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80-523: In 1993, some parents of the Halifax Shambhala community, concerned with Nova Scotia's public school system, set out to create a new school which they hoped would create a more caring and nurturing environment for learning. Based upon this conception, the new school began as a private entity. Although Shambhala School is not a religious school, the school does use eastern/ Shambhala meditation techniques every day to encourage learning and expansion of

160-772: A prayer derived from religious text or doctrine, worshipping through the context of a religion, performing corporal and spiritual works of mercy , and attending a religious seminary school or monastery are examples of religious (non-secular) activities. In many cultures, there is little dichotomy between "natural" and "supernatural", "religious" and "not-religious", especially since people have beliefs in other supernatural or spiritual things irrespective of belief in God or gods. Other cultures stress practice of ritual rather than belief. Conceptions of both "secular" and "religious", while sometimes having some parallels in local cultures, were generally imported along with Western worldviews, often in

240-584: A 19th-century Nyingma lama after whom Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche took his name, wrote about many of these practices and concepts as well. Some, such as the "stroke of Ashé", have no known precedents. Trungpa Rinpoche was deeply influenced by his friend Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, a Japanese Zen master who was central to the introduction of Zen Buddhism to America. As a result of this influence, certain attributes of form in Shambhala are derived from Zen, rather than Tibetan Buddhism. The shrine rooms in Shambhala, reflecting

320-487: A corresponding 'Everyday Life' class. The latter seven weekends are called "The Sacred Path," as follows: The Warrior Assembly is a residential program of less than two weeks' duration. These weekends are intended to be completed in order. Windhorse and Drala are sometimes exchanged in the sequence. Students may then continue onto an intensive nine- to fourteen-day-long residential retreat called Warriors Assembly. Practices and root texts are made available as students complete

400-709: A day and smaller groups take turns cooking and cleaning. Many Students and Faculty members claim this is an excellent way to bring the school closer and creates a community. In addition to the "Keji" outing, each class attends a trip each year to Redtail Nature Camp . The Camp is located in Pictou County, Nova Scotia and has approximately 150 acres (0.61 km) of forested land. The Camp activities include much hiking, camp fires, nature/educational games, nature spotting, tracking, guided meditation , pseudo-Aboriginal rituals such as smudging and sweat lodge , swimming and much more. Every year, around Canadian Thanksgiving time,

480-463: A delusion that his enlightened status protected himself and others from AIDS. It eventually came out that the Vajradhatu board of directors had known of the problem for more than two years and had done nothing about it. After the death of Ösel Tendzin in 1990, Trungpa Rinpoche's eldest son, Ösel Rangdröl Mukpo, became spiritual and executive head of the Vajradhatu community. In 1995, Ösel Rangdröl Mukpo

560-427: A gymnasium with hardwood flooring. The gym also has a stage used for concerts and plays. The mezzanine includes a number of classrooms (currently used for music and visual art) and a staff room. The music room includes a resident drum kit, keyboards, stereo and PA system. The art room includes, among the many mediums, a number of pottery wheels and a kiln. The first floor mainly houses the elementary classes as well as

640-484: A lesser extent, Trungpa Rinpoche incorporated other elements into Shambhala tradition. From the Bön religion, the lhasang ceremony is performed; other elements of shamanism play a role. From Confucianism comes a framework of heaven, earth, and man for understanding the proper relationship between different elements of compositions of all kinds. From Taoism comes the use of feng shui and other incorporations. The Dorje Kasung

720-422: A mountain deity to "increase his fortune like the galloping of a horse and expand his prosperity like the boiling over of milk ( rlung ta ta rgyug/ kha rje 'o ma 'phyur 'phyur/ ). Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche elaborates on the traditional understanding and etymology of drala : In many ancient Bön texts the name 'Drala' is spelt sgra bla , which literally means ' la of sound', where la (soul or vitality) stands for

