Community Visioning Meeting Report

Dear Sky Lake members,

Our Community Visioning Day, August 18th was filled with emerging ideas
and conversations followed by a sumptuous meal. We began with a current
‘state of the center’, evolving into an Open Space Visioning session
creatively led and scribed by Barbara Bash. The intention being to
generate alive questions about how Sky Lake could move forward and
reach out to a wider community. After breaking into groups, we all
gathered again to harvest the heart of what each interest
group discussed. Some volunteered to continue tending the inspirations
from seeds planted in the group conversations.

In summary, the ‘state of the center’ touched on several on going
topics, beginning with our current vitality and the integration of our
programs, B&B and Rentals. Sky Lake as a unique hybrid of a small land
center and local Shambhala Center, our original mandate from the
Sakyong was to create a center for ‘meditation, arts & community’. We
are experiencing the cross-pollination of the B&B with the meditation
center, guests coming with the intention to receive
meditation instruction, participate in pubic sittings and dharma talks.
Rental groups are increasingly requesting meditation instruction and
guided walks on the meditation trail. What were originally ways we
supported our programs, are integrating more and more with Sky Lake’s
purpose as we discover a natural synergy between all three.

Sky Lake’s finances are holding steady after a period of slow rentals
over the winter and spring. They are currently in vital condition after
a period of restructuring facilitated by consultation with Pat Brett,
which is being implemented by the new Rental’s Manager, Emma Stamm, who
along with Amy Glavasich is working on our Social Media presence and
development. Throughout August our B&B has been hosting appreciative
groups and individuals from around the world.

Shambhala International in its role as a continual support and
inspiration was spoken about. Our access to online teachings and a
dynamic and deepening curriculum is every increasing. The Sakyong’s
invitation to the Shambhala mandala for creating Enlightened Society
being the guiding directive for all we do here The structure of the 3
Pillars of a Shambhala Center were described. These being a working
rapport with Governance, Practice & Education and Kasung
(protector principle). Our current model of a Working Council at Sky
Lake is incrementally changing into a Governance Council, representing
those 3 Pillars as well as other working groups in our community, for
example, Health & Wellbeing, Children & Families.

Our current dedicated group of Working Council members are: Jeff
Rubin/Chair, Ben Berliner, Ron Blass, David Daub, Steve Derrickson,
Cyndi Levine, Nadia Scoggins, Sam Scoggins and Jen Woodin, many of whom
have facilitated the running of Sky Lake for several years since our
major transition in 2007. Quarterly group meetings and numerous
committee conference calls throughout the year insure Sky Lake’s
continuing health. Some of these members will continue as the
Governance Council more formally takes it’s seat as Sky Lake’s
governing body .

There was an introduction of Sky Lake’s newly formed Practice and
Education Council and it’s new Coordinator, Jen Woodin who recently
took an oath for that role. Steve Clorfeine and Jenny Bates generously
volunteered as mentors for the first 5 months of the Council, Linda L
Lazin is in the role of Shambhala Training Coordinator, Cyndi Levine as
Administrator, Mary Ranges and myself as members of the Council. Sandy
Sklar has given her time as an organizer of various practice activities
,Ashe and Vajrayana ,and as a master of practice
encouragement throughout the sangha. (though not officially on the
Council) In these few short months the Council has organized quarterly
community Practice Days (Nyinthuns) including the practice of the
Sadhana of Mahamudra, umdze trainings, monthly Open Houses w/ dharma
talks, scheduling the Way of Shambhala programs and adding a general
tone of uplifting our container for practice here that has
greatly benefited the center.

Although we did not get to this topic on the agenda, I wanted to relay
our current request from the Sakyong on Visiting Teachers. During this
next period of time (2 or 3 years??) Shambhala Centers will be inviting
teachers for vajrayana studies instead of for general public audiences.
With the intention being to study and work in our communities to create
Enlightened Society, focusing on the Way of Shambhala teachings (Heart
of Warriorship, Sacred Path, Everyday Life Series, and the
Basic Goodness teachings) and going outward in the world. It is felt to
be less confusing for beginning students to experience Shambhala
teachings at our Shambhala Centers. We are encouraged to invite
teachers from other lineages for the purpose of deepening the study of
vajrayana. This is a departure from our visiting teacher history and
will be this way for now and the near future.

