along both the silence and rhythm paths as portals into the spiritual space where we breathe deeply, relax and re-connect with the heart and soul.

However, drumming just may be better suited for hyper, over-active, ADHD types of people—like me! After a drum circle at the Teton Wellness Festival, a participant came up to me and shared that drumming helped her “drop in” to her meditation practice immediately.

Here are some tips on how to drum your way into silence;

Create a sacred space where you can settle in.
Prepare to drum by placing your hand over your heart. Take a deep breath. Breath into an intention for your meditation. Place your open hand on the drum and rub the drum in a circular fashion, infusing your intention into the drum.
Now you are ready to drum. Play a simple pulse, rhythm or whatever feels good to you. Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think. You may use a play-along CD as well, like The Healing Drum Kit which includes twenty-seven play-along rhythms for specific intentions. The specific rhythm is not as important as releasing all self-criticism and allowing yourself to liberate your creative spirit.
Give yourself at least a minimum of four minutes to fall into the beat. Significant biological signs of relaxation typically occur after four minutes of drumming.
When you are ready, come to a stop by fading your drumming into silence.
Put down your drum and focus on your breath. Feel the rhythm of your breath gently drumming your body. Stay in this meditative state for as long as you desire in a sitting meditation.
Complete your practice by gently returning and honoring your drum.

Christine Stevens is a music therapist, social worker, and author of the Healing Drum Kit. She has appeared on NBC, CBS and Living Better TV. Christine will be teaching at Shambhala Mountain Retreat Center on July 12 – 14.

Please watch Christine’s personal invitation to you to join her program.

The Art of Creative Transformation for Happiness

Posted on June 4, 2013 by admin

by Dr. Ronald Alexander

I believe that within all of us lies dormant the potential for tremendous transformation that can lead to greater happiness. In my many years as a mind-body psychotherapist, educator, trainer, and consultant I’ve watched thousands of clients let go of their false beliefs about who they are and what roads are open to them. They found new paths to fulfillment and happiness that were previously hidden by their fears.

The art of creative transformation begins with the willingness to be mindful of your hidden resistance to making a change, examining it, and breaking it down. You might find yourself closing your eyes to any other avenues available to you, obsessing about the past and trying to reclaim what was once yours. This resistance blocks you from recognizing that what lies ahead for you might actually make you happier than you’ve ever been.

The second step is tuning in and listening to the wisdom of your soul or unconscious, the state in which core creativity takes place. I particularly recommend a mindfulness or insight meditation practice, which allows you to see the true nature of your experiences. Other forms of meditation that help you access an open mind are prayer, contemplation, mindful movement such as martial arts, tai chi, and yoga, and just being in nature.

The final step is to create a practical plan to manifest your goals. Any plan or vision requires research if you want to make it a reality. Don’t rush. Learning about how people have overcome obstacles and achieved success can help you identify the elements in their winning formulas, but then you must apply their insights to your own life. A vision board may help keep you on track.

Quite often, my clients begin the process of envisioning a new life by insisting that they need more money. Instead of assuming that money is your golden ticket to a fulfilling life, think about how you can increase the number and range of opportunities available to you.

Rebuilding after any great loss can be extremely difficult, but I’ve seen people use meditation and the art of creative transformation to pull themselves out of a valley of despair and even create successes they never would’ve dreamed of before their initial loss. A forward-thinking view can lead to reinvention and healing.

Ronald Alexander, PhD is a leadership consultant, psychotherapist, international trainer, and the Executive Director of the OpenMind Training Institute. He will be leading a retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center July 5-7. He is the author of Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss and Change upon which this article is based.

Happy birthday, Allen Ginsberg!

Posted on May 31, 2013 by admin

“I met Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa, on a street corner in New York with my father, by accident.”

From June 3rd, 1926 to April 5th, 1997 Allen Ginsberg (AKA Lion of Dharma, AKA Heart of Peace, AKA Carlo Marx in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road) roamed the earth, taking inspiration from every facet of life and giving it right back to those who would have it. One of the most controversial public figures of his times, among the most outrageous of poets, Allen Ginsberg was also a friend, lover, photographer, peace activist, king of May, and meditation practitioner in the Vajrayana tradition. At Shambhala Mountain Center, where Ginsberg’s teacher, friend, and guru Trungpa Rinpoche is buried in the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, one third of Allen Ginsberg’s earthy remains are interned in a polished granite memorial in the shape of a lion, backlit by the Tibetan letter for “Ah”, the shortest form of the perfection of wisdom, and just a short distance from the remains of his life partner, Peter Orlovsky. Visitors may visit this site with a steep climb near the Stupa.

Shambhala Mountain Center staffer and graduate of Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics Jennifer Lane shares a memory of Allen Ginsberg in 1995 when he was being honored at Naropa and reflecting on his life’s endeavors. The video tells the whole story.