Editorial (1/2017)

Dear Community,

 

Cheerful new year to you! A new solar year has commenced, and the days are getting longer again. Hopefully this message finds you and your relations very well and warm. I have just returned from staffing the beautiful Winter Youth Retreat – a meditation programme for young people of all backgrounds that has been taking place for ten years now, initiated and run by Shambhalians and their friends in Germany. With this community experience in mind, the theme for our articles could be Sangha. The contributions I received for this issue illustrate the many facets of our Shambhala community: a growing network of practitioners who support and inspire each other on their path. As such, Sangha also represents one of the three Refuges for Buddhists of all traditions. Sangha’s Tibetan equivalent – ge(n)dün – wonderfully expresses this: It is that community of people with the aspiration (dün) for virtue (ge). Traditionally, this virtue is understood as the training in appropriate conduct, meditation, and wisdom.

 

As always, if you feel like writing an article for future issues, please do not hesitate to get in touch. I intend to send out a newsletter during each quarter – hence its next edition is scheduled for early/mid-April. In addition, each contribution will also be uploaded on our Centre blog.

 

Finally, for those who have not met me so far, my name is Paul, and I am your Membership Secretary. Maybe we can meet this quarter, for example during the Shambhala Day celebrations!

 

Yours in the vision of the Great Eastern Sun,
Paul

 

Paul grew up with a Zen and Pure Land background. He encountered Tibetan Buddhism as a teenager, especially through the Khyentse lineage. Oxford-based, he studies Sanskrit and teaches yoga, Sanskrit, and Pali.

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