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Invitation from Sylvia Boorstein
Dear friends of Spirit Rock, I hope this letter finds you very well. Before I tell you the exciting news at Spirit Rock Meditation Center and invite you to become part of our newest initiative, I want to thank you – all our donors – most profoundly and sincerely for your generosity and support for Spirit Rock over the years. Many of you may have participated fifteen years ago in the Sangha of a Thousand Buddhas. The overwhelming success of that campaign enabled us to move forward and build the residential campus—the residence halls and the stunning meditation hall—that so many retreat participants have enjoyed all these years. I know many of you live close by enough to stay connected through classes and retreats, and I wish for you and also for those supporters who live at a great distance or are otherwise unable to be at Spirit Rock, that you all experience the great blessing of having co-created a place that has been so helpful to so many people. I remember the day when the meditation hall was almost finished that a group of teachers visited it together. We looked up at the wonderful vaulted ceiling and out the wide windows and said to each other, “Wow! Do you think we can teach worthy of this splendid setting?” I think you’ll be glad to know that I think we have. I am proud of what we teach and how we teach and I am proud of you all for enabling us to do it. We are making a difference in the world. I am writing to you to invite you to join us in building again, together, the completion of the original Master Plan for Spirit Rock. We’ve come to the time that the numbers of people who want to practice at Spirit Rock and the numbers of programs that would complete our vision of a full curriculum simply exceed our available space. It is wonderful to know that people are eager, in increasing numbers, to be at Spirit Rock and dismaying not to be able to accommodate them all. What’s more, our original, “temporary” buildings in the lower campus—the Community Hall and the office trailers—have long outlived their shelf lives and badly need to be replaced with permanent structures. Please take a look at the pages on this website for more information on all the beautiful plans—all approved by the Marin County Planning Commission—but to begin, just imagine that the new Community Hall will have rooms for small group classes, rooms for teachers to meet with individual students to talk about their practice, all in addition to a beautiful, spacious Meditation Hall for Community classes. And imagine how all the new facilities will fit visually into the natural landscape and be built with the latest green practices and great attention The project does require a substantial financial commitment, but half of the fundraising has already happened and we are fortunate to have received some very substantial gifts. I am writing to you because I hope—indeed, I am very much counting on—your generosity and willingness to join the Sangha of Thousands of Buddhas, the community of people who each pledge a gift of $1,000 – to be paid over three years if you wish. I hope you’ll want to join us in this effort as we need several thousand participants. I am passionate about us all being equal partners in this initiative. It will take a community to realize our founding vision. With gratitude and great hopefulness,
Sylvia Boorstein Photos by Margot Duane |
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to ecological issues. My dear friend Jack Kornfield and I, and all the teachers and staff at Spirit Rock are committed to the stewardship of this beautiful place and to the teachings we provide so that it will remain for us, and for generations of people to come, an extraordinary spiritual home.
