Shambhala Training Level I: The Art of Being Human with Cynthia Drake

Experience the world as sacred and recognize basic goodness as your birthright.

Shambhala Training is a secular meditation training that develops fearlessness, confidence, openness, and gentleness towards ourselves and our world. These qualities arise out of meditation practice and the study of Shambhala warriorship. Shambhala Training welcomes people of all religious traditions as well as those who do not follow a particular spiritual path.

In Shambhala Training Level I: The Art of Being Human we will learn the simple yet challenging practice of meditation. By relaxing our body and mind in this way we begin to discover something profound within our ordinary experience of ourselves and the world. We get a glimpse that the ground of our existence is unconditional goodness. Opening to ourselves with gentleness and appreciation, we begin to see our potential as genuine and compassionate human beings.


Cynthia Drake has been a meditator and member of the Shambhala community since 1985. For over two decades, she has taught English as a foreign language, college composition, and literature and worked as an academic advisor at the University of Colorado. She currently teaches literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder and seminars in contemplative learning at Naropa University and is pursuing a Ph.D. in British literature.