2005 has been a good year for Southern Dharma. A diversity of spiritual
traditions has been represented in twenty-seven teacher-led retreats. More people
have attended a teacher-led retreat in 2005 than in any previous year and the
number of private retreats has also increased. People have been very generous to
Southern Dharma, as evidenced by the full attendance at the Work Weekends and the
amount of financial contributions. We receive numerous comments and notes
expressing gratitude for the solitude, silence, and natural beauty of Southern
Dharma as a place to renew one’s spiritual life.
The financial picture for 2005 is not complete, but income from retreat fees will be approximately $85,000. Each year about a third of the income required to run Southern Dharma comes from contributions.
On the expense side, the major categories are these: employee stipends and benefits for four full-time staff account for about 33% of expenses; food and supplies 15%; buildings & grounds 22%; advertising including brochure 8%.
We are grateful that we can provide so much for so little cost. The retreat fee is set so that total income approximately balances expenditures with enough surplus to provide scholarships and cover emergencies. A high priority is the scholarship fund. We also hope that someday we will have the resources to convert the third floor dormitory into single and double rooms.
With the continuing war in Iraq, devastation from Hurricane Katrina, and ongoing social crises both large and small, our request for your financial support competes with many worthwhile causes. With approximately a third of Southern Dharma’s income coming from contributions, Southern Dharma will survive so long as people believe in and are generous enough to support its mission to provide a setting for contemplation and development of the inner, spiritual life. The hope is that this mission will help cultivate peace in the larger world.
Southern Dharma needs and would appreciate your financial support.
Information on Planned Giving and the Endowment Fund is available on request.
Southern Dharma Board members Sam Warlick and Chris Bush devoted a
weekend to replacing rotted posts. (The third person in the photograph is new
Buildings & Grounds Manager Skip Chinn). Perhaps you remember ringing the
bell and watching the entire structure sway from side to side in time with the bell
itself. We’ve seen more than one person stand to the side while ringing the bell
in case the whole structure should finally collapse.
The bell itself was constructed in the early 90s from an industrial gas cylinder by John Zucker. It is surely unique among retreat center bells.
Reconstruction ended with a dedication/consecration ceremony with readings including the following by SD teacher Fred Eppsteiner:
"By the merit of our pure intentions, by the blessings of the practice lineage, by the power of our great wish for the liberation of all beings from suffering, by the sacredness of this dharma place and the accumulated energy of all the meditators who have ever practiced at Southern Dharma, may all beings hearing the sound of this bell be instantaneously liberated from the mistaken view of self and other, and be freed of all their afflictive emotions, and immediately perceive that this place is none other than the Buddha land and that all beings are intrinsically Buddha. Sarva Mangalam - May it be so!"
Ian Prattis' article “Showdown at Punk Palace” was published in the September 2005 issue of Shambhala Sun. The article shows how Ian brought mindfulness training to the Glasgow drug underworld.
Fr. Robert Kennedy’s article “God is in the Zendo” appeared in the Fall 2005 issue of Tricycle. In this interview Fr. Kennedy speaks about bridging Zen and Catholicism. “Zazen was the best way I found of being in the presence of God.”
Here is an excerpt from Fr. Kennedy’s book Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit:
“We can imagine that the riches of centuries of Buddhist thought and practice can extend the boundaries of the Christian mind. We can imagine that Buddhist monasticism can include the insights of Jewish and Christian social teaching and service. We especially can imagine that Buddhists and Christians can labor together for justice and sit down together in peace.“
And this from an article by Fr. Justin Langille about Centering Prayer Retreats at SDRC:
“While we are formed by our respective denominations, we are united in our common search for God. We affirm our solidarity with the contemplative dimension of other religions and sacred traditions, with the needs and rights of the whole human family, and with all creation.”
Drago Lubovich (aka Danny) – the personable Buildings & Grounds Manager who held us captive with his amusing anecdotes and interesting asides from his wealth of experience working abroad – after two and a half years left in August. Drago plans to continue service work in Central America. Drago’s parting advice was, “Trust nothing but your own experience.”
Replacing Drago is Skip Chinn. Skip came to Linda Gooding’s Taoism retreat and decided to stay on. Skip has years of landscaping experience in Hawaii and elsewhere and owned his own nursery. Skip is also accomplished in Tai Chi and a certified yoga instructor.
Joining Skip, cook Louise Solomon, and office manager Frederick Solomon, is Marilyn Sapsford whose first introduction to Southern Dharma was her Sufi retreat with Zakira Beasley. Marilyn comes with Peace Corps experience in Africa and extended stays in all the continents except Antarctica. Recently she’s coordinated programs for the Institute of Noetic Sciences.
John Swart devoted most of 2004 to work at Southern Dharma, then went on retreat in Burma and returned to Southern Dharma in March. He has since become involved in the Iraq peace movement.
Ryan Boyle – a senior at Warren Wilson College – was the summer Intern. Interns are compensated with room, board, small stipend, and the opportunity to attend the retreats. (See the interview with Ryan below.)
There was a steady stream of volunteers throughout 2005: Worth Bodie in April planted many bushes and flowers; Susan Lee assisted primarily in the kitchen during June; Suzanne Kryder took over the assistant cook position throughout August; also in August firefighter Robert O’Shields remained after the Gregory Kramer retreat to survey our firefighting readiness and do other work such as staining the Lodge.
Completed this Season
- The warped first floor bathroom floor was replaced with quarry tile.
