Notes from the Director’s HoP State of the Center Address

October 15, 2015 by Lisa_Stanley

IMG_1808Welcome to our annual celebration at the time of the autumnal equinox. This is a time of fruition, harvesting and celebrating our richness as individuals and as a community. In that spirit I would to share some of the highlights of what we’ve accomplished this year and all that is arising out of that. And there is so much more we haven’t time to mention here

We are offering a growing and varied array of programs; some of the highlights this year included:

  • Ethan Nichtern’s Level 1 and talk/book reading
  • The Mahayana program with Acharya Gaylon Ferguson which included offering the Bodhisattva Vow to 16 people, and 15 people taking the Refuge Vow
  • We held the first Vajrayana program in Portland (that anyone remembers) this spring with Acharya Susan Chapman
  • And the 2nd (now annual) LGBTQ weekend retreat with Dr Julia Sagebien from Halifax
  • The first Kasung-sponsored program – Cultivating the Path of Protection: Hearts and Minds in Action with the Director of SMC Dr Michael Gayner

We are mentoring and supporting people who are ready to step onto the path of teaching and meditation instruction:

  • 8 people attended the Guide Training.
  • Corey Adkins, Abbey Pleviak, Aletha Eastwood, Jay Stevens, David Englebrecht, Janie Paige, Caitlin Bargenquast, and Carol Lieberman
  • 8 who participated in the Course Leader Training in Seattle, a step on the path of teaching.
  • John Light, Carol Lieberman, Erica Thygesen, Rebecca Jamison, Aletha Eastwood, Dan Rubin, Kristin Mullen, and Ann Sihler.

We have been working at communication in general, as well as between the Governing Council and our membership including the following:

  • International Office of Societal Health & Well-Being launched the Pathfinders Program (mediation service) to improve communication and bring conflicts to the path of warriorship; our own Jay Stewart attended and is available to offer this service to our community.
  • conducted a Center Director Feedback process that involved our Members and had over a 50% response rate
  • we instituted the first ever Town Halls (1st in Jan, 2nd today) as a way for Members and Council to gather and talk about important Center issues such as our Center relocation process; we plan to continue with these annually
  • Council will begin to issue an annual year-end report to our members and community reflecting our accomplishments as a community and goals for the upcoming year

We will also be initiating social action gatherings in the upcoming year to explore how to bring the Shambhala vision of basic goodness into the community at large

The Environment working group (Bettina, Abbey and Lisa) is in an ongoing process of uplifting the Center environment with the help of many generous volunteers. We want to support the work and activities that take place here – the results speak for themselves, take a look around! Recent things you might notice are our new Rusung desk, or visit our ‘new’ Library space to read or check out books or schedule a meeting there

Collaborations

We are collaborating with Tergar to co-host Andrew Holocek’s program Graceful Exit: Preparing for a Good Death which presents the Tibetan Buddhist Bardo teachings along with practical advice on preparing for death

Co-hosted our 3rd annual Life.Art.Being Festival with BeSpace which brought in outside speakers and offered a amazing array of workshops.

We lead a session of the24 Hour Interfaith Chant for Peace at the Great Vow Monastery, leaders and practices from Buddhist, Jewish, Native American groups among others

Regional

1st Pacific Northwest (PNW) Regional Gathering of Center Directors and Directors of P&E; main project – hosting together a visit by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche tentatively scheduled for Seattle in Fall 2016

Formation of Nyida Day Planning Committee. Already resulted in our joining with Eugene sangha for Winter Solstice/Children’s Day and 2016 Midsummer’s Day at Silver Falls State Park

Corey Adkins organized a regional Young Meditators campout

International

Ann Cason, co-chair of the International Shambhala Working Group on Aging

Corey Adkins, Co-Director of the Ziji Collective, a global network of inspired young people dedicated to the vision of basic goodness who engage in community activities, arts events, meditation and spiritual teachings, and social activism—in line with the vision of creating a decent human society.

Michaela McCormick, member of the Diversity Working Group; who will also be taking the UNtraining; internalized racism and our own cultural conditioning, communicate authentically and compassionately with each other about issues of race, 

John Smith led project with Portland as the site for piloting an advanced email publication system which other large centers will now be able to implement that interface. We also conducted a study of calendaring practices at 7 Shambhala Centers and participated in a demonstration project aimed at how to use the Shambhala Database information to support decision-making.

Finances

The last two years we experienced higher than projected income at year’s end. This meant not only did we pay the rent but we were able to do things like add money into our scholarship funds, increase hours for Abbey, have a paid bookkeeper and increase our support of our international mandala.

This year we are seeing new healthy trends; mid year report typically shows a projected deficit. Instead of 3-4k this year we are in the black.

Our membership continues to grow; dues have grown which helps us to achieve increased stability

As Jason Bray said when communicating on this past year, ‘At first I thought “well is that all?” – and then realized that’s a HUGE amount of activities and milestones in one year – and these are just some of the highlights; VERY proud of the work being done.’

We closed this part of the day with a short contemplation.

CONTEMPLATION, 3 min each

1 – In Shambhala we view everyone as unconditionally wealthy. 

Take time to contemplate your own sense of richness, bringing to mind what you have received or accomplished this year. It might be related to work and money, relationships, or your spiritual practice.

2 – Now contemplate what or how you would like to share that richness with others in your life or for society.

— Lisa Stanley

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