800-452: A number of Shambhala texts throughout his life, and also received a number of them as terma . Long-time students and members of his Nalanda Translation Committee elaborated on his reception of terma in a 2006 newsletter: At the first Kalapa Assembly in the fall of 1978, during one of our translation sessions with the Vidyadhara, Larry Mermelstein engaged him in an interesting discussion about

880-403: A parallel language to religion, and intensifies Protestant features such as iconoclasm, skepticism towards rituals, and emphasizes beliefs. In doing so, secularism perpetuates Christian traits under a different name. Most cultures around the world do not have tension or dichotomous views of religion and secularity. Since religion and secular are both Western concepts that were formed under

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960-674: A parallel set of Gesar chants that mix religions in the same way." As Kornman writes, one such typical chant is "a careful combination of Buddhism according to the Nyingma sect with local religion." According to Kornman, "In the Na volume of Mipham's collected works one finds numerous very short supplications to Gesar ...Trungpa Rinpoche lifted the above supplications from Mipham's Gesar cycle and gave them to his advanced students to chant." Kornman asserts that Trungpa "wrote his Epic of Lha [his first Shambhala tradition text] within this tradition, conscious of

1040-428: A preschool. The top floor houses the older grades. This includes many more classrooms, a kitchen/lunchroom (which doubles as a classroom in some cases).. There is also an outdoor classroom made of a sustainable material which was an exercise by architecture students from Dalhousie University . All grades use cubbies for storage which are on the sides of all classrooms. Shambhala Buddhism Shambhala Training

1120-414: A process by which anything becomes secular is named secularization , though the term is mainly reserved for the secularization of society ; and any concept or ideology promoting the secular may be termed secularism , a term generally applied to the ideology dictating no religious influence on the public sphere . Scholars recognize that secularity is structured by Protestant models of Christianity, shares

1200-425: A production studio for the children’s television series, Theodore Tugboat . The bottom floor has a small carpeted room sometimes used for music-now used for drama equipment, a large open space used for concerts, circles and other activities, restrooms, a utility room, a canteen room with a kitchenette and a large room formerly used for art and aikido , and now used for large gatherings. The basement also includes

1280-530: A series of weekend meditation programs offered widely throughout the community, and in 1978, Trungpa Rinpoche conducted the first annual Kalapa Assembly, an intensive training program for advanced Shambhala teachings and practices. In 1984, Trungpa Rinpoche published the book Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior , which gives a detailed presentation of the core Shambhala teachings. In 1987, Trungpa died of illnesses related to his long-term alcohol abuse. He

1360-506: A statement with their own reports of witnessing abuse while in their roles. The organization's stated purpose for utilizing the military format is not to propagate war, but "to take advantage of the discipline and energy of military forms to embody and communicate compassion." Maitri is a therapeutic program that works with different styles of neurosis using principles of the Five Buddha Families . Mudra practice, first explored by

1440-541: A type of individual energy that is also endowed with a protective function. In more recent texts, notably those of the Buddhist tradition, we find the spelling dgra lha, 'deity of the enemy', a term which has been interpreted to mean a warrior deity whose task is to fight one's enemies. [...] Other authors, interpreting the term in the sense of 'deity that conquers the enemy's la' have instead spelt it dgra bla, 'enemy's la'. [...] The spelling sgra bla ('la of sound') found in

1520-514: Is lam ’gro, which also means luck." In his 1998 study The Arrow and the Spindle, Karmay traces several antecedents for the windhorse tradition in Tibet. First, he notes that there has long been confusion over the spelling because the sound produced by the word can be spelt either klung rta (river horse) or rlung rta (wind horse)--the first letter is silent in both cases. In the early twentieth century

1600-554: Is a secular approach to meditation and a new religious movement developed by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his students. It is based on what Trungpa calls Shambhala Vision, which sees enlightened society as not purely mythical, but as realizable by people of all faiths through practices of mindfulness/awareness, non-aggression, and sacred outlook. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche arrived in North America in 1970, and began teaching Western students from within

