Shambhala Mountain Center

Shambhala Mountain Center announces its new name: Drala Mountain Center.

Why the name change?

When SMC became a fully independent nonprofit organization last fall, we came to an agreement with the Sakyong Potrang to change our name by the end of March. We are grateful to the Sakyong Potrang for working with us to effect these changes, which are essential to fulfilling our mission.
What does Drala mean?

When people reflect on being at SMC, they talk about how vividly they experience the power of the land itself. We can experience drala by directly connecting to the world through our sense perceptions. By opening to this experience, we encounter vast wisdom in ourselves, those around us, and the world itself. Much more can and will be said about drala as we grow together into the meaning of our new name.
What About Shambhala?

Our roots run deep in Shambhala, and we endeavor to uphold the teachings of our tradition. We will continue to host Shambhala practitioners as well as those from other secular and nonsecular wisdom traditions. Many people within the Shambhala community and beyond consider this land a refuge and a home. All are welcome.
The Renaming Process

With the opportunity to rethink our name and position ourselves for the future, SMC undertook a multi-month process to carefully consider our mission, our values and our broader community. We renewed our ongoing commitment to our mission:

Bringing people together to experience wisdom.

With our mission confirmed, we clarified our values, and identified the key elements that together define SMC. These elements are expressed in the graphic at right.

Following this work, SMC staff and governing council members offered name ideas. After several rounds of discussions and voting on the various choices, we emerged with a short list of five names. We then hosted five focus groups composed of more than 50 friends, advisors, donors, teachers and presenters to consider the choices. When all the focus group data was collected, one name emerged as the clear front runner to best express the heart of who we are: Drala Mountain Center.
Same Place, New Name

For the last 50 years, SMC has been one of Colorado’s beloved retreat destinations, a place of pilgrimage, and host to world-renowned teachers of meditation, yoga, Buddhism and a range of secular and nonsecular activities. We reflect with gratitude on our roots: originally secured as a retreat place for Karma Dzong (Boulder Shambhala Center), the land eventually became known as Rocky Mountain Dharma Center. For the last 20 years or so, we’ve operated under the name Shambhala Mountain Center.

Drala Mountain Center encapsulates our aspirations. We look forward to sharing the dralas of this land with you for many years and generations to come.

SMC Governing Council

Clifford Neuman, Chair
Michael Gayner, Executive Director
Amelie Bracher
Ming-Lien Linsley
Connie Rogers
Karen Wilding
Reid Miller, Secretary

Cheerful greetings from Shambhala Mountain Center, where winter is arriving with brisk winds, occasional snow and plummeting temperatures. I’m writing today to share some significant developments regarding the health of our land, changes in our legal relationship with the Sakyong Potrang, and the restructuring of our debt.

Over the years, you have shared in our successes and supported the center through a series of challenges — from putting in the Wastewater Treatment Pipe, to COVID closure and the Cameron Peak Fire. Thank you for your continued support and generosity. Before asking for your support today, it is essential that I share these details with you.

Restoring Forest Health & Resiliency
As you know, the Cameron Peak Fire nearly destroyed SMC. The land is recovering, but this is a process that will take multiple stages and many years. Despite the tragedy and devastation of the fire, SMC has been recognized as an exemplar of regenerative, conservation-based land stewardship. In 2018 we completed Phase One of a three phase conservation forestry project that treated 125-acres in an effort to restore forest health, and this past spring we completed Phase Two. When the Cameron Peak Fire swept through the land, it slowed down and burned less searingly hot in the treated areas, enabling firefighters to establish SMC as the northern anchor of their defensive line and stop the further spread of the fire in our area.

This forestry work gained international and regional recognition, including the Larimer County Land Stewardship Award. Since the fire, regional forestry partners have gathered at SMC to study and discuss forest health, conservation, and watershed protection. I’m delighted that SMC can help advance the science of conservation and be a partner in Colorado’s effort to restore forest health and resiliency.

Despite the financial and existential challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Cameron Peak Fire, we will continue to work with our partners to restore, nourish and protect the land and the larger ecosystem. Your continued support has made this possible.

Click here to contribute

Self Governance
Unlike the other land centers in the Shambhala community, Shambhala Mountain Center has long been an independently incorporated 501c3 Educational nonprofit. SMC is also unique in its history of hosting programs with a range of teachers from Tibetan and other Buddhist lineages, as well as from a wide array of diverse secular and non-secular wisdom traditions.

For many years, the Sakyong Potrang (the nonprofit entity that holds the assets of the Sakyong Lineage) has held a seat on the Governing Council, Shambhala Mountain Center’s board, and has held veto power in a few key areas of SMC governance. Both the Potrang and SMC Boards recognized this arrangement to be no longer necessary, and after much discussion, the Sakyong Potrang graciously agreed to relinquish the veto powers and its seat on the SMC Governing Council.

We believe that these changes will enable SMC to better respond to the challenges and opportunities we encounter as we rebuild, restore and emerge from the pandemic. We remain committed to serving the Shambhala community and providing a space for a wide range of secular and non-secular wisdom traditions, practices and activities.

