Guest Lecture - Buddhism and Shamanism: Working with Energy with Robert Chender

Buddhism is a path to seeing things as they are, to wisdom and compassion. Shamanism can mean many different things, but one way to describe it is the idea of sacred world, that if we relate to our world as intrinsically sacred we can harmonize our relationship with our environment and connect and work with the energies underlying the physical world.

In order to be able to do this we need to train our minds, work with our habitual patterns and learn to become completely present, which is an outcome of Buddhist meditation practice. The two need not be separate; in Tibet the shamanic path is a way to help remove obstacles to spiritual practice, and some Buddhist practices involve working with the energies of the phenomenal world. The proper motivation to undertake both a true shamanic path, and the Buddhist path, is to help others – shamanic practices will lead naturally to higher spiritual practices if they are based on compassion.

Robert Chender has been a practitioner and teacher in the Shambhala tradition for many years, and is also a student and practitioner of certain shamanic traditions, including the Munay-ki initiations of the Inca shamanic tradition.

Image Courtesy of Ligmincha Institute. Click here to read more

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