The times they are a'changing
Times of change and summer
Things have changed up here quite a lot at Sudarshanaloka this spring and summer. Karanajoti has left moving on to the women’s community in Grey Lynn Auckland, Dharmamudra has vacated the Top Retreat Centre - while the Auckland Buddhist Centre has pulled a number of retreats and advertising from Sudarshanaloka while they refurbish their new centre in Mt Eden and consolidate the Auckland Sangha.
The headline for us is that Karunajoti did an enormous amount of work about the place while the Auckland centre for years contributed a lot by way of retreat income and advertising for us. Boom boom lots of pieces thrown in the air in an early spring uncertainty. A big Karunajoti shaped hole about the place and reduced income. Dharmamudra who did so much crafting our beautiful stupa and who held the place for many years contributing some really lovely sculptural pieces to Sudarshanaloka and the Auckland Buddhist Centre…impermanence.
As life would have it Luke Bassant and Tessa Benkt joined the community in spring bringing in their wake youth, energy, expertise and lots of friends. Both Luke and Tessa are grafters with IT and building skills and an enthusiasm for Dharma that is refreshing. These days the essential criteria for living and working with the community is a wish to deepen one’s Going for Refuge to Buddha, Dharma, Sangha and a love of Sudarshanaloka. So all good as we say in Kiwi. The community cabins appear to be an active hive of people coming and going.
We have also taken advantage of the change up to create our own online booking system for Sudarshanaloka enabling us to run our own retreats which gives us flexibility and potential for income. With Karunajoti leaving the refurbished Amida is now on line as a solitary facility giving us four solitary huts, two of which have long term retreatants in them – Akasamati for six months in Abhaya and Satyapada for eight months in Chetul. One might cautiously venture to suggest that we are rocking and rolling, especially in light of a very successful spring work retreat and Under 35’s new year retreat. A well attended Auckland Christmas Sangha retreat and New Comers metta retreat last week led by Guhyavajra, that interestingly had something of an international flavour.
Providing cooks for those retreats that so wish has turned out to be a very popular development with a changed up dining room lower retreat centre. Dharmamudra’s moving on from the Top Retreat centre has facilitated a bright open plan space that functions as an annexe for Stupa activities and a forest centre for Sudarshanaloka community and Buddhaloka Sangha events - independent of what ever retreats might be going on.
Way back late winter as the furies began to whisper and weave about Sudarshanaloka Dhiraprabha and I (Guhyavajra) figured we were in for a bit of chaos and a roller coaster which would probably take a year to unfold – which is proving to be the case. There are a few bumps on the road while we see how it settles out and adjust to our new roles, but on the whole we are going OK.
So far so good, we’re reasonably stable with a growing wider community looking to run a decent retreat programme for the next year.
Warm regards
Guhyavajra