Some of the discussion group subjects for our Community Day were :
Sangha Salons, Mind of Recovery, Beauty & Shelter of Sky Lake,
Contemplative Art Exploration, Touch the Earth, Internet Presence,
Mindful Education for Children, Multi-Purpose Building.

The Multi Purpose Building /Children’s , Shambhala Arts space on the
land next to the meditation trail is a project close to my heart (also
doubling as extra sleeping space for programs). It has been clear that
we cannot serve children and families here without some other area to
do so. The vision for this structure is as a community participating
project ,which could be created incrementally. Possibly first as a
platform/pole barn/or pavilion. How we go about manifesting this
space is as important as the finished product. We already have 3
skillful volunteers for the physical visioning, Architect, David Daub,
trained engineer, Dan Guenther, whose expertise in taking apart old
buildings and re-using materials and knowledge of green building is
vast, as well as seasoned contractor Al Wolcot. When the time comes to
lay our hands on the materials and actually put the structure together
(we already have a donation of a metal roof) I can see our community
coming together with all the varying skills we have for events similar
to ‘barn raising’………..working and celebrating with delicious meals at
the close of construction days. This participation will add to the
sweet satisfaction of using the space for enrichment of our offerings
here to an expanded group of people. I can actually see
children skipping down the trail in the mind’s eye, feel the sun,
elements, smell the lhasang smoke, flowers, hear the music and
laughter. I am committing to seeing the project through to fruition.

Fyi: last week during our hugely successful Dragon Explorers Dharma
Kids Daycamp, taught by Dana Fulmer, Daniel Berlin, Timothy Quigley,
Rachael Timberlake & Alison Pepper ….Sky Lake’s land was singing with
31 children doing nature studies, meditation, drumming, tribal
decorations, feasting and much more. This delightful offering was a
re-igniting of our past children’s programing and much appreciated.

We are anticipating a visit from the Reciprocity Group in the next
year. This group organizes group retreats for youths whose families are
presently living in NYC shelters. Going forward, it feels important to
welcome wider circles of people to benefit from what Sky Lake has to
offer.

This fall Jen Woodin and I will be working on a volunteer and Work
Study system. All of you are invited and encouraged to contemplate what
it is that you could do in a volunteer capacity. Sky Lake is a
primarily volunteer organization and is only as vibrant as our
community participation. Our amazing windows team will be finishing the
final phase of the installation project in the dining room this fall
and winter. The Land Stewardship Group is crafting and enlivening our
meditation trail system. We have office volunteer opportunities,
Practice & Study support teams who could benefit from additional folks,
programs that welcome staffing, events and celebrations that are fun to
assist with……………….

PLEASE STEP UP……. WITH A SERVICE AS PATH ATTITUDE ! ……. You could
be surprised to find what a delight it is to help this vibrant Sky Lake
container continue as a welcoming environment for your community and
those new folks walking through the door.

In the Vision of the Great Eastern Sun,

Katy

Bravery: Taking A Leap

I found this recent (June 2011) written teaching by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche to be quite helpful and want to share it. Thanks to Sky Lake Director, Katy Bray, for suggesting it to me!

Here is an excerpt:

"Abruptness snaps our mind out of discursiveness and habit. Coming face-to-face with our deception, there is a moment of challenging ourselves. To practice truly being present, we cannot vacillate in the moment of immediacy. We must leap if we are to overcome our mockery of awakenment.”

Visit this link to read the complete, powerful teaching:
Bravery: Taking A Leap, by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Yours in the abrupt leap,
Carrie Schapker
Sky Lake Head of Education

Rosendale the new "Hot Spot"

Market Market is featured in this NYTimes article about Rosendale and those who come here for a new life.........

