Starting from the late 1970s, courses conducted by Goenkaji in North America drew people from the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. For some, the courses were their first experience of Vipassana. For others, they were a chance to renew their meditation practice and gain fresh inspiration for making the teaching available where they lived.
In 1982, Goenkaji appointed the first eight assistant teachers. One of them, Graham Gambie from Australia, accepted an invitation to come with his wife Anne in June of that year to lead a course near Vancouver. The site was Camp Howdy, originally a boys’ camp deep in the forest.
In August 1982, another assistant teacher (Bill Hart) conducted a course in Washington state at the rustic homestead of an old student in the North Cascades foothills. The meditation hall was a yurt, there were improvised outdoor showers, and much of the setup was done by a young man named Rick Crutcher, who had just sat his first course with Goenkaji in California. In all, there were eight full-time students and eight part-timers on the course, including several who went on to become assistant teachers or take prominent roles in organizing activities in the United States and Canada.
In 1983, the newly formed Washington Vipassana Committee started offering two to four 10-day courses a year at Fort Flagler State Park on the Olympic Peninsula, near Port Townsend. In December 1984, a course organized there drew approximately 175 students. Indian assistant teachers conducted many courses in the Pacific Northwest in the 1980s.
The year 1983 saw a development on Whidbey Island, just an hour’s drive from Seattle. Near the home of a meditator couple (Kathleen and Peter Martin), the Northwest Dhamma Retreat House began operation. For three successive summers, it offered 10-day courses for up to 28 people, and later it hosted group sittings, one-day courses and self-courses. The courses were well attended, and support continued to grow for establishing a permanent center. At the same time, local meditators traveled to India, where they joined long courses and gained experience serving at Dhamma Giri.
The Northwest Vipassana Association
In 1984, the Washington Vipassana Committee changed its name to the Northwest Vipassana Association (NVA, or the trust). An old student and practicing attorney based in Oregon, Charles Wiggins drew up the original articles of incorporation for the NVA, designating it as a non-profit organization. The federal government and the State of Washington granted the NVA non-profit corporation status.
Also in 1984, Goenkaji appointed the Association’s first officers and the first local assistant teachers, Peter and Kathleen Martin.
At about the same time, it became clear that Fort Flagler could not offer the isolation needed for a course. A search turned up the Cornet Bay Environmental Learning Center, located in a state park on the north end of Whidbey Island. The site was more accessible to students from both Canada and the United States, and the number of courses increased each year, with eight in 1987. The NVA also sponsored courses organized by local meditators at rented sites in Oregon and Montana. In those days before the Internet and Dhamma.org, outreach was via posters, public talks and especially word of mouth.
In 1988, Goenkaji formed a steering committee consisting of members of the NVA and the British Columbia Vipassana Foundation. He gave the committee the task of overseeing the establishment of a center in the area to serve meditators on both sides of the border. He suggested giving priority to a site in Canada since there was already a center in the United States—Dhamma Dharā in Massachusetts.
This was a proposal agreeable to just about everyone, because in the early days most Vipassana activities were a shared effort by meditators in the Pacific Northwest and Western Canada. Whether a course was north or south of the international border, there was usually roughly equal representation of participants from both countries. Van Shafer (now a Teacher) says, “We hauled cushions, audiovisual equipment, kitchen gear and carpets back and forth across the border. Regardless of where a course took place, Canadian participants would donate to the British Columbia Vipassana Foundation, and Americans would donate to the Northwest Vipassana Association. That way, each donor received a tax deduction, and the two organizations split total costs according to the proportion of participants from their country.” The transborder cooperation continued when the time came to start a center.
British Columbia students soon found a suitable property in the town of Chilliwack, about an hour east of Vancouver. The BC foundation made an offer to purchase on the condition that the municipal authorities approved an application for rezoning. As it happened, the municipality refused the application and the foundation withdrew its offer. No other potential sites had been identified, and so Goenkaji agreed to expand the search to the area between Seattle and Vancouver, a relatively short drive from either city. Here too the search was unsuccessful, and the focus widened to include the area south of Seattle and north of Portland, Oregon.
Dhamma Kuñja: First steps
In early 1991, a realtor took Suzanne Shafer (a recently appointed assistant teacher) and Laura Arnow (a meditator) to look at possible sites around Olympia, the capital of the state of Washington. The last stop on their list was a 40-acre property in Onalaska, a few hours’ drive from both Seattle and Portland, Oregon. Laura recalls, “The house dated from the 1970s and was full of light. The owners had designed it for their son, who used a wheelchair. The doorways were all wide and there were ramps everywhere. The garden was lovely and the view of Mount Rainier was breathtaking. The place felt like a kind friend.”
Suzanne informed the NVA search committee about the property. She also brought another small group to view it, including Evie Chauncey representing the British Columbia Vipassana Foundation. Both the foundation and the Northwest Vipassana Association had committed to help each other establish the first center in the region, regardless of the country where it would be located. The BC foundation offered a loan of a little under US$35,000 to cover the cost of a down payment on the Onalaska property.
