Category: Community Experiences

Our San Antonio coaching circle, including a person from Houston, presented this program for a community meeting. Only one person came but we did it anyway, since it was good practice. We did this to draw interest in Theory U.

San Antonio Shambhala Gathering using Theory U – 12/07/2019

10:30 Facilitators meet at center

11:00 Gather for potluck lunch

Noon Gather in shrine room

Brief statement of Theory U and today’s use of Coaching Circle as one of the tools

(I think each of us should make a brief statement, which shows our work together)

Linda: Brief explanation of Theory U using throwing a stick to a Dog and Lion example (we are Lions!)

Betsy: Intro to Theory U (pg. 9) based on Open Mind/Heart/Will connecting with the emerging future

Celeste: Brief introduction to presencing: awareness of what wants to emerge (3 min.)

Teresa: Introduction to prototyping (2 min)

Paul: Four levels of listening

Dena: what attracted me to theory U and coaching circles was a combination of connecting with the future (aushpishesness), Presencing, sensing it

12:20 Dyad (5 minutes each as a Talk-Listen)

Dyad including reflection questions:

1. 1. 1. 1. Reflect on your early days of being on this path—what brought you, how it felt to be here.
         2. Reflect on how you experienced the disruption of the news of sexual misconduct.

What do you notice about your inner response?

Moment of silence.

12:30 Form Coaching Circles (2 per group with one of us as facilitators)

(Any facilitators without a group will form their own)

12:35 Intention statement by case giver

(Each case giver will give their intention statement on the spot)

Take a moment to imagine what you would like to see/feel/experience in a place (the center) that nurtures your spiritual path.

1. 1. 1. 1. What key challenge or question are you up against?
         2. How might others view this situation?
         3. Intention: What future are you trying to create?
         4. Learning threshold: What do you need to let go of–and what do you need to learn?
         5. Help: Where do you need input or help?

12:43 Stillness

1. 1. 1. 1. Listen to your heart: Connect with your heart to what you heard/said
         2. Listen to what resonates: What images, metaphors, feelings and gestures come up for you that capture the essence of what you said/heard?

12:45 Mirroring of Images, feelings and gestures

Images (Open Mind), Feelings (Open Heart), Gestures (Open Will)

Each coach shares the images/metaphors, feelings and gestures that came up in the silence or while listening to the case story.

2 min

Having listened to all coaches, the case giver reflects back on what s/he heard.

12:55 Generative Dialogue

Reflect on remarks by case giver—notice any new perspectives

Case giver: Insights, what can you do to move toward the emerging future you imagined

Yourself and for the center?

1:00 Intention statement by case giver 2

1:08 Stillness

1:10 Mirroring of Images, feelings and gestures

1:20 Generative Dialogue

1:30 Individual journaling to capture insights from both cases

1:32 Large group sharing of what each person experienced (intro by Paul)

IF TIME, there will be a guided imagery, as follows:

What would the center look like…feel like…. who would be there…..how would it feel that just thinking of going to the center…

1:55 Closing remarks-

Imagining the next step…If we can set something up, you will be sent a link to post your thoughts on envisioning our future

Let it haunt you for the next few weeks. (Thank you! And just let this set in for the next few weeks. And if you want to share we are going to have a Facebook group) Private group.

Invite participants to write on poster paper:

Since only one person came, we put the paper on the wall and meditators who came on Sunday already began to add to it

The Pittsburgh Shambhala Center has formed a community working group to take up the following questions:

What is our essence as a spiritual community? What are our values? What ethics (should) drive us? What is our mission? Who do we (want to) serve? How can we become a more inclusive, accessible, and equitable community? Do we want to continue affiliation with the Shambhala International organization? What should we carry forward with us and what do we want to emerge? (How) should we offer programming in this interim time? And arising out of and underlying all of these: How should we govern ourselves and make decisions, both in the short and long term?

