Help make Shambhala Training free this year!

 

Two generous donors have offered a matching grant up to $10,000 toward free Shambhala Training this year! Your generosity will be doubled until April 15

If you are in a place to contribute to this gift, please

  1. Make a contribution through the form below
  2. Contact me directly for larger gifts (helps save on transaction costs!)

 

P.S. If you don’t have a paypal account, and want to use a credit or debit card, choose “Donate with a Debit or Credit Card” after you click “Submit” above.

 

We need as many people as possible cultivating basic sanity in the year ahead – able to respond to challenges with genuineness, confidence, humor and dignity. So we are offering our core Shambhala Training weekend retreats for free to everyone in 2024!

The ripple effects of this could be huge: 

  • This will energize staff and teachers, making this a core part of what we do – and able to offer it to audiences
  • Increase participation in other programs – both free and paid – from people wanting to explore further
  • Broader understanding of the core Shambhala principles and practices among regulars in our drop-in groups (nyinthun, HoR, Wed Dharma, etc.) leading to a more cohesive community
  • New members who might not otherwise have joined

What is Shambhala Training?

Shambhala Training presents a transformative journey for modern people to cultivate an open mind, unencumbered by hope and fear and able to respond to situations spontaneously with courage, confidence, openness, and compassion.

Shambhala Training was created by Chögyam Trungpa in the mid-1970s as a way to bring the essential teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist path to a secular western audience. It is structured as a series of 5 weekend retreats (sometimes called “Levels”) which offer a progressive path of practice and study, which closely align with the books Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior and Great Eastern Sun. Over the decades, thousands of people have participated in Shambhala Training, whether for one weekend or for the entire path of graduated levels and land center retreats.

The five weekend retreats are:ƒ
The Art of Being Human
Birth of the Warrior
Warrior in the World
Awakened Heart
Open Sky

Beyond simply offering meditation techniques and an introduction to Shambhala principles, these retreats are opportunities for people to see their own confusion, resistance, aggression, in an environment in which it becomes workable, so that they are able to work with it themselves, and offer compassion when they see it in others.

Particularly this year in the US, when deeply polarizing issues are roiling the country, when fear has become a weapon, when so many crises can overwhelm us, the teachings and practices taught in Shambhala Training – basic goodness, gentleness, fearlessness, and the stability of mind that comes from meditation – are more necessary than ever.

 

What’s different this year?

 

Over the last few years Shambhala Boston has made a significant change to the structure of the series, to make it more accessible. By opening the first three weekends without prerequisites, there are three times as many opportunities to start on this path.

On January 1 of this year we made the choice to try offering Shambhala Training for free. We felt that the world needed as many people as possible cultivating basic sanity in the year ahead – able to respond to challenges with genuineness, confidence, humor and dignity. It was a risk but we felt the risk was worth it, and the response was outstanding! 

This decision to offer all of these weekend retreats to participants at no cost was the right thing to do for inclusivity, for diversity, to help people make the leap to try a program. We believe that this work is needed more than ever, and we have faith in the value of Shambhala Training.

In response, two anonymous donors were inspired by this gesture to offer a $10,000 matching grant to support free Shambhala Training in 2024. For every dollar raised by other supporters of this initiative, the donors will match that donation, up to $10,000.

Historically these Shambhala Training weekend programs have been an important source of revenue for our center. This matching grant money will allow us to offer these programs for free to anyone who could benefit, without a significant loss to our financial health. It will allow us to continue to offer honoraria to the teachers, to provide meals to participants, purchase flowers for ikebana, and other operating expenses for running these programs.

 

Are gifts tax deductible?

Yes, everyone who donates money will receive a letter from us in January with a summary of their donations for the previous year and all the information required to file with your taxes.