Shambhala Meditation Center of Portland

06/05/2026

MIDSUMMER GATHERING 🌞 noon, June 21, in Rhododendron Oregon! Enjoy the changing season amidst old growth forest next to the Zigzag river. We will meet at Gardner Murphy's shared cabin residence with all the modern conveniences, about one hour and 15 minutes drive from Portland.

We will arrive around noon, take a reflective stroll to see if the salmon are in the creek on their spawning journey, enjoy a potluck lunch about 1:30, engage in community practices (think Heart Sutra, Tonglen, etc), spend some good time together, and say goodbye around 4:30 pm.

Please register so we know how many people to expect.

05/06/2026

Helping as Daily Practice with David Whitehorn: Saturday May 9, 2pm 🌞

We're thrilled to be joined virtually by the incredible David Whitehorn for a salon on the practice of Helping. Dr. Whitehorn, PhD, MSN, has studied and practiced in the Shambhala tradition since the early 1970s. He is a retired mental health Clinical Nurse Specialist and a former officer in the Desung Arm of the Dorje Kasung. He'll be joining us live over Zoom from his home in Halifax. We will be in person, he'll be on a TV.

In the Shambhala tradition, the process of helping others is considered to be both a highly valued aspiration and a rich ground for developing a more wise and compassionate understanding of the world and of our own minds. That leads to many questions:

What do we see in our efforts to help others?
When does helping become ego-serving?
How does Shambhala, or Portland Shambhala specifically, help?
As a community have we become ego-involved?

In this interactive gathering, we will critically explore some of the fundamental concepts that the Shambhala teachings have to offer as a guiding view for developing “enlightened helping”.
This salon will be of interest to everyone involved in working with others at the personal, group or societal levels. There are no prerequisites.

The Salon will take place in person on Saturday, May 9th, from 2-4pm Pacific time. Register at our website to receive the address where the Salon will occur.

Questions? Email John at [email protected].

04/30/2026

Join us for the first Drala Hike of the year! Please RSVP through our website 🌞 Here are all the details:

Drala Meditation Hike: Lacamas Creek
Sunday, May 3, 2026
10am-2pm

Who would have guessed that this natural wonderland lies behind the paper mill in Camas, WA? Join us for this is a gem of a hike close to Portland where we may catch the Camas Lilies in bloom this time of year. We will combine hiking with meditation and will be observing noble silence. Bring water, lunch, a hat, sunscreen, rain gear, and a kneeling pad or something else to sit on for occasional stops for sitting meditation.

Hike difficulty: Easy, 4.5 miles total, about 300 feet elevation gain
Meeting time: 10:00 AM rain or shine
Meeting location: Meet at the Third Street trailhead entrance to Lacamas Creek
Total drive time from Portland: 20 minutes from the airport in NE Portland
Return time: about 2 PM
Hike leader: Liz Howell
Driving Directions: found on our website
Car Pool: Contact Liz Howell, Drala Hike Coordinator in advance to see if car pool options are available for this hike.

Registration: Registration online helps avoid the pen and paper contact involved in filing out emergency contact and release forms in person. When you register, you will be asked to list an emergency contact's name and number and to check a box indicating that you consent to a release form (releasing Shambhala from liability). Please register by the end of the day on Thursday, April 30.

04/28/2026

John David Smith and Juan Carlos La Puente have been in an ongoing conversation about the life of long-established, congregational spiritual communities—about how “traditionally understood” faith communities function both as spiritual homes and as complex organizations. John brings questions from his involvement with communities of practice and Shambhala meditation centers that face challenges not that different from those of Christian congregations across Oregon.

Juan Carlos brings reflections shaped by his deep involvement in supporting churches at critical crossroads in their life, when congregations may not be able to continue as they have before. Together, John and Juan Carlos are discovering many echoes between Christian and Buddhist communities.

What follows is a conversation that emerges from their recent exchanges about the work being carried out with struggling congregations by a team within the Lutheran Synod in Oregon (Oregon Synod, ELCA), in which Juan Carlos participates and provides leadership alongside others. Although their conversations have moved back and forth between Spanish and English, this synthesized version is presented entirely in English (in the original).