1680-480: Is a paramilitary group that was formed by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to provide security services, provide driving and personal assistance to the teachers, and address any issues of conflict or health that arise in the community. The training and model of the Dorje Kasung are based on military forms, such as hierarchy, uniforms, and drills. After the reports of misconduct became public, sixteen senior-level Kasung released

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1760-546: Is allowed 1-2 guests from any school (even public). The Shambhala School is currently housed in the former Alexander Mckay School building in the Hydrostone area of Halifax. Built in 1917, the building withstood the Halifax Explosion . The school has three floors and a mezzanine including the basement area. Prior to the acquisition of the facility by The Shambhala School, it was purchased by Cochran Entertainment and used as

1840-456: Is believed to increase the strength in the supplicator of the four nag rtsis elements mentioned above. Often the ritual is called the risang lungta , (wylie: ri bsang rlung ta ), the "fumigation offering and (the throwing into the wind or planting) of the rlung ta high in the mountains." The ritual is traditionally "primarily a secular ritual" and "requires no presence of any special officiant whether public or private." The layperson entreats

1920-475: Is best understood not as being "anti-religious", but as being "religiously neutral" since many activities in religious bodies are secular themselves, and most versions of secularity do not lead to irreligiosity. The idea of a dichotomy between religion and the secular originated in the European Enlightenment . Furthermore, since religion and secular are both Western concepts that were formed under

2000-515: Is described in Shambala as "a natural state of the human mind—at rest, open, alert." Though Shambhala Training is a personal, ongoing practice of meditation and engaged activities, the Shambhala Training curriculum is presented in a series of progressive weekend programs, and then longer retreats. "The Heart of Warriorship" curriculum consist of five weekend programs with each weekend followed by

2080-550: Is prophesied for the year 2424 or 2425 (in the 3304th year after the death of Buddha ). Shambhala Training is administered worldwide by Shambhala International . Shambhala Training is presented in a series of paid weekend programs, the first five of which are called "The Heart of Warriorship", and the subsequent seven "The Sacred Path". The Warrior Assembly is the final program in the Shambhala Training Sacred Path, after which students must take vows of devotion to

2160-587: Is said to have been born in 159 BC and ruled over a kingdom of 300,510 followers of the Mlechha religion, some of whom worshiped the Sun. He is said to have expelled 20,000 people from his domain who clung to Surya Samadhi (solar worship) rather than convert to Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) Buddhism. After realizing these were the wisest and best of his people and how much he was in need of them, he later asked them to return and some did. Those who did not return are said to have set up

2240-437: Is still and often mistakenly taken to mean only the actual flag planted on the roof of a house or on a high place near a village. In fact, it is a symbol of the idea of well-being or good fortune. This idea is clear in such expressions as rlung rta dar ba, the 'increase of the windhorse,' when things go well with someone; rlung rta rgud pa , the 'decline of windhorse,' when the opposite happens. The colloquial equivalent for this

2320-465: Is the primeval human man, in a misguided attempt to avenge his daughter. The nyen then is made to see his mistake by a mediator and compensates Khri-to's six sons with the gift of the tiger, yak, garuda, dragon, goat, and dog. The first four brothers then launch an exhibition to kill robbers who were also involved with their mother's death, and each of their four animals then becomes a personal drala (wylie: dgra bla , "protective warrior spirit") to one of

2400-568: The Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism . These students formed a growing spiritual community, which incorporated as Vajradhatu (now Shambhala International ) in 1973. Beginning in 1976, Trungpa Rinpoche presented a series of teachings known as the "Shambhala teachings" to the community. These teachings presented the principle of basic goodness , and a secular rather than religious approach to enlightenment. In 1977, Trungpa Rinpoche first trained senior students to teach Shambhala Training,

