The Generosity of a Samurai

Posted on May 28, 2013 by admin

by Christopher Seelie

The snowfall began the night before, and by the time we arrived in a loose caravan of 4 cars Zenko-Iba was covered in white. Of the thirteen of us Shambhala Mountain Center staff who came to Boulder on this day to receive instruction in Kyudo—literally “the way of the bow”, a Japanese practice of meditation in action—only one had taken First Shot before. So we did not receive instruction in the snow. Instead we gathered in the free-standing garage, now converted to a shrine room and indoor practice space. The walls were decorated with photographs from Kanjuro Shibata Sensei’s life of practice, along with documents of merit and souvenirs. Three hay bales wrapped in plastic canvas were peppered with puncture holes. The distance was negligible but kyudo is not a sport like the western form of archery, where the distance between archer and target is a concern second only to where on the target one’s arrow enters.

We sat on gomdens and waited as Shibata Sensei—a green 91 years young and recently recovered from a bout of pneumonia—was escorted in with his wife and translator, Carolyn, and their little gray dog. He was dressed in dark wash jeans, a puffy winter jacket, pale grey slippers that had been warmed by the cast iron stove in the corner, and a black winter hat that had XX embroidered in white on the forehead—signifying his lineage identity as the 20th Kanjuro Shibata. We stood, and for a moment of solid silence Shibata Sensei stared at us, taking in our faces with direct purpose before bowing to us and we to him. Then he walked forward and looked closer before bowing again. Once seated, we waited for him to speak but he took his time in communicating. When he did, his command was to relax.

Carolyn explained that he thought we were sitting like elite monks.

Despite being twentieth in an unbroken line of imperial bowmakers and kyudo masters, Shibata Sensei does not abide dignities and honorarities that build ego. Cutting through the pretensions that could make a ragtag, baker’s dozen of curious students presume to a discipline more severe than warranted, Shibata Sensei told us to relax and then commented on how auspicious it was that the snow was falling. Casually, he told us that from the snow he felt Trungpa Rinpoche’s presence here this morning. He spoke briefly on kyudo as a practice and then allowed for his more experienced students, Vajra, Sue, and Suzanne who had come from Berlin to visit Sensei, to lead us through the stages of the practice.

Kyudo is, as Shibata Sensei explained to us, a heart-cleansing practice. The emphasis is on the form one takes in the manner of shooting and the qualities of mind that are experienced in the process. When I asked Shibata Sensei later in the day about the obstacles a practitioner encounters in kyudo, he said that hitting the target is good and not hitting the target is good. “This Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche understood immediately.” When asked how he met Trungpa Rinpoche, Shibata Sensei says it was “very straight kyudo”.

We did not shoot our first arrows that day. The repetition of the form is our practice until such time that we are ready for taking the first shot. From that point, all of Shibata Sensei’s students are of a kind. There are no black belts, no officers, no gold medal winners or blue ribbon archers. These are the honorarities that repel Shibata Sensei’s understanding of kyudo. Becoming familiar with something inexpressible cannot fit into stages of a hierarchy.

calligraphy meaning wind tree fire mountain

“FU RIN KA ZAN” by Shibata Sensei. “Wind Tree Fire Mountain”

The friendship between the founder of Shambhala Mountain Center and Shibata Sensei is a profound example of how different cultures and disciplines find commonality in the wisdom that they share. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was a meditation master, an academic and administrator displaced when Tibet was conquered by the Chinese. In his homeland, Shibata Sensei is a living national treasure and a lineage holder patronized by the Emperor of Japan. But Trungpa Rinpoche recognized the power and purpose of Shibata Sensei’s kyudo—a practice developed out of the samurai’s need for heart-training to balance out the fight-training so as to remove pride and aggression with the same tools that might engender it. And while the external differences between tonglen, shamatha, maitri, and other techniques Trungpa Rinpoche brought to the west and the kyudo of Shibata Sensei makes them truly diverse practices, the two men saw through those differences with complete clarity.

