Spirit Rock Meditation Center, commonly called Spirit Rock, is a meditation center in

Woodacre, California Woodacre is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Marin County, California, United States. The population was 1,410 at the 2020 census. Geography The community is located at in the eastern half of the San Geronimo Valley ...

. It focuses on the teachings of the

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in L ...

as presented in the

vipassana ''Samatha'' (Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' (Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of the ...

, or

Insight Meditation ''Samatha'' (Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' (Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of the ...

, tradition.Van Biema, David, "Buddhism in America," Time Magazine, October 13, 1997 It was founded in 1985 as Insight Meditation West,Lattin, Don, "Shangri-la In Marin," San Francisco Chronicle, January 30, 1991, B3 and is visited by an estimated 40,000 people a year. The ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...

'' has called it one of "the Bay Area's best-known centers for Buddhist meditation."

History

In 1975 the

Insight Meditation Society The Insight Meditation Society (IMS) is a non-profit organization for study of Buddhism located in Barre, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1975, by Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and Joseph Goldstein and is rooted in the Theravada tradition. I ...

(IMS) was founded in

Barre, Massachusetts Barre ( ) is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,530 at the 2020 census. History Originally called the Northwest District of Rutland, it was first settled by Europeans in 1720. The town was incorpora ...

, by a group of Western meditation teachers trained in Asia,Otaganonta, Wipawee,"Taking the high road back home," Bangkok Post, March 31, 1993 including

Jack Kornfield Jack Kornfield (born 1945) is an American writer and teacher in the Vipassana movement in American Theravada Buddhism. He trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, first as a student of the Thai forest master Ajahn Chah and Maha ...

, Joseph Goldstein
James Baraz
and

Sharon Salzberg Sharon Salzberg (born August 5, 1952) is a ''New York Times'' bestselling author and teacher of Buddhist meditation practices in the West. In 1974, she co-founded the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts, with Jack Kornfield and Jos ...

.Thompson, Keith,"Spirit Rock," Pacific Sun, October 7–13, 1998, p 13-15 In 1986, after ten years at IMS, Kornfield moved to Northern California with his family and began hosting a Monday night meditation class in a private home in San Anselmo. Eventually the class expanded to a clinic and then to a local church.Hamburg,Laura, "The Dharma Bums Grow Up," San Francisco Chronicle, March 3, 2000 In 1985 a group of meditation students and teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area incorporated as Insight Meditation West, for the purpose of acquiring land and establishing a west coast Insight Meditation center. The group included Kornfield, James Baraz,

Sylvia Boorstein Sylvia Boorstein is an American author, psychotherapist, and Buddhist teacher. Boorstein studied with Dipa Ma and is a co-founding teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California and a senior teacher at the Insight Meditation Soc ...

, and Anna Douglas . The incorporator and first board president was Lloyd Burton, who later founded the Insight Meditation Community of Denver. In 1988, with funds from an anonymous donation, 412 acres of undeveloped land in the

San Geronimo Valley San Geronimo Valley is located in Marin County, California, composed of four unincorporated towns: Woodacre, San Geronimo, Forest Knolls, and Lagunitas. It is a fairly close-knit community, with a rather liberal citizenry. The farther west ...

, an hour north of San Francisco, was purchased from

The Nature Conservancy The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US. Founded in 1951, The Nat ...

in order to start a permanent meditation center, and the name Spirit Rock Meditation Center was formally adopted. In 1990 temporary construction trailers were erected to house the community meditation hall, administrative offices and caretaker residences. Construction for permanent replacement facilities began in 2014. and in 2016, a new Community Meditation Center, staff village and administrative buildings were completed. The residential retreat center opened in July 1998. The majority of the center’s land is protected by an open space easement and kept in conservation.

Teachings

The teachings at Spirit Rock focus on the practice of

vipassanā ''Samatha'' ( Pāli; sa, शमथ ''śamatha''; ), "calm," "serenity," "tranquillity of awareness," and ''vipassanā'' ( Pāli; Sanskrit ''vipaśyanā''), literally "special, super (''vi-''), seeing (''-passanā'')", are two qualities of t ...

as taught in the

Theravada ''Theravāda'' () ( si, ථේරවාදය, my, ထေရဝါဒ, th, เถรวาท, km, ថេរវាទ, lo, ເຖຣະວາດ, pi, , ) is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school' ...

tradition. Teachings focus on training and quieting the mind, on the teachings of

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

as found in Buddhist texts, and on incorporating the Dharma into daily life.Ashley, Beth, "He’s the Father of Spirit Rock," Marin Independent Journal, March 22, 1998, D1 Retreats are modeled on those held for lay people in the

Thai Forest Tradition The Kammaṭṭhāna Forest Tradition of Thailand (from pi, kammaṭṭhāna meaning "place of work"), commonly known in the West as the Thai Forest Tradition, is a lineage of Theravada Buddhist monasticism. The Thai Forest Tradition sta ...

, including sitting and walking meditation, meetings with the teachers and the observation of silence by practitioners. In addition to vipassana teachings, Spirit Rock hosts teachers from

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

, Tibetan and nondual traditions as guest teachers throughout the year. Visiting teachers have included the

14th Dalai Lama The 14th Dalai Lama (spiritual name Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, known as Tenzin Gyatso (Tibetan: བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: ''bsTan-'dzin rgya-mtsho''); né Lhamo Thondup), known as ...

Thích Nhất Hạnh Thích Nhất Hạnh ( ; ; born Nguyễn Xuân Bảo; 11 October 1926 – 22 January 2022) was a Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, peace activist, prolific author, poet and teacher, who founded the Plum Village Tradition, historically recogni ...

