Shambhala Publications is an
independent publishing company based in
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...
. According to the company, it specializes in "books that present creative and conscious ways of transforming the individual, the society, and the planet". Many of its titles deal with
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
and related topics in religion and philosophy. The company's name was inspired by the Sanskrit word
Shambhala
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala ( sa, शम्भल ',''Śambhala'', also ''Sambhala'', is the name of a town between the Rathaprā and Ganges rivers, identified by some with Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh. In the Puranas, it is named a ...
, referring to a mystical kingdom hidden beyond the snowpeaks of the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over list ...
, according to the
Tibetan Buddhist
Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...
tradition. Its authors include
Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam Trungpa ( Wylie: ''Chos rgyam Drung pa''; March 5, 1939 – April 4, 1987) was a Tibetan Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, the 11th of the Trungpa tülkus, a tertön, sup ...
,
Pema Chödrön
Pema Chödrön (པདྨ་ཆོས་སྒྲོན། ''padma chos sgron'' “lotus dharma lamp”; born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown, July 14, 1936) is an American Tibetan Buddhist. She is an ordained nun, former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism a ...
,
Thomas Cleary
Thomas Cleary (24 April 1949 – 20 June 2021) was an American translator and writer of more than 80 books related to Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian, and Muslim classics, and of ''The Art of War'', a treatise on management, military strategy, and ...
,
Ken Wilber
Kenneth Earl Wilber II (born January 31, 1949) is an American philosopher and writer on transpersonal psychology and his own integral theory, a philosophy which suggests the synthesis of all human knowledge and experience.
Life and career
Wilbe ...
,
Fritjof Capra
Fritjof Capra (born February 1, 1939) is an Austrian-born American physicist, systems theorist and deep ecologist. In 1995, he became a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. He is on the faculty of Schumacher ...
,
A. H. Almaas,
John Daido Loori,
John Stevens,
Edward Espe Brown and
Natalie Goldberg
Natalie Goldberg (born January 4, 1948) is an American popular author and speaker. She is best known for a series of books which explore writing as Zen practice.
Life
Goldberg has studied Zen Buddhism for more than thirty years and practiced wit ...
.
The company is unaffiliated with
Shambhala Buddhism
Shambhala Training is a secular approach to meditation developed by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa and his students. It is based on what Trungpa calls Shambhala Vision, which sees enlightened society as not purely mythical, but as reali ...
,
Shambhala International, or ''
Lion's Roar'' (previously entitled ''Shambhala Sun'') magazine.
History
Shambhala was founded in 1969 by Samuel Bercholz and Michael Fagan, in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Em ...
. Its books are distributed by Penguin
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
. In 1976 Shambhala moved to
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...
to be near the
Naropa Institute. In 1986 Shambhala moved to Boston, housed in
Horticultural Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, which adjoins the
Christian Science Center
The Christian Science Center is a site on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Huntington Avenue in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. A popular tourist attraction, the center is owned by the Church of Christ, Scientist ( ...
. In 2010, Nikko Odiseos was appointed President and continues to lead the company along with owners Sara and Ivan Bercholz, children of the founder. In September 2015, after a thirty-year history in Boston, Shambhala Publications moved its headquarters to Boulder again, at 4720 Walnut St, with 35 inhouse staff, now grown to 41.
In May 2016 Shambala acquired Rodmell Press. As of August 2016 Rodmells 40 own titles will appear under the Shambala logo.
References
External links
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{{Authority control
Book publishing companies based in Colorado
Buddhism in Colorado
Buddhist publishing companies
Publishing companies established in 1969
Random House