Solstice presentation and Celebration with music and other offerings
 

Intergenerational Trauma is gaining validation in clinical settings where culturally appropriate care for indigenous and oppressed peoples is being critically explored and is changing. Eduardo Duran, Healing the Soul Wound's author, defines a post-colonial approach to healing for Indigenous people

Reality is characterised by impermanence. It is a mark of the Buddhist view that everything changes.  We habitually grasp or push or ignore. These attitudes can be seen as strategies to hold on - to something, anything - and to protect the comforting fiction of our solid and unchanging selves. 

This mark of impermanence can guide us in our path and our practice. Is our meditation supposed to put us into a desirable, unchanging state of mind? Or is it an opportunity to let go into the unruly flow of life from moment to moment? To join in the impermanence of everything, especially ourselves. 

This short talk with guided meditation is offered to help us to see the opportunity to relax with impermanence in our practice. And for those who do not yet see that everything changes, I suggest that there is no better way to "road test" this teaching than in one's own meditative experience. 

In this talk, Jonathan will explore how we learn to trust ourselves, how we can extend that trust out to others, and how the path of meditation helps us listen to the experience of those whose voices are silenced by institutional oppression. 

In this Sunday gathering, we will explore the challenges and opportunities when working with the social justice issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion within Shambhala. Do we take the dharma of creating enlightened society seriously? If so, what might that look like and what might we want and need to generate to move our community closer to this aspiration? What gets in our way? How do we guard against it becoming aggressive, dismissive, or shaming? With curiosity and openness my hope is that we investigate how this work is dharma, and how we can bring our spiritual practice into our life beyond the cushion.

During our hour together we’ll sing three songs, contemplate their meaning, consider alternate translations, and practice meditation.

With the motivation to serve others, we can use rest to generate the creativity and exertion to address the monumental social and ecological challenges of our time. Through settling our minds and bodies, we rouse energy for meditation in action. 

This talk will cover the causes and conditions necessary for a rebirth in Sukavati (Dewachen). I will talk about creating reminders and the importance of habit patterns in case we forget after we die.

A discussion about ways and means to come together around death & dying within our communities
Alice (along with being tech & admin support for Shambhala) is a community death doula. She will lead a conversation about community deathcare teams, support of one another through the dying process, and creating "home" funerals, at home or at our Shambhala Centers. There will be room to share our own wisdom about caring for death & dying in our communities.

These are the best of times—science offers us incredible power and comfort. These are the worst of times—materialism obscures the wisdom that’s the source of genuine happiness and freedom. The Mahayana can free us from this contradiction.