Reviews of Dhamma Dhara Vispanna Meditation Center in Shelbourne Ma

Dhamma Dhara, Massachusetts, United states of americaA.: The Kickoff 25 Years

Xx-five years ago this summer, the Wheel of Dhamma took a bound halfway around the earth and came to earth in western Massachusetts. In August 1982, a site was purchased for a Vipassana meditation centre near Shelburne Falls, a small town in the foothills of the Berkshires. This was the first Vipassana centre operating under the guidance of S.North. Goenka to exist established outside Bharat, and the beginning in the Western Hemisphere.

The groundwork for the buy had been laid over years. Some of Goenkaji'south commencement Western students were from the northeastern Usa or the Canadian provinces to the due north. In 1979 Montreal hosted Goenkaji's first class in North America. He returned at that place in 1980 and as well taught in Chicago and northern California. In June 1981 he gave a grade in Goshen, Massachusetts. After this class, Goenkaji formed a trust with the goal of establishing a permanent middle for the practice of Vipassana meditation.

The host of that start trust meeting recalls the day:

We were living in a small flat in Brookline, Massachusetts. At the end of the Goshen class we invited Goenkaji and 15 to 20 people who were active at that fourth dimension. Nosotros had a meal and then afterwards Goenkaji sabbatum on an quondam secondhand burrow. When he sabbatum on information technology, he sank way down and joked about the "saucepan seats." Then we all sat around him on the floor and in a very serious tone he explained to us that it was time to class a trust. And he explained the important responsibleness that we all had as trust members to oversee the courses and the future center.

The trust prepare right to work, combing unlike corners of Massachusetts for potential sites. They looked at dozens of possibilities and even submitted a bid on i belongings without success. When Goenkaji returned the following June to comport a course at Sandwich, on Cape Cod, he urged the trust to keep with their search. But this time there was the direct help of Goenkaji and Mataji, who tirelessly visited the long list of prospective backdrop. Amid the concluding that they looked at was the ane somewhen purchased.

A student with Goenkaji on that visit remembers:

We had been looking all mean solar day. I had my daughter with me, who was iii at the fourth dimension. It was my family, Mataji, Goenkaji and myself in the machine. We pulled upwards at the property we ended up buying, and my girl was excited because the place had a swimming pool. Nosotros found out that the building had been a "temperance tavern" [a gathering place where no alcoholic drinks were served] and Goenkaji liked this. He made up his mind that unless nosotros found something stupendous, this was the place to buy.

The property consisted of a rambling two-story house and viii acres of country, mostly open up meadow. Aside from the swimming puddle at that place was a large asphalt lawn tennis court and a barn.

Presently afterwards the trust purchased the holding for $105,000. Of this amount, donations covered $50,000 and a mortgage funded the rest. A new center had come into existence.

Inside days a minor group of meditators gathered at the property to explore and marvel at it. But they were also there to perform an essential job: start meditating in the new eye. As Goenkaji had instructed them to practise, they methodically sat in each and every room of the house, meditating for at least an hr. They also walked effectually the edge of the property, meditating and practicing metta. These were the first steps in establishing a meditative atmosphere that has become stronger with each sitting, class by course, year afterwards yr.

Subsequently that summertime Goenkaji returned to Massachusetts and conducted an countdown three-mean solar day class for sometime students at the center. Just viii meditators could sleep on site because of building code restrictions and the lack of facilities. Others slept off-site and came to meditate during the mean solar day. It was so that he named the new centreDhamma Dhara, or land of Dhamma.

After that the Teacher had to go out, but the Cycle of Dhamma continued turning and courses went on. These were either cocky-courses or courses conducted by the get-go assistant teachers, appointed past Goenkaji a few months earlier. The initial courses were run past only a handful of meditators. Sometimes a class had but 1 server, who rang the bells, cooked the food, cleaned and managed. Although it could be exhausting, it was also joyful and inspiring. So the center kept performance through the winter; the seed that had been planted kept germinating.

VMC original house

(The original house at the Massachusetts center. The garage on left has been converted to a kitchen. The garden in front is on the site of what had been a swimming pool; beneath it is a water reservoir.)

