Shambhala : first impressions

Some (fairly random) observations, in no particular order:

• There were lots of people there, who all seemed very nice and friendly.

• The guy teaching the meditation was around 50, French, and pleasant.

• They bang on the gong differently to the Zen centre.

• There was a lot of chanting, which went very quickly and I didn't understand what I was chanting.

• We meditated for 30 mins then did a walking meditation of 10 mins. I think that might be different on normal evenings, but that's what we did last week.
  

• The cushions are red and yellow and square shaped.

• There are lots of gold and coloured things around, lots of ornaments and pictures and flags and statues. However, the meditation seemed almost less formal than Zen. Maybe this was because there were so many people there so there was more noise and shifting around and coughing and things.

• The meditation was mindfulness of breathing, then there was a ceremony for someone who had died so we did tonglen (giving and receiving feelings of another person to put yourself in their place and take their pain). I assume the funeral service was atypical for their meditation evenings. Either way, it made me cry.

• After the meditation the people stood around chatting. This was pleasant and I found it more relaxing in some ways than the Zen centre.

• I got into a discussion with a guy who I think must be a regular there. I'm not sure what his role was in the evening, but he started going on about realms of existence - the hell realms, animal realms and so on and reincarnation. I was getting frustrated with him because I think he assumed I hadn't even thought about the idea before, so he was basically lecturing me on the topic of reincarnation, i.e. if you kill people you'll pay the price.
  

• I'm not sure what I think about the meditation teacher. Some people were discussing the pros and cons of having your eyes open during meditation, and he seemed completely unwilling to entertain the idea of having one's eyes closed. He ended up by saying "well, in this tradition I insist that you keep your eyes open." - that didn't impress me too much, in spite of the fact that I can see the obvious benefits to meditating with your eyes open (i.e. it is the link between your meditation and the world). I'm keeping an open mind, and, next time I go there, open eyes it seems!
  

• There was a buffet, which had chocolate biscuits and red wine (in the keeping of the lineage of Trungpa Rinpoche, I thought, but decided not to say it out loud). The wine was very good.

So it was a mixed experience. I'm going to go again tonight and see what happens on a more normal evening, without funerals but hopefully still with wine and chocolate biscuits.

For more information about Shambhala:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala_Buddhism - the Wikipedia page (!)
http://paris.shambhala.fr/ - the centre in Paris I went to