Read more at the link

John Smith and Juan Carlos La Puente discuss supporting faith communities through transitions John David Smith and Juan Carlos La Puente have been in an ongoing conversation about the life of long-established, congregational spiritual communities—about how “traditionally understood” faith comm...

04/24/2026

Community poll - which is your favorite, 1, 2, 3, or 4? Also, Drala Hikes schedule is LIVE! We'll be getting all of these posted to the Shambhala calendar shortly, but you can register for the May 3 hike on our website today. Big thanks to Liz Howell and all of the Drala Hike hosts that are putting together another wonderful year of mindful moments with Mother Nature. Earth Day is every day. 🌞

04/04/2026

This is what a roomful of people envisioning a bright future for their sangha looks like! We were excited to have folks from the Book Group, some Decompress + Connect members, many longstanding members, and some newer Shambhalians in the mix at the State of the Sangha meeting last month.

We're going to be assembling working groups around Programming, Leadership, Infrastructure, and Procedures in the coming weeks, and we hope to see your faces at the next community meeting!

Huge thanks to Clif for jumping up and agreeing to facilitate our discussion about our vision for a new physical location for the Portland Shambhala Center. There was a palpable sense of peace, expansiveness, and delight in the room as we shared our visions for what the next gathering location for our sangha can look like, feel like, and offer to the world. DM us here or leave a comment with any insights, inspiration, or ideas around this space.

Here are some of the words we wrote down during this facilitated conversation:

A Place of Open Heart & Basic Goodness
Heartspace — the ground of everything we're building

Open & Accessible
Low barriers to entry, light touch, non-dogmatic
Attracting new people — young people, new teachers
A place to be yourself

Safe & Trustworthy
Safe, trustworthy — authentic
Code of conduct, protection
A self-regulating community

A Beautiful, Welcoming Space
Beautiful, inspiring — light, clean
Space reflects our values: welcoming, food, conversation
A dharma arts place

Sitting & Learning Together
Sangha — sit together
Offering meditation instruction
Introduction to the teachings, learning commitment
Bring in teachers

An Invigorating Community
Relaxation, vitality, inspiration
Warm, alive, real
COMMITMENT: We are committed to…

That! (the vision and the moment of realization)

The Dharma & Our Lineage
Basic goodness — as ground, as teacher
Profound dharma, ordinary and not-ordinary
Lineage, oral connection and tradition

Waking Up Together
Striving to wake up
Sharing and witnessing awakening in ourselves and others
Warriors of reality
Coming home

Open Heart & Care
Commitment to my soft heart
Care for others
Uplifting, life-giving

Authentic Community
Companionship on the path
Authentic social connection
Co-creating to benefit ourselves and others
Scaffolding and being scaffolded

04/01/2026

Portland Shambhala PROUDLY PRESENTS - ChogyAIm TrungpAI, the world's first virtual guru, powered by AI!

So many of our sangha members deeply miss our beloved, cherished teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. His inspired vision, profound presence, and awakened heart transformed the lives of thousands, creating a footprint for Buddhist teachings in the Western world and touching millions with the vision of Enlightened Society.

Well, miss no more, because Chogy is back baby! For only $500 a month, get unlimited prompts and interactions with a 3d-rendered AI replica of our guru and lineage holder. Imagine, unlimited access to your teacher on your phone, computer, and VR headset -- we've even got a Smart TV app in the works to get the Vidyadhara on your Samsung or Apple TV!

This 100% genuine simulacra of the founder of Shambhala has been trained on thousands of hours of recorded audio, written text, and archival video footage to perfectly replicate our teacher's Crazy Wisdom energy, mannerisms, and deeply held knowledge of the Buddhadharma.

Sign up today! Monthly subscriptions are great, or for a one time purchase of $50,000, we'll get you plugged into a lifetime of ChogyAIm TrungpAI access! What could be more valuable than the heart connection to one's Teacher, available in a convenient smartphone app???

