| |
For any sesshin participant, the advantages of a retreat center at
Chapin Mill are obvious: more quiet, more light, more room, greater
accessibility and a deeper connection with the natural world.
Instead of city noises - garbage trucks, car alarms, sirens, road crews,
parades, and downtown music festivals - country sounds will filter
into the zendo: burbling streams, wild geese, and the wind in the trees.
More light will enter the zendo from larger windows, and there will be
more space than ever before: wider aisles and roomier seating will
comfortably allow for fifty-six people. The dining room will be large
enough for everyone to sit on chairs and have plenty of elbow-room,
and a spacious and better-equipped kitchen will be located far enough
away from the zendo that noise from meal preparations will not reach
the zendo. The entire complex is being designed with accessibility in
mind, so that for the first time people in wheelchairs can come to
sesshin and other events.
Late-night sitting will take place on the outdoor deck, in an intimate
Kannon room, a chair zendo with natural lighting and ventilation, or
anywhere under the sky, by the pond, deep in the woods, or on a high
hill. Meditators may be surprised in the forest by raccoons, deer, and
foxes. On clear nights participants will have to be cautioned against
the distractions of the night sky constellations, the Milky Way, falling
stars and perhaps even the Northern Lights. And as the deep peace of
nature guides our sesshins, we will grow closer to the land and all of
its inhabitants: rocks, trees, animals, and ourselves.
|
