Governing Council Winter Retreat Highlights
On December 8th, 2013, the PSMC Governing Council met at Alice Price’s beautiful home in NE Portland for a day of discussion, contemplation, and, of course, great food! This retreat came while the council (especially Alice, our Finance Director) was hard at work finalizing the budget for 2014, but we decided to set this day aside as a time where we could reflect on some of the long-term goals and priorities of our center.
Fortuitously, this process coincided with the beginning of the roll out of the new funding structure for Shambhala International, Unified Giving. (Shambhala International has provided a wealth of great information on Unified Giving that you can check out online, including here) As part of this roll out, the Sakyong recorded a Lung (an oral-transmission)- framing this model in a reflection on where we are, where we have come, and where we are going as an organization -entitled “The Birth of Ratna,” to which we listened together. This Lung presented the vision of this new model not merely as a financial restructuring of Shambhala, but as an effort of fostering of connection between the center of our mandala- all the hard working people out in Halifax- and the local centers like us.
Listening to the Lung prompted a fruitful discussion about how the center of the mandala affects us, and how we connect with it. We agreed that without personal connections to those working in the center of the mandala, it will remain abstract, and it will be difficult for us to make a connection with them or understand how they benefit us. Though there remained some disagreement about the viability of this model, pending the details about how it will affect us as a center, there seemed to be agreement that this move towards more integration and adopting a larger view of ourselves as part of a global community is the logical next step for us as Shambhala.
This also spurred a discussion about how we as a council and a center are looking to grow moving forward. One area that we agreed has a lot of potential for growth is membership and fund raising. These areas, while important for our financial stability, seem to have a lot of under-utilized energy. Many questions arose: how do we make membership a richer experience? How do we work with each person on their particular stage of the path? And for people who want to deepen their engagement with the center, how are we making that available to them? An important discussion occurred about handling our financial situation from a mentality of richness, acknowledging what we have and provide, staying wary of efforts coming across as “begging for money,” or asking too much, too often. We agreed that a future step will be finding one or two individuals to help manage these areas of the center and bring some energy and creativity to them.
Overall, the day felt very rewarding; we were able to discuss issues that were relevant not just to our present situation, but to our role in the Sakyong’s vision of creating an enlightened society. We closed the day with a chance to reflect, and a feeling of appreciation seemed to collectively arise: for the wonderful year we had as a center, that we had gathered to discuss these issues, that we were able to make connections with each other and with the vision of the Sakyong, and that even though we didn’t always agree, we were able to relate to each other from a common ground of respect and acknowledgment of each other’s basic goodness.
