Fascinating thought.

Cape Breton story: a few years back I picked up a one thousand page book on the old Irish stories as remembered by Gaelic bards. There was a section in there about ‘the little people’. An old bard/shaman type was lamenting that the Little People were leaving Ireland. He got on a boat and went to Canada, following a dream or some such. I seem to remember he started in the West (improbably) but in any case, he traversed Canada and couldn’t find the Little People. Finally he took a boat across the narrow channel to Cape Breton (which comes from different geological origins than the Mainland btw, i.e. they are two separate landmasses who have bumped into each other and settled side by side). Whilst still in the boat and approaching the nearby land of Cape Breton he began to perk up. Then later, when he came to the area where now the native community of Eskasoni dwells, he found them.

Anyway, that’s a little-known story about ‘The Little People’ in our Shambhalian kingdom-domain.

(To this day, if you ask someone who comes from Eskasoni about ‘the little people’ they will always reply, ‘yes, they are still here’. I have even been given descriptions, although I always have the feeling my chain is being pulled.)

There is a conceptual tendency when viewing the various levels of teaching and experience to map them out as progressive stages on a path which in turn gives rise to a somewhat linear sense of journey, often visualised as the more advanced levels being higher and the early levels being lower, but also could be that the advanced levels are just further along a linear path.

I am not sure it really works that way in reality. It’s more like
a) different ‘levels’ of teaching are addressing different levels of view which themselves are a manifestation of different levels of egolessness basically, or alternatively one could say levels/views approaching and finally manifest as fruition. So Maha Ati is expression from fruitional view and therefore the most simple and direct. It is not necessarily the highest or furthest along in any linear sense. It is the least complex, or simply the least.

The best layout of this I have read is Rigdzin Shikpo’s chapter in Recalling Trungpa. Here you see a progressive approach to fruition being the ‘path’, explained in a way that is clearly not linear and intellectually framed in terms of the ‘Three Spheres’ of Inner, Outer and In-Between.

This relates to your points above, I think. Rather than comparing them as two different types of the same thing it is more like the Dharma is the view, and thus language, of the Inner Sphere; Shambhala is the view, and thus language, of the Outer Sphere.

Ultimately any Inner is another’s Outer and vice versa so there is no fundamental difference. Ati cannot be higher or more advanced than Shambhala because there is no such thing as a more enlightened version of enlightenment, a more truthful version of truth, a more dharmic version of pure dharma.

Shambhala is fruitional in the sense that it is not concerned with the stages of the path experienced by someone on the inner journey of progressing towards and then actualising fruition just as from the Inner pov the Outer is always basically Reality and thus unchanging Dharma or True. The path of dharma is one of aligning one’s one view (the Inner Sphere) with the dharma/truth/reality of things as they are. Shambhala has no such inner journey inherently since it is the mandala of Outer, aka ‘Society’ in human experience terms which is the only experience that matters.

Drala is how Outer Sphere Being is felt by Inner Sphere experiencer, I suspect, and thus neither existing nor non-existing but very, very real when Inner and Outer meet in the space of pure simplicity without the slightest dust mote of self-centredness-based ‘deception’, which literally means covering over.

Shambhala is the Eye Outer Sphere Reality/Dharma looking back from the mirror into the Dharma Eye of Inner gazing into it.

I don’t have the exact quote handy, but in an interchange with a student it went something like this:

‘ So shambhala is like the mountains and the Buddadharma the trees on it, or the other way around?’

DDM ‘Yes’ (to both, i.e. either way is true).

That is why I think the inner-outer sphere paradigm is a closer analogy to explaining both the difference and inseparability of the two approaches.

Or put another way: they can neither be separated nor joined just as one can neither separate nor join the face from the reflection of that face in the mirror.

Finally, I don’t think Shambhala is a lineage in the same way as the line of Buddhadharma teachers and practitioners can be considered as such, although there are many levels of that of course. Shambhala is like water, or earth, or air. Yes, there can be impurities in the mix, but those impurities are extraneous elements, extrinsic to the underlying, unchanging purity of basic water, earth, air, fire. Ultimately there is no path in Shambhala just as water is always water is always water. Practically speaking we can say a society is more or less Shambhalian, but in terms of the essence of the Shambhala vision and view, it is completely timeless, unchanging, unborn, undying because the Outer Sphere neither depends upon, nor exists apart from, the Inner, which is where all journeys and progressions take place.

