Sharing Shambhala, Part I, October 21, 2021

We share concern about students who are not currently studying with the Sakyong. Shambhala teachings are too precious to politicize. This could be seen as an early test within the larger view of hundreds of years.

My heart wish is one Shambhala. Not everybody felt that way.

I personally don’t know how we can have all one Shambhala without accountability. We as a community over 40 or 50 years have been through more than enough crises for any community in terms of ethics and accountability.

I’d like to see Shambhala survive. I love to practice with my sangha. But the governance system has to be radically changed. It can’t be a top-down organization that ends up making people feel guilty and unworthy. It has to be an organization that validates everyone. And I know Shambhala teachings validate everyone. But the question is, can those who are in charge on the local level and on a national level, reflect that?

I keep hoping that there’ll be a Buddhadharma path. There’s more than one way; there’s the Shambhala teachings, but there’s also the Buddhadharma. And I keep hoping that that will be something that can happen. It used to happen. And for some reason, it all became Shambhala.

My vision is that he would come to Shambhala centers, make a statement to apologize. Come down off his throne. He’s a human being. He has his own pain.

For me, it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t feel right, for me to be practicing with people who are criticizing my teacher. That’s just how I am; maybe I’m too rigid, too much a loyalist, whatever. But it’s just it’s not the way I see him. And it actually harms my feeling of relationship to him to be around people who have a mundane view of him. He’s a guru. He’s not somebody who has to meet my needs, answer my questions, apologize from what my view of harm is. That’s not how I view him. And I don’t want to really hear a lot about that from people who do view him that way. I don’t feel like it’s helpful for me to be around people who are still worrying about whether he’s done the things that would satisfy their needs.

I feel sadness and some annoyance, and some resignation to the situation.