2480-483: The Latin word saeculum which meant ' of a generation, belonging to an age ' or denoted a period of about one hundred years. The Christian doctrine that God exists outside time led medieval Western culture to use secular to indicate separation from specifically religious affairs and involvement in temporal ones. Secular does not necessarily imply hostility or rejection of God or religion, though some use

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2560-583: The New Testament in the Vulgate translation ( c.  410 ) of the original Koine Greek phrase εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων ( eis toùs aionas ton aiṓnōn ), e.g. at Galatians 1:5 , was used in the early Christian church (and is still used today), in the doxologies , to denote the coming and going of the ages, the grant of eternal life, and the long duration of created things from their beginning to forever and ever . Secular and secularity derive from

2640-580: The Three Jewels , or the wish fulfilling jewel . Its appearance is supposed to bring peace, wealth, and harmony. The ritual invocation of the wind horse usually happens in the morning and during the growing moon. The flags themselves are commonly known as windhorse. They flutter in the wind, and carry the prayers to heaven like the horse flying in the wind. The garuda and the dragon have their origin in Indian and Chinese mythology , respectively. However, regarding

2720-427: The "ideal horse" ( rta chogs ) with swiftness and wind. On prayer flags and paper prints, windhorses usually appear in the company of the four animals of the cardinal directions, which are "an integral part of the rlung ta composition": garuda or kyung , and dragon in the upper corners, and tiger and snow lion in the lower corners. In this context, the wind horse is typically shown without wings, but carries

2800-1046: The Black Ashe , Letter of the Golden Key that Fulfills Desire , Golden Sun of the Great East , and the Scorpion Seal of the Golden Sun , in long and short versions. Trungpa Rinpoche is believed by his students to have received these teachings directly from Gesar of Ling , an emanation of Padmasambhava , and the Rigden kings. Their terma status was endorsed by the Nyingma teacher Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche . The Shambhala dharma practices derived entirely or in part from these texts include those of werma , drala , Wind Horse (Tib. lungta ), and meditations on four "dignities of Shambhala": tiger (Tib. tak ), lion (Tib. seng ), garuda (Tib. kyung ) and dragon (Tib. druk ). Jamgon Ju Mipham Gyatso ,

2880-575: The Chinese idea of the lung ma, "dragon horse," because in Chinese mythology dragons often arise out of rivers (although druk is the Tibetan for dragon, in some cases they would render the Chinese lung phonetically). Thus, in his proposed etymology the Chinese lung ma became klung rta which in turn became rlung rta. Samtay further reasons that the drift in understanding from "river horse" to "wind horse" would have been reinforced by associations in Tibet of

2960-554: The Mudra Theater Group, is based on traditional Tibetan monastic dance training and the teachings on mahamudra . Shambhala Teaching also appropriates various meditation techniques of traditional Tibetan Buddhist lineages, including shamatha/vipashyana, zazen, madhyamaka , mahamudra and Dzogchen , tonglen , Lojong , traditional yidam practices such as Vajrayogini , Chakrasamvara , Vajrakilaya , Jambhala, Gesar , Tara , Manjushri , and Vajrasattva . Chogyam Trungpa wrote

3040-653: The Scorpion Seal Retreat. In turn, Warrior Assembly became a prerequisite for attending the Seminary. The Rigden Abhisheka enters the student into the practice of the Werma Sadhana. It is open to graduates of Shambhala Vajrayana Seminary who have completed their Shambhala ngöndro and to students who have already received the Werma Sadhana and completed their Kagyü Ngöndro. Certain Shambhala practices derive from specific terma texts of Trungpa Rinpoche's such as Letter of

3120-505: The Shambhala teachings, Rinpoche exclaimed: “Gesar is the vanguard of Shambhala.” (...in other contexts, the Vidyadhara indicated that the Shambhala terma had originated with the Rigden kings, Shiwa Ökar , or Gesar of Ling.) In Tibet, a distinction was made between Buddhism ( Lha-cho , wylie: lha chos, literally "religion of the gods") and folk religion ( Mi-cho , wylie: mi chos , literally "religion of humans"). Windhorse (wylie: rlung ta )