Shambhala does not even have place. However, when one tunes into local energy properly, i.e. dralas etc., that is just what happens when Inner meets Outer clearly. The path aspect is in the third sphere which is the connection/communication between the two. But the Outer has no path, no realisation, no progressions. It is always uncompromised, pure, real.

Water is water.
Earth is earth.
Fire is Fire.
Air is air.
Dharma is dharma.
Shambhala is Shambhala.

(I thought I posted substantially this content 30 minutes ago but it has not shown up yet so I must not have sent it properly)

You suggest/ask ‘Could we not say that that our Shambhala teachings from CTR were/are intended to bring us, through complete engagement with the world, into this same kind of non-dualistic maturity?

I am not certain that is ‘true’ as to the ‘same kind of non-dualistic maturity’ except at the highest/deepest/most profound individual practice level of the Shambhala Vision/Teachings. My question/skepticism on this point is based on long contemplation/reflection on the oft-repeated statements analogizing of the Shambhala teachings to Dzokchen/Ati, which are , I beleive, at best accurate only in small part (as I am heretical on other matters, might as well expand into this arena as well).

Utilizing CTR’s teachings (see various H-M Seminary Transcripts) on ’2-fold egolessness’ and ’1 1/2 fold egolessness’, I would suggest that a society/culture cannot be founded upon ’2-fold egolessness’ —which reflects represents the ‘kind of non-dualistic maturity’ that was under discussion and about which you inquired The fullness/depth of that ‘view’/'experience’ propels/establishes one in a ‘yogic’ space sometimes referred to (when stabilized) as ‘crazy wisdom’ and/or ‘old dog’ stage (absent extraordinary ‘relative commitment ‘ to beings such as the Vidyadhara manifested) that creates an ongoing view of the equality/equalness, pure/perfect nature of all manifestations of relative reality (whether samsaric or nirvanic) that is not necessarily compatible with (even ‘enlightened’) society/culture except at the margins. While this ‘view/experience’ may ‘inform’ a society, it is not/cannot serve as the basis for the larger ‘citizenry’/'subjects’ of even an ‘enlightened society’.

However, ’1 1/2 fold egolessness’, in which the ‘me/my/mine’ obstruction is stripped from ‘other’ , allows the ‘sacredness’ of other—the moment-to-moment magical manifestation of the phenomenal world — to shine through. I believe that most societies/cultures which have not become largely alienated from the ‘real gound’ of nature/phenomena (the full ‘sensorium’) have been/are based in this type of experience of ’1 1/2 -fold egolessness’ rather than ’2-fold egolessness’. This is, I think, the basis for recognition of ‘drala’, ‘spirits’, ghosts, protectors, etc.

Before the triumph/hegemony of scientific materialism (which shuts off even 1 1/2-fold egolessness on most occasions), I have no doubt that far more leprechauns, sprites, satyrs, etc. made their appearance in the West.

I would appreciate anyone/everyone’s thoughts/reflections on these matters.

Enjoy!
mark

I appreciated your comments on meditation/post-meditation via Sogyal Rinpoche. I’ve heard the same teachings from Tsoknyi Rinpoche (via Tulku Urgyen). How simply and how challenging!

Could we not say that that our Shambhala teachings from CTR were/are intended to bring us, through complete engagement with the world, into this same kind of non-dualistic maturity?

Best,

Bill

Great to run into you this way & thanks for your comments. To have my piece considered “provocative and evocative” is welcome, and it is particularly welcome to share this essay with on old friend (and please say Hi to Becky!). Glad you are still in the world, too!

You are of course right about the lohan banner, it occurred to me a while back that they were indeed still hanging. For other readers, Mark refers to “neutral venue” Shambhala Trainings, these were early Levels One, Twos and Threes that we held is such places as old warehouse rooms in Fort Mason, San Francisco. We trucked in banners, zafus and bagels and created very permeable and minimally formalized offerings to meet people and convey meditation with a minimum of symbols and religion.

I love the word, “sensorium.” Thanks again, Mark.