The day ended with tea and cookies as Shibata Sensei answered questions. Last fall, he had made the two hour journey up to Shambhala Mountain Center to give a talk on the importance of making offerings. Since then, the staff has made it a point to offer rice, water, and salt at the Kami shrine that sits behind the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, nestled in the hills above the MPE campgrounds. Now kyudo too has returned as a regular part of life at Shambhala Mountain Center. May it be of benefit.

Kanjuro Shibata Sensei XX will meet with his students for a kyudo retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center June 30 – July 7th.

Sicilian Cauliflower

Posted on May 24, 2013 by admin

As the Sicilians say, Burrasca furiusa prestu passa—A furious storm passes quickly. At SMC a furious May 1st snowstorm has given way to rocky mountain summer and yearnings for light veggie fare. This gastro-solution comes courtesy of Terri Huggett, one of our amazing chefs.

8 cloves garlic, minced

¼ cup kalamata olives, finely chopped

2 Tbsp. flat leaf parsley, finely chopped

3 Tbsp. capers, drained and chopped

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

ground black pepper, to taste

2 heads cauliflower, cored and divided into large florets

In a small bowl, combine garlic, olives, parsley, capers, lemon juice, and black pepper.
Steam or blanch cauliflower until done to your taste. Drain, place in a large bowl and add olive mixture. Stir to blend. Good when hot or at room temperature. Serves 8.

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.

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?

Three Variations on a Theme: Squash and Broccolini Salad

Posted on April 16, 2013 by smc

This is the Part III in our series of squash recipes. All recipes courtesy of Brian Carter, who fearlessly leads the kitchen at Shambhala Mountain.

Check out Part I, Butternut Squash Cups & Tabouleh and Part II, Squash Veloute. We thought it appropriate to post our final squash article today in celebration of the significant amount of snow covering Colorado. Happy spring!

This salad is perfect for Winter. And Spring. Both hearty and festive. Serve at room temperature.

1 lb. broccolini
1 acorn squash
1 small red onion
24 oz pomegranate juice
1/2 cup sherry vinegar
1 cup roast whole almonds
1 pomegranate
3 oz. Manchango cheese

Pre-heat oven to 300. Bring large pot of salted water to a boil. Trim woody ends of broccalini. Julianne onion into paper thin slices, toss with sherry vinegar and let sit for 90 minutes. Peel squash and cut into ½ inch cubes. Place into a roasting pan, add pomegranate juice cover with lid or foil, and braise for one hour. Once water is boiling blanch broccalini for 5 minutes then shock in ice water till cool. Remove squash from the oven. Carefully drain braising liquid, or reserve for another use. Drain onions, as well. Combine broccalini, onions and squash. Garnish with almonds, pomegranate seeds, and manchego.

The Solace of the Stupa

Posted on April 10, 2013 by admin

In the Fort Collins Magazine article, “Solace of the Stupa: Neurobiology, the science of pain and the Buddhist retreat,” Laura Pritchett writes about dealing with chronic pain through meditation, among other things. A central theme in this piece is how she finds peace and the ability to be present with her pain in the “flat-out funky, magical, and free to visit…” Great Stupa at Shambhala Mountain Center (SMC). She discusses the science behind Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), a technique she learned at a MBSR retreat at SMC, and how she uses that technique while meditating at the Great Stupa.

“It’s more than about ‘stress reduction,’” she says, “it’s about how to face life when all hell breaks loose…” She learns that she can, in fact, change her attitude toward pain. The gist of the practice, she explains, is “…the mind can be taught to pay attention to the present in a particular way, purposefully, without judgment, and, most important, without worrying about the future.” This, she adds, reduces the experience of pain.

In conclusion, she brings the reader back to the “magic” of the Stupa as a place where people can bridge the gap between the mind and the body to heal themselves. “If healing pain-or coping with anything life throws at us—is mostly up to oneself,” she says, “then the Stupa is part of that for me.”

