Update and Process Team Information

6 minute read

Dear Worldwide Shambhala Community,

Thank you for your participation and for applying or nominating others to apply for the Interim Board and Process Team. We have appreciated your advice, questions, and insights. While we are not responding to individual communications, we are reading them and incorporating your advice and questions into our visioning and communications.

In response to your request for information about the applicants for the Interim Board, we received 39 applications. We are now reviewing applications and resumés and will be scheduling interviews soon. As we discern who to interview, we reaffirm our aspiration for finding the most qualified board members, and we reaffirm our aspiration for worldwide geographical representation; diversity (eg. gender, gender identity, race, nationality, cultural, age, physical ability, socio-economic status) among those selected; a mix of ages and generations; inviting former Shambhalians who are committed to the vision of Shambhala; considering non-Shambhalians, particularly those from institutions that share a strong resonance with the Shambhala view.

Today we are sharing more details about the view and qualifications needed for the Process Team (PT). We have received 50 applications. We encourage you to apply if you feel you have the qualifications, or contact those you think would be good applicants to apply.

Below are links to the PT Job Description & FAQ and a short application form. Please send these to anyone who you wish to nominate and encourage them to apply. The application deadline for the Process Team is Saturday, September 22.

If you feel inspired to apply but have questions, please attend one of our Zoom information sessions about the Process Team. These are scheduled as follows:

Saturday, September 15, **at 12:00 EDT **with Charlene Leung and Sharon Owyang at: https://zoom.us/j/5105599038 Telephone: US: +1 408 638 0968 (US Toll) or +1 646 558 8656 (US Toll) Meeting ID: 510 559 9038 International numbers available: https://zoom.us/zoomconference?m=_1XJPh_3DB46066X3WVaotLwhP2KSEoD

Monday, September 17, at 8:30a EDT with Arawana Hayashi and Suzann Duquette at: https://zoom.us/j/6539499859 Telephone: US: +1 669 900 6833 or +1 646 876 9923 Meeting ID: 653 949 9859 International telephone numbers available: https://zoom.us/u/bVWCxL2XT

Tuesday, September 18, at 12:00p EDT with Andrew Sacamano and Katrin Stelzel at: https://zoom.us/j/105746145 or Telephone US: +1 646 876 9923, +1 408 638 0986 - ID 105 746 145. International telephone numbers available https://zoom.us/u/cDLmeghRi

Process Team Background and Qualifications for Candidates

Shambhalians and non-Shambhalian consultants have offered invaluable input over the past few weeks that has informed and evolved our view of the Process Team. As an international community impacted by allegations of clergy sexual misconduct and power abuse, we are faced with how to acknowledge and reconcile the discrepancy between Shambhala vision and the harms that have been experienced by some of our members. How is it that we were able to benefit from the brilliance of the Shambhala teachings while, at the same time, people were being harmed within our community? How can we take heed in the basic principles of Shambhala, so we can envision a healthy way forward? How can we be a worldwide community that embodies the principles of basic goodness and is just and truly inclusive? How can our organizational, financial and governance structures support and be reflective of such a just, virtuous, and inclusive society?

We envision that it will be the job of the Process Team to listen to and consult with the worldwide Shambhala community in exploring the above questions and eventually to propose to the community and Interim Board how Shambhala can restructure itself and its leadership. The Process Team is charged with the task of creating a path to freshness, trust, and transparency for Shambhala as a worldwide organization that adheres to the vision of Shambhala, the lineage of Sakyongs, the Shambhala teachings, and Mahayana and Vajrayana buddhadharma.

It has been brought to our attention that before new organizational structures can be envisioned, or healing can even begin, there needs to be some community alignment on the scope of the problems and the conditions that have led us to where we are today. We fully agree on the crucial importance of self-reflection and self-assessment, and recommend that the PT start its work by listening to and engaging with the community on this front. As the PT continues its work, it may well find other areas that need to be addressed, and the PT is fully empowered to adjust and adapt its work accordingly, and/or to invite others into the process as needed.

Members of the PT will be selected based on expertise, experience and interest in at least one of three areas: community healing, culture change, or governance structures. Expertise or experience in at least one of the following areas will be helpful:

  • Group process consultation/Group facilitation
  • Community/Social engagement
  • Individual/collective trauma and healing
  • Organizational culture change
  • Governance models
  • Leadership in Shambhala
  • Institutional collective learning and evolution

While the Interim Board is constrained by the existing legal structure of Shambhala, the Process Team is not bound by that structure in its envisioning. We are recommending that the PT fully explore what it means to manifest the vision of Shambhala and the teachings of our lineage, bounded only by their own heartfelt understanding of what Shambhala is. We expect the PT to bring fresh and open minds to this question. We believe that this is an extremely important conversation to have as a community, and hope that having this conversation will - collectively and as individuals - deepen our wisdom and be an important part of our healing processes.

We realize the work of the PT will be a unique creative process and do not want to limit the PT. Based on the feedback and suggestions we have received to date, we currently envision the scope and work of the PT to include, but not be limited to, three primary areas: 1) community healing and learning; 2) culture change; and 3) new governance structures and organizational development. More information on each can be found in the Process Team Job Description & FAQ.

FAQ

We appreciate that many of you may still have questions, and we are preparing a more general FAQ to answer the questions you have asked that we can answer. Some questions cannot be addressed until the Interim Board and/or Process Team are seated, some do not fall within our responsibilities or cannot be answered because of Task Force time constraints. We hope to expand the General FAQ on our website very shortly.

In the meantime, please visit our website at https://www.shambhala-transition.org for information, new developments, and discussion. You can contact us at transitiontaskforce@shambhala.org.

Sincerely,

Ani Pema Chödrön, Acharya
Arawana Hayashi, Acharya
Charlene Leung, Acharya
Suzann Duquette, Acharya
Katrin Stelzel, Treasury Council Europe, Member
Andrew Sacamano, Kasung Shastri
Sharon Owyang, Regional Director
Basia Solarz (facilitator)