Goodness Is Always There Blog

WELCOME Denver SMCD Bloggers!

by Larry Seidl

Sure I was an Internet pioneer, so to speak, working for a record company in San Francisco in the first days of the Inter-Webs. We had a simple website based on early HTML technology. The company used Mac clones (anyone remember those?), we wired our own LAN (local area network). We used email – not very well, except a few of us, and we felt strong in our weirdo make-it-up-as-you-go young people’s work environment. And we were successful. I started as an intern with no salary, but was taken in hand by a good friend, an early technologist whom I had met in college.

My friend eventually moved to Boulder, where he studied music and Buddhism at Naropa Institute (before it became a university) several years before Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche died. When he was done, he began a Masters program there in Buddhism, but the guru died, the Regent died and Boulder’s Shambhala community found itself a bit headless.

Naropa’s a pretty rich story, and you may ask me or other long-time members about it anytime if you are interested. It’s also just background. Here at SMCD we aim to provide access to the pith of the path, which includes traditional Practice Lineage Tibetan Buddhism and Shambhala Training, a secular skillful means arrived at and presented by by Mr. Trungpa beginning in the mid-70s. For several years, Shambhala has been at a crossroads due to a similarly groundless situation the history of which is also available for the asking (probably) from those of us who know the story. If you are interested, please ask.

I have never written for a blog, which is the common short term for a weblog. This proposes to be the first entry in SMCD’s new blog, the title of which, I hereby announce, is GOODNESS IS ALWAYS THERE BLOG. The title of this new blog was coined by our own Jane Ethe from New York City. As was communicated in the most recent newsletter (Sat. 5/21), member contributions are avidly sought. Please share your thoughts and impressions, your aspirations (personal, societal, municipal or otherwise) and your meditation experiences. Release your inner writer, log your incremental dawnings of confidence and spiritual realization, your frustrations or confusions, your best stories or jokes. Submit your poems, essays or stories. Send photographs, paintings, drawings, etc. We’ll make it work! (Photos of artwork, please.) Email me at [email protected]

Blogs magnetize energy — particularly the energy of the Internet savvy, the Gen Z, the millennial and the Nana-technologists, we oldsters with perspectives and experience — but also lifelong learners keeping up with the times. Who is not a Zoom-er these days? It is our hope that all will feel encouraged to participate! Please add your voice and your ideas! Please add your energy and enthusiasm! While Goodness Is Always There Blog (GIATB) is the brainchild of the Communications Team, it is OUR blog. It is YOUR blog.

Live long and prosper! Nanu nanu. May the force be with us! What do I know from blogs? What do you know from blogs? KI KI SO SO