SOS, Summer of Sangha, is over and what a great party it was. Such a wonderful reunion of Sangha practicing together in person, in nature, with towering trees, blue skies, and birdsong. A huge thank you to everyone who participated.
Now we are preparing for a mini AOS, Autumn of Sangha (Fall of Sangha just didn’t have the right feel). We’ve scheduled two Practice Weekends in October, bookending a week of practice that will include a full schedule of less formal activities. We say we hope the weather will hold, but the truth is that, as with the rest of the world, the weather here has been anything but “usual.” However, we remain grateful that as so many struggle with extreme heat, storms, and flooding, this area has been unseasonably dry and cool.
We’re also developing a website for FAZC so that people living in the area, or passing through the area, can access a schedule of practice offerings.
After the end of the Summer of Sangha formal schedule, it became obvious that not having someone on the property fulltime would invite unwanted visitors of all stripes to move in. Subsequently, the FAZC has become not only the home of our practice but also my home as well. Only after that decision was made did we realize the symmetry of it. When we were in the original Zen Center in Mountain View, I lived in the back, the meditation hall and guidance room were in the front, and we all shared the bathroom. When we purchased the Monastery land, I divided my time between Mountain View and the Monastery. Now here we are with a new Center and it just seems fitting that I am the one to be here fulltime as whatever unfolds unfolds. Minus a residential community, the land needs stewarding and I can be the primary steward with local Sangha assisting and supporting (read: Doing most of the work! There have to be perks for getting old, don’t there?). The vision is for FAZC to increasingly be a contemplative space to which people can come for meditation, peace, quiet, and solitude, and to have conversations with the Guide.
Speaking of unfolding, we bought the 25-acre property and it turned out not to be right for developing a practice center. So, we came upon this property, perfect in every way, only to learn that we might have a new wrinkle. We found out a few days ago that the county has approved plans for a gravel pit in the very neighborhood where FAZC is located. This is a residential area, very close to the town of Sequim, not at all appropriate for a business that involves dynamiting twice per month, grinding rock twice per week, and 70 or so dump trucks up and down residential streets, one of those streets being the same South 3rd Avenue just off of which this Center is located.
Bottom line: If that quarry is allowed to open, the future of this place will be in question. Blessedly, what we practice is looking to, being guided by, and finding the liberating wisdom in all that Life brings. Plus, that 25-acre property which we still own (anyone following along with house sales in this part of the world knows this is not a good time to sell property) will be available for us in case the ever-changing weather makes being in the great outdoors of FAZC not possible. We are indeed wonderfully cared for!
For those of you who were here this summer, an update on our Meditation Hall. The second, very flimsy emergency add-on did not make it through the little bit of rain we were just grateful to receive. It’s being dismantled and the pieces stored for next summer’s building pleasure. The main tent is holding steady, and since we haven’t been using it the deer seem to have concluded we created it for them. They do more sleeping than meditating there, but, who knows, there are many ways to practice presence!
In gasshō,
ch
P.S. We are inspired to offer an email class on sexuality due to the Sangha response to the 47th bead, "Not to commit or participate in unchaste conduct," the current focus of the yearlong retreat. All proceeds will support our Sangha in Zambia. So many fun ways of practicing presence together.
New Beginnings Blog
August 24, 2023