Debt Restructuring
Shortly after reopening this past summer, we learned that our bank, Wells Fargo, had sold our loan to a holding company that purchases blocks of debt from banks. The loan, which was taken out to build the lodges, has a balance of roughly 4 million dollars. We are presently in negotiations with the holding company and working on a range of solutions to provide short and longer term stability for SMC. I will share updates as we clarify the possibilities and establish our route forward.

We Need Your Support
Together, we have faced a series of significant challenges. Due to the continued impact of the pandemic, we are now heading into winter with a lighter-than-usual program schedule. Shambhala Mountain Center has a history of finding solutions and turning these challenges into opportunities, but we need your help now. To keep our doors open and provide a stable basis for the beginning of 2022, we must raise $150,000 by the end of the year. If you are able to give, please consider a generous donation before the year is out.

Click here to contribute

In closing, this is a lot of information to share and I expect you may have questions. Please don’t hesitate to reply with your questions and I will do my best to answer them. If there is interest, we can also schedule a live question and answer broadcast in mid-December, similar to those held during and after the Cameron Peak Fire.

As always, I am deeply grateful for your ongoing support and love of SMC. Together, I know that we can move through the changes, challenges, and opportunities discussed above, and share this powerful, sacred land with generations to come.

With love from the mountains,

Michael

P.S. Today is #GivingTuesday, a worldwide day of giving and gratitude. I am grateful for you and appreciate you considering SMC in your end of year giving plans.

Dear Community,

Over the past week, there have been headlines in a number of Front Range newspapers as well as on Lion’s Roar and Think Progress regarding an “investigation of possible criminal activities at Shambhala Mountain Center” by the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO). SMC reached out to the LCSO and spoke with a Public Information Officer there. His response was that information has been forwarded to their office and they are examining it to see if there is anything that requires an official investigation. At this time, we have no information about the specifics of this examination.

Shambhala Mountain Center made statements this year clearly indicating our stance and commitments on allegations of clergy sexual abuse. We are and will always be committed to transparency and full cooperation in any investigation. We have shared updates on our perspective concerning this matter, which can be found on our website.

SMC has offered its support if a formal investigation is launched and remains committed to ensuring that Shambhala Mountain Center remains a safe and nurturing space where our guests and staff can meet their own and others’ wisdom. For further details regarding our work in meeting this moment, please review the link above.

Michael Gayner

Executive Director

Shambhala Mountain Center

 

Dear Friends,

This has been a difficult letter to write. How can I express the range of experiences that we are going through at SMC: the heartbreak, hope, incredible dedication, triumphs and challenges, that make up our path here. I am writing because there are things I want to report, commitments to be made and followed through on, and projects that are launching that I feel you should be a part of. This will be a longer letter than usual to ensure that the larger SMC family understands and is invited to participate in our journey.

We are a living, breathing community that has awoken into a heartbreaking situation that has provoked doubt in each of us. We’ve perpetuated something in our culture that has caused deep pain, and that is driving people away from the teachings.

As a 57-year-old white cisgendered male who has been in this community since the mid-1980s, I have to stop and reflect on how I have been a part of the culture, which has proven so toxic. I know that I still have much to learn.

How we relate with the pain caused by the actions of the Sakyong and others will define much about the quality of our community. How we respond will demonstrate whether Shambhala carries something truly worthy of offering to the rest of our world.

It’s no coincidence to me that in the midst of this crisis, a trench is being dug through the heart of the land at SMC for our new wastewater collection system. At the same time, members of our community have voluntarily gone out into the fields to collect native grass seeds to plant in the upturned soil when Spring arrives. When I consider the care and goodness behind that simple act it touches my heart and galvanizes my spirit. They are protecting the earth—embodying the essence of the Shambhala teachings.

I believe we all have an opportunity to meet this painful new reality as it is with vulnerability and our best intentions, and to co-create something better for the future.

I’d like to update you on the work we have been doing and the work we will be doing at SMC. Crisis

On top of maintaining our operations through the busy summer schedule, much of our time has been occupied with working with the social and financial crisis that followed the sexual misconduct allegations. Facing significant revenue losses, we had to put all of our options on the table. By far the most challenging part was the decision to make staff cuts and restructure. At SMC, that means saying goodbye not only to our co-workers, but to our friends and community members.

I’m proud of the way our team brought strategic, heartfelt, and creative thinking to the fore as we faced hard deadlines and critical decisions. SMC still needs a strong fundraising season this winter but we overcame a projected deficit of many hundreds of thousands of dollars and are now on sufficiently stable ground to fulfill our commitment with the wastewater collection system. This wouldn’t have been possible without the generosity of this community, and frankly, some good fortune.

Follow Up On Commitments

In our previous email from the SMC community we made a set of commitments and stated that we would find ways of making SMC more available to you. I want to share our progress so far, and also invite your input as members of the extended SMC sangha.