In April 1991, members of the trust visited the site. They explored the 8,000-square-foot home and noticed the exceptionally wide hallways designed to accommodate a wheelchair, as well as a large living room that had received little use. In addition, the house was set back from the main road and at a good distance from neighbors. Given these features, the trustees thought the property was ideal for use as a meditation center.
The beauty of the site also impressed the trustees. There were luxuriant groves of native trees and wide meadows with expansive views, including of Mount Rainier as well as Mount St. Helens and other peaks in the Cascade Range. On top of all this, the local county's zoning rules tended to be flexible.
After intensive discussions, the trust asked then-president Lora Fulcher (Roy) to talk with Goenkaji. He was then in South India, but after some effort Lora managed to reach him by phone. He asked many questions, and in the end he gave his approval to make an offer for the property. Lora then asked, “Should I report to you on the progress of negotiations?” She remembers that Goenkaji gave a hearty laugh and said, “Of course you can call me! Any time you want mettā, you can call and certainly you will receive mettā from me!”
In July the trust decided to make an offer to purchase. The owners accepted the offer and NVA took possession of the property in mid-August 1991.
Goenkaji’s and Mataji’s first visit
Goenkaji and Mataji arrived in Onalaska a few weeks later to inaugurate this fourth and newest Vipassana meditation center in North America. They had been at the new California center and made arrangements to travel to Washington state once the property purchase was final. In Onalaska, they meditated and met with meditators, conducted two one-day courses for old students, and explored the property on foot.
Trees appealed strongly to Goenkaji and Mataji, perhaps in part because they knew how India’s forests had been ravaged in recent decades. At the property in Onalaska, they saw much to delight them: an unusually intact second-growth forest of evergreen and deciduous trees characteristic of the Pacific Northwest. After exploring a grove of stately trees, Goenkaji emerged and announced that he had chosen a name for the new center: Dhamma Kuñja, the Grove of Dhamma. He always said that the name for a new center came to him in meditation, and he must have been meditating while exploring the property. He went on to pick out the site for a future pagoda and meditation hall. All these years later, both buildings stand in the location he identified in 1991.
With its inauguration, Dhamma Kuñja became the fourth center in the United States, joining the centers in Massachusetts, Texas and California.
During this first visit, Goenkaji met twice with representatives of the Northwest Vipassana Association and the British Columbia Vipassana Foundation. He encouraged them to regard Dhamma Kuñja as a joint center. The trustees asked for additional guidance and he told them, “Meditate, meditate, meditate!”
The first decade
When the trust announced the decision to purchase the property, old students responded with generous donations and loans, including the large loan from the British Columbia Vipassana Foundation. In addition, the sellers (a retired couple) kindly allowed the trust to pay off the balance of sale over several years. All these factors enabled the trust to purchase the site, and donations have kept the center flourishing and growing through the years.
After the initial visit by Goenkaji and Mataji, the first order of business was to draw up a basic plan for remodeling the house, and to submit the plan to the local building department. All went well, and the department issued the necessary permits.
Soon, meditator volunteers set to work. At one end of the house, they converted a garage into two men’s dormitories. At the other end, they enlarged the bathrooms and turned two spacious bedrooms into women’s quarters. They also built bunk beds for 42 students, enlarged the family-sized kitchen and purchased a second used electric range, additional refrigerators and a freezer. A commercial gas range would have to wait.
Other early renovations included converting the living room into a meditation hall and installing a larger septic system designed with a capacity for around 66 people.
The electrical service to the property was adequate for the time being, and the existing deep well provided excellent water at 100 gallons per minute—more than sufficient for the needs of the center then and even today, with water conservation measures.
By March 1992, the new center was ready to host regular 10-day courses. The former living room would serve as the meditation hall for 42 students, although they would have minimal elbow room.
But as dawn came on opening day, the center still did not have county permission to host courses. For months, old students had been hard at work on a long list of tasks. One important item was to install fire doors. Normally, they would be installed first and then the final flooring would be put in place afterwards. If the work was done in that order, the door thresholds and floor would be on the same level, and there would be no danger of tripping when passing through a doorway. In this case, however, the doors had to be installed on top of the existing floor, and the threshold of each door was about an inch above floor level.
Early in the afternoon, the chief building inspector for the county came by. Wearing cowboy boots, he silently stalked through the house, testing the fire alarm system installed by an old student, checking all the fire doors and pretending to trip on the thresholds. He seemed to be skeptical about the whole project, and his manner made us fear that he would withhold approval. But in the end, at about four o’clock that afternoon, with students and servers already arriving, the inspector gave his permission. We could legally occupy the center and start the course.
During this first year, the trust paid all construction bills, and began repaying loans from meditators and the British Columbia Vipassana Foundation, as well as a portion of the amount owing to the sellers. Its financial position eased when the State of Washington granted the trust tax-exempt status. As a result, it did not have to pay property taxes after 1992.
