An open invitation to Montreal Buddhists
I may have spoken out of turn when I mentioned the dearth of Buddhist teachers in Montreal in an earlier blog post.
I think much of this comes from me spending my years of study and practice in both the Shambhala and Nalandabodhi (predominantly Tibetan Buddhist / Western Tibetan Buddhist traditions). I’ve stuck pretty close ‘home base’ and although did dabble a bit in Zen when I first discovered Buddhism, never really investigated it beyond reading and attending a few practice sessions. I’m not knocking Zen. Not at all. I just became so immersed in studying the Hinayana and Mahayana teachings of the Tibetan path, that that was enough to fill my head with at the time.
I’m aware that we can become blinded to the allure of our own practices, however I’m quite mindful when readers do ask me to recommend local centres that I offer up an equal-opportunity approach to Tibetan, Zen, Vipassana and any other traditions whose centres or teachers I can think of. I know that I’m sadly ill-informed on many of the goings on around the community and I’m looking to change this, mainly from a need to better educate myself in the meat-space and get offline for some real-world interaction.
So I’m calling on all of the Montreal centres, teachers, study groups, dharmic-folks and anyone else who has an affinity to this blog, to what I”m into or if you want to drop me some science, to contact me if they’d like to introduce me to their group or centre. I’d love to do a video profile on you, your centre and what you do. I can also simply list you on the blogroll on the side or doing a blog post to profile you if you aren’t interested in anything further than that.
Interested? Let’s connect.
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I have some family in Montréal, and I’ll see if they might be interested in contacting you. This effort might be in vain—I sadly haven’t visited them in well over ten years, nor do I know how active they are in their local temple. But it would be remiss of me to not try to do what I can from this other edge of the continent. I look forward to seeing what you post about Buddhism from your neck of the woods!
That would be super. I had know idea you had some connections here in Montreal.
We have a very active Tibetan community here in Montreal where there are many refugees who live in Canada (mainly Toronto). One of my clients is this group who does great work in assisting the Tibetan community http://tibet.ca/en/tibet_in_canada/
I do know there are a few Zen, Korean and Chinese temples here as well so I’m hoping a bit of outreach on my behalf will give some exposure to these centres, rather than the highly-hyped Western centres that usually get all of the attention.
I am a student of Albert Low and attend sesshin at the Montreal Zen Center in Ahuntsic. Originally studied with Philip Kapleau in Rochester in ’71-’74. long and deep are words I would use to describe my affiliation there. What would you like to know about zen practice there? PS I connected to your blog through Twitter suggestions when looking at Joan Halifax Twitter page.
Thanks for dropping by Patricia.
I’d love to hear more about you. Are you up for being featured on this blog to share your experiences on the path. I’d love to share my questions and your responses with readers of this blog.
Can’t help with with info but, man, that picture is cool!
I know. It’s pretty darn trippy huh?
By my count, there are more than 40 Buddhist temples, centres, groups, associations and organizations in the greater Montreal area, representing just about every lineage and tradition. Looking forward to hearing more about your adventures…
I think it’s time for me to detox a bit from some of the poutine.
Thanks for your continued insight.