*********
May 24, 2010
90 Miles Upstate, a Brooklyn Feel
By SARI BOTTON

ROSENDALE, N.Y. — Until about a year ago, Fredrick Arnold was living the life of a Williamsburg hipster. An aspiring filmmaker with mutton-chop sideburns, he spent his working hours waiting tables at Dumont Burger, and his off hours on projects like an animated music video for one of his favorite bands, Casper & the Cookies.

But after being laid off — “Suddenly I wasn’t just competing with other people in their 20s, but with out-of-work stock brokers, people with Ph.D.’s, and even experienced chefs for a shrinking number of waiting jobs,” he said — Mr. Arnold, 25, moved about 90 miles north to this Hudson Valley town. He found a one-bedroom apartment just off Main Street for $700 a month (he previously paid $650 for a tiny room in a three-bedroom) and a job at Market Market, a cafe and nightclub on the edge of town with an eclectic menu and a distinctly Brooklyn feel.

The cafe, opened three years ago by Jenifer Constantine and Trippy Thompson, a couple of other Williamsburg expatriates, is a place where one might stumble upon a copy of The Brooklyn Rail, the Greenpoint-based publication covering the local arts scene. Maggie Gyllenhaal of Park Slope was recently spotted there having lunch.

“It feels to me like a neighborhood bar in Brooklyn, filled with people who have sensibilities similar to mine,” said John Cox, who moved to Rosendale from Carroll Gardens in 2003, when he and his wife were ready to start a family. “We realized that if we stayed in Brooklyn, we’d need a bigger, more expensive apartment, and we’d be working crazy hours just to be able to pay for day care, never to really spend time with our kid.”

Rosendale, in Ulster County, is hardly the first place to consider itself Brooklyn North or the sixth borough. But like New Paltz and Beacon before it, this depressed former cement manufacturing town of 6,400 has lately had a steady influx of creative freelancers with 917, 718 and 646 area-code cellphones. Some hop on the bus for the hour-and-forty-five-minute ride to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, others telecommute, and many have traded in their office jobs for less psychically demanding ones in landscaping or food service while they pursue their music or art on the side.

“It was a trade-off,” said Heige Kim, a painter who opened a gallery on Main Street last year, and whose husband, Fred Lee, commutes to his job as a database manager for a Midtown law firm.

“When we moved up here, we got more space, and as an artist, especially, you’re always negotiating for more space,” she said. “But now Fred has to ride the Trailways bus every day.”

With the feel of a rough-and-tumble new frontier — not unlike Williamsburg or Red Hook a decade ago — Rosendale offers a break from Brooklyn’s bubble real estate prices: the mean price for a house in 2008, the last year available from city-data.com, was $201,797. The town has a much shabbier look than manicured weekender havens like Stone Ridge or Woodstock, but it is closer to the city than other low-cost towns like Catskill and Hudson. The town lacks a supermarket but has a surprising number of restaurants — four on Main Street alone, including the Rosendale Cafe, a stalwart vegetarian and folk-music institution.

“We make jokes about how many people we keep meeting up here who are from Williamsburg,” said David Soman, a children’s book illustrator who was ahead of the curve when he and his wife moved here in 2001. “There’s a growing contingent. We keep meeting more of them at Market Market.”

Market Market replaced the Springtown Green Grocer, a beloved standby where locals used to shop for organic produce and pick up mostly vegetarian lunches from a salad bar and steam table. “In the beginning people seemed resentful toward us for coming in and trying to do something different,” Ms. Constantine said. “It’s funny, sometimes people will still walk in looking all confused and say, ‘Wait, where are the vegetables?’ ”

But it has become a magnet for the Brooklyn exiles. Situated directly across the street from the Trailways station (you can get your bus tickets there), the cafe has a sleek bar surrounded by reproduction vintage Fornasetti wallpaper. The menu features tacos filled with house-made chorizo, Vietnamese banh mi sandwiches, and specials like pork schnitzel with brussels sprout and bacon hash.

