SpiritWalk

My 40th birthday was on Wednesday, so I took the day off from work. I wanted to do something different and I wanted it to be something meaningful and self reflective. Going to a spa just wasn’t going to cut it. My friend Barb had been going up to the Shambhala Mountain Center, where Tibetan Buddhism is taught and practiced, on weekends at the beginning of the summer. Barb worked there on the weekends in return for lodging and meals. All summer I heard how fantastic the Shambhala Mountain center was and how she couldn’t wait to get up there the next weekend. I decided that I would like to experience the Shambhala center myself and it would be a perfect way to spend my 40th birthday. Barb was kind enough to rearrange her schedule and take me up and show me around. Let me just say ‘It was a perfect way to spend the day on my birthday’.

Before I start telling my experience of the Shambhala Mountain Center, let me first give a little background on Shambhala Buddhism and the Mountain Center. Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Meditation Master, brought Shambhala Buddhism to Western Civilization from Tibet in the late 1960s. Trungpa founded more that 100 Shambhala Meditation Centers through out the world. He also founded the Naropa Institute, now known as the Naropa University in Boulder Colorado, where he taught the practices of Shambhala Buddhism. Trungpa taught that “there is a natural source of radiance and brilliance in the world, which is the innate wakefulness of human beings. This is the basis, in myth and inspiration, of the Kingdom of Shambhala, an enlightened society of fearlessness, dignity and compassion.” The best aspect, in my opinion of Shambhala Buddhims, is that it is accessible to people of all religions and of no religion. Trungpa taught how to incorporate meditation into everyday life. You don’t have to go to the top of a mountain for three years to find enlightment, you just need to find your own peaceful place where ever you are. Trungpa passed away in 1987, but his teachings continue on today. Trungpa’s son Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is now the head of Shambhala lineage.

The Shambhala Mountain Center is located in Red Feathers Colorado, just outside of Fort Collins. It’s about a two hour drive from Boulder or Denver. At the Mountain Center is ‘The Great Stuppa of Dharmakaya’ , the largest and most elaborate example of Buddhist sacred architecture in North America. The Stuppa alone is reason enough to journey to the Mountain center, it is amazing. There are all kinds of retreats and classes held at the Mountain Center year round.

Back to my Mountain Center experience. Barb and I arrived in the morning around 10:00 on the most perfect end of summer day. The leaves were just beginning to turn. I had no preconceived ideas on what the day would entail. I let Barb be my guide and was content to let the day unfold as it would. First we did a short 15 minute hike up to the Stuppa. There is a nice path that leads all the way up with flags on either side of the path to guide the way. When I first saw the Stuppa it looked completely out of place in the mountains surrounded by pine and aspen trees. It is a giant white very tall and oddly shaped structure with brightly painted embellishments all over it in brilliant greens, blues, yellows, reds and gold. My friend Barb actually helped paint the Stuppa this summer, which is quite on honor. One actually needs to have special qualifications to be able to paint this sacred building. During the summers while she was going to college back in Connecticut Barb painted Victorian houses to earn extra money. So, the head Stuppa painting guy gave her shot. I guess she did really good job, because she got to go back pretty much every weekend after that to help paint the Stuppa. By the way, the painting is really beautiful.

The structure of the Stuppa actually represents the Buddha sitting in his meditation position, hence the odd shape of the structure. The Stuppa is filled with Buddhist symbolism both literally and figuratively. Within the walls of the Stuppa are all kinds of Buddhist paraphernalia, like miniature stupas and Buddhist texts. I guess to give the Stuppa extra magical Buddhist juice. The Stuppa has four levels representing earth, water, fire and wind. The first level is an open area that can be entered by anyone which is very unusual for Stuppas. The other levels can only be entered by certain levels of Buddhists. I am very curious to know what goes on in those other chambers. There are four large gates on each side of the Stuppa. Before going in the Stuppa it is customary to do a walking meditation around the Stuppa. We walked around the Stuppa seven times, this symbolizes something, but I’m not sure what. I was very focused on clearing my mind, so I wasn’t at all thinking about what the inside of the Stuppa would look like. So, I was very surprised when we entered the Stuppa to have a giant, and I mean GIANT, golden Buddha staring down at me. His eyes were so intense I became a bit intimidated. He had such a stern look on his face and I felt a like he was questioning what I was doing there. I went ahead and sat on one of the meditation cushions right in the middle and settled in and went about the business of clearing my mind. Barb is a much more accomplished meditater than I, she can sit still for a very long time. I had to adjust a few times, plus I was very curious about the inside chamber. So after a while I opened my eyes and peered up at the giant Buddha. I started to meditate while looking up at him. The strangest thing happened, his face softened and I swear he smiled. Whoever built this Buddha is such an incredible artist.

