Uh … HI 😬 Remember me? I know it’s been a long time, but I’m pleased to report that my life and health have been good. Just insanely busy! Want to know why? I hope so, ‘cuz I’m about to tell you. Grab a drink and get comfy.
Buddhist BS
Back in 2018 accusations of impropriety began to surface regarding the Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, spiritual leader of Shambhala. P and I were involved with a Shambhala meditation centre near where we live, but we never paid a whole lot of attention to the religious aspects of the organization, or indeed of any other organization. We view Buddhism (of which Shambhala might be said to be a sort-of lineage) as something like a self-help program that has been running for a long time. In any case this is not the first time this has happened to Shambhala: in it’s brief history all three leaders have been accused of misconduct.  Nothing new to see here, so we let the organization get on with damage control and went back to meditating.
For me it all got real on September 12 2018, shortly after the release of the Buddhist Project Sunshine Phase 3 Final Report. In addition to the sexual abuse allegations it was becoming clear that the Sakyong was siphoning off large sums of money intended for Shambhala’s ongoing operations. For the director of our Centre this was the last straw. He had been a keen Shambhala follower for many years, but this was Too Much. A community meeting was convened to which he suggested 3 alternative futures for our Centre:
- Stay with Shambhala
- Transition to a non-denominational Buddhist centre
- Close
A few people suggested more nuanced approaches, but the general sense was that we should go for number 2. A Transition Working Group was formed consisting of anyone interested (including me) and a meeting scheduled for the following week.
The group members turned out to be something of a motley crew. Seven (including the director) had been with Shambhala for some time but were heartlily sick of the Sakyong. Two were seasonal snowbirds, urging a thoughtful and gradual approach to separation. Four (including me) were primarly concerned about community continuity and fairly agnostic as to the outcome. The other two had helped set up the Centre a decade or so ago, and had now shown up out of the blue to try to steer us back towards Shambhala: let’s call them the Jokers.
There was an agenda for the meeting, but I don’t remember ticking off any items. The Jokers started by questioning whether or not there was a real “consensus” at the Sep. 12 Community Meeting (which they had missed), whether the TWG was representative, and whether all the members were legitiimate (citing conflicts of interest etc.). Things got quite heated, and at the end of the meeting the director and his wife resigned, taking the view that there was no hope of progress. Nevertheless, a second meeting was scheduled for a week later.
Several things happened during that week:
- One more person bailed out, citing a “complicated” relationship with one of the Jokers.
- A number of emails were exchanged in an attempt to make some sense of what had happened,
- I had retinal surgery, and was confined to a face-down position on my bed for 7 days.
As a reult of the face-down attitude, I missed the second meeting, and delegated P as my proxy.
Meeting number 2 was, if anything, even more interesting. The group now consisted of 12 people. A vote was called on the question: who is in favour of pursuing a non-denominational centre? Six people voted in favour which, as you will note, is not a majority. Three more people then proceeded to resign. They all had considerable history with the Jokers and no desire whatever to revisit it. When I heard P‘s report my initial reaction was to join the exodus, but she (bless her) talked me out of it. Instead I took the (retrospectively crazy) step of calling some of the departed and suggesting we put together a proposal that I, as a member of TWG, would take forward. That way we could work without constant badgering from the Jokers. Our splinter group was dubbed the Group of Five, for want of a better moniker.
At the third TWG meeting (now down to 9 members) I floated the G5 plan which met with approval from all except the Jokers. More wrangling over procedural and legitimacy issues ensued, and three clear factions emerged:
- The G5 (aka ME)
- The agnostics
- The Jokers
The G5 got to work on such nuts-and-bolts issues as a suitable name, a non-profit society status, a logo, framing a mission statement and so on. We met once a week for several months puttling together ideas, marshalling resources, and plotting strategy. Our deliberations were kept pretty quiet to avoid giving the Jokers any way to exploit our vulnerabilities, which led to some people (including the former director) perjoritively calling us “secretive”.
My job on the TWG was to carry the banner, and attempt to convert some of the agnostics to allies.  The now acting-director of the Centre remained sensibly aloof, not wanting to be accused of bias when TWG finished its deliberations. One more member quit as the October weather started to turn nasty, and our two snowbirds flew southwards for the winter. And then there were six.
An unanticipated result of the G5’s comparative secrecy was the rumours that began to circulate that the TWG was in thrall to the Jokers and that nothing much was getting done.  To dispel this sense of hopelessness the TWG hosted an “information evening” to which the whole community was invited. We put out pizzas as bait 🙂 and managed to get a fairly good crowd. The G5 used the occasion to hand out fliers which outlined our activities and goals. The Jokers made a short statement urging everyone to keep the faith. It seemed like most people left with lighter hearts. P and I followed this up with a Christmas season party, advertised as a fundraiser for the “new centre” proposed by the G5. This, too, was a great success.