Bill

Once upon a time I was in a small group w/Sogyal Rinpoche & he answered a question about ‘post- meditation’ by saying that if one was on the cushion & undistracted, one was in ‘meditation’; if one was distracted while on the cushion, one was in ‘post-meditation’; if one was undistracted in daily life, one was in ‘mediation;’ if distracted, one was in ‘post meditation.’ A slightly different take on the words that I find useful as he clearly enunciated the view of dzokchen/ati….enjoy!–m

A very provocative and evocative piece. I love the way you describe retreat as immersion in non-conceptual being — as a slow and stubborn student of Lord Mukpo I have gradually developed a deep appreciation for mindfulness of body and the simple experience of what Glenn Wallis calls “the sensorium” — my understanding of what Lord Mukpo was referring to when he asked us to have good head and shoulders has been greatly enhanced, but as I said I’m a slow and stubborn student and so it’s taken me all these years to begin to understand.

I also recall the early “neutral venue” Shambhala Training weekends with great fondness — the elegant simplicity of the spaces we created was wonderful, a model for what anyone could do in their own home.

By the way, the arhat/lohan banner still hangs in many shrine rooms — I just taught Level III in Bellingham and he was there, stern but also relaxed with the bare hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

With love and delight that you are still in the world,

Mark

The politics and forces of the setting sun have produced a terrible pair of pliers: at one end exploitation and the poverty most of the worlds populations lives under; on the other, the ever heightening madness of the first world, speeding, driven by amusements and alienation. The living-standard gap between us is grotesque, but both ends of the pliers inflict pain. And there is a kind of well-being we in the first-world are increasingly loosing; this is why I put “poverty” in parenthesis when I wrote of Cambodia.

I appreciate your thoughtfulness and thoroughness in responding to my article. I also appreciate the conclusions about poverty – “poverty is poverty” – that you came to. I certainly did arrive in Cambodia with naivety; living there helped unmask some of it. Likewise, what you wrote has provoked my prajna and encourages me further on these subjects. Thank you.

I wrote “KOS Energy” primarily as a comment on the Vidyadhara’s teachings at the Kalapa Assemblies, especially his comments on the need to return to a simpler way of life (as well as experience “genuine nightmare”). Secondarily, the piece documents my own reflections and/or experience with the drala principle, as well as the dangers of assuming we “know what Shambhala is.” My citing of Cambodia are selective and personal, designed to illustrate these stated intentions.

Through four trips I spent nearly a year and a half in Cambodia, learned to speak a rudimentary Khmer, lived with and interacted with Cambodians who, like most of the world’s population, made less than two dollars a day. I took my meals on the street, would typically astonish the cyclo drives (among Phnom Penh’s poorest of the poor) by eating soup right beside them and was never once inside a middle class home (even by Cambodian Standards). Although I was fairly knowledgeable about the Khmer Rouge era before I arrived, I read Philip Short’s “Pol Pot: Anatomy of a Nightmare” and many other books on Cambodian history, both current and ancient, during this time.

Still, most of my knowledge was gained anecdotally; I took trips to remote killing fields and had numerous, in-depth conversation with Cambodians about the Khmer Rouge era. In older people I saw still living wounds opened again through these conversations. The old couple who appear in the opening photograph of my piece had their first home destroyed by an American bomb. I learned that most guest houses in Phnom Penh functions primarily as brothels and that the government, though it has passed many of the laws the WTO or United Nations want enacted, does little to nothing to enforce them and really had no social contract with the people of Cambodia at al. A government of elites, swaggering with impunity.

Still, what came through in my day-to-day encounters – in spite of all the pain I read about, knew of or witnessed every day – was the remarkable humor, resilience and basic goodness of the human spirit, Cambodian style. The horrors of poverty there are real (I visited people working and living on top of the municipal garbage dump); I wouldn’t choose it, wouldn’t be able to survive it and would like nothing more than to change it. Yet within it all, I found myself changed constantly, and for the better, because of my encounters with ordinary Cambodians. When I made my film, “Cambodia: Lord Mukpo’ Dream Time” I attempted to let their resilience, humor and basic goodness shine through – since that it what I saw. (In the future, I might be equally inspired to film and or write about the water crisis Cambodians face.)

The politics and forces of the setting sun have produced a terrible pair of pliers: at one end exploitation and the