Next we did another small hike up to another shrine called the Daitozan Jinja (Great Eastern Mountain Shrine) built for the deity Amaterasu-Omikami Jinja, a Japanese Sun Goddess. Not sure the validity of this story, but what I heard was that Trungpa visited Japan and the Sungoddess spoke to him and said she wanted to return with him. So there was some special ceremony and the deity came back to the states and is now a little ways up from the Stuppa. Anyway, there’s a ritual that one can do on the short hike up to the the shrine. Of course we did it and it was really nice.

Next….lunch. Lunch is served at 12:30 and it is recommended that a $7 dollar donation be given for eating lunch. Well worth it. Tibetan Buddhists are not vegetarians. I was suprised to learn this, but Barb pointed out to me that there’s not that many options for food in Tibet, given it’s high altitude, so if they did not eat meat they would starve. That works for me. So for lunch there was lamb, brown rice, seasoned tofu and a lovely little salad bar. It was delicious.

The last part of my journey was spent at the Shambhala gift shop. Great shop, all kinds of Buddhist goodies. I bought a few trinkets, including some beads, a meditation bell and tiny little green Buddhas for my kids.

Really, what a fantastic way to spend my 40th birthday. For more information here’s a link to the Shambhala Mountain Center - http://www.shambhalamountain.org/.

I’ve always been very interested in all religions but never felt I could commit. I really feel I know too little about the Christian religion and the Bible to say ‘Yes, this if for, me!’ or ‘No thank you’. I attended Bible study on Saturday’s in the summers when I was growing up. Neither of my parents are religious, but my Mother sent us to Bible study so we would have some knowledge of the most famous book in the world. I didn’t really know that we weren’t religious until I was twelve. My Mom always told me we were Protestants, that seemed reasonable to me. I went to church with one my friends on occasion. I definitely believed in God and believed Jesus was God’s son. I knew and loved a lot of the stories in the Bible. At twelve, I remember asking my Mother some question about the Bible and my Mother’s response was, ‘Oh Angie, I don’t know. I read the Bible once. It’s a nice fiction novel’. Well, that statement opened a whole new realm for me. Was the Bible fiction? My Mother was really a good Mother. Smart, loving, caring, hard working, fun, a good wife and just had a lot of common sense. So, for a long time I believed her. Interestingly, my Sister Amanda, who is six years older than me, started to go to church every Sunday with one of her friends when she was in high school in the late 70s. My parents seemed to be okay with that. I thought it was so unfair that the rest of us had to stay home and do yard work while Amanda went to church on Sundays. My parents said, ‘Do you want to go to church?’ and I said ‘Noooo’ and they said ‘Then get to work’. My Sister has continued to go to church and really thrives in life because of spirituality. She is very easy to talk to about religion and as adults we’ve had really great conversations about God and Christianity. She never judged me for not being religious, but she freely shared with me why her faith was so strong. Amanda has had many spiritual epiphanies. She feels God has spoken to her and I believe her. Here faith opened up the door for me to have ‘faith’, unfortunately my other Sister Amy’s faith slammed the door shut. My Sister Amy found God about 10 years ago. She started attending a Methodist Church, like my Sister Amanda. Amy definitely needed something in her life, so I thought it was a good thing for her. When I tried to have conversations with her, she wasn’t so open. When I suggested that possibly Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife and spiritual partner she said ‘absolutely not’. When I suggested that the passages chosen to be in the Bible were based on the politics of the time, she wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Her opinion seems to be that there is only one way to interpret the Bible and only one way to believe and if I did not believe in that same way my soul was at risk. Well, I became strongly interested in Buddhism after that.

After a while my interest in Christianity could not be kept at bay. I kept thinking how can a book that has been around for so long, read and worshiped by so many people, not contain some truth? On the other hand how could a book written thousands of years ago and interpreted and translated many time over, be taken so literally? Why is it that Christian’s say the Bible is the ‘one true book’? How could there be only one true book written in thousands of years? Especially, when that one true book has so much in common with a lot of other writings and oral stories that came before it? And why can’t I interpret the writing in my own way? Can’t God speak to me and tell me ‘My truths’ through his word?

I also have a lot of questions about one of the most beloved men of all time, Jesus. Jesus lived two thousand years ago, how is it that that his teaching still speak so strongly to people today? He must have been someone incredibly special. He was an amazing teach, his words are beautiful. He was like a rock star, loved by the young prophets looking for something different, looking for meaning in there lives, so hated by the grown ups that couldn’t imagine breaking from tradition. My friend Barb says ‘Jesus was aBuddhist’. From all that I read, it seems obvious to me he was a pacifist. Yet how is it that so many wars have been waged in Jesus’ name? It seems so ironic to me. I think Jesus just shakes his head in disbelief.

I know my Sister would be so comforted if I could just find Jesus. How do I tell her I think I may have found Jesus, just not the same Jesus she found.