By the time 2019 dawned we had official Society status, and the G5 proposal was more or less complete, although revisions continued for another three months. Still to be determined, however, was how to get the community involved in accepting it, possibly over the Jokers’ objections. Protracted negotiations led to an agreement that the Jokers would submit their own proposal, that members of the community would be invited to come up with their own, and that all would be presented to the community for review, feedback and (eventually) a decision around March. The finish line was within sight!
At the review and feecback meeting, the Jokers had a very short, superficial document that was more personal plea and exhortation to the faithful than concrete proposal. Essentially it argued that Shambahala was in the throes of a major reinvention, that most of what the community wanted would come to pass via this process, and that we could “embrace” the Sakyong as we would embrace a son in a mutual healing exercise. Needless to say, the G5 felt that more justification was needed for the Jokers’ position. We revealed a point-form version of our proposal, still reluctant to present much of an attack surface. No other proposals were presented. It was clear that the outcome of the meeting was not going to result in a single, unified vision of where the Centre should go.
A final community meeting was held a couple of weeks later. The G5 won the toss to decide who would present first, and I got to lay it on the community. There was an expectant vibe in the air. The Jokers were called to reveal their plans which turned out to be … nothing. They effectively said “we have no proposal; just some considerations we would like to lay on the table.” We were, to put it mildly, stunned. After six months of wrangling, frantic preparations, reams of documents, contingency planning, and delicate diplomacy we had won the war without a final battle!
The old (Shambhala) regime formally ceded control of the Centre to the new regime on May 1st, and we held our Grand Opening on May 19th – Vesakha Day in the Buddhist Calendar. Since then we have run quite a variety of programs, classes, and regular meditation sessions. Our membership seems to be happy, and we are collecting enough rent money to keep us going. Not all is sweetness and light: the more dedicated former Shambhalians on the society’s board are much more conservative than I was expecting, and this has resulted in some misunderstandings and actual differences of opinion about future directions. This is a work in progress, but mostly a happy and fulfilling one. We will hold our first AGM early next year at which time the board membership will change to some extent. With any luck, after that I will be able to kick back and relax a bit more.
It’s a good thing I learned to meditate:Â all this Buddhist BS is enough to drive me crazy.
The Eyes Have Had It
The retinal surgery I mentioned in passing was to mend a retinal tear that occurred in late summer, 2017. I suddenly acquired a blank spot in the centre of my right field of vision. When it didn’t sort itself out I sought out an optemetrist who diagnosed a retinal burn from inadequate precautions taken while watching a solar eclipse. However, he referred me to an opthamologist who did some more elaborate tests and decided the problem was that a small piece of retina had torn away from the rest leaving a hole. He, in turn, referred me to a retinal surgeon. Some months later I got an appointment for a consultation with the surgeon who agreed that I needed repair surgery and put me on his wait list. My slot finally came up in October 2018.
Although I was technically conscious for the procedure I (thankfully) remember very little. Whatever was in the drug cocktail they injected into me was Really Good Stuff! I floated through the whole thing with a thin, opaque sheet over my face and without a care in the world. This meant I could not see the needle they stuck in my eyeball with which to draw off the vitreous humour inside. After that, I gather, they stuck some sort of tool into the eyeball to do something to the retina to allow it to stretch and settle agaist the back of the eyeball. Finally they injected some sort of liquid, leaving a bubble which I was intructed to maintain in a position where it put pressure against the damaged bits of the retina while it healed.
Seven days of face down time ensued, where I did little but lie with my head over the edge of the bed, supported by a massage table kind of donut-shaped pillow. I ate this way, slept this way, watched endless YouTube videos to pass the time, and got vertical (with head tilted to face the floor) just long enough to stay clean and avoid terminal stiffness. A week in bed sounds very relaxing, doesn’t it? Frankly, I don’t recommend it.
Once I was up, the doctor recommended that I kept the bubble in place on a best-effort basis. It was a weird underwater view through that eye. After a week or so I could see round the edges of the bubble. A while later, a horizontal gaze produced a semi-submerged effect, with the top part of my vision fairly normal and the bottom part still under water. Eventually the bubble shrank away entirely.
A year later my right eye is as normal as it will ever get. There is a small blind area near my centre of vision, and objects are somewhat distorted around it. This makes reading and fine work much harder than it used to be, but I am still perfectly safe to drive (or at least as safe as I ever was) and generally lead a normal life. For this I am profoundly grateful!
The other shoe may yet drop: my left eye has characteristics that make it a good candidate for similar treatment. For this, not so grateful.
News Highlights
With a one-and-a half year backlog of material on hand, i don’t want to overwhelm you. Quite a lot of it is probably out of date by now, anyway. I will put all the links in the References page, but for the purposes of this (already over-long) bulletin here are the main points of the news:
For those of you who are curious about the Shambhala scandal(s)…
Melanoma Specific
Cancer in General
Mental Health
Bodily Health
That’s plenty to be going on with. I’ll try not to leave it so long next time. Wishing you all continuing wellness, and a peaceful & happy Christmas season!