Read the full article in Fort Collins Magazine. It starts on page 42.

The Shamatha Project, Part IV: Background & Far Reaching Implications

Posted on March 22, 2013 by admin

Editors note: Thanks to a recent $2.3 million Templeton Prize Research Grant from the John Templeton Foundation, researchers are revisiting the results gleaned from Shamatha Project and further analyzing those results. In the Post I and Post II of this four-part series we offered people unfamiliar with the project the chance to learn more about the project and its researchers. In Post III we discussed the next stage of this project funded by the Templeton Prize Research Grant. And in this final post we are taking a closer look at the lead researcher, Clifford Saron, and the history behind the project.

By Sarah Sutherland

Clifford Saron

In 1992 Clifford Saron embarked on Fetzer Institute-funded study of Buddhist monks in Dharamsala with three other researchers. Struck by the monks’ calmness and peacefulness, they wondered whether the monks were simply extraordinary people or whether their extraordinary qualities resulted from their meditation training. Eleven years later, one of those researchers, Alan Wallace, contacted Saron about another project. Why not measure the effects of meditation on people in an intensive retreat setting in the West? The Shamatha Project was born.

Saron, interested in meditation since his undergraduate days at Harvard University, first learned of similar research by Joseph Goldstein at The Naropa Institute during its inaugural summer of 1974. “At that time my understanding of the mind from neuroscience, introspection and now Buddhism came together,” explained Saron in a TEDx UC Davis talk last May. “I was hooked.” He went on to do a number of meditation retreats and was an early researcher at the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis, a new university center with the ambitious long-term goal of understanding the nature of the human mind from interdisciplinary perspectives.

With sponsorship from Shambhala Mountain Center and the Mind and Life Institute, the Fetzer Institute, and other organizations and individual donors, Saron gathered a stellar team from a variety of disciplines to harness methods and views from cognitive and affective neuroscience, scientific psychology, molecular biology and anthropology. In 2007, they embarked on the Shamatha Project, which we outlined in The Shamatha Project Part I (link). Since then, Saron and his colleagues have presented results of the project to audiences around the world. Saron has also shared the findings on several occasions with the Dalai Lama, who has endorsed the project.

As both a scientist and a practitioner, Saron believes the Shamatha Project has far-reaching implications. “There are multiple domains of society that can benefit from slowing down and ramping up introspection,” he says. “With the Shamatha Project and other studies pointing to the benefits of meditation, there is potential for contemporary society to recognize the need for a refuge that’s accessible to people so they can bear the conditions of their experience in skillful ways, whether their experiences involve caring for the dying, parenting children with autism, or working at Google—all examples of areas where mindfulness practice is taking hold and proving helpful.”

And with more data on the horizon, new findings on the benefits of meditation on our mental, physical and possibly societal health are likely to be unveiled for years to come. Just remember to breathe deeply while you wait. For more information on the project and research publications visit this website.

The Shamatha Project, Part III: Forging Ahead

Posted on March 15, 2013 by admin

By Sarah Sutherland

Editors note: Thanks to a recent $2.3 million Templeton Prize Research Grant from the John Templeton Foundation, researchers are revisiting the results gleaned from Shamatha Project and further analyzing those results. In the first two posts of this four-part series we offered people unfamiliar with the project the chance to learn more about the project and its researchers. In this third post we are discussing the next stage of this project funded by the Templeton Prize Research Grant. And in our final post we’ll take a closer look at the lead researcher, Clifford Saron, and the history behind the project.

In Part I and Part II we discussed the inception of the Shamatha Project and the results of the project. Now, thanks to a recent $2.3 million Templeton Prize Research Grant from the John Templeton Foundation, lead researcher Clifford Saron and his colleagues will be taking the Shamatha Project to the next level, further analyzing and expanding the mountains of data they collected in labs they built in the basement of Shambhala Mountain Center’s Rigden Lodge six years ago.

