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News and Schedule SpiritNews Rock and Schedule Sept - Dec 2016 • spiritrock.org SPIRIT ROCK NEWS | SEP - DEC 2016 deep bows. huge gratitude. coming together. A Message from Michelle Latvala, Executive Director Dear Ones, What a time for tremendous mudita! We opened our new In our fi rst month of operating, we were so blessed by a Community Meditation Center in June, reaching a signifi cant range of o erings — from Jack Kornfi eld’s daylong on Insight point on our path together. Our new Community Meditation Meditation to Advanced Practitioner Program study groups, Center (CMC) replaces our long-standing Community from Family Day to SF Pride week teachings, from monastic Meditation Hall, a portable structure brought to the land o erings to donor celebrations — that it reinforced our over 25 years ago. We bow to that hall in which, according invitation to inclusion and our possibilities for expansion in to Jack Kornfi eld’s informal calculations, roughly 2.6 million these new spaces. meditation hours had been logged by you and so many others. Thank you for being here. We also know that the creation of the CMC is not about the physical space — it’s about what we come together as Much else is also happening in our Spirit Rock community, but a sangha to learn, practice and nourish in ourselves within for this moment we can take this in: every single element of our that space of the Dharma that makes it profound. At the new lower campus was o ered freely by this community. There same time, we are grateful for the beautiful generosity of our is a feeling of tremendous mudita and dana as we thank each sangha that inspired us to design and build this new facility, and every one of you for your support, direct and indirect, over increasing our capacity for classes and events on our lower these years that has sustained this e ort. You have shown us campus and access to the Dharma for all who come here. We joy, persistence, patience, dedication and embodied practice! now have three classrooms in our new CMC, which allows us to run multiple classes and events simultaneously. Our Great Hall, Bookstore, and Community Gathering Room are on the lower level; upstairs there are two dharma spaces, the East and West Halls, and three teacher/student meeting rooms. Michelle Latvala SPIRIT ROCK NEWS | SEP - DEC 2016 huge gratitude. coming together. Above: Visitors celebrate the opening of the new Community Meditation Center. Photo: TroyZiel.com. IN THIS ISSUE Adaptability Is the Key to Happiness Online Programs An Interview with Venerable Amaro Bhikkhu by Sally and Guy Armstrong Family Programs Volunteer Profile: 6 Teresa Reese Residential Retreats The New Community Meditation Center Because of You - This Arises! Spirit Rock Teachers Council A Message from Rachel Uris, Director of Development & Communications Visiting Teachers Non-Residential Programs SPIRIT ROCK NEWS | SEP - DEC 2016 Adaptability Is the Key to Happiness An Interview with Venerable Amaro Bhikkhu by Sally Armstrong and Guy Armstrong Venerable Amaro Bhikkhu visited Spirit Rock on June 6th, accompanied by monastics from Abhayagiri and Dhammadharini Vihara. Following a blessing ceremony in the new Community Meditation Center that included a chant inviting bright things in, Amaro Bhikkhu gave a dharma talk on anicca. His visit coincided with the 20th anniversary of Abhayagiri, the forest monastery he founded in 1996 in Redwood Valley, CA, and where he was co-abbot for 14 years. During his years there, he formed a close relationship with Spirit Rock, becoming a member of both the Teachers Council and the Board of Directors. In 2010 he was invited by Luang Por Sumedho to become the abbot of Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in England. In this interview with Sally and Guy Armstrong, he reveals what it was like to go from being co- abbot of a small forest monastery in California to being the sole abbot of a large dual-community monastery in England. Spirit Rock: You spent a fairly long time living here in the States as abbot of a monastery in California. Have there been any surprises or challenges in moving back to England and being the sole abbot of a much larger monastery? What challenged you in that transition? Amaro Bhikkhu: It was very dierent from Abhayagiri. I also discovered I’m not completely English anymore. People notice that my accent is not 100% British English. My ts become ds, like “gotta, lotta, sorta.” So people often think I’m from Australia And also to be a teaching resource close to London. It’s also much or South Africa. More significantly, 20 years of involvement over bigger. A busy day at Abhayagiri is when 20 people come. here has had