Kalachakra Press: Dispatches From Shambhala

The Shambhala Journey

The Shambhala Journey is a vision and a path of finding, seeing, exploring and actually manifesting compassionate, enlightened community. It starts right here and right now when we make the aspiration and determination to truly care for ourselves, others and our world. Aliveness, freedom and creativity flow from this spirit of awakening compassion, known as bodhicitta.

Shambhala means ‘source of joy’ – it’s both the visionary and real worlds of environment, animals, plants and people that have inspired Bodhisattvas for thousands of years.

The Shambhala vision is an expansive, inclusive ideal that embraces the interdependence of both the sacred and secular views, incorporating art, music, poetry and philosophy into a new humanism that offers practical solutions for modern life grounded in authentic Buddhist wisdom. It’s about learning to work with everyone, with other views, with conflict and with differences. It envisions creating a diverse but also cohesive society that includes a wide variety of ideas of how things should be and weaves them into a whole that benefits everyone.

Lion’s Roar Dharma Center teaches and presents the Shambhala Journey through people and programs that balance the secular and the sacred, harmonizing the actual and ideal. Sunday services will be devoted to the Shambhala Journey; Lama Jinpa and Bodhisattva students will give talks and lead practices on Sundays that will explain and expand on this Shambhala vision.

Kalachakra Press – Dispatches From Shambhala

Welcome to Dispatches from Shambhala – the online blog of Kalachakra Press.

Shambhala Press was founded in November 2020 by Lama Yeshe Jinpa as the publication hub for Lion’s Roar Dharma Center. It’s an ongoing project to collect Lama la’s many dharma talks over the years – an archive of precious heart teachings that are as vibrant and applicable now as when he first gave them. Always classical, sometimes very practical, sometimes esoteric, often humorous, the individual topics will range widely over the sutras and shastras, Lam Rim, the paramitas, individual practices, and of course always, always meditation.
Throughout those many topics you’ll find stretching back through the years one single golden thread that weaves them together over time and space into a whole – the vision of Shambhala, and this Shambhala Journey we are on together – the vision that through learning dharma, training our minds, the Bodhisattva path, Mahamudra and Dzogchen, via this Lightning Vehicle -we can create, together, a completely Awakened, just, cooperative and inclusive society.

In these teachings Lama la brings together our everyday conventional experiences and that pure Shambhala vision into wisdom that is workable, understandable, and practical for lay yogis in the modern world. How do we work together? How do we work with differences? How do we manifest compassion, love, bodhicitta? How do we keep from driving each other crazy? He encourages us to also see beyond the merely practical, to the beautiful, the mysterious, the clear, beautiful, vibrant energy of the mandala that surrounds us all throughout time and space.
It’s a vision that Shambhala isn’t only a Pure Land or something off in the distance – look around you! Your living room, in Sacramento, or New York, or Belgium, wherever you are – that’s Shambhala! Lama la teaches us, it’s already happened! Wherever or whenever you’re reading this, it’s the right place, the right time, you’re in Shambhala – it’s just that we need to refine our view in order to see its beauty surrounding around us.

And me? I’ve been given the enormous privilege and responsibility of sending these teachings out into the world, along with my musings on my own Shambhala and Kalachakra training and practice, at Lama la’s request. I hope that in talking about my path you’ll see reflections of your own hero’s journey, and that these dispatches from Shambhala and especially these teachings will not only touch your mind and heart as they have mine, but transform them into causes for liberation. I hope that through these blog posts you’ll feel as strongly as I do the precious golden thread that extends from our Lama’s generous heart in all ten directions, throughout the Shambhala mandala and let it be your guide to the other shore.

That having been said, any mistakes you find are my own – even after many years, I’m a beginner! Your patience and forbearance with any errors is deeply appreciated. Since linear time is an illusion, the posts won’t necessarily appear in date order, but more by subject and felt-sense of what seems apropos at the moment, or by request of our kind Lama. In a sense it will be like time travel, where you’ll see Lama Jinpa’s strong, clear vision evolve, refine, and become ever more expansive over the years and yet remain consistent; you’ll see glimpses of his journey, and find reflections of your own. My deepest wish and prayer is that you find this helpful and of benefit, for you and your dharma path, and for all beings everywhere, so that we all quickly find ourselves together in Shambhala, awake, happy and free.

Sarva mangalam!
Marie Gillies – Yeshe Dorje