Shambhala Training

Shambhala Training is a secular approach to meditation and a new religious movement developed by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his students.

[1][2] It is based on what Trungpa calls Shambhala Vision, which sees enlightened society as not purely mythical, but as realizable by people of all faiths through practices of mindfulness/awareness, non-aggression, and sacred outlook.

[3] Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche arrived in North America in 1970, and began teaching Western students from within the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism.

In 2018, Sakyong Mipham was accused of multiple counts of sexual misconduct and abuse of power and temporarily stepped back from teaching.

[6] In Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche wrote: I am honoured and grateful that in the past I have been able to present the wisdom and dignity of human life within the context of the religious teachings of Buddhism.

Now it gives me tremendous joy to present the principles of Shambhala warriorship and to show how we can conduct our lives as warriors with fearlessness and rejoicing, without destroying one another...

This is thought of not only as a social and political process but a practice requiring individuals to develop an awareness of the basic goodness and inherent dignity of themselves, of others, and of the everyday details of the world around them.

[27] During the Sacred Path weekends and Warriors Assembly, students study Shambhala texts composed by Chögyam Trungpa, as well as practices such as that of the stroke of ashé.

He is said to have expelled 20,000 people from his domain who clung to Surya Samadhi (solar worship) rather than convert to Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) Buddhism.

The Kalachakra tantra prophesies that when the world declines into war and greed, and all is lost, the 25th Kalki king Maitreya will emerge from Shambhala, with a huge army to vanquish Dark Forces and usher in a worldwide Golden Age.

Shambhala Training is presented in a series of paid weekend programs, the first five of which are called "The Heart of Warriorship", and the subsequent seven "The Sacred Path".

The Warrior Assembly is the final program in the Shambhala Training Sacred Path, after which students must take vows of devotion to the guru if they wish to continue.

The Satdharma community, established by Trungpa's appointed regent and Dharma heir Ösel Tendzin (Thomas Rich), offers a comparable "Shambhala Education" course of training in Ojai, California.

Trungpa Rinpoche is believed by his students to have received these teachings directly from Gesar of Ling, an emanation of Padmasambhava, and the Rigden kings.

The Shambhala dharma practices derived entirely or in part from these texts include those of werma, drala, Wind Horse (Tib.

In addition, Shambhala have adopted the practices of kyūdō, ikebana (kado), tea ceremony, oryoki, calligraphy, and other traditional Japanese arts.

When we asked the Vidyadhara whether these texts originated with Padmakara, the source of the vast majority of treasure teachings, at that time we didn’t know that other teachers also hid dharma as termas.

[45] Windhorse (wylie: rlung ta) was predominately a feature of the folk culture, a "mundane notion of the layman rather than a Buddhist religious ideal," as Tibetan scholar Samten G. Karmay explains.

[46] However, while "the original concept of rlung ta bears no relation to Buddhism," over the centuries it became more common for Buddhist elements to be incorporated.

As Karmay notes, "the word [windhorse] is still and often mistakenly taken to mean only the actual flag planted on the roof of a house or on a high place near a village.

[47] Karmay suggests that "river horse" (klung rta) was actually the original concept, as found in the Tibetan nag rtsis system of astrology imported from China.

However, regarding the origin of the animals as a tetrad, "neither written nor oral explanations exist anywhere" with the exception of a thirteenth-century manuscript called "The Appearance of the Little Black-Headed Man" (dBu nag mi'u dra chag), and in that case a yak is substituted for the snow lion, which had not yet emerged as the national symbol of Tibet.

[49] In the text, a nyen (wylie: gNyan, mountain spirit[50]) kills his son-in-law, Khri-to, who is the primeval human man, in a misguided attempt to avenge his daughter.

The nyen then is made to see his mistake by a mediator and compensates Khri-to's six sons with the gift of the tiger, yak, garuda, dragon, goat, and dog.

[52] Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche elaborates on the traditional understanding and etymology of drala: In many ancient Bön texts the name 'Drala' is spelt sgra bla, which literally means 'la of sound', where la (soul or vitality) stands for a type of individual energy that is also endowed with a protective function.

The spelling sgra bla ('la of sound') found in the ancient texts as a matter of fact is based on a very deep principle characteristic of the most authentic Bön tradition.

"[59] Kornman summaries Trungpa's use of antecedent traditions in the creation of his Shambhala teachings as follows: The philosopher king and the political leadership of his idealized society were people who ruled by virtue of private mystical realizations.

Its metaphysics was based on the philosophical syncretism of the Eclectic [Rime] movement, which evolved an almost Neoplatonic emanational version of Buddhist mysticism.

[61]At an October 1975 party at Snowmass Colorado Seminary, Trungpa Rinpoche ordered his Vajra guard (i.e., the Dorje Kasung) to forcibly break into the room of his guests W.S.

[67] In 2019, several Shambala community members and former Shambhala teachers were involved in criminal trials, including one individual who pleaded guilty to sexual assault on a child.