An unexpected challenge came up, however. The trust had assumed that the metal roof of the main building was in good condition and would last for decades to come. In the winter of 1992-93, this turned out to be a mistaken assumption. There were dozens of leaks through the roof into most parts of the building, and it wasn’t practical to find and fix them all. The trust went back to the sellers, who generously agreed to share the cost of replacing the existing roof. This enabled the trust to install a new roof without going over its tight budget.
In the early days, some Onalaska residents were concerned about what would be happening at the center. Was Vipassana some kind of cult?
The trust decided to invite the local community to an open house, where the concerns of neighbors could be addressed. Most of the attendees at the event were curious and supportive. Naturally, it took time for some of the suspicions to melt away, but eventually they did. Neighbors now are generally comfortable and happy about our presence. Sometimes they even ask us to buy properties that come on the market, hoping that will help to protect the neighborhood.
Applications for courses far exceeded the new center’s capacity at first, and so the trust continued to organize courses at rental sites for several years. These drew up to 80 participants at Cornet Bay, and smaller numbers at courses in Idaho, Montana and Oregon. Meanwhile, in British Columbia the Vipassana Foundation organized large courses at White Rock and Shawnigan Lake.
Developing a management team
In the first year, an old student from Australia, Craig Newman, stayed full-time at the center, serving as site manager. His presence was particularly important because few meditators then lived nearby. The site manager oversaw day-to-day operations and ensured that a regular meditation schedule was maintained between courses.
As the center grew, so did the need for proper management and oversight. The first long-term server was Benelle Reeble, who arrived in 1992. She served as course registrar, center and maintenance manager, and one-person welcoming committee. More generally, she provided invaluable continuity for seven years. During these early days, assistant teachers Bob and Jenny Jeffs often traveled south to conduct courses at Dhamma Kuñja, as did Evie Chauncey. Other meditators from British Columbia also made the trip to serve at the center. For example, Jerry Roy drove down every other weekend. As a professional in interior design and construction, he had skills that were in demand at the center, but he was also happy to help out in any way.
When Dhamma.org came online, the application process changed drastically. Instead of having to take place at the center, now course registration could be done from any physical location. Old students served as registrars from their homes in Seattle for several years. Today, the registration work is all handled remotely.
The center management team at Dhamma Kuñja has expanded considerably since 1992. It now includes additional center managers, a maintenance manager and a kitchen coordinator. Beside these, countless old students have provided part-time support in many different capacities. A “sit and serve” program at the center allows old students to help out in ways that work best for them, and to gain in Dhamma strength and understanding.
Rick and Gair Crutcher lived in the Seattle area and had been practicing Vipassana from the early 1980s. When the first U.S. center, Dhamma Dharā, opened in Massachusetts in 1982, they moved there and played an important part in its development. Later they also made extended visits to India, where they worked under the direct guidance of Goenkaji. They became assistant teachers in 1989, and in 1992 Goenkaji asked them to oversee the development and guidance of Dhamma Kuñja. In 1997, when he created the Center Teacher position, he asked Rick and Gair to take on this responsibility for Dhamma Kuñja. They fulfilled that role for nearly two decades with exemplary dedication and patience. Jeff and Jill Glenn briefly followed them but passed on the responsibility in 2016 to Ben Turner and Kathy Henry.
From planning to building
The center was now operating successfully, but it could serve only a limited number of people—42 meditators and five servers on courses. In 1997, a new Site Planning Committee was formed to examine how to accommodate more students.
This was the start of a years-long process to draw up plans for development. Every center has to do this at some point, often more than once. It is always a challenging task. There are many factors to be taken into consideration. They include the area available, the topography of the land, the nearness of neighbors, possible regulatory restrictions, the attitude of local officials, the supply of water and electricity, the possibility of using or adapting existing buildings on the site, the number of participants on current courses in the area, the target number of participants after a decade or longer, the expected costs of expansion, the center’s financial position, the availability of loans, and the timeline for doing all this work.
First priority: A new meditation hall
The committee decided to start by developing a long-range plan for expanding the center’s capacity up to 200 students and servers, and it set a top priority of building a new meditation hall. However, the committee recognized that the hall had to be built in the context of a master plan. A landscape architecture and planning firm developed such a plan, and the trust shared it with the meditator community in 1998.
A further study resulted in a beautiful design for a wedge-shaped meditation hall and a circular pagoda, somewhat like the main pagoda and meditation hall at Dhamma Giri in India.
The trust then invited contractors to submit bids for the project. That was when the dream hit the reality: only one contractor sent in a bid, and the cost was much higher than expected. The trust decided to redesign the project before proceeding further.
In January 2001, it engaged another architect to prepare documents for a new hall and pagoda, as well as a master plan for the entire center with a capacity reduced from 200 to 120 students and servers.
By then, the State of Washington had passed the Growth Management Act, mandating every county to set zoning requirements. This meant that the trust had to apply for a special use permit from the county planning department to operate a retreat center on the property. The trust had submitted an application and it was under review.