“Sixty percent of the new funding provided by the Templeton Prize Research Grant will help our team wrest meaning from the original data,” said Saron. “We’re taking a very broad view of human experience as seen through multiple lenses because two people who received the exact same meditation training might have entirely different responses to it.” Subsequently, the team is not necessarily looking at the effects of the retreat itself, but rather on how individual differences—including participants’ worldviews, motivation, stages of life, and relationships—affected their training and, ultimately, their personal growth. With these analyses, the researchers can better understand which physiological and psychological measures recorded during the retreats are linked to beneficial long-term growth, and which ones aren’t.

“The beauty of this project,” Saron said, “is having leaders in statistical techniques aggregate the data to predict a trajectory of change in participants’ lives.” Such findings could help explain why some people change for the better, while underscoring what aspects of a person’s spiritual profile are requisites for meaningful change.

With the new funding, allocated over three years, the researchers will also interview the participants again as well as their family members, friends and colleagues to further explore whether the meditation retreat impacted the participants’ daily lives and how those changes, if any, continue to affect them.

“We’re relating how things that we measure in the laboratory reflect meaningful changes in people’s lives,” explained Saron in a UC Davis press release announcing the research grant.

The Templeton Prize Research Grant, which debuted this year, honors each year’s Templeton Prize laureate by funding research related to the laureate’s life’s work. Templeton Prize winners are individuals who have made “exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.” His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama won the 2012 Templeton Prize in May for his ongoing work in bringing relevant scientific research to bear on the question of compassion and its potential to alleviate the world’s fundamental problems. The grant that Saron, co-director Baljinder Sahdra of the University of Western Sydney, and their colleagues won was announced in November at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion during a special session in honor of the Dalai Lama.

Read the final part in our series on the Shamatha Project: Part IV: Background & Far-Reaching Implications

SMC 2013 I Ching Reading

Posted on March 11, 2013 by admin

By Steven Whitacre, Image by Sarah Lipton

I Ching (aka the Book of Changes): An ancient Chinese book of divination and a source of Confucian and Taoist philosophy. Answers to questions and advice may be obtained by referring to the text accompanying one of 64 hexagrams, selected at random.

-Dictionary.com

At the evening feast on Shambhala Day, the beginning of the Year of the (always female) Water Snake, February 11, 2013, we cast the I Ching for Shambhala Mountain Center for the Year. The result obtained was hexagram #3 Difficulty, with three changing lines, resulting in the second hexagram #7 the Army. The first hexagram may represent either the recent past or the first part of the year, whereas the second may represent the future or the second part of the year. Overall, this result suggests that the Shambhala Mountain Center is either experiencing difficult new growth as we return to normal following the High Park fire last summer, or perhaps it’s experiencing difficult growth in new directions with the new director and other changes to the staff, governance, and programs.

#3 Difficulty:Text: Difficulty followed by sublime success! Persistence in a righteous course brings reward, but do not seek some (new) goal (or destination); it is highly advantageous to consolidate the present position.

Symbol: This hexagram symbolizes lightning spewed forth by the clouds- difficulty prevails! The Superior Man busies himself setting things in order.

The commentary on the first changing line is fairly clear:

But, despite prevailing uncertainty, the way of righteousness must be pursued with firm determination. Men in high places, by cooperating with those under their care, will thereby win the support of their people.

The second changing line suggests that if we wait patiently for a gradual return to normal conditions, we will be able to make progress. Alternatively, perhaps there are persons or groups whose help or investment could help us move forward with our goals, but they are reluctant to commit, and we must be patient with them.

The third of the changing lines presents more concern:

Persistence in small things will bring good fortune; in greater matters it will bring disaster. This passage indicates that we have wrought insufficiently for the public good.

Some combination of seeking more modest goals and doing more work for the public good, seem likely to avert the misfortune this line warns against.

Via the three changing lines, the second hexagram is obtained:

#7 The Army: Text: The Army. Persistence in a righteous course brings to those in authority good fortune and freedom from error.