I woke up early this morning to write about Dr. Wayne Dyer. My husband, Ken, has been bugging me to blog about him, so I am going to go ahead and and get it done to make Ken happy. I think my husband has a kind of a ‘man crush’ on Dr. Wayne, don’t get me wrong I think he is really great too, but I have many spiritual heroes. I bought Ken the Audio CD ‘Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling’, on a whim at Costco one day, I had heard of Dr. Dyer, but had never read any of his books. I liked the title, and thought Ken was really in need of some inspiration. Ken started his own business on the web over a year ago and sometimes struggles with the trials and tribulations that go hand in hand when starting a business. Ken doesn’t enjoy reading, so I thought an audio tape would be good for him. I figured he could listen to it while schlepping the kids around and running errands. Well, the CD sat on his desk for a couple of months. Finally I just stuck it in our mini-van hoping he would get ‘inspired’ to listen to it and if fact it worked. Actually….it really worked. Ken came home from taking the kids to daycare one day just beaming. He said, ‘Dr. Wayne Dyer rocks!’. We have both now listened to the CD several times. Dr. Wayne has a way of taking what spiritual leaders have been saying for centuries and put it together in a way that really resonates in the 21st century. He really shows his reader or listener that we are all divine and live in the most divine and beautiful world.

Ken, like my self, has a rocky relationship with religion, especially Christianity. He gets so angry when he thinks about all of the horrible deeds that are done in the name of religion. He seethes at the hypocrisy of our leaders claiming to be moral Christians, and then signing off on wars that kills thousands of people for financial reasons disguised as saving us all from radical Islamics. There wouldn’t be radical Islamics if it weren’t for these greedy so called ‘moral’ Christians. The past decade has really turned Christianity sour for both my husband and I. Thank goodness for Dr. Wayne. He has really taught us the God is all good. He often includes quotes from Jesus in his writings and has made Ken and I realize that Jesus was an amazing man and maybe is the real deal. It is greed that has twisted the teaching of Jesus in some self rightous quest for power.

Dr. Wayne Dyer has taught us how to bring peace to our lives, to really see how amazing the world is and just how truly luck we all our. I also just finished his book ‘10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace’. What a great read. It’s a pretty short book, but with such a powerful message. I want to send it to everyone I know, because every single person could take away something from this small gem of a book.

I know that Dr Wayne has been writing for more than thirty years and I probably will never be able to catch up and be able to read all his books, but I can’t wait to read more from Dr. Wayne Dyer.

My husband gave this website to me for my 40th birthday. He has several websites and I have been wanting to start my own, but working full time and having two kids didn’t leave me time to do the leg work to get started. I am very grateful to my husband for finding this website and getting everything set up for me. This particular website was owned by someone else and for some reason he decided to sell it, lucky me!

I’m not embarrassed to say that at age 40 I have just started to discover my own spirituality, in fact I am proud of myself for finally taking the plunge. I think, organized religion had completely scared me away from being a spiritual person. I thought that I
had to sign up with one particular religious sect in order to be a spiritual person. Finally, I have learned that this is not true,no matter what anyone else says. Spirituality is very personal and means many different things to many to different people. I am still learning what spirituality means to me and I probably will spend the rest of my life and beyond being a student in the spiritual classroom.

Over the last year I have read so many books and have watched many movies on different religions and spiritual quests. I have read books on Christianity Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism and New Age concepts. I have to say, I have learned something good from each and every one of these sources. I hope, by starting this website, that I can learn and grow and help others to do the same. Please join me on this Spirit Walk. I
am so looking forward to this journey.

The quickest way to find one’s spiritual path is to meditate. I absolutely love to meditate. It is amazing to me how much I enjoy meditating. Me, the queen of multitasking, the busy Mother of two small children, a full time job and always a million things to do. I get almost giddy when I get five minutes to sit down and think about absolutely nothing. The
sweet calming peace that washes over me as I clear my mind of all thoughts is pure bliss. Believe me, it’s a little difficult to do the first few times. I could only clear my mind at for about 5 seconds at first.
Those seconds have slowly turned into minutes. I justlearned that it is ‘okay’ for those thoughts to wonder into my mind, I just let them go on through and get back to the beautiful relaxing abyss. The key to learning how to meditate is to just start doing it,
and you can do it anywhere. In bed right before you go to sleep, in bed right after you wake up, in a comfortable chair, in a special meditation spot. One of my most favorite places to meditate is on the bus going to work in the morning. It really is what gets
me through the day. If I start calm, it is much easier to find my calm during the hurricane of insanity at work. Once you get the hang of clearing your mind, you can move to the next level, which is to meditate on a subject. One of my favorite subjects to
contemplate is ‘what is God’. I have had several personal revelations about what is God to me and how much I want God to be part of my life.