, , Preah Maha Ghosananda,

Anagarika Munindra Anagarika Shri Munindra (1915 – October 14, 2003), also called Munindraji by his disciples, was an Indian Vipassanā meditation teacher, who taught many notable meditation teachers including Dipa Ma, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, and Su ...

Kalu Rinpoche Kalu Rinpoche (1905 – May 10, 1989) was a Buddhist lama, meditation master, scholar and teacher. He was one of the first Tibetan masters to teach in the West. Early life and teachers Kalu Rinpoche was born in 1905 during the Female Woo ...

Ram Dass Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been ...

Pema Chödrön Pema Chödrön (པདྨ་ཆོས་སྒྲོན། ''padma chos sgron'' “lotus dharma lamp”; born Deirdre Blomfield-Brown, July 14, 1936) is an American Tibetan Buddhist. She is an ordained nun, former acharya of Shambhala Buddhism an ...

, Tsoknyi Rinpoche,

Huston Smith Huston Cummings Smith (May 31, 1919 – December 30, 2016) was an influential scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, ' ...

, Adyashanti,

Tara Brach Tara Brach (born May 17, 1953) is an American psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW). Her colleagues in the Vipassanā, or ...

Alice Walker Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist. In 1982, she became the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, which she was awa ...

Zoketsu Norman Fischer Zoketsu Norman Fischer is an American poet, writer, and Soto Zen priest, teaching and practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. He is a Dharma heir of Sojun Mel Weitsman, from whom he received Dharma transmission in 1988. Fischer served as co ...

and others.

Programs

A portion of the classes, daylongs and retreats at Spirit Rock are organized as community-specific programs to promote diversity. These programs are referred to as Kindred

Sangha Sangha is a Sanskrit word used in many Indian languages, including Pali meaning "association", "assembly", "company" or "community"; Sangha is often used as a surname across these languages. It was historically used in a political context t ...

and include self-identified people of color, women, LGBT-IQ community, families, young adults, and elders. Class offerings also address the application of Buddhist teachings to modern issues such as addiction and trauma. Spirit Rock offers scholarships to make classes and retreats available to those who cannot otherwise afford them.

Organization

The center is supported by fees charged for classes and retreats, and by donations. The paid staff runs the day-to-day operations of Spirit Rock Meditation Center with support from volunteers. Residential retreat managers are volunteers who rely on voluntary

dāna Dāna (Devanagari: दान, IAST: Dānam) is a Sanskrit and Pali word that connotes the virtue of generosity, charity or giving of alms in Indian philosophies. In Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, dāna is the practice of cultivati ...

(donations) from participants to support their work. Teachers on residential retreats are supported by donations from the students, as is the practice in the Buddhist tradition. but on non-residential retreats, daylong retreats, events and classes teachers are supported by fees paid by attendees to Spirit Rock. Spirit Rock’s teaching programs are developed by the Teachers Council, a collective of teachers. A volunteer Board of Directors, composed of teachers and community members, is the central decision-making body for Spirit Rock. The work of the Board is supported by a number of committees. Current Spirit Rock teachers include Ajahn Amaro, Ayya Anandabodhi; Sally Armstrong; Guy Armstrong; James Baraz;

; Eugene Cash; Debra Chamberlin-Taylor; Howard Cohn; Mark Coleman; Dana DePalma; Anna Douglas; Andrea Fella; Anushka Fernandopulle;

Gil Fronsdal Gil Fronsdal (born 1954) is a Norwegian-born, American Buddhist teacher, writer and scholar based in Redwood City, California. He has been practicing Buddhism of the Sōtō Zen and Vipassanā sects since 1975, and is currently teaching the pract ...

; Robert Hall; Will Kabat-Zinn;

; Phillip Moffitt; Wes Nisker; Mary Grace Orr; Sharda Rogell; Donald Rothberg; Tempel Smith; John Travis; Spring Washam; Julie Wester; Diana Winston; and Larry Yang. Spirit Rock trained a new group of teachers who graduated in September 2020 including: Alisa Dennis, Amana Bremby Johnson, Cara Lai Fitz Gibbon, Carol Cano, Dawn Mauricio, Gulwinder Singh, James Lowe, JD Doyle, Jeff Haozous, Kaira Lingo, Kate Johnson, Katy Wiss, Konda Mason, Leslie Booker, Louije Kim, Noliwe Alexander, Pawan Bareja, Rachel Lewis, Solwazi Johnson, Teresa Abdala-Romano and Victoria Cary.

Collaborations

A number of Spirit Rock teachers also offer their teachings, or serve on the Board of Directors, at other meditation centers including East Bay Meditation Center in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, the Modesto Almond Blossom Sangha in Modesto, California, Insight Meditation Society in

, Insight Meditation Center in

Redwood City Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a po ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, Mountain Stream Meditation Center in

Nevada City, California Nevada City (originally, ''Ustumah'', a Nisenan village; later, Nevada, Deer Creek Dry Diggins, and Caldwell's Upper Store) is the county seat of Nevada County, California, United States, northeast of Sacramento, southwest of Reno and northea ...

, and Aloka Vihara, a forest monastery of bikkhunis (fully ordained nuns) in the Sierra Foothills of California.

References

External links

* {{Coord, 38.01942, -122.64497, type:landmark_region:US-CA, display=title Buddhist meditation Spiritual retreats 1987 establishments in California Buildings and structures in Marin County, California Organizations based in Marin County, California