Meanwhile, in spring 2002, the trust decided to invite Goenkaji and Mataji to visit Dhamma Kuñja during their planned Meditation Now road tour of North America later that year. It also decided to fast-track building plans for the meditation hall, pagoda and dormitories, even though the county had not yet approved the center’s permit application.
The new state legislation required the center to make major infrastructure improvements. These included construction of a 200,000-gallon water storage tank for fire suppression, as well as fire hydrants; ecological stormwater systems; the creation of a new entrance to the center to meet fire regulations and reduce disturbance to neighbors; and an access road and parking lot on 10 adjoining acres acquired earlier. All these improvements were made in 2001, and the trust also commissioned a master landscaping plan featuring native plant species.
Construction of the new meditation hall began in April 2002. It featured a curved wall behind the Dhamma seat to fit in with the round pagoda, which was to be built at a later date. The budget was kept to affordable figures. Features such as restrooms and walkways would have to wait.
Work on the hall was underway that summer, when Goenkaji and Mataji made a short visit to the center during the Meditation Now tour. The trust had announced two one-day courses for old students, and for their use it set up a large tent with plywood floor. There the participants had the chance to meditate in the presence of the Teachers. Other, smaller tents were used for registration, interviews, lunch and information displays, while servers ate their meals in a newly built workshop. Meanwhile, a regular 10-day course was in progress, attended by 42 students. They were surprised and delighted when Goenkaji entered the hall where they were meditating, and gave Vipassana instructions in person.
Goenkaji also spoke at the closing ceremony for inmates completing a 10-day Vipassana course at the North Rehabilitation Facility in Seattle. This was a minimum-security correctional institution primarily for drug offenders; it operated under the authority of King County, Washington.
In October 2002, just six months after the start of construction, more than 100 meditators joined a special one-day course at Dhamma Kuñja to inaugurate the new meditation hall. The following day, the center opened its doors to welcome family, friends and neighbors.
The hall is now more than 20 years old, but those who come to sit there continue to appreciate its atmosphere. It feels intimate as well as spacious, quiet and airy. All its carefully chosen features reinforce the strong environment that it provides for meditation.
Focus on accommodations
With the completion of the new hall, the focus shifted to providing more beds for students. This involved making modifications to the main house and constructing three new residences. The result of this work was that student capacity increased from the original 42 to 59, and then to 84 students.
Initially, the three new residences were simply named the Women’s Dorm, the Men’s Dorm and the Annex. In December 2021, however, the trust decided to rename the residences after local trees. The Women’s Dorm became “Birch,” the Men’s Dorm “Cedar” and the former Annex “Elderberry.”
“Cedar” came into use in December 2008, adding 33 beds for meditators. It was designed to have teak room dividers and shelves. These had been manufactured in Myanmar, and then imported for assembly and use at Dhamma Kuñja.
The building features units that each contain two semi-private cubicles with a shared attached bath. The same design was used in “Birch,” completed in 2010: it has 24 similar en suite rooms, accommodating 48 women.
Next came the remodeling of “Elderberry” (the Annex), one of the outbuildings. It had had various uses over the years, most recently as a servers’ residence and a workshop. It was entirely rebuilt in 2013; only the roof was kept from the original building. It now features 10 private rooms, with attached baths.
Women servers had dormitory-style accommodation in the main building. In 2018, this became nine private rooms, four with attached baths. Each room was provided with a heating and air conditioning unit, as were the kitchen, office and assistant teachers’ residences.
Center managers and staff have accommodation off-campus on property adjoining the center and leased by the trust.
House remodels
The main house has been repurposed and remodeled several times in response to changing needs and increasing student numbers. With the exception of plumbing, electrical and fire alarm work, old students did much of the construction themselves.
As of 2010, the house no longer needed to accommodate course students, and so it underwent a major transformation over a four-week period in January 2011. Volunteers did most of the work. It involved creating an enlarged and upgraded kitchen, two dining rooms for students and two for servers, a new interior stairway leading to the assistant teacher residences, new offices and a multi-purpose room.
The price tag for all the work was very reasonable. This covered the cost of equipment and supplies, plus hired electrical and plumbing contractors.
The main house dates from 1980 and its lifespan is uncertain. Nevertheless, planning is underway for another major remodel to enlarge and improve dining facilities. The plan calls for the kitchen to move to a separate new building, with connectors to the food service areas.
Meditators and master builders
Through the years, past and present center teachers Rick Crutcher and Ben Turner have drawn on their impressive building and carpentry skills for many center projects. The two have poured concrete, hung sheetrock, framed walls and stairs, put on roofs, pulled and attached wires, and plumbed many fixtures. In addition, every second year they have mowed the 25-acre north meadow and the 10-acre south meadow—a job that takes two days. Rick and Gair moved to Onalaska soon after the center opened and have a home not far away, as do Ben and Kathy.
Another meditator with outstanding building expertise is senior assistant teacher Stuart Clark, a retired contractor. In addition to building design and construction, Stuart has guided skilled and unskilled meditators serving on many of the building crews at the center. In one way or another, he has touched every one of our building projects. Stuart has claimed that he is retired, but the prospect of designing and constructing a new assistant teachers’ residence has lured him back yet again.
