What Terms and Definitions Have we Used?

Rock stairway

Here are some of the technical terms and definitions that were used in the development of this site.

First contact

Over its 50 years, Shambhala has welcomed several generations, each with a different context and experience in Shambhala. Our first contact category is based on the earliest of several possible dates of “first contact”: a member’s self-reported recollection of that date, the date of a person’s first program registration, or the date when a person’s record was created in the Shambhala Database. The derived first contact date is categorized as follows:

Before July 1999
Between July 1999 and June 2007
Between July 2007 and June 2012
Between July 20012 and June 2018
Since July 2018

Membership

Membership is a way to express involvement with and support of Shambhala. Since membership is personal it means different things to different people. In addition, different centers have different criteria for membership. Nevertheless, this project has used the “member” designation in the SDB. Categories of membership are: “non-member”, “friend”, “member”, and “ex-member”.

Shambhala

Everyone involved in Shambhala, regardless of their level of practice or specific path.

Friend

We use the term friend in the same way that “Friend of Shambhala” is used in the SDB, to denote someone who is connected but might currently be less involved.Program Enrollments

Enrolled

We count someone as “enrolled” if they are marked as “registered” or as having “participated” in a program. Some centers are diligent in only marking someone as a “participant” once they have completed the program; others are not, so an individual who may have participated is only marked as “registered”. For the overall statistical summaries in this Societal Mirror we consider both categories as “enrolled”.

Recurring events

Shambhala’s scheduled programs range from regular open sitting on a weekday morning to major teaching events at a regional or international level. By far the majority of scheduled events for which we register occur at local (city) centers.

Recurring events usually do not require registration. People drop in to a week-night open-house (whether offered in person or online) so their presence is not recorded in the SDB.

Demographics of the Community and Leader respondents

The same self-reported categories were used to classify respondents who participated in the centre and group leadership survey.

Please send your questions and suggestions to Societal Mirror Team or join the conversation on the Societal Mirror Group on the Shambhala Network (password required) forum.