While this was happening, the trust started planning for a large course to be conducted by Goenkaji in the summer of 1983. Merely the house could adjust merely a handful, and the demand would be very great. How could the facilities be expanded rapidly?

Several projects rapidly took shape: First, they rented a large tent to cover the quondam tennis courtroom; this would seat 200. Side by side, they congenital a shower and toilet block near the existing firm. Third, they replaced the swimming puddle with a large water reservoir. Fourth, they converted the two-car garage into a kitchen able to handle large numbers. And last but not to the lowest degree, they had to apply for permission to operate equally a summer campground accommodating up to 200.

It all added up to a major effort, and one of the people involved remembers that the pieces roughshod into place only at the last minute:

Before Goenkaji came back for his first ten- mean solar day grade at the center in 1983, the merely fashion the government would permit us to hold a large course was to build a bathhouse and get a campground permit. We only had a few months to reach this and there were many delays and problems even getting started on this large project. The fourth dimension kept cartoon closer and closer and every so often we would go a letter from Goenkaji, inquiring virtually our progress. At one point, referring to unfortunate delays at some other new center, he said, "I trust this will not happen at VMC." We quickly started building! And so we had trouble getting our campground permit. We kept failing our h2o test because of construction droppings in the new concrete tank. Goenkaji arrived the 24-hour interval earlier the course began and notwithstanding we had no let. On the twenty-four hour period the course was to first, the students were arriving and nosotros were all continuing out on the hillside with Goenkaji and inspectors, when the Health Department representative arrived and asked for the $ten fee for the license simply hours earlier the course was to begin!

The kitchen was also a major effort, remembers one student:

For that large course in 1983, we started with a 2-machine garage and added a triple sink and a stove that had come up out of a chicken coop for $50. We had 15 to twenty people in that kitchen and information technology was such a great time! Every bay of that triple sink had i person at information technology and then it was quite the assembly line.

With Goenkaji coming dorsum and this being the first large grade in America at the get-go center—it was and so much work, simply information technology was such a joy. This was a magnet from the very beginning for many people to come here.

This was only the first of many projects that the center successfully took on over the years. Many more years of work followed to create the facilities for an platonic meditation middle.

The tent covering the tennis courtroom worked well—simply not necessarily in the pelting that could autumn at any time in New England. To replace it, meditators built an uninsulated screened pavilion for utilize in summer. Later two dining halls were built near the house, only at first one was kept for a meditation hall in winter. Later still the summertime pavilion was fully winterized. Information technology is now the permanent meditation hall.

Dining hall construction, 1987

Work on the jail cell circuitous began in the early 1990s, with much of the construction done past student volunteers. Goenkaji commented that it was such a good place in which to sit down, primarily because it was built by Dhamma servers who worked selflessly. The first 30-day course took place on the site in winter 1992.

More recently, a very large projection was the construction of new residences for men and women. These offer private sleeping rooms with attached bathrooms.

In 1989, a group of meditators donated an adjoining 70 acres of country. Some years after an additional 30 acres were purchased. Today the eye consists of 108 acres and an entire circuitous of new buildings.

All this work has created an extraordinary facility. Forth with that the work of meditation has continued not-stop, and the temper has kept developing.

I sat the first 30-day course in Massachusetts in 1991. Information technology was the middle of winter, and aside from all their other tasks the Dhamma workers had to shovel snow from the paths after snowstorms. The men all slept together in i dorm, with but partitions between the beds. But nosotros each had a brand-new cell for meditation, and the quiet was complete. In the dark with eyes closed, it was exactly like sitting in India.

One twenty-four hour period at lunchtime I headed out after the bell rang. I put on my shoes and stepped outside and looked around, surprised. And I thought to myself, "That's strange. I've seen all sorts of weather at Dhamma Giri but I've never seen snow before."

So I remembered I was non at Dhamma Giri. But it felt just the same.

Goenkaji frequently remarked on how harmonious the atmosphere was at the Massachusetts center. Of course there were plenty of problems and disagreements especially in the early years. But one of the great successes of Massachusetts was that the students used their Vipassana do to resolve the problems and work efficiently. They developed a model that has been widely adopted by other trusts.

