About Us: History

At first, our sangha - originally known as the Chicago Dharmadatu - met in a variety of unlikely places. These including the three room flower store/meditation center/apartment of Joe Vest and Bob Rader, the apartment of Donna Roth (later Donna Holm, wife of the Lodrö Dorje) and the apartment of Karen Wells (later Karen Haywood, co-author of the classic Shambhala text "Sacred World").

In 1975, we moved into our first dedicated space at 640 N. State Street. A small but devoted Sangha, including handymen Peter McLaughlin and Craig Donegan, turned a dilapidated loft - "wreck" has been used to describe its initial condition - into a bona fide practice center with a shrine room, an office, a director's office, a kitchen and a full bathroom.

In September of 1975, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche himself visited to bless the shrine and the center, to give refuge vows to (among others) longtime Sangha members Peter McLaughlin, Anne Fraser, John Roadhouse and David Roadhouse. The following January, His Holiness the 16 Gyalwa Karmapa - with full diplomatic protocol and Secret Service protection - visited Chicago and performed the Black Crown ceremony at what is now the Chicago Hilton. The visit and event made headlines in two of the three Chicago Papers (remember the Daily News?).

After several years at State Street, and a few weeks in an unheated second floor loft on Lincoln Avenue, the Sangha then migrated to 3340 N. Clark Street. From here we hosted the famous "Triple Visit" - a period of a few weeks in 1981 during which we were visited first by the Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin and then by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, both of whom gave seminars to the Midwest at the Sovereign Hotel on Granville. The third visit - from HH the Gyalwa Karmapa - was marked by both joy and sadness; his last days were spent at Clinic Hospital in Zion, where he died from cancer. Also affiliated with the Sangha at that time was "Sheridan House" - not a SMCC property per se, it was a building on Sheridan between Hollywood and Devon where community members lived, teachers were hosted, and Shambhala Training levels were held.

Finally, our dream of owning our own building was realized; on February 29, 1996 we moved to the present location. Formerly a mansion, a day care center and the Illinois Masonic Women's Health Center, there is still a lead lined room upstairs where X-Ray technicians used to work! Current needs and aspirations call for a larger space, perhaps through extensive renovation, to realign and to expand the current space.

Learn more about meditation and buddhism at shambhala.org

Shambhala, Shambhala Meditation Center, and Shambhala Center are registered service marks of Shambhala International (Varjadhatu). Shambhala Training is a registered trademark of Shambhala/Nalanda Foundation.