3200-636: The Upper Grades attend a camping trip in September to Kejimkujik National Park in South Central Nova Scotia. It is usually about a 3-day trip and includes bike trips, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, camp fires, swimming, large games of capture the flag/track down/manhunt, tenting, playing of musical instruments, and much more. The group usually consists of between 60-90 people and includes teachers, students and parents. The Group eats communally of 3 meals

3280-485: The Vidyadhara whether these texts originated with Padmakara, the source of the vast majority of treasure teachings, at that time we didn’t know that other teachers also hid dharma as termas. So when Rinpoche replied that these texts were more likely from Gesar, we were understandably puzzled. But after a long pause Rinpoche added, “And of course Gesar was an emanation of Padmakara, so that should take care of things for you!” When we asked about what meaning Gesar had in terms of

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3360-499: The Zen aesthetic of Kanso (簡素) or simplicity, tend to be sparsely furnished and decorated, whereas traditional Tibetan Buddhist shrine rooms are elaborate, ornate, and colorful. As in Zen but unlike Tibetan Buddhist practice, meditators engage in group practice of shamatha-vipashyana. In addition, Shambhala have adopted the practices of kyūdō , ikebana (kado), tea ceremony , oryoki , calligraphy , and other traditional Japanese arts. To

3440-604: The advanced levels of which involve secret teachings and a vow of devotion to the guru , a position currently held by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche . The concept of Shambhala is part of the lore of Tibetan Buddhism, and is described in the Kalachakra tantra. The Kalachakra tantra was presumably introduced to Tibet still in the 11th century, the epoch of the Tibetan Kalachakra calendar . In the Kalachakra narrative, King Manjuśrīkīrti

3520-450: The ancient texts as a matter of fact is based on a very deep principle characteristic of the most authentic Bön tradition. Sound, albeit not visible, can be perceived through the sense of hearing and used as a means of communication, and is in fact linked to the cha (the individual's positive force, the base of prosperity), wang tang (ascendancy-capacity), and all the other aspects of a person's energy, aspects that are directly related with

3600-545: The boundaries of the mandala, the private society of his personal students who share the initiatory mysteries, to the entire nation. This was the theory of the relationship between religion and society that Trungpa Rinpoche elaborated in the West. Its metaphysics was based on the philosophical syncretism of the Eclectic [Rime] movement, which evolved an almost Neoplatonic emanational version of Buddhist mysticism. The mythological machinery,

3680-425: The city of Shambhala. Manjuśrīkīrti initiated the preaching of the Kalachakra teachings in order to try to convert those who returned and were still under his rule. The Kalachakra tantra prophesies that when the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, the 25th Kalki king Maitreya will emerge from Shambhala, with a huge army to vanquish Dark Forces and usher in a worldwide Golden Age . This final battle

3760-472: The context of colonialism . Attempts to define either the "secular" or the "religious" in non-Western societies, accompanying local modernization and Westernization processes, were often and still are fraught with tension. Due to all these factors, secular as a general term of reference was much deprecated in social sciences, and is used carefully and with qualifications. Philosopher Charles Taylor in his 2007 book A Secular Age understands and discusses

3840-464: The cosmology of his system, was based on the most complex of all of the Buddhist tantras, the Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) Tantra. But textually it was based on the Tibetan oral epic of King Gesar of Ling, which deployed a non-Buddhist divine machinery based on native Inner Asian shamanistic and animistic religion. The “back text” of Trungpa’s socioreligious system was the Gesar epic. This meant that his model for

3920-412: The creation of his Shambhala teachings as follows: The philosopher king and the political leadership of his idealized society were people who ruled by virtue of private mystical realizations. The one who sees the phenomenal world as mere appearance and reality as a transcendent other, rules the country and introduces the citizens to his private mystical world. To use tantric terminology, the leader expands

