Visionaries

Monday, November 13th, fifteen of us gathered in the Snow Lion Room at the Halifax Shambhala Center to discuss the prospects for "onlining" Chogyam Trungpa's teachings and other records related to his life and legacy. Martin Janowitz spoke about the power of the Vidyadhara's household and practice objects, which are stored by the Archives in the hopes of creating both actual and virtual exhibitions. Marty also talked about the power and breadth of the Vidyadhara's world and how to respect and include all aspects, audiences, etc. Howard Harawitz spoke about podcasting and creating radio shows and expressed his appreciation for what the Chronicles of CTR is already doing in this area. Joanne Fordham talked about the power of the Vidyadhara's audio and video teachings, and the possibility of reaching out to people who are not that book oriented but experience the power of the spoken word. Mark Szpakowski talked about the end of personal computers within 10 years and how to have a vision that includes such a future, and other possible futures. Ben Moore and several others talked about the importance of connecting people's personal and practice experiences with their online experience. Larry Mermelstein spoke about the power of using the Vidyadhara's audio/video teachings in practice and study programs. Chris Levy spoke about how the Audio Recovery Project, which is currently digitizing more than 2,000 of the Vidyadhara's dharma talks, was originally conceived as a 20 year project, yet by bringing energy, staff and financial resources to bear on it, we are now completing the project in 3 or 4 years. These are but a few of the remarks our visionary panel offered.

After everyone made some introductory remarks, Alan Schwartz took us through a vision for Onlining the Shambhala Archives and other collections, which he has been thinking about for a long time and recently in quite a lot of depth. His ideas sparked more ideas from those gathered in the room. We talked a lot about atmosphere -- people had been quite moved/affected by visiting the "concrete" first world Shambhala Archives and wondered how we can communicate a sense of sacredness and spaciousness in the online realm.

We spoke at length about a pilot project for the 20th parinirvana year, 2007, to put a fraction of the teachings in the Archives online in a way that would enable all of us to see the possibilities. We also talked about what kind of online collaborations the community could join in. To Wiki or not to Wiki was a major theme. The afternoon session was chaired by Lynn Friedman, who is the director of the feasibility study about the online archives. She both advanced the visionary talk and also brought it into the realm of feasibility, earth. Throughout the day, Amanda Horsman documented the meeting and joined in with her perspective. Sandra Kipis gave us a hospitable environment and spoke to her passion for the photograph collection in the Archives. (She took the photo that appears here.) Gordon Kidd, just back from the onlining Shambhala conference in Boston brought the perspective of the hands-on manager to our meetings, while also sharing his enthusiasm and vision.

On Tuesday, Alan, Lynn and I (joined briefly at the end by Walter Fordham) spent the day talking in greater depth about the feasibility study and the pilot project we'd like to undertake. We hope to establish an online space for the discussion and planning of this project, which should be up within a week at most. I'll post information about that space and how to join it, as soon as details are forthcoming.

We hope to have a project plan and budget ready to post on the Chogyam Trungpa Legacy Project website by Shambhala Day. At that time, we'd also like to launch the website -- with a logo, improved graphics. Something more than a place where a few documents are posted!!!

I'm off now for a few days of semi-retreat, to work on the manuscript of a small book on THE LINE OF THE TRUNGPAS, which Vajradhatu Publications will publish next year, if the editing is completed. The Nalanda Translation Committee will also contribute to this volume, providing translations of chants to the Vidyadhara and possibly a translation of other Tibetan material on the Trungpa tulkus.