Building the pagoda
It took several years to reach consensus on the design and plans for the meditation pagoda. The trust approved plans in 2017, but there was not sufficient money in hand to begin the project, and bank loans were not an option. The Finance Committee and trust decided to inform students about the plans and wait for the time to ripen. Meanwhile, outreach events gave details about the design of the pagoda, and the trust mailed information to old students.
This approach worked. By late 2018, the trust had received enough donations and loans from old students to begin construction. A contractor was hired to build the outer shell of the pagoda; Stuart Clark served as overall project manager, and other old students would do much of the interior work. After a ceremonial groundbreaking and group sitting in December, construction began on the pagoda.
This was to be a three-level concrete building, and so the project engineers had prescribed a very substantial base with thick layers of stone and gravel. The construction work got under way just beyond the west wall of the meditation hall. Students inside the hall meanwhile continued their meditation, learning to disregard the rumblings, pounding and shouts coming from the other side of the wall and to focus on the reality within.
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By June 2020, the outer shell of the pagoda was completed. After final inspections and working through the checklist of outstanding tasks, the building was turned over to Stuart Clark and a team of meditator-volunteers, who would be responsible for installing the heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) system, the electrical wiring, constructing cell and interview room walls, insulating the building, and installing the sound system.
At that time, the center was closed and courses had been suspended because of the ongoing COVID epidemic. Given the very uncertain outlook, the trust decided to pause further construction and instead to focus on holding small courses in the safest possible conditions. In December 2020, work began on providing space for more students by equipping the pagoda meditation hall with temporary heating, electrical, audiovisual and ventilation systems. In March 2021, the pagoda hall came into use. This allowed the center to run two parallel courses, one in each meditation hall.
By September 2021, the trust’s financial position seemed secure enough for work to proceed on completing the ground floor of the pagoda. The state government had lifted social distancing requirements, and once again all course participants could sit together in the main meditation hall. The time had come to install a heating, ventilation and cooling system on the ground floor of the pagoda, bringing purified fresh air to each meditation cell.
The site then became a hive of activity. Tradespeople finished installing electrical and fire alarm systems, as well as two large HVAC units on the rooftop. Meditators handled all the rest, including painting floors, installing doors and trim, putting up signage, building shoe racks, and installing a sound system that featured a speaker in the ceiling of each cell. An inaugural course for old students in the cleaned and newly furnished pagoda was scheduled for late November 2022. The day before the course began, the teachers supposed to conduct it came down with COVID, but two local assistant teachers stepped in, allowing the course to proceed.
A long-awaited moment
For several years, eight zedis (Burmese for stupas), each about eight feet tall, had stood in a field next to the meditation pagoda. These were modeled on the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. Like the zedis installed at Dhamma Dharā and Dhamma Mahāvana, they had been created in Myanmar, shipped to the United States, and patiently awaited their time. Now that time had come. There was just one question: How to lift these structures (each weighing 159 pounds) up 40-plus feet and on to the highest roof of the meditation pagoda?
Dhamma Dharā and Dhamma Mahāvana had faced this question earlier, and their answer was to use a crane to raise the zedis into place. It had the advantage of being efficient and quick. But renting a crane would be expensive, and Stuart Clark thought there was a way that would stretch each dollar of precious dāna and give more meditators a chance to be involved. His idea was to rent an inexpensive forklift to raise each zedi up to the lowest roof, and then to hand-carry the zedi up successively higher levels and onto the topmost roof of the structure.
The photos show this idea being put into practice.
First, meditators cleaned the eight zedis received from Myanmar, and a truck brought them to the meditation hall.
Then a forklift raised each zedi to the meditation hall roof, which slopes upwards in the direction of the pagoda.
A team of meditators carried the zedi up the sloping roof and prepared to lift it and hand it over to a second team one level up.
Then the second team handed the zedi over to a third team up another level.
And so, by the dedication and effort of teams of meditators, each zedi came to rest on the topmost roof of the pagoda, fastened to a wooden base prepared by Stuart.
Luckily, these were what people in Myanmar call ayan zedis—“small” stupas. Still to come is the larger central zedi, which is awaiting shipment from Myanmar to Dhamma Kuñja. When one day it is installed, at its topmost point will stand a large rock crystal delicately carved in the shape of a lotus bud, representing enlightenment—a gift from a generous Indian meditator.
That will be a moment to remember. But equally memorable was that sunny summer day in 2023, when so many meditators exerted every effort to raise those ayan zedis into place.
Next steps
Now that the center could provide an individual cell to each meditator, it could schedule courses of 30 days or longer. The first such course took place eight months later, in summer 2023. The trust chose that time of year keeping in mind people on an academic schedule. Not surprisingly, there were more applicants than private accommodations, and this highlighted the need for more residences with single rooms.
Loans from old students covered most of the cost of constructing the pagoda. The trust has made it a priority to repay the loans on an accelerated schedule whenever possible.