4000-587: The dignities in place of the windhorse. In this context the snow lion, garuda and dragon represent the Ling (wylie: Gling ) community from which Gesar comes, while the tiger represents the family of the Tagrong (wylie: sTag rong ), Gesar's paternal uncle. The windhorse ceremonies are usually conducted in conjunction with the lhasang (wylie: lha bsang , literally "smoke offering to the gods") ritual, in which juniper branches are burned to create thick and fragrant smoke. This

4080-426: The eyes slightly open, and focusing attention on the out-breath. A feeling of dissolving accompanies the out-breath but no specific attention is prescribed during the in-breath. The hands are placed face down on the thighs. Thoughts may be labeled neutrally as "thinking" before attention is returned to the out breath. Variations on the technique are taught during the first five "Heart of Warriorship" weekends. Meditation

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4160-521: The fact that their values , morality , or sense of life's meaning are no longer underpinned by communally-accepted religious facts. All religious beliefs or irreligious philosophical positions are, in a secular society, held with an awareness that there are a wide range of other contradictory positions available to any individual; belief in general becomes a different type of experience when all particular beliefs are optional. A plethora of competing religious and irreligious worldviews open up, each rendering

4240-495: The four brothers. The brothers who received the goat and dog choose not to participate, and their animals therefore do not become drala. Each of the brothers represents one of the six primitive Tibetan clans ( bod mi'u gdung drug ), with which their respective animals also become associated. The four animals (with the snow lion replacing the yak) also recur frequently in the Gesar epic , and sometimes Gesar and his horse are depicted with

4320-561: The goal of creating an enlightened society. This is thought of not only as a social and political process but a practice requiring individuals to develop an awareness of the basic goodness and inherent dignity of themselves, of others, and of the everyday details of the world around them. This is facilitated by cultivating gentleness and bravery. Some key concepts presented in Shambhala Training include: The basic meditation technique initially presented in Shambhala Training includes sitting with legs loosely crossed, taking good posture, leaving

4400-615: The great scholar Ju Mipham felt compelled to clarify that in his view rlung rta was preferable to klung rta , indicating that some degree of ambiguity must have persisted at least up to his time. Karmay suggests that "river horse" ( klung rta ) was actually the original concept, as found in the Tibetan nag rtsis system of astrology imported from China. The nag rtsis system has four basic elements: srog (vital force), lu (wylie: lus, body), wangtang (wylie: dbang thang , "field of power"), and lungta (wylie: klung rta, river horse). Karmey suggests that klung rta in turn derives from

4480-496: The guru if they wish to continue. During Warrior Assembly, students study the Shambhala terma text, The Golden Sun of the Great East, and receive the practices of the "stroke of ashé " (said to be a terma through Trungpa ) and lungta . The Satdharma community, established by Trungpa's appointed regent and Dharma heir Ösel Tendzin (Thomas Rich), offers a comparable "Shambhala Education" course of training in Ojai, California . After

4560-481: The image of the Shambhala kingdom to represent the ideal of secular enlightenment, that is, the possibility of uplifting our personal existence and that of others without the help of any religious outlook. For although the Shambhala tradition is founded on the sanity and gentleness of the Buddhist tradition, at the same time it has its own independent basis, which is directly cultivating who and what we are as human beings. The teachings cover art, society, and politics and

4640-456: The influence of Christian theology, other cultures do not necessarily have words or concepts that resemble or are equivalent to them. Historically, the word secular was not related or linked to religion, but was a freestanding term in Latin that would relate to any mundane endeavour. However, the term, saecula saeculorum ( saeculōrum being the genitive plural of saeculum ) as found in

4720-436: The influence of Christian theology, other cultures do not necessarily have words or concepts that resemble or are equivalent to them. One can regard eating and bathing as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them. Nevertheless, some religious traditions see both eating and bathing as sacraments , therefore making them religious activities within those world views . Saying