For results of the first meeting and more information on their ongoing exploration, visit: Pittsburgh Community Working Group

The Portland Shambhala Center has experimented with two new forms of communication and self-reflection:

• • Short (~7-minute) videos on the Center blog that seek to make the community known to itself: https://portland.shambhala.org/tag/video/
  • A site for sharing notes from community conversations on challenging topics so that people who couldn’t make meetings can stay in touch: https://portland.shambhala.org/tag/community-conversations/

Report on Cologne Sangha Process Days

From Thursday May 29 until Saturday June 1 2019, European Shambhalians from all directions gathered in Dechen Chöling for the First European Forum. The seeds for this meeting came from various conversations at the Kalapa Garchen in 2017 and the German regional meeting in 2018. They were further developed in the conversations of the European Regional Directors and Co-ordinators (ERDC). The designers and facilitators of the Forum, Konstanze Brockstedt, Dian-Marie Hosking, Grit Turnowsky and Fred van Welsem, wanted to create a process in which participants: felt empowered and able to talk about whatever topics they wanted, could connect with each other, and could (re)connect with their inspiration, lungta and the magic of Shambhala.  This website shares something of what we did and how we did it, along with the emerging ideas and projects. It will be constantly updated as participants use the blog page to share how they have further developed and actioned emergent projects. We hope that others in Shambhala can find something of benefit in the practices and processes described, as well as some of the ideas discussed. Please interact with the material through the blog, or you can send a message on the Process Team website (contact us)… helping us all to learn together. 

From John David Smith, March 2019

As Co-director of the Portland Shambhala Center, I’ve been thinking about how to get the Portland sangha to cheer up, get more engaged, and break some of the habits we have around excessive deference to authority.  I think that talking about talking in a different way is not as good as just jumping in and having community conversations in a very different way than we’ve had until now.  The challenges we face as a community are different and somewhat daunting. (We’ve lost about a fourth of our members in the last year.)

• • @10:00 am – Welcome – Purpose, invitation – ZOOM (JDS text David)
  • @10:05 – Shamatha Practice (10 minutes)
    • John or Janie on Umdze stand
    • Seating set-up as for regular sitting practice
  • @10:15 – Dyads
    • Turn to your neighbor… and take turns speaking about 3 minutes each
      • How have you been?
      • Why did you come to this Town Hall?
    • Popcorn report out (3 minutes) – ZOOM (JDS text David)
    • Note taking: Jennifer on a Google Doc shown in the TV
  • @10:25 – Loosen everyone up — this is going to be fun. 20 mins: http://www.liberatingstructures.com/mad-tea sentences to complete in 30 seconds
    • Instructions: Participants form two circles, one inside the other. Each person faces one other person and completes an open-ended sentence in less than thirty seconds. When time is up, participants are invited to move to their right so that they are in front of someone else to complete the next sentence, and so on. Sound the Rin once to take turns and sound the Rin two times for everyone to move to their right.
    • Complete the following sentences (two times):
      • What I have found most inspiring about Shambhala is…
      • What I find most challenging in our current situation is…
      • Something we must learn to live with in Shambhala is…
      • The most important thing for us to talk about today is…
    • Sentences read out loud and projected on the TV
  • @10:45 – Give new Directors some airtime to challenge our thinking & pose questions. 30 mins: http://www.liberatingstructures.com/22-celebrity-interview/
    • Co-directors are “celebrities” each in a chair at the western end of the shrine room
    • Two chairs on either side for “interviewers”
    • The rules:
      • Sit in one of the interviewer chairs to ask one or more questions
      • Answers are spontaneous, from the heart, not necessarily the final word
      • Allow one empty chair (when the second chair is occupied, step down to leave room for the next person to step up)
      • Mark Douglass (or someone else?) will kick it off
    • Record on ZOOM (JDS text David)
  • @11:15 – BREAK – 10 min
  • @11:25 – Open Space to dig into the question: “What’s next for our center?” http://www.liberatingstructures.com/25-open-space-technology (4-5 locations: Shrine room I, Shrine room II, Community Room, Library, VY shrine room) 45 mins
    • Parts:
      • Intro & rules & supplies – 5 mins
      • Breakouts – 30 mins
      • 3 minute report & 5 minutes for questions and discussion
        • Who was there
        • What was discussed (what not discussed)
        • What did your group recommend for the future? Were there action items?
        • Record via ZOOM
      • Breaks interleaved
  • @12:10 pm – 20 mins: Wrap up and call to action in a circle: Record via ZOOM (JDS text David) http://www.liberatingstructures.com/9-what-so-what-now-what-w/
    • • • Each person says, going around circle: “What did you notice? What does that mean?”
        • Facilitated group now what and what if?
        • Check outs recorded on the TV?
  • @12:30 pm – Dedication of merit, clean-up, and hang-out
    • • • Stop ZOOM recording

By all reports it was very successful — and it was a lot more fun being together in this way than we’ve had as a community in a long, long time.  It opened up a lot of very important topics that we will be following up on in the future.  Clearly there is a long way to go but we need to keep our energy up for the long haul.