Shambhala Sun (1-year auto-renewal)

"Shambhala Sun" has a beautiful lay-out, and is filled with words of wisdom from ancient and contemporary Buddhist thinkers. It features articles and interviews from people like Alice Walker We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Light in a Time of Darkness, Jon Kabat-Zinn Arriving at Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life and many others. One author in particular had an influence on me and how I think about relations and even politics, and that is Jack Kornfield After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path. I used to work as a security guard and had the opportunity to listen to a presentation he gave on "The Roots of Buddhist Psychology" (available from Sounds True audio). He revealed all sorts of counter-productive habits of mind we find ourselves in, or that we've been put in by a very manipulative corporate media Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky and the Media. For me, Buddhism isn't just a spiritual practice, but something that can assist in bringing on progressive social change, exemplified by the many Buddhists who are engaged activists. We hear a lot about the Christian Right and its political power, but the Buddhist Left (among other progressive denominations) is quietly revolutionizing how we perceive the world and encouraging kindness, which is a radical proposal in what can be a mean world.

See Turning Wheel magazine for more on Buddhist political action.

Regularly recognized by Utne as one of the best magazines in its field, "Shambhala Sun" will appeal to both serious Buddhist practitioners, and those with a vague interest.

See also:

Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring for Yourself and Your Children

Discovering Buddhism

Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution

This magazine is great, and I look forward to receiving every 2 months. Great articles, book reviews, authors, stories, etc. Highly recommend for anyone interested in the buddhist or generally mindful path. Gives great insight into multiple traditions as well.

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I have just received my first copy of the Shambhala Sun, and although I am not completely through readying it yet, I am completely in love with this magazine. It is so knowledgeable and has something for everyone. The photography is beautiful and even the advertisements, which do not take up the entire magazine, have a reason to be read. I am more than happy that I chose this magazine and I will be renewing it too. The most important things is that there is something detailed in it about Buddhism and the Dahli Lama that affects you personally and something you did not know that you can learn and live with and apply to your life immediately.

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Named for the mythical (?) and mystical kingdom in the East, Shambhala Publications is known for bringing some of the greatest and sometimes most obscure philosophical writings of Mankind to the attention of the general public. As part of its Dharma mission, the company markets several web portals and periodicals, among which this is the best-known.

SHAMBHALA SUN presents us with some of the best Buddhist writing available today. I have watched this magazine mature into an eminently readable publication as it has shifted its primary focus away from dry scholarly and pedagogical articles written by University Professors of Oriental Studies and obscure Vajrayana mountain hermits to the more immediate concerns of Western Buddhists---like how to maintain your practice in the face of an interaction with an obnoxious sales clerk; or how to be "in the moment" with digestive troubles: "The Sh***y Monk," a recent article, reflects SHAMBHALA SUN's movement away from self-importance.

The scholarly and pedagogical articles still do appear, albeit written with a lighter hand. Information on the neurological changes caused by meditation and information on little-known aspects of Sri Lankan Buddhism no longer cause me to develop glazed eyes and a sudden desire to find the ecstasy in the laundry.

Does SHAMBHALA SUN have shortcomings? Well, in my opinion, a few:

It has become the self-appointed promoter of the emerging "Mindfulness" movement, an academically-sanctioned whitebread-and-jelly form of meditation practice sans spirituality now becoming the new darling of Corporate America.

Like "Green," "Mindfulness" permits companies to appear to be interested in the human concerns of their employees while co-opting workers into accepting even less autonomy. Soon, meditation, or at least sitting on your arse quietly, may become a job pre-requisite for health benefits. But without allowing for a spirit of internal inquiry, it really is just sitting on your arse.

SHAMBHALA SUN is also slick and full of ads and promotions for meditation retreats and other expensive products. I know ad space pays the bills, and I like money as much as any capitalist can, but the nakedly exploitative nature of some of the ads is troubling. Chogyam Trungpa, the founder of Shambhala, wrote a seminal work named CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM, and I have to wonder what he would think of the Dharma practices of Ford Motor or the "Geshe Lama Gogolak Awareness Retreat of Telluride Colorado (only $10,000 per day, minimum twenty days)."

Having made these objections, I will quickly add that these issues are raised by way of promoting awareness among potential subscribers, not as a critique of the magazine itself. People can and do benefit from Mindfulness training, retreats, and practice aids. SHAMBHALA SUN itself is hardly responsible for the hijacking of meditation practice into the corporate culture. Also, the magazine only runs ads, it doesn't judge them. Thus, insofar as this reviewer goes, none of this costs the SUN a star.

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I have read many different Buddhist magazines over the years, and Shambhala Sun stands out in taking a fresh new look on the traditions. Where many other magazines might talk about meditation basics or a history of a famous person, Shambhala Sun is interviewing Buddhists with tattoos who swear and who bring Buddhism into inner city environments. The same issue had a look at the blogging firestorm that erupted around Tiger Woods, his infidelities, and his statements about Buddhism.

Yes, there are the articles on the Dalai Lama, there are reviews of recent books that touch on the Buddhism world, and there are the typical pages and pages of advertisements. I really wish magazines didn't have to be so densely populated with ads. Do they really need *that* many in order to pay their basic bills?

For me, I'm taking off one point because while many of the articles are interesting, they're more newsy than practical. I do enjoy learning about Buddhism in other parts of the world, but I can do that online fairly easily. I am hoping with the magazine to get more of a direct, helpful way to improve my own practice.

Still, a fairly minor complaint, and if you're keen to learn about the various ways Buddhism is changing and growing as it spreads into untouched nooks and crannies of our world, this magazine is the one which will cover it.

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