Our Path to Now Chapter 1

Atlanta Shambhala Begins – The 70s.

The dharma moves in mysterious ways. Sometimes great good can follow disaster. The Tibetan diaspora would eventually lead Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche to Boulder, Colorado where he started Naropa Institute (now University), attracting multitudes to its summer gatherings. Among those who came were more than a few people from Atlanta.

Jackie Martin wasn’t from Atlanta yet. Having met Trungpa Rinpoche in San Antonio in 1974, she began to practice meditation. While living in Austin, she attended month-long retreats and spent summers at Naropa in 1975 and 1976. When she decided to become a Montessori teacher, her options for training were Mexico City, Toronto, and Atlanta. She came here to be in driving distance of her parents, who lived in Florida.

Meanwhile, Trungpa Rinpoche’s books were spreading his teachings throughout the land. An early student had started Shambhala Publications, inspired by the desire to make those teachings widely available. Meditation In Action was the first book, followed by Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. The books made it clear that reading about meditation was nice but practicing it was essential to understanding. People drawn by what they read flocked to Boulder, to Karmȇ-Chöling, the residential center he founded in northern Vermont, and to the Dharmadhatus, city centers devoted to his teachings. 

Carol Stubbe came to Emory as a freshman but dropped out and was on a quest to understand her mind, which was giving her a hard time. In 1975, since Trungpa Rinpoche’s teachings weren’t available in Atlanta, she and her dog-eared copy of Cutting Through moved to Boulder. Patton Hyman came via a very different route: curious about modern physics, he read there were parallels with the Buddhist teachings. He picked up a copy of Meditation in Action and planned a backpacking trip in Vermont with a visit to the meditation center as part of it. More books were published and countless were drawn by what they read.

Boulder was a magnet for those folks. One summer evening there in 1976, Jackie was talking with Trungpa Rinpoche at a party. Telling him of her plans, she asked what he thought. Rinpoche said, “Montessori is the best training to learn about child development. But don’t get too tripped out. And start a Dharmadhatu there. It will be a big center someday.” So Jackie and Ron Lucotch moved to Atlanta. Jackie put an ad in the alternative cultural newspaper, Creative Loafing, inviting people interested in studying the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche to gather at her small apartment in Midtown. 

 

Socializing was a big part of becoming a true community.
Garden parties and dance parties were favorites.

 

Jackie also posted notices on bulletin boards around town, including in a laundromat in midtown frequented by Patton. Fourteen people showed up for the first gathering, three of whom—Bill Pulling, Rob Warnock, and George Lemery—Jackie had already met at Naropa. Before long, Jackie and Ron moved in with George and his boyfriend, splitting the rent with Rob Warnock, who for years helped to support a space for Atlantans interested in exploring the dharma. Cara Thornley, Harry and Kathy Tate, Barbara Kroeplin, Kathy Sutton, Floyd Mills, and Whit Connah were among the other stalwarts in these early days.

The first visiting teacher to the Atlanta group was Marty Janowitz. Forty people came to his talk in a rented Unitarian church. In 1977 Trungpa Rinpoche sent Stephan and Nicki Omansky to Atlanta as his representatives. The first people authorized by him to teach in Atlanta, they offered classes, gave meditation instruction, and trained others to teach. Jackie lived with them in a house on Lenox Road; the living room was the shrine room, and it was during this time that the group attained enough momentum to be designated a Dharmadhatu. 

During the year Carol spent in Boulder, she met Trungpa Rinpoche, who sent her to live at  Karmê Chöling, where she was in the summer of 1977 when her old college friend, Rob Warnock, visited and told her of the Dharmadhatu forming in Atlanta. In the fall of that year, with a little help from her friends Tom Haynes and Betsy Berman, Carol moved back to town. One day when she and Patton were out putting up posters for a weekend program, he invited her over for dinner. Ten weeks later they were married. 

When the tenure of the Omanskys ended, Richard Macgregor came to lead the group and we moved into a big house on Peachtree Road across from the Garden Hills cinema in Buckhead. People lived upstairs while the main floor was used for practice and study. Many lively conversations took place about taking the next step: could the group afford a place that wasn’t subsidized by members living in the building? We started looking for a suitable space.

The dharma moves in mysterious ways. A ballet school just up the road was not renewing their lease. Beautiful hardwood floors in the studio space, and plenty of room for classes and meditation instruction inspired us to take a leap. Since it was located directly above a blues bar, we had a built-in soundtrack for the next chapter in the history of Shambhala in Atlanta.