Around the Table at Dorje Denma Ling

Following the two days of consultation on the online project for the
Shambhala Archives, on Wednesday, November 15, I drove up to Trident
Mountain House, a farm near Dorje Denma Ling practice center, where I often
come to work on books or for retreat time. From now until Monday, the 20th,
I'll be here in semi-retreat working on a manuscript (seven talks on The
Line of the Trungpas, Karme Choling, 1975) and preparing a syllabus from
videos of a course taught at Naropa in 1974 by Chogyam Trungpa: THE
TIBETAN BUDDHIST PATH. A short but sweet little work retreat. Last night, I
drove over to DDL to present the Chogyam Trungpa Legacy Project to the
staff and any interested neighboring sangha members. About ten of us
gathering around a table in the dining room, quite a contrast to the big
meetings in Halifax and Boulder. It was mainly the staff, with one
neighbor, Billy McKay, in the mix.Nice to have this small, intimate group.
Acharya Jeremy Hayward introduced me as one of the old old old students of
the Vidyadhara. I felt older on the spot.We chanted the Light of Blessings
and then I briefly introduced the project, encouraging people to read the
description on the CTLP website, as well as the Sakyong's letter. I went
through a list of projects and also paid homage to the other old old old
students in the room. In addition to Jeremy, Director Pat Hayward was there
as well as Jeanne Riordan, who cares for the relics or personal belongings
of the Vidydhara, which we also call the VCTR "Collection". Jeannie had
just arrived to lead a one-month sitting, or dathun, practice. Other staff
were new or newer to me, although I knew Bear Halliday a bit. At the end of
the evening, a young woman named River -- who's on the staff -- came up to
talk about an interest in transcribing. Margaret Longthorp also expressed a
lot of enthusiasm for the project. In the general discussion, a number of
ideas came up, some from me, some from them. We talked about the idea of a
Chogyam Trungpa weekthun or dathun and how this might "play" at Denma Ling.
The staff seemed to like the idea of transcribing programs, combined with
practice and study,and Director Hayward mused about incorporating
transcription into the schedule for DDL during "down times." Do they really
have those? Bear and others were enthusiastic about story telling and
gathering, and the idea came up of inviting Chronicles' director Walter
Fordham to visit and be in residence for a few days, to gather stories
and/or broadcast his Dispatches from Denma Ling. At the end of the evening,
I promised to send pledge cards in the mail -- this was a request -- and a
copy of the Spiritual Materialism DVD just published last month. Jeanne
hopes to show this at the dathun. She is also planning to use an MP3
recordings of talks from CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM (available
from Kalapa Recordings at shambhalashop.com) in the dathun.