JK THIS IS AN APRIL FOOL'S JOKE! While someone, somewhere is probably working on this technology, the rest of us will have to make do with studying with the texts, recordings, and students that were influenced by this incredible figure for the time being.

03/26/2026

The wonderful Gardner Murphy performed an inspired I Ching casting on behalf of Portland Shambhala for the Year of the Fire Horse at this year's Shambhala Day Party. He's kindly summarized the casting which showed Hexagram 32, Heng shifting to Hexagram 40, Hsieh. As usual, feel free to weigh in with your own interpretations and reflections on this divination! We feel that this forecast bodes especially well in light of our current efforts to create a long-lasting Center that can deliver our sangha from the precarious situation we've been in for the last few years. What do you think?

Here's Gardner's summary:

# 32 HENG

Endurance, Long Lasting

Because the topic under consideration will have a long life, you must develop a deep reservoir of perseverance that will see you
through to the attainment of your goal and will provide you with
support in the face of pain, fatigue, frustration, opposition, or
hardship, and even during the best of times.

Success will come to you if you begin anew at every ending, cultivate long lasting strengths of character, and develop inner consistency. Above all, remain true to your inner resolve to follow the path of the superior person. The inner resolve will be the core of your success, for it will be the ground out of which all actions will spring.

Changing to:

#40 HSIEH
Abatement of danger

The danger subsides. Avoid spending too much time
deliberating. Once you have considered the matter carefully,
anxious hesitation will only cause you to miss your opportunity,
for too much reflection cripples the power of decision.

IN ADDITION:

# 32
Constancy

Comprised of trigrams Thunder over Wind. Neither storm nor
winds have any permanency, but both are certain to reappear.
Thunder is seen as a powerful , invigorating force, while Wind is
considered the embodiment of gentleness.

The goal of true endurance is not the removal of obstacles. the
difficulties we encounter maintain our adaptability, requiring us
to participate in constant self-renewal rather than surrendering
to inertia. Enduring works in all fields of human achievement
result from countless obstacles overcome successfully.

# 40
Deliverance

The trigrams are Thunder over Water. Bodies of water
frequently indicate places of danger and thunder signifies a call
to action. Whether our trials are caused by ourselves or by
others, if we are to be genuinely free we need to be able to
forgive unwise or unworthy acts and omissions . If these
errors and misdeeds are not washed away by the cleansing
storm, they will prove distracting at the time that our minds must
remain clear. Our problems are receding, but we have not
reached our sanctuary quite yet.

Graphic designed by Portland Shambhala Ops Guy Ben.

03/25/2026

We had a fabulous time at our State of the Sangha meeting at Center Director John's house Saturday. Our Bookkeeper Carol Lieberman gave us a succinct breakdown of our organization's finances, we enjoyed some tasty snacks, and we shared a powerful discussion about our collective vision for what we want to see in our next Portland Shambhala Meditation Center location.

Basically, we have a lot of wonderful members, a decent sum of money in the bank, and we want to put the work in to acquire and run programming in a new space. We're especially excited to incorporate the needs of the thriving Decompress + Connect meditation group into this next chapter for our organization.

Imagine a space for workshops, art retreats, open meditation hours, potlucks, poetry readings, guest teachers, and all sorts of lovely programming for our sangha to grow and thrive.

We're going to be gathering once again on April 19 at 3pm to establish working groups related to Programming, Procedures, Infrastructure, and Leadership for this sangha moving forward. We'd love to see you there. Keep an eye out for more details, and we'll be posting some more tidbits from this lovely meeting in the coming days.

03/20/2026

Who else misses the brick-and-mortar Portland Shambhala Center? Come to our Annual Community Meeting tomorrow to get a look into the state of our finances (they're pretty good!) and help us chart a path forward for securing a new in-person location for meditation practice, retreats, Dharma arts, community events, service, and more.

We'll be at Center Director John's house from 3-5pm tomorrow and we'd love to see you. If you need the address, shoot us a message or RSVP through the calendar on our website.