Symbol: The hexagram symbolizes water surrounded by land. The Superior Man nourishes the people and treats them with leniency.

Depending on the interpretations, it might seem that we are heading towards a situation either where the proper employment and governance of the Shambhala version of the Army, the Dorje Kasung, will be important, or where very large numbers of people will be on the land and need to be nourished and governed well. The latter would seem to dovetail with the very large numbers expected for the Three Pillar Leadership Training and the Scorpion Seal Assembly Years 3-4-5 Garchen, as well as the multitude of other large major dharma programs to be held here in the summer. Then again, being that the I Ching is in some sense an oracle, it is possible that both interpretations have some relevance. However, it is important to keep in mind that the changing lines are often the most specific response and guide to action for the particular inquiry.

The Shamatha Project, Part II: Collecting Data

Posted on March 8, 2013 by admin

By Sarah Sutherland

Editors note: Thanks to a recent $2.3 million Templeton Prize Research Grant from the John Templeton Foundation, researchers are revisiting the results gleaned from Shamatha Project and further analyzing those results. In the first two posts of this four-part series we’re offering people unfamiliar with the project the chance to learn more about the project and its researchers. In our third post we will discuss the next stage of this project funded by the Templeton Prize Research Grant. And in our final post we’ll take a closer look at the lead researcher, Clifford Saron.

Last Friday we introduced you to the Shamatha Project, a comprehensive meditation study done on the psychological, physical, and behavioral effects of intensive meditation. The study, done in two three-month retreats by Researcher Clifford Saron and others in 2007, revealed some astounding results.

“The findings have taught us a lot about the benefits of meditation on our mental and physical health,” said Saron. So, how did researchers measure the results, and what did they discover?

To measure the outcomes, researchers used a comprehensive approach, including interviews, computer-based experiments, physiological measures, behavioral measures, questionnaires, and self-reporting from participants before, during, and after the retreats. In some experiments, participants completed difficult computer-based tasks aimed at gauging attention and perception while their brain waves, heart rate, blood pressure, and other physiological indicators were recorded. At other times, facial expressions were additionally recorded as they watched disturbing images. In a separate, on-site blood lab, participants’ blood samples were collected and processed for later testing for telomerase, an enzyme that repairs genetic material lost during cell division, as well as various hormones and proinflammatory cytokines, which are molecules that trigger inflammation when we’re stressed.

In one key finding, the research team, in work led by Katherine MacLean and Baljinder Sahdra, has detailed how the retreat participants, compared with the control group, were better able to sustain visual attention through improved perceptual sensitivity and inhibit habitual responses. Importantly, the response inhibition improvements predicted psychological improvements as measured in increases in such traits as empathy, openness, and wellbeing and in decreases of depression, anxiety, and difficulty regulating emotions. When the control group entered the retreat, these same improvements became apparent. Many improvements lasted for months after the retreats.

To examine emotional changes from intensive practice, the researchers, led by Erika Rosenberg, studied how people responded to film scenes of human suffering. When responding to painful images, retreat participants showed a decrease in emotions such as anger, disgust and, contempt compared to controls. Instead, retreatants were more likely to respond to the suffering of others with sadness.

In looking at psycho-biological markers, the researchers, led by Tonya Jacobs and Elissa Epel and including co-investigator Elizabeth Blackburn, a molecular biologist who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine for her work on cellular aging, found increased levels of telomerase in retreat participants. In fact, levels of telomerase at the end of the first retreat correlated with an increased sense of purpose in life, as reported by retreat but not control participants. Also, participants who reported greater mindfulness had reduced stress hormones. Both findings point to a positive link between meditation, health, and possibly longevity, which Saron is eager to explore further.

“There is much more data to analyze and learn from,” he stated. And now, thanks to a recent $2.3 million Templeton Prize Research Grant from the John Templeton Foundation, he and his colleagues can take the Shamatha Project to the next level.

Read the third part in our series: Part III: Forging Ahead or Read the first post.