JUNEAU - According to legend, during the time of the Buddha, a great king went to Him to inquire whether a king with responsibilities to rule a kingdom could embark upon the same journey as a monk and still reach Enlightenment.
 
The Buddha ushered the other monks out of the room, winked at the king and answered yes.  This was the beginning of Shambhala Buddhism and also the introductory anecdote for a speech by Dan Hessey, the speaker at Thursday night’s Evening at Egan Lecture entitled “Meditation, Leadership and Enlightened Society.”
 
Organized by the Juneau Shambhala Center, Hessey was in town for the weekend of Feb. 16 to deliver a short series of Buddhist workshops before flying back to his home in Boulder, Colo., where he is a mortgage banker and a board member at the Shambhala Mountain Center, one of the largest Shambhala centers in the country.
 
When asked about his roots with Shambhala, Hessey replied, “Well I was around 23...I was a really curious person, and what I was most curious about was, you know, where is all this suffering coming from? Because I was not happy, and I sort of had this quality of just looking and looking and looking without knowing what I was looking for.” 
 
Upon attending a lecture by Chögyam Trungpa Ripoche, the founder of Shambhala, he realized that Buddhism was the right path for him.
 
“He was talking turkey about what was important to me,” Hessey said about Trungpa, “I went up and I met him, and I started meditating, and one thing led to another and its been a path with heart as they say.”
 
It did not solve his problems, but according to Hessey, “It has been a genuine path for opening up my heart.”
 
Shambhala distinguishes itself from other Buddhist groups by its practical application in real life.
 
Rather than secreting themselves away from the world at a monastery to meditate and contemplate, its practitioners hold jobs, have families and maintain ordinary lives, using their meditation practice to develop self-awareness in the hopes of creating an inward lens that allows them to examine their world without the bias and ego that most of us use to rate and judge things. 
 
By accepting that they are part of a transient world and the notion that they themselves are a part of it and therefore transient as well, Shambhala practitioners release their egos to foster a better relationship with others and the world at large.

The essence of Shambhala is to be comfortable with oneself to allow you to fully experience your life for what it is.
 
Rather than approaching the situations of your life from a “Whose fault is this and how do I fix it?” perspective.  Shambhala involves making peace with oneself as a path to making peace with the world.
 
After the lecture, the audience mingled for a few minutes, chatting about the upcoming weekend retreat with Dan Hessey as well as a workshop coming up on March 1 for anyone interested in learning more about Shambhala,

The workshop is entitled “The Body and Meditation,” and it will be held at the Shambhala Center from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on March 1.  The cost is $65 for the day.

There are also free weekly sittings and teachings on Sundays starting at 9:30 a.m., which are probably the most cost-effective way to get involved in this grassroots community.

For more information, please contact the Juneau Shambhala Center.