Shambhala Publications is an

independent publishing Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pr ...

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 gra ...

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 as ...

, 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 100 ...

, 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 transliteration, Wylie: ''Chos rgyam Drung pa''; March 5, 1939 – April 4, 1987) was a Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhist meditation master and holder of both the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, the 11th ...

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 an ...

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, an ...

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 Wilber ...

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 A. H. Almaas ( ) is the pen name of A. Hameed Ali (born 1944), a Kuwaiti American author and spiritual teacher who writes about and teaches an approach to spiritual development informed by modern psychology and therapy which he calls the Diamon ...

John Daido Loori John Daido Loori (June 14, 1931 – October 9, 2009) was a Zen Buddhist rōshi who served as the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery and was the founder of the Mountains and Rivers Order and CEO of Dharma Communications. Daido Loori received shih ...

, John Stevens,

Edward Espe Brown "Kainei" Edward Espé Brown (born March 24, 1945) is an American Zen teacher and writer. He is the author of ''The Tassajara Bread Book'', written at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, as well as other cookbooks that are still influential. Early ...

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 Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; v ...

. 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 Shambhala International is the umbrella organization that encompasses many of the distinct institutions of Shambhala Buddhism. Details Shambhala International, which is based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, links a worldwide network of urban Buddhist me ...

, 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 Emer ...

. 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

to be near the

Naropa Institute Naropa University is a private university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1974 by Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa, it is named for the 11th-century Indian Buddhist sage Naropa, an abbot of Nalanda. The university describes itself as ...

. In 1986 Shambhala moved to Boston, housed in

Horticultural Hall, Boston, Massachusetts Horticultural Hall, at the corner of Huntington Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, was built in 1901. It sits across the street from Symphony Hall. Since 2020, it has been owned by Northeastern University. It is the current home to T ...

, which adjoins the Christian Science Center. 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

* {{Authority control Book publishing companies based in Colorado Buddhism in Colorado Buddhist publishing companies Publishing companies established in 1969 Random House