Articles About Shambhala Mountain Center
Spiritual Leader Brings Message of Compassion
Coloradoan - September 10, 2006
By KELLI LACKETT
As the morning sun rises above the Shambhala Mountain Center near Red Feather Lakes on Sept. 17, 2,000 Front Range residents will be taking their seats for what, for some, will be a once-in-a-lifetime event.
The 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people, is coming to speak at the Buddhist center. He is considered by many to be a living example of peace, compassion and religious tolerance. It is his first visit to Colorado in nearly a decade.
Arriving by helicopter from Denver, the Dalai Lama will bless The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, the largest Buddhist monument in the United States, and speak about the importance of compassion. The sold-out event starts at 10 a.m.
The visit to Shambhala Mountain Center is just one of several programs addressing the topic of compassion to be offered this fall by Colorado Buddhist organizations.
Masonville residents Jennie Kiessling Michler and her husband, Andrew Michler, bought tickets to the event at the Shambhala Mountain Center as soon as they became available in the spring.
"He's interesting as a political mind and a spiritual mind," Kiessling Michler said. "He has a special presence as a political leader, of someone who has a very specific philosophy that permeates his being and also permeates his politics."
"Obviously, you don't have to be a Buddhist to want to see the Dalai Lama," she said.
After the blessing of the stupa, Queen Noor of Jordan and Rabbi Irwin Kula of the National Jewish Center for Leadership will join the Dalai Lama and Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, in a panel discussion on the role of compassion in global leadership.
The Dalai Lama will return to Denver by helicopter where he will speak to nearly 15,000 people at a sold-out afternoon event at the Pepsi Center, sponsored by Boulder-based Mind and Life Institute.
He also will speak, along with nine other Nobel laureates, at a PeaceJam event at 4 p.m. Saturday at Magness Arena in Denver. Tickets are still available for that event.
Born in 1935 to a peasant family in northeastern Tibet, the 14th Dalai Lama was recognized at the age of 2 as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama. After an uprising in Tibet against Chinese rule in 1959, he fled to India, followed by thousands of Tibetans.
He has worked for decades in exile to try to bring about self-determinism for the Tibetan people while advocating nonviolence. He has traveled extensively and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
"He is a man who says, 'Kindness is my religion,'" said Jeff Waltcher, CEO of development for the Shambhala Mountain Center.
"From the point of view of the Shambhala Mountain Center, he has done more than any single person to make meditation better understood and acceptable in the greater society that we live in."
Because the Dalai Lama is considered a head of state, staff at the Shambhala Mountain Center have been working with the State Department, the Secret Service and the government of Tibet in exile to coordinate the visit, Waltcher said.
His 2:30 p.m. talk at the Pepsi Center will address how scientists are investigating how training the mind can lead to a greater experience of compassion so that people can lead more fulfilled, peaceful and happy lives.
Compassion also will be the theme of upcoming events at the Fort Collins Shambhala Meditation Center, which operates under the same branch of Buddhism as the Shambhala Mountain Center.
The center is offering a continuation of the Dalai Lama's teachings on compassion in three Monday night programs leading up to a weekend program on Sept. 29-30. The program is called "Walking the Bodhisattva Path."
Judith Simmer-Brown, a professor of religious studies at Naropa University in Boulder, will lead the weekend program, addressing how people can transform obstacles - including their extreme emotions and biggest disasters - into compassionate activity.
"The material is quite accessible as well as universal," said Jonathan Barbieri, executive director of the Fort Collins Shambhala Meditation Center.
"We'll talk about being awake and about compassion, and these are really universal qualities. We all have some kind of connection to that."
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