Making Portland Shambhala governance more inclusive

Part 1 Since the beginning of the year, the Portland Shambhala directors and Governance Council have been thinking about how to make governance more open, less exclusive or mysterious. So, inspired by the TRIZ facilitation structure, we played a game at the March 2019 Council meeting. We started by envisioning the worst possible actions. We … Continue 

Community Conversation: Diversity and Inclusion

Meeting Summary, Sunday, April 14 By Mark Douglass Twelve people attended our conversation on diversity and inclusion. We began by listening to one another’s stories of marginalization and exclusion, then discussed in small groups the categories of people who are not at the Portland Shambhala Center.  We identified categories of race, age (young people), socioeconomic … Continue 

Community Conversation: Lineage Portraits

Meeting Summary, Sunday, April 7 by Mark Douglass On Sunday 4/7, eight of us gathered to discuss the following questions: What do the lineage portraits at our center mean to you personally? Where should the lineage portraits be located in our center (or should they be removed permanently)? Personal connection to the lineage portraits – and to our lineage holders – … Continue 

Three people throwing coins for an I Ching reading

I Ching Guidance for the Year of the Earth Boar

Contributors: Gardner Murphy, Timaree Bierle-Dodds, Abbey Pleviak, Laura Byrd; Photos by Dale Bennet It is traditional every year on Shambhala Day to throw the I Ching, the classical Chinese system of interpreting questions or current situations by tossing, in our case, three coins. Each toss of the three coins can result in a broken line, … Continue 

Community Conversation: Decision-making

Meeting Summary, Sunday, March 31, 2019 by Mark Douglass Thirteen of us gathered at noon on Sunday, March 31, to discuss our community decision-making process. A brief summary follows. What decisions need to be made as a community? Three categories of decisions: Our existence as a community. We have undergone some significant changes in the … Continue 

Judith Simmer-Brown on the power of community

Judith Simmer-Brown started the topic Power of Community: at 8:37 pm, February 24, 2019 In the intensity of day-to-day communications, I know that I and others go up and down, pulled one direction by one passionate email, and then another with the next that comes from a completely different point of view. What to do … Continue 

Update from Relo Team

On Saturday, January 19, the Relocation Team hosted an open forum to provide information and receive feedback on our activities to date, as well as options for going forward. This is a summary of that forum. What We’ve Accomplished: Since its formation in late 2016, the Relo Team has been working to find a new … Continue 

Community Update: Director Search Committee

Since the Director Search Committee was appointed in April 2018, we have met frequently as a committee, twice with the Portland Shambhala Center community as a whole, and kept open a public line of e-communication via [email protected]. In June we joined the larger community in shock and distress over allegations of sexual misconduct within the … Continue 

Dalai Lama meets with survivors of abuse by Buddhist teachers

https://www.lionsroar.com/dalai-lama-meets-with-survivors-of-abuse-by-buddhist-teachers/?mc_cid=ac686a6219&mc_eid=cb08e8af68

Resources for Helping our Sangha to Understand Current Events in Shambhala

by Shambhala LA We have put together a virtual reading room for our community that contains some links to letters from Shambhala governance and the Sakyong, news articles, helpful blog posts and teachings. We will continue to update this page with new information as it becomes available. This list is not intended to be exhaustive. … Continue