Shambhala as a Sukkah – Preface

The notes below have been considered and then crafted as Shambhala Day, March 3, 2022, has arrived. Shambhala Day is when the new year is celebratated/recognized in the Shambhala community, and it is equivalent to losar, also recognizing the new year, in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

The other pages on this website…..do operate independently from what is presented below.

The tradition of Tibetan Buddhism stands on its own, has existed for some 2600 years…and although the particulars of the dissemination of the information I have come to learn…have come as a function of the learning I have received through my participation in the Shambhala community….I do understand that the ideas presented in this website mostly also stand on their own.

Unfortunately, the Shambhala community has…especially recently…encountered some problems.  These do motivate what is written below

Shambhala as a Sukkah – The Idea

There is a primary reason that it can be helpful to see how Shambhala is like a sukkah:

• It’s the roof.  It’s the custom that, for the creation of a sukkah, the roof not be solid. You need to be able to see through it. You can get rained on by design.  So, a bamboo or thatched roof is typical when you intentionally create a sukkah.
• Secondarily, the structure is tentative….it is not sturdy
• And….a way that a sukkah is more different than similar to Shambhala has to do with the time frame associated with its existence
  • Traditionally, the sukkah is only up for a week….and then you take it down.

• But, in our community…..following near 3 years of Shambhala being in an undefined state…..the sukkah like condition of Shambhala….is the….for now….ongoing expected status of our community. 
  • Work is expected to come forward from Practice and Education.  But, having seen the documents that followed the negotiation between the two boards, I felt it constructive…if only as a motivator to create an effort to defy this comparison…..to posit what seems to be the case.  It is not expected that, as a result of what has been agreed to, to see that our community will represent a strong launching pad for the practitioner to progress along the path that its teachings have suggested to the student.

• We say in Shambhala…in Buddhism….that the student is on a three yana journey….that it is developmental.  Yes, since many students who have come up in Shambhala have walked this journey…consequently a culture has emerged…and there is evidence of all three yanas.
• But, without a leader “in residence,”…..or rather…..with a leader who has requested, and we’ve agreed, to keep a seat for them at the dinner table….but with no plans for them to join us for dinner, regardless of whether we would like to see them there or not….we do not have the ability…in-house….to provide the granting authority for students…normatively…to travel from one stage of the path to another.
• And yet, the path like nature of our teachings is inherent in our messaging.

• So, why the roof…particularly.  We have sometimes compared the 3 yanas to the building of a house.  First, you build a foundation…which is like the hinayana.  Next come the walls…which represents the Mahayana.  Finally, you’re ready to put on the roof.  That’s the Vajrayana.
• But, by design…our roof is temporary…now…in Shambhala.  Or, not present, per se.
• It’s not clear to me how newer students can step forward.  They cannot receive what’s been called “pointing out” instructions, and then move forward on their journey…by having a relationship with a teacher traditionally known as a lineage holder….as that person is not expected to be in residence within the Shambhala Community.
• It is hoped that another way forward can be understood, or will evolve, and can be engineered. But…for now….as I understand it, there is no basis for a “good” roof to attach to this structure….which…like a sukkah traditionally is….might be seen as a transitory, transitional, not too stable…by design….structure.
• Yes, there are causes for hope.  Jury rigged entities that both have seen success, and also, have not been in any obvious recent evidence, like Open Torii, have emerged.  But, there is no pretense either to suggest this also separate and sort of temporary structure will be a part of Shambhala, nor…that what might be the hoped for and needed capacity for Shambhala to be serviced by such entitles pertain…but the very existence of this text is attributed to what we see as the need for such strategies for the student to be able to progress along the path to emerge….especially and unless these pathways cannot be a more primary and inborn part of what Shambhala is.

• The purpose of drafting this text….is to be proven wrong. I would like to be told I’m wrong.
• Also, although I could have waited to post this note…having been told that Practice & Education is in process towards creating a plan…..yes..I could have waited for that.  And, I could have done what all of us have done the past 3 years….which is to wait.
• However, I DID think it might be more constructive, instead….to share the view that seemed….if not inevitable… to have come forward, from what has been described already.
• And, since there certainly could be things not anticipated that could come forward, making this view to be wholly incorrect….I thought it might give us at least possibly more of a chance to put up a paper tiger….in this year of the Water Tiger….to be proven wrong.  And, to make this text worthy of being taken down.
• But, until a different view is seen….this is the view I have.
• Though I do hope I can be proven wrong.
• Since….no…as we are not fundamentally a hinayana tradition….the aspiration of having a long term temporary structure as the model for our community….is not favorable.