Member Resources

Page Contents

Shambhala Member’s View (formerly the Shambhala Database, or SDB)
Shambhala Network
Shambhala Member’s Area
Modifying your Membership Payment Information: Vanco and PayPal Access
Subscribing to Seattle Shambhala’s Calendar
Seattle Members’ Scholarship Fund

Shambhala Member’s View (formerly the Shambhala Database, or SDB)

The Shambhala Member’s View page gives access to your profile information, records of classes and programs taken (going back a few years anyway), and more. Take a moment to make sure your profile is up to date, upload a photo of yourself, and generally make yourself acquainted with the resources available.

Creating a Shambhala Account. If you’re new and don’t yet have a Shambhala Account, you’ll find a “Create Shambhala Account” link (as well as a “Forgot password?” link) in the login area towards the bottom of the Shambhala Member’s View page.

The Shambhala Account lets you access any Shambhala page or resource that asks for a password (including the Shambhala Network, Shambhala Online, etc.).

Note: after first creating your account (or having a new password emailed to you), if you find you are unable to login to other Shambhala resources (such as the Shambhala Network, etc), then try changing your password (it’s the second item down on the Member’s View page, or here is the link). That may fix the problem.

Looking up other members. If you’re a member, you can look up contact info for other members (even those in other cities), by choosing “search” at the top of the page, and entering some or all of their name or email address.

Shambhala Network

The Shambhala Network is a relatively new website that connects the Shambhala community through email, groups and friends (replacing the older “sangha announce” or “webbymail” system). The Shambhala Network is available to everyone, but members are especially encouraged to sign up, because while most program-related emails will still be sent to you directly from Seattle Shambhala Center, the Shambhala Network will increasingly be used for other kinds of local announcements (as well as for regional and international announcements), and if you’re not signed up, you may be missing out!

Signing up is very easy. If you haven’t yet, you’ll first need to create a Shambhala Account for yourself (as explained above). Remember to log into the Shambhala Database and change your password. Once you’ve done that, simply logging into the Shambhala Network will automatically subscribe you to some of the most important email groups, including the Seattle Community Room, which is the main list or group for Seattle Shambhala Center. But you have to log in, because until you do, you won’t be signed up. To view or change your subscriptions, just click on “my groups”.

Seattle directory. If you want to find someone in Seattle by looking through a directory, you can click on the “members” tab in the Seattle Community Room, which shows everyone in Seattle (at least, everyone who has joined the group so far). But if you just want to look up contact info for a specific person, and you know their name, looking them up with the SDB will be much more efficient. Note that non-members can join the Seattle Community Room as well, but as a privacy policy, only members and friends can view the “members” tab, and profile and contact information is only shared between members and friends.

Posting your own messages. You can post your own announcements, questions, etc., to any group you belong to. To do so, click on the “discussion” tab, then click on “new topic”, then fill in your subject line and message at the bottom of the page. Typically, that would either be in the Seattle Community Room — or if the announcement is appropriate for a wider audience, either Pacific Northwest Classifieds, or one of the international groups: Sangha Announce or Sangha Talk (depending on the nature of your message). There are also many other groups in the network, and you’re welcome and encouraged to explore. But in general, you probably should only post a message to one group (e.g. if you post a message to Sangha Announce, posting the same message to the Seattle group is apt to be redundant).

Shambhala Member’s Area

The Member’s Area on shambhala.org is a resource that may be of interest, especially the Practice & Study section.

Modifying your Membership Payment Information: Vanco and PayPal Access

Members who signed up to pay their membership dues or donations through Vanco can access their profile to update personal information (email, phone number, address) as well as recurring payment amounts. Please click here to access Vanco.

Members who signed up to pay their membership dues through PayPal can modify their personal information (email, address, credit card, etc.) by logging in to their PayPal account. Please click here to access PayPal. But PayPal doesn’t allow you to directly change your monthly payment amount, so to do that, you will first have to cancel your recurring payment within PayPal (steps for doing that are listed below). Once you’ve cancelled your recurring payment, you can either sign up for Vanco, using the Vanco link above, or you can sign up for PayPal again but with a new amount, using the Membership form on the Seattle Shambhala website. The advantage of using Vanco over PayPal is that it’s more flexible, and allows you to change your payment amount at any time. If you sign up for PayPal again, please note in the “Additional information” box of the Seattle Shambhala Membership form that this is not a new membership, and be aware that the date you sign up again will be the date that the amount is charged every month.

To access your recurring payment information on PayPal:

1. Log in to your PayPal account.
2. Click on the gear icon https://www.google.com/help/hc/images/mail/mail_gear.png on the upper right portion of the menu bar.
3. Click Preapproved payments under Payment settings in the lower right portion of the page.
4. Click Shambhala Center of Seattle to view the subscription details (and you’ll find a “Cancel Subscription” button on the bottom of the details page).

Subscribing to Seattle Shambhala’s Calendar

If you use a calendar that supports the iCal format, such as Google, Yahoo, or Outlook calendars, you can view or “subscribe” to the Seattle Shambhala calendar from your calendar. Our iCal address is: http://shambhala-koeln.de/ical.php?center=211

For example:

  • Google: To do this in your Google calendar, select the drop down next to “Other calendars”, then choose “Add by URL”, then enter our iCal address.
  • Outlook: To do this in Outlook, click on the Folder tab, then click on “Open Calendar”, then click on “From Internet”, and finally enter our iCal address.

Seattle Members’ Educational Scholarship Fund

In addition to the programs offered in Seattle, Shambhala  International offers a variety of programs at Shambhala land centers around the world.  These programs are considered an important part of the Shambhala path of practice and study.  In order to help make these programs more accessible financially, the Seattle Center has established the members’ scholarship fund. The scholarship fund supports programs at Shambhala land-centers that are prerequisites for following the core spiritual path and that are major components of the Shambhala path of practice and study (for example, Dathun, Enlightened Society Assembly, Warrior Assembly, etc.). This fund also supports those in leadership positions who wish to attend a program for the benefit of our center. The intent of the fund is to enable active, committed community members to overcome financial constraints through partial payment of program fees and transportation costs.  For more information and to apply.