4800-535: The medieval period, but coexisted and interacted naturally. The word secular has a meaning very similar to profane as used in a religious context. Today, anything that is not directly connected with religion may be considered secular, in other words, neutral to religion. Secularity does not mean ' anti-religious ' , but ' unrelated to religion ' . Many activities in religious bodies are secular, and though there are multiple types of secularity or secularization, most do not lead to irreligiosity. Linguistically,

4880-490: The mind. For younger students (primary - grade 5) this might include movement and awareness activities. For the older grades (grade 6 - 12) this includes 5–10 minutes of simple yoga each morning and 10 minutes of Shambhala sitting meditation every morning and before dismissal. Usually on the morning returning from each major break (i.e., winter and March breaks) the entire upper school participates in an approximately hour-long yoga session followed by sitting meditation. Each year,

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4960-600: The nature of the Shambhala texts he was presenting to us. When asked whether they were terma (“treasure teachings” hidden long ago to be discovered at an appropriate time in the future), he replied, “Yes, sort of.” When we asked whether we should include the terma mark to indicate terma in our translations, his response was, “Not yet; maybe later.” In fact, this did not come to pass until after his death, when Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche instructed us to include this in our future publications of these texts, and he confirmed with no hesitation that they were indeed authentic terma. When we asked

5040-473: The night of October 25, 1976, while Trungpa was leading a three-month seminary in Land O' Lakes, Wisconsin. It was followed by subsequent texts, some of which were considered to be terma , which were received over the next few years. Shambhala partly derives from Chögyam Trungpa's Shambhala teachings, named after the mythical Tibetan Kingdom of Shambhala . Shambhala in its current form is a new religious movement ,

5120-504: The origin of the animals as a tetrad, "neither written nor oral explanations exist anywhere" with the exception of a thirteenth-century manuscript called "The Appearance of the Little Black-Headed Man" ( dBu nag mi'u dra chag ), and in that case a yak is substituted for the snow lion, which had not yet emerged as the national symbol of Tibet. In the text, a nyen (wylie: gNyan, mountain spirit ) kills his son-in-law, Khri-to, who

5200-425: The other more "fragile". This condition in turn entails for Taylor that even clearly religious beliefs and practices are experienced in a qualitatively different way when they occur in a secular social context. In Taylor's sense of the term, a society could in theory be highly "secular" even if nearly all of its members believed in a deity or even subscribed to a particular religious creed; secularity here has to do with

5280-400: The past I have been able to present the wisdom and dignity of human life within the context of the religious teachings of Buddhism. Now it gives me tremendous joy to present the principles of Shambhala warriorship and to show how we can conduct our lives as warriors with fearlessness and rejoicing, without destroying one another... I have been presenting a series of "Shambhala teachings" that use

5360-465: The prerequisite study and practice stages. However, it is claimed by Shambhala adherents that much of their content is found in the book Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior and others. During the Sacred Path weekends and Warriors Assembly, students study Shambhala texts composed by Chögyam Trungpa, as well as practices such as that of the stroke of ashé . The stroke of ashé was first produced on

5440-522: The protective deities and entities that every person has from birth. Moreover, sound is considered the foremost connection between the individual himself and his la . From all this we can easily understand the deep meaning of the word sgra bla . The nineteenth century lamas of the Rime movement, particularly the great scholar Ju Mipham , began to "create a systematic interweaving of native shamanism, oral epic, and Buddhist tantra, alchemical Taoism, Dzogchen, and

5520-515: The relationship between religion and society was what he saw in his region of Tibet, the Sino-Tibetan marches of Kham (Eastern Tibet) and Amdo/Qinghai. In particular, he pointed to the Goloks, nomadic pastoralist warriors, who made the mystery religion of Dzogchen, the great perfection, their public religion through, among other things, the propagation of the oral epic. Secular Secularity , also