an eect on the way I relate to people. My home country is England. This is where we invented the sti upper lip Spirit Rock: So what’s a busy day at Amaravati? and the non-expression of emotion. Amaro Bhikkhu: It’s not uncommon to have a couple of hundred So being in California for 20 years and being around the Bay people come on a Sunday morning. Saturday, slightly less, maybe Area and teaching at places like Esalen Institute, you get a 100-150 people. And I receive guests and visitors every day. lot more comfortable with expressivity and the readiness to Within a 100-mile circle of Amaravati, there are 20 million people connect with people, and being open to people’s emotions and living. Even though Ajahn Sumedho didn’t deliberately choose the what’s going on. So that’s a great benefit of having been over spot, it’s absolutely perfectly positioned. The main arterial road here. Just being able to be much more at ease with how people around London and the main north-south artery intersect right are and not hiding behind the English reserve, stiening the where the monastery is. So it’s extraordinarily accessible. upper lip and looking at the carpet. Another challenge about coming to Amaravati was that Ajahn There were challenges also in going back into a mixed Sumedho has an extraordinarily powerful presence. He is a community. Abhayagiri is a male monastic community whereas big figure, literally, in many ways — spiritually, physically and Amaravati was founded as a dual monastery. So it has a nuns’ personality-wise. And he founded the place and had been leading community as well. The two main reasons Amaravati was it for 25 years. But in the last five years or so of his time there, he founded were to provide a bigger and more suitable place for had stepped back from active leadership. He wasn’t doing any of the nuns’ community to train in and to provide a retreat center. the nitty-gritty decision making, going to meetings and directing. Those are the explicit reasons Ajahn Sumedho founded the place. So, during that time, the monastery tended to devolve into several SPIRIT ROCK NEWS | SEP - DEC 2016 di erent little enclaves that didn’t really communicate with each your retreat environments you have a similar standard. So that’s other very well. So you had the monks’ community, the nuns’ the understanding, even for day visitors. They know they’re not community, the retreat center, the maintenance, the kitchen, the supposed to be bringing alcohol with them or smooching with family program...They had drifted apart from each other because their boyfriend or girlfriend, or both. And that’s understood. So it there wasn’t a force that was integrating them. They had tended to creates a common standard, a common agreement of conduct. separate out and become their own little domains. In terms of training, we have a lot of standards around speech When I arrived there it was really clear that there were fi ve di erent and communication. Living together you are learning — when worlds happening. So I sat down with all of the people in the you want to communicate something that’s di£ cult, or you want community and had a one-to-one dialogue with everybody — all 60 to give someone some feedback, or you’re fi nding someone’s over the fi rst three months I was there — just to meet everyone and character is upsetting or o ensive — to use mindfulness, to get a sense of who they were and what was happening. mindfulness of time and place and situation. Say, hypothetically, Guy’s behavior was upsetting to me. Is that just me, or is it him as It became clear over that time that if I could do anything it well? So I would examine my motivation and consider if I want to needed to be something that integrated those worlds back bring something up. What’s the right time, situation, in terms of together again. So I had to go to a lot of meetings. I’m on a large how to bring up di£ cult things? number of committees — about 15 or so. It’s not that I’m looking to be a bureaucrat or looking for more meetings and agendas and In terms of the classical teachings, there’s a particularly helpful minutes, but in terms of helping a system to be integrated, that set of teachings on being a good person (Anguttara Nikaya 7:68). kind of involvement The Buddha defi nes was really needed. seven qualities that daptability is the key to happiness are, in a way, applied And I could see mindfulness, applied (a) that needed to because, when the heart is adaptable...you don’t careful attention and happen, and (b) how to be a good I have the kind of need things to be a particular way to be happy.” human being in personality that can respect to living with do that.
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