“Trippy and I thought it would be good to offer foods that we missed when we moved up here,” Ms. Constantine explained.

Several nights a week, there is entertainment: live music, including a series called Tributon featuring musicians covering the songs of a particular artist; D.J.’s; karaoke; comedy; and videos. Earlier this month, when the band Mercury Rev played music over a silent film, the cafe was packed with people in their 20s and 30s, many in vintage clothes and skinny jeans.

On a recent Wednesday evening, when local musicians Skip Piper, Ross Rice and Jude Roberts took turns playing, Market Market was crowded with urban-expat regulars, including Eric Stern, the bling-bedecked stylist for “The Real Housewives of New York City”; the graphic design artist Woody Pirtle; and D. B. Leonard, a musician and writer who moved from Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan to Woodstock in 2008, but is now hunting for an apartment in Rosendale.

There were a couple of new faces, too. “We moved up April 1,” said Turu Illgen, an architect who just spent three years building a house in Williamsburg with his wife, Angela Voulgarelis, a painter. “After all that hard work, we can’t really afford to live there,” Mr. Illgen said, half-laughing. “The taxes alone would kill us. So we rented it out and moved up here.”

Sky Lake Profit and Loss 2009

Click on the spreadsheet below for a bigger version.

Refuge in the Prison

On December 23, 2009, deep inside the Eastern Correctional Prison Facility in Napanoch, New York, Acharya Gaylon Ferguson conducted a Buddhist Refuge ceremony. Seventeen men witnessed the ceremony, three men took the vows. Also in attendance were Steve Gorn, Barbara Bash, Patrice Heber and Carrie Schapter, who have all been involved with supporting this Buddhist meditation group within the prison over the past five years. Ines Fernandez, a counselor in the prison and advisor to the group was also there, as well as Peggy McRoberts the Deputy of Programs.

To witness the allegiance to basic goodness in the densely punitive atmosphere of a prison is a powerful teaching in itself. In this charged environment the intention to bring all difficulties in life to the path becomes a poignant personal challenge. Having this refuge ceremony take place was an expression of the deepening connection of this group of men to the Buddhist path.

Acharya Ferguson began the session by inviting the men to say why they were in the room, what brought them there to practice meditation. The answers ranged from a deep need for peace, for clarity, for getting beyond anger, for personal strength and power. Then he spoke of the possibility in our life of setting our own course, steering the boat in the direction of waking up to our true nature. The open hearted listening in the room was strong and bright.

Watching the three men come up to take the vow and receive their refuge names something open, soft and brave was visible on their faces. The possibility of accepting one’s life, one’s self, as it is, and taking refuge in the Buddha as an example of a human who did this, the dharma as the open path to walk, the sangha as the support to remind us – it was all so fierce and true in this setting.

At the end of the ceremony Acharya Ferguson recited the auspicious verses as he tossed the rice around the room, connecting the ancient lineage of practitioners to this present moment.

Afterwards we had ten minutes before the guards would tell us the room needed to be cleared. We all mingled, talked and congratulated the new refugees. Inside this room there was love and encouragement all around. Then our Sky Lake group left, walking back through the prison to the front lobby, out the door, into the bright cold air – free again and yet bound in the best way to our prison sangha.

Barbara Bash

Sky Lake 2009

Graceful Khandro
and her band of dakinis
rained their blessings
on this land.

The Golden Key
essence of richness
bestowed by a nagini
from the river below.

A lake atop a mountain.
How marvellous!
Sky dancing in its mirror.
For whom?

We don’t know where it comes from,
we don’t know were it goes,
we don’t know where it is.
In your mind? Where’s that?

Barbara paints a circle.
There it is.
Heartbreaking.
The sound of the mantra in the trees.


Sam Scoggins
Sky Lake Lodge Shambhala Buddhist Meditation Center
December 2009

Shawn Colvin

Shawn Colvin playing at the Bearsville Theatre in Woodstock, NY, last night in a benefit for Skylake.

Article
Shawn Colvin