5600-404: The school organizes the "Turkey Trot". This raises money for under-privileged families in the community to receive Turkeys and other foods for Thanksgiving. Due to the small population on a school based level, Shambhala and other Private schools (e.g. Sacred Heart School of Halifax ) have teamed up to conduct dances. This is usually open to 6-9 grades and sometimes 10-12 respectively. Each student

5680-538: The secular or secularness (from Latin saeculum , ' worldly ' or ' of a generation ' ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion . The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian history into the modern era . In the Middle Ages , there were even secular clergy. Furthermore, secular and religious entities were not separated in

5760-457: The secularity of Western societies less in terms of how much of a role religion plays in public life ( secularity 1 ), or how religious a society's individual members are ( secularity 2 ), than as a "backdrop" or social context in which religious belief is no longer taken as a given ( secularity 3 ). For Taylor, this third sense of secularity is the unique historical condition in which virtually all individuals – religious or not – have to contend with

5840-510: The strange, vast Kalachakra tantra ," and the folk traditions were increasingly given Buddhist connotations and used in Buddhist contexts. Mipham's edition of the Epic of Gesar , which Robin Kornman, a Tibetan Buddhist scholar and student of Chogyam Trungpa, saw as the cornerstone of Trungpa's Shambhala teachings, "was a hybrid of Buddhist and local idea. He made sure it would be read this manner by writing

5920-458: The synthesis his gurus had effected. He became in effect the chief spokesman in the West for this syncretic system." The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, a younger colleague of Trungpa Rinpoche, notes that Trungpa "introduced many Tibetan cultural practices through the Shambhala teachings, such as the lhasang (purification ceremony), along with practices associated with drala and werma (deities)." Kornman summaries Trungpa's use of antecedent traditions in

6000-736: The term this way (see " secularism ", below); Martin Luther used to speak of "secular work" as a vocation from God for most Christians. Secular has been a part of the Christian church's history, which even developed in the medieval period secular clergy , priests who were defined as the Church's geographically-delimited diocesan clergy and not a part of the diasporal monastic orders. This arrangement continues today. The Waldensians advocated for secularity by separation of church and state. According to cultural anthropologists such as Jack David Eller, secularity

6080-408: The year 2000, with the merging of the secular teachings of Shambhala and the teachings of Vajradhatu into Shambhala Teaching, completion of Shambhala Seminary (which requires taking Buddhist refuge and bodhisattva vows, as well as Buddhist samaya vows of devotion to the guru) became a condition for progressing on the path and receiving the most advanced Shambhala teachings, such as those of Werma and

6160-470: Was 47. After Trungpa's death, Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin became spiritual head of Vajradhatu until around 1989. Citing an AIDS -related infection, allegations arose that Tendzin had passed HIV to a male partner in the Colorado congregation, who in turn unknowingly infected his female partner. Tendzin, who was HIV-positive, knowingly had sex with students for three years without disclosing his infection. He had

6240-531: Was accused of multiple counts of sexual misconduct and abuse of power and temporarily stepped back from teaching. Further investigation found enough of the accusations to be credible and established a pattern of abuse of power. In September 2020, an investigative report detailed a culture of abuse dating back to early days of the Shambhala organization. In Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior , Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote: I am honoured and grateful that in

6320-489: Was endorsed by Penor Rinpoche , head of the Nyingma lineage, as the reincarnation of Ju Mipham , and enthroned as Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche. Beginning in 2000, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche moved to enclose the previously secular teachings of Shambhala within the container of a new lineage known as Shambhala Buddhism. In the following years, the Shambhala and Buddhist curricula were merged, and Shambhala versions of practices such as Ngöndro were developed. In 2018, Sakyong Mipham

6400-432: Was predominately a feature of the folk culture, a "mundane notion of the layman rather than a Buddhist religious ideal," as Tibetan scholar Samten G. Karmay explains. However, while "the original concept of rlung ta bears no relation to Buddhism," over the centuries it became more common for Buddhist elements to be incorporated. Windhorse has several meanings in the Tibetan context. As Karmay notes, "the word [windhorse]

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