When this center came up in America, many of Goenkaji's early students of moved here. The place attracted people very apace. This has been its strength ever since. A community developed from the start day. Now and so many of the people who took part in the establishment of the eye have helped become other centers established.

Aerial view of the center today

Currently the center is able to adjust 50 women and 44 men, for a total of 94 participants year-circular. During the summertime months, total capacity increases to 146 students with the use of tents and cabins.

Approximately 19 courses of 10 days are scheduled at the center each year, with nigh every course being full. Approximately 1,725 students from around the world complete courses atDhamma Dhara annually. It is not unusual to take multiple languages on each course and the middle offers the discourses in Hindi, Mandarin, Khmer, Spanish, Russian, Western farsi and more. The heart as well offers courses for children and teenagers, as well equally long courses of 20, 30 or 45 days.

A Working Pagoda

The time has come atDhamma Dhara to put in identify one of the key components of a Vipassana center: a traditional pagoda-style roof for our complex of meditation cells.

When the building that houses the cells took shape in 1991, information technology was given a flat roof. Only the plan was e'er to replace this with some type of dome, and everyone preferred a traditional Burmese pagoda – like that constructed at Dhammagiri in India or at the center of Sayagyi U Ba Khin in Myanmar. This would exist a way of paying tribute to the country that had preserved Vipassana through the ages, enabling united states to learn and do the technique today.

The model for both those pagodas, and for endless others that dot the landscape of Myanmar, is Shwedagon. This breathtaking construction dominates the skyline of Yangon and draws a steady stream of pilgrims, who come up to honour the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. From miles abroad – and reportedly even from space – its silhouette beckons, a reminder of what is really important in life.

Each part of the Shwedagon design has meaning – from the dome representing the begging bowl of one who has adopted the spiritual life, to the diamond at the summit representing the goal of that life, enlightenment. The pagoda thus is visible expression of our aspiration to higher things. And in rise through narrower stages to a peak of perfection, it suggests how nosotros tin work toward our aspirations through the practice of mental purification.

TheDhamma Dhara pagoda will record our link with India and Myanmar, and our deep gratitude to them for the Dhamma. Information technology will also represent our link with Goenkaji and the lineage of past teachers and saints, going back to the Buddha.

This will be an inspiration to us whenever we come toDhamma Dhara. Information technology will remind us that when we sit to meditate here, nosotros are sitting at Dhammagiri or at Sayagyi's center. We are sitting in front of our teacher and all the past teachers. We are sitting in forepart of the Buddha.

That inspiration has a very practical effect on a meditator. Equally Goenkaji explains, it generates a feeling of transcending joy, which in turn gives rise to tranquillity. Repose helps the meditator attain stiff concentration. And with a concentrated mind the meditator can practice Vipassana more than deeply, going further forth the path to liberation.

The pagoda thus is a functional tool, an essential office of the working cloth of a Vipassana heart. Just as at that place is a function for a kitchen and private residences, for offices and servers' accommodation, there is a crucial role for a jail cell complex with a pagoda-style roof. It provides the platonic surround in which we and coming generations can work toward the goal of liberation from all misery, for our good and the good of all.

VMC Pagoda model

Model of the design for the pagoda

From its modest ancestry,Dhamma Dhara has grown and become a beacon for the spread of Dhamma in North America and throughout the Western world.

The center has hosted several seminars over the years, including conferences on mental health, psychotherapy, and addictions treatment, Vipassana in prisons, and Vipassana and scientific discipline. It has attracted people from around the world, and meditators who received their training in Massachusetts have gone back to their homes and used their experience to develop Dhamma activities in their area. The wheel set in motion in 1981 has kept turning steadily and will continue to do so, bringing real peace and happiness to many.

For more information onDhamma Dhara, please see www.dhara.dhamma.org

(Courtesy: International Vipassana Newsletter, Baronial 2007 issue)

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Source: https://www.vridhamma.org/Dhamma-Dhara-Land-of-Dhamma

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