Master planning continues
Planning and design work continues, with the aim of expanding and upgrading facilities for students and servers. In the early years, reaching a decision could sometimes be difficult. The trust has learned from those difficulties, and improved its planning and development procedures. One factor contributing to the improvement has been continuity. Many Center Development Committee members have served in that position over the long term.
One example is Noel Miller, an experienced civil engineer as well as committed meditator. For many years, Noel has chaired the committee. Another example is architect David Boe, who designed the meditation complex and residences. After more than two decades as Dhamma Kuñja’s architect, he is familiar with the many requirements of a Vipassana center.
Those involved in planning have learned to work together harmoniously and to communicate effectively. That in turn has helped trust members reach consensus on next steps in development.
Courses at Dhamma Kuñja have always filled up quickly, and there are usually long waiting lists. The master plan approved by the county in 2001 allowed for a maximum of 200 students and servers. Then the state government revised water use regulations, and the new maximum was to be 104 students and servers. Water conservation became and remains a central feature of the master plan. The center made serious water conservation efforts and documented water usage over several years. The result was that in 2014 the State agreed to increase the overnight capacity to 150 people, including students, servers and conducting teachers.
In 2024, the Center Development Committee updated the master plan to reflect the new number.
The plan calls for construction of a new assistant teacher’s residence and completion of the two upper floors of the pagoda. Next on the list would be a new, commercial-grade kitchen, expansion of the meditation and dining halls, and construction of additional residences. Together, these projects would enable the center to accommodate 150 people at a time.
The grounds
The Grove of Dhamma is set in an intact second-growth forest featuring Douglas fir, western red cedar, bigleaf and vine maples, alder and cascara. The center’s landscaping plans emphasize preservation of native species and protection of animal habitats.
A recent addition at the center is an enclosed garden, which protects flowers from the many resident deer. Over generations, these gentle creatures have become accustomed to meditators passing quietly among them, and their presence makes the center feel akin to the Deer Park at Sarnath in India. Another improvement is the installation of durable, “Dark Sky-compliant” fixtures for the walking paths. These have the benefit of not causing nighttime light pollution.
It’s an ongoing job to maintain the grassy fields that occupy much of the 50-acre campus. Equally important is maintaining the center’s paths and cutting back encroaching vegetation; this is a safety measure required by the local fire department.
A close call
Wednesday, August 19, 2015, was a hot, dry and windy day. At a little after 2:00 p.m., a grass fire was reported on Gore Road, about a mile from the center. By the time firefighters arrived on the scene, the blaze had spread into the trees and was traveling east toward Dhamma Kuñja. Most concerning, in the path of the fire was a propane tank holding 16,000 gallons of fuel. If the tank exploded, there could be widespread damage. For this reason, authorities ordered evacuation of a one-mile radius around the fire—an area including the center itself.
This was happening on the day a 10-day course was to begin. Some people had already arrived at the center and registered. Others were still en route; by the time they reached the local road that would take them straight to the center, they encountered roadblocks because of the evacuation order. Many of the travelers called the center for directions; they were told to wait in the parking lot of Spiffy’s, a restaurant near the exit from the interstate highway.
At the center, the management team was confident that the course would proceed as planned. Still, an order was in place to evacuate. The team quickly packed up registration materials plus folding tables and valuables. They then relocated to the Spiffy’s parking lot, joining the many people waiting there. Ten miles away loomed a tall tower of black smoke.
By 5:30 p.m., word came that the fire crews were taking down most of the roadblocks they had set up, but the center and surrounding area were still off limits. The news seemed hopeful overall. The center managers brought out their folding tables and registration materials, and the students formed two orderly lines to get their forms and fill them out. Then they waited calmly and patiently to see what would happen next.
By 8:00 p.m., the fire was under control and the authorities lifted the evacuation order for residents. A caravan of students and servers headed to the center. They weren’t strictly residents, but the authorities kindly allowed them to proceed. On reaching the center, most went straight to the rooms assigned to them for a well-earned rest. Most if not all who had registered ended up joining the course.
The course formally started next morning after breakfast, and from then it proceeded without disturbance.
The fire burned 175 acres of land and destroyed a dozen barns. It also overran one of the fire trucks, but there was no loss of human life.
This event brought home the importance of being prepared for fires. Fortunately, the center had complied with state government requirements to build a large water tower and a network of hydrants that would make it possible to extinguish a fire. Also important is fire prevention. With this in mind, servers regularly cut back vegetation within 30 feet of all buildings, in compliance with a requirement of the local fire department.
The community of meditators
Group sittings
When the first American students of Goenkaji returned home in the 1970s, Vipassana was almost unknown in the West. The greatest hope of many of these returnees was that they’d find Dhamma sisters and brothers with whom they could reminisce about India and practice Vipassana as they had learned it from Goenkaji. They recalled Goenkaji’s words in the closing discourse of a 10-day course: “Wherever it is possible, wherever you have a few Vipassana meditators living and can find a place where at least once a week you can join together, sit and meditate Vipassana .... A joint meditation once a week is very helpful.”