We committed to stand by the women who come forward. This means extending friendship and support where personal connections exist, and being clear through word and deed that we support a full investigation of any allegations. I understand that people care deeply about SMC and wish to protect it, perhaps leading them to hesitate in coming forward. If someone experienced any form of sexual harm at SMC or anywhere in Shambhala, please make a report to An Olive Branch and Wickwire Holm. We want and need the truth and we appreciate and honor the generosity and bravery of that act. To make a report, email An Olive Branch at: ListeningPost@an-olive-  branch.org and contact Selina Bath at Wickwire Holm, she can be reached at (902) 482-7030 andsbath@wickwireholm.com.

We also committed to doing what is right, despite any financial implications that may entail. That means owning what’s happened and meeting it head on, notifying all presenters, participants and volunteers coming to the land of the situation and providing them with all of the details, as we have done. It also means developing and instituting the policies, procedures, staff training and programming described elsewhere in this letter, and holding everyone on the land to these standards.

We also committed to transparency. I want to acknowledge that we’re aware of a recent anonymous allegation of sexual misconduct involving teenage girls which cited SMC as its location in 2004. We will do all we can to support an investigation of this allegation. I want to again stress that anyone who has information about any incident that may have occurred at SMC shares that with An Olive Branch and Wickwire Holm so that the truth can be known.

Policy Revision

Frankly, our conduct policies at SMC have been inadequate and insufficiently disseminated. We’re in the process of a complete policy and procedure overhaul that will be implemented by the end of the year. Policies we’re working on or revising include Anti-Discrimination, Anti-Harassment, Gender Equity, Sexual Misconduct and Relationship Violence, Child Protection, ADA, Drug & Alcohol, Presenter Code of Conduct, Program Staff Code of Conduct, Family Code of Conduct, and the Grievance Policy and Procedure and Staff Training Plan.

Social Impact Programming

For many years it’s been clear there is work we need to do to create and honor diversity at SMC. The question is how to make this stream of programming financially feasible given the constant cash needs at SMC, and how to integrate and honor a Shambhala view in this work. We’re taking a leap in 2019, creating a curriculum of trainings that will be offered to our staff and the Shambhala community at minimal cost to nurture awareness and intelligence in relating to key social issues. Topics we will focus on include sexuality, gender, allyship, and racism. We look forward to sharing all the details with you later this year.

Scholarship Program

In the wake of the allegations against the Sakyong we lost a major grant funder that served as our primary scholarship source. We’re now determined to create an in-house scholarship program at SMC. In 2019, we plan to award $100,000 of targeted scholarships. There is still data collection and critical analysis to be done about who we have been serving, who we haven’t, who we would like to serve, and why. There is also critical thinking needed regarding how SMC can serve key communities to maximize societal impact, what natural alliances we have formed, and where we can plug in to existing initiatives in the larger Colorado community.

Getaways

I know that it’s not inexpensive for the Shambhala Community to visit SMC, spend a weekend and simply experience this place as ‘home’: a place for resting, rejuvenating and reconnecting. We feel that such getaways are a key aspect of what SMC offers to this community. Despite our financial challenges, we are offering 75% off on getaways through this year. I believe it is a critical time for us to be together. If you consider yourself a member of this community, this discount applies to you.

Use discount code SANGHA75 when registering for a getaway. Wastewater Collection System

I am relieved to share that work has begun on the wastewater collection system and the project is moving forward as planned. On August 22, Lama Pegyal came to the land to lead a puja that is traditionally performed whenever ground is broken for construction at a monastery. Workers have been locating and marking all the underground utilities on the land where the trench will be dug, and spot-drilling to test the granite for blasting. Digging will begin this week. We’re on budget with the original estimate.

Forestry Project

In partnership with the Fort Collins Conservation District, the National Resources Conservation Service, and with over $300,000 in grant funding we have also begun a substantial forestry restoration project. Over the last 150 years human influence has changed the composit ion of forests in Colorado, making them more uniform and dense and therefore decreasing biodiversity and increasing the risk of calamitous fires that bake the earth and destroy the buried seed banks that would otherwise provide for regrowth.

This project will involve removing a lot of trees from some of the most overgrown areas on SMC land to return the forest to a more natural state, increase resilience to pests (such as pine beetles), diseases, wildfire and severe weather events, and lay the foundation for a thriving natural ecosystem. In the short term, the forest will look disturbed and our visitors will notice the thinned stands of trees, but within a few years, SMC will not only have healthy forests, it will return to the healthy beauty of the ponderosa savanna nature intended it to be.

To work with the living, sacred realities of trees and the forest in general, Venerable DrŸpon Lama Karma visited our land and led a traditional ceremony to express our aspirations to the land and receive permission from the forest to do this work.

Survey

I’d like to invite you to help shape our programming going forward at SMC. Please take 5 minutes to fill out this 7-question survey about what practices you’re interested in doing at SMC and how we can make SMC more convenient for you to visit: https://goo.gl/forms/rKZkKoBISyjaY1hc2

Both SMC and Shambhala as a whole are in transition and reaching for a future that can inspire and inform. We know there is much to do, and I have confidence that we can meet these challenges and grow into a deeper sense of service to our world. While engaging this transition, we’re maintaining our posture. I for one find that incredibly inspiring.

We’ll be in touch through the fall and winter as all these projects develop. With love from the mountains,

Michael Gayner Executive Director