- A group of thirteen students and two staff from Warren Wilson College devoted their spring break to a meditation-work week at Southern Dharma. In snow and sleet students laid the flagstone for the new entranceway to the Lodge, constructed a series of steps made from railroad ties to the Meditation Hall and installed a railing. Other work performed by the students included clearing the view from the knoll.
- The entire second floor of the Lodge, the Meditation Hall, Teacher’s Cabin, and Staff Cabin were repainted. The Lodge was restained.
- A set of steps to the upper road from the Meditation Hall was constructed thus obviating the treacherously steep series of stone steps.
- Three truck loads of perennial flowers were donated and planted.
- Retreatants at the Sandy Gentei Stewart Retreat in June/July replaced the roof on the workshop, installed a runoff trough to keep water from undermining the Lodge foundation, and replaced the steps near the bell.
During this retreat season:
- 2000 carrots were peeled
- 450 pounds of onions were chopped
- 400 loaves of bread were baked
- 250 pounds of granola were made
- 65 different kinds of soups were cooked
- 55 cookbooks were consulted
- 24 gallons of salad dressing were prepared
- 1 bushel of garlic cloves was minced
RB: I am a few days shy of turning 22 and beginning my senior year at Warren-Wilson College. I got interested in Southern Dharma when I came up here for a short meditation retreat with one of my teachers this past winter.
One of the best things about Southern Dharma has been seeing all the different traditions and teachers. Wow! So many interesting ways to practice the Dharma. I’ve met so many great people and teachers. I couldn’t even express my gratitude.
I had just begun practicing in the Tibetan tradition with a local teacher. I have seen a million wonderful spiritualities, but I’ll probably just stick with what I’ve got; I think it’s pretty wonderful.
SD: What are your career goals?
RB: What Career Goals? Have you been talking to my parents! Actually, if anything, [my Southern Dharma experience] has reinforced my strategy of not worrying too much about it. Sure I’ve got a bunch of “plans,” but in the end it’s about now.
SD: Any advice for future Interns?
RB: Why do you want to come to Southern Dharma? Examine this first. If you want a
new spiritual self or ethereal encounters, look somewhere else. If you feel really
unstable, angry, or depressed regularly and want out of it, you are probably not
ready for this either. Meditative practice requires much work and patience and it
seems to me the goal is to bring you deeper into your reality and not away from it. If you are ready for this and are willing to be patient through intense practice, this is definitely an awesome place to be. Be ready for intense isolation. Be ready for a lot of contradictory information from different teachers and traditions. This internship really doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you’re fairly grounded in something; some sort of practice or tradition. Be open to new ideas, but if you switch practices every retreat, you will become really confused and will get nothing out of it. If you know anyone in town be sure to make it out at least once every week or two. Within the Buddhist tradition monastic training and isolation (which this is in many ways similar to) was designed to make your insanity much more apparent so that you can correct the problem. That isn’t always fun; are you ready for that? If you are still not sure what you want, or harbor a real fear of isolation, silence, or of opening yourself up, you may want to do something less intense.
Over the winter two groups from the Warren Wilson College student Buddhist group BE came to Southern Dharma for meditation weekends led by religion professor Hun Lye.
In August the entire twenty-four staff & faculty of Rainbow Mountain School (private PreK-8 school in West Asheville) came for a values orientation/meditation overnight just before the fall semester began. Rainbow Mountain School was founded by a member of the Sufi order twenty-five years ago. The retreat was the initiative of teacher Adam Knapp who has participated in several Work Weekends and other retreats.
An interesting development has been the increase in private retreats this year – perhaps due to an increase in meditative practice in the population at large. Private retreatants are welcomed between teacher-led retreats.
The Southern Dharma On-Line Forum is in its third month. Each month a topic is sent to our entire email list. Recipients are requested, if they so desire, to send in essays/poems/anecdotes/information/etc on this theme which are posted on our On-Line forum web page www.southerndharma.org/On-LineForumGuidelines.htm. If you would like to be added to our email list, send your address to info@southerndharma.org.
Last summer our US mailing list was cut by more than 50% by asking people from whom we have not heard in several years if they wanted to remain on the list. Consequently, we will be able to afford to mail two printed newsletters each year.
“We witness the birth and death of sensations in the breath and body. The whole sensory realm appears and disappears as we make contact with sounds, odors, tastes and whatever we are watching. Moment-to-moment awareness of the five aggregates of self - the body, perceptions, feelings, mind, and consciousness being born and dying - helps us to relate skillfully to the current circumstances of our lives. Awareness of the gaps between these experiences of body and mind, and the ability to rest our attention in these gaps is one of the doorways into the deathless. The Buddha referred to this as "the unborn, the uncreated, and the undying." He also called it the unconditioned or nibbana. It is the background of our experience and in being aware of the gaps between sensations, thoughts and moments of sense contact we realize suddenly or more gradually the deathless realm which is always there and was never born and will never die.”
The Staff has much appreciated help from volunteers to assist during retreats. Volunteers may come for as little time as a week. With limited staff accommodations, we have space for one or two volunteers at a time. If you would like to devote time and energy to Southern Dharma using free time for practice, please contact us.
The Southern Dharma community includes everyone connected with Southern Dharma. The goals of the small staff of four are to further their own practice and help retreatants do the same. The staff abide by ideals of simplicity and frugality – to “live simply so that others can simply live.”
Staff undertake an individualized discipline of practice and on non teacher-led retreat days participate in two sitting meditations each day. Staff receive food, rooms, and small stipends to cover basic day-to-day expenses.
is planned to go on-line at our website www.southerndharma.org in mid December and the printed brochure mailed in late January.