In 1981, a weekly group sitting started in Seattle and continued for 39 years. At first, it shifted around to different locations. But from 1982, the sitting regularly took place at the home of Norm Kosky, in the Green Lake area. Later joined by his wife Debra, Norm hosted one-hour as well as half-day and one-day sittings, benefiting hundreds of meditators over the years. Norm and Debra both became assistant teachers. In 1998, they retired and moved out of the city.
Group sittings continued for a few years in different locations. But in 2010 the search began for a dedicated rental space, and in 2011 the Seattle Vipassana Hall opened in an office building overlooking Lake Union, in downtown Seattle. The Hall offered several group sittings every week, one-day courses once or twice a month, and special events. In addition, old students could drop by and meditate on their own during the day. Many people welcomed the opportunity to meditate at this facility, but in 2020 COVID restrictions forced the Hall to close.
In the years since COVID, Seattle’s Eastside has become a focus for group sittings. The area is a global technology hub. Many people who work there are orginally from India, and they include Vipassana meditators who have organized activities where they live. Up to a dozen people regularly attend group sittings organized by assistant teachers Sandeep and Kanika Ramji on two weekdays at their home in Sammamish, east of Bellevue, for example. There is also a one-day course once a month with from 60 to 80 participants. A local elementary school has hosted an annual children’s course since 2023. It is one of the largest children’s courses in North America, with around 60 participants.
In 2022, Madhan and Devi Visvanathan began hosting group sittings in their home in Redmond for up to a dozen friends. Devi says, “I feel, ‘Look, these people have traveled far and have taken the time and effort to come sit here with me today. May they get the complete benefits of the Dhamma. May I be able to provide them with a supportive environment by strengthening my own awareness and equanimity.’ A wish for their progress arises. I find that the mind is more centered and balanced, even if only one person has joined the sitting. I’m filled with a deep sense of gratitude.”
There have been group sittings for old students in the Olympia area since 1990, although not at first on a continuing basis. Local meditators have also organized one-day courses at a rented site for more than 40 meditators, led by an assistant teacher.
Pamela Solarz has hosted the one-hour weekly sitting since 2011. At first, her two sons (then in their teens) sometimes returned home during the sitting and might make a noisy entrance. But once they realized that a meditation session was in progress, they quieted down and did their best not to disturb anyone. “The group sit has strengthened my practice,” says Pamela, “and it has truly helped me raise my children!”
Billy Simmons appreciated finding like-minded people who were walking on the same path. He says, “I still feel that sense of kinship with those who attend the sitting.” In his view, the greatest benefit is the “consistency, normalcy and integration of meditation in our daily lives. How can one improve on that?”
In Portland, Oregon, Dinesh (Denny) Jhaveri organized a sitting in his office. When he retired around the turn of the century, Lesley Spector offered to host the sitting in her home in the northeast part of the city, and her neighbor Joe Nazzaro agreed to help. The sitting at Lesley’s house has continued for many years, with up to around a dozen participants. Joe Nazzaro comments, “The group sitting helped me in my practice, and I have heard many others express their appreciation for the opportunity to meditate together. It has been so valuable to have a community of meditators in our area.”
Fifteen miles west of Portland is Hillsboro, in the heart of Oregon’s “Silicon Forest.” A Vipassana Hall started up there in 2018, the donation of a family of meditators. It currently is the site for three one-hour sittings weekly, attended by 5 to 10 meditators. The Hall also offers one-day courses every two months, conducted by assistant teacher Dan Trullinger, and these draw up to 40 participants. Maanik Gupta often takes part in events at the Hall, and he welcomes the opportunity to sit or serve where he lives.
Online sittings
Of course, there are also virtual group sittings. The technology for these became available before the COVID epidemic struck. But it was during the shutdown, when people could not meet in person, that the online sittings became important to many meditators. That time has passed but there are meditators who still join the online sittings when they can. Dhamma Kuñja offers group sittings on Zoom daily at 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time, with a local assistant teacher and a tech host. It also offers a monthly one-day sitting.
The community around the center
Another valuable development is a growing community of meditators in the vicinity of Dhamma Kuñja. Understandably, it’s been a gradual process to attract people to a rural area some distance from employment opportunities. Over the decades, old students have purchased nearby properties, initially to establish a buffer that would reduce noise from a dirt bike track and ensure that land behind the meditation hall and pagoda remained undeveloped. Many old students now make their homes near the center, providing ongoing support. A non-profit organization, Nature’s Grove Preserve, was formed in 2023 to steward properties adjacent to the center.
Also nearby is the Pariyatti bookstore, a brick-and-mortar operation as well as an online resource for print and digital materials about Vipassana meditation as taught by Goenkaji, plus Theravadin literature more generally. The bookstore is located two miles down the road from the center. It is a welcoming place after the end of courses, where students can find supportive resources.
