By way of the Shambhala Meditation Center of New York comes the announcement that Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, head of the Shambhala Buddhist lineage, “has created a new position, known as shastri, in the teaching mandala of Shambhala. The Sakyong has asked local teacher Ethan Nichtern to be shastri for New York City.” (News via Shambhala itself here.)
The shastris will serve city and regional Shambhala Centers. The Sakyong has asked the shastris to serve as senior teachers particularly charged with representing and teaching the two-year core curriculum The Way of Shambhala, which consists of weekly courses and the Shambhala Training weekend levels. The shastris will formally take on their roles following an intensive training this July at Shambhala Mountain Center.
As Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown, Dean of the Shambhala Teachers’ Academy, wrote in an announcement of the news:
“[Sakyong Mipham] Rinpoche has initially selected around sixty shastri candidates from the international mandala to serve terms of three years in these new teaching positions. He asked that this first group of shastris be chosen to serve in our largest centres. Additional shastris will be appointed in future years, as the needs of our local and regional centres become more clarified.
“In order to look to the future, the shastris have been selected from our dedicated senior teachers as well as from newer, younger teachers. While shastris will serve as senior mentors, all of our other skilled and committed centre teachers are encouraged and still greatly needed to continue to teach.”
A number of larger centers have appointed more than one shastri. At this time, Ethan Nichtern is the only shastri appointed to the New York center.
Ethan Nichtern is the founding director of the Interdependence Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to applying Buddhist teachings to 21st century life, bringing mindfulness to such fields as activism, arts, and media.
He is the author of the acclaimed book One City: A Declaration of Interdependence, and he recently appeared on CNN and NPR to discuss Buddhism in contemporary society. He teaches Buddhism part-time at Eugene Lang College at New School University, and lectures regularly at Brown, Wesleyan, and New York Universities.
For more on Ethan, read “Dharma Punx” in the May 2010 issue of the Shambhala Sun.