Faces of Dhamma Kuñja
With some exceptions, courses at the center are in English. As at all Vipassana centers, however, recorded bilingual instructions and discourses are available in more than 50 languages for non-native speakers of English. In addition, interpreters serve non-English-speaking students as needed. Bilingual courses take place from time to time, conducted by assistant teachers who speak a second language and staffed by at least some servers who also speak the language. The center has hosted courses in Mandarin, Khmer, Thai, Hindi, Vietnamese and Farsi.
Another group the center serves are children and teens. For many years, there have been one-day and weekend courses for young people aged 8 to 16. On these short courses, participants learn to observe their natural breath (the initial step in every meditation course), and they also enjoy breaks with games, crafts and the company of their peers. A recent course drew 50 young people to the center, and there are also courses in local schools as well as in the Seattle, Portland and Olympia areas.
Overseeing the courses is Shashi Sheth, children’s course coordinator for the Pacific Northwest Region. A growing team of children’s course teachers conduct and serve on the courses.
In 2023, the center offered its first 30-day course, and the schedule for the following summer featured another 30-day course and a 45-day course.
Vipassana for incarcerated people
The year 1997 saw the launch of a unique initiative: a program offering 10-day Vipassana courses at the North Rehabilitation Facility (NRF), a minimum-security correctional facility in Seattle. Ben Turner (then an assistant teacher) worked at NRF as a nurse practitioner. He spoke with the administrator of the facility, Lucia Meijer, and proposed having a course there. To see for herself what this would involve, Lucia sat a course at Dhamma Kuñja. After that experience, she set in motion the process to bring Vipassana to the facility. The Northwest Vipassana Association worked closely with Lucia and the team of the facility to develop a meditation program for inmates.
Lucia’s biggest concern was the requirement that the course teacher (Rick Crutcher) and servers stay inside the jail 24 hours a day from the time the course started to its end. She didn’t have extra staff to provide security. The entire concept of the program was unheard of, and it posed a potentially significant liability risk. After long discussions and trust building, it was decided that the Vipassana staff could stay overnight, and that one of the servers could be responsible for making head counts of the inmates and reporting the counts several times a day—a familiar feature of life in correctional institutions.
Before the first course, the NRF security staff were skeptical about the program. They joked about it and even placed bets on which of the participants would leave first or how many (if any) would finish the course. The chief of security seemed bemused by the whole initiative. His attitude was, “Sure, go ahead and try it. It will be interesting!”
A few uncommitted students left in the first days of the course, but after that it became a reassuring routine to report to the security team, “Twelve students and holding!”
Day 11 of the course was “Graduation Day.” At an assembly, the newly minted old students told the other residents moving stories about their struggles and triumphs. Even the security officers were impressed.
As course after course came to a successful conclusion, most of the staff became supportive of the initiative. They were impressed by the changed behavior and attitude of the meditators. Eventually, a total of five staff members took courses at Dhamma Kuñja. Lucia later served on the center’s trust and was appointed an assistant teacher.
It turned out that Ben was not the only NRF employee who had learned Vipassana from Goenkaji. Back in 1976, Charlie Brown had taken a Vipassana course in India. Now a security guard at NRF, he was surprised and pleased to know that Vipassana had arrived not only in the States but at his workplace. When he saw a poster at NRF about Vipassana courses for inmates, he excitedly asked if this was Vipassana as taught by Goenkaji. Charlie went on to serve on every course at NRF for male inmates. In 2002, at the closing ceremony of the last men’s course, he was thrilled to meet his teacher again after more than a quarter-century.
Assistant teachers conducted four courses a year for inmates at the facility from 1997 until it closed in 2002, including 11 courses for men and nine for women. The first women’s course at NRF was documented in the film Changing from Inside. Research by the University of Washington Psychology Department documented the effectiveness of the courses. The program at NRF was so successful that the county made plans to build a wing in a new jail dedicated to Vipassana meditation. Unfortunately, the plans had to be cancelled because of funding cuts.
However, the success at NRF led directly to the establishment of the North American Vipassana Prison Trust in 2002. The trust went on to organize courses in correctional institutions in the United States and Canada. It also provided training for the teachers and meditators who accepted the challenge of serving in correctional institutions.
Meditators and assistant teachers from the Pacific Northwest and other parts of the USA and Canada went on to serve many courses for inmates at the maximum-security Donaldson Correctional Facility in Alabama, and the courses were documented in the film The Dhamma Brothers and the book Letters from the Dhamma Brothers.
The beginning
Early morning. The song of a thrush cascades in the mist. A wild dogwood displays its cream-colored blossoms. Raindrops patter on branches. A family of deer come exploring, the elders hoping for fallen apples, the young mock-fighting. They pause when the four o’clock gong pulses through the air. You thought it was a call to rise for meditation. The neighboring farmer and his cows know it signals milking time, with breakfast to follow. Through a rent in the mist Rainier appears with the flush of dawn. Yes, all is well in the grove of Dhamma.
Thank you for reading this draft text about Dhamma Kuñja—The Grove of Dhamma. If you notice any errors or omissions, any ways we can improve the text, please let us know.
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