Jun 18, 2007
Redding
Peace center offers nonsectarian
meditation classes
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by MAR WALKER
Peace is almost a palpable quality in the air during the Friday night meditation class at the Do Ngak Kunphen Ling Tibetan Buddhist Center for Universal Peace.
The center, on 100 acres at 30 Putnam Park Road, used to be known as Godstow, “which means God’s place,” said Sherrill Kratenstein, a member of the center’s board of directors. Godstow became “DNKL” last year around the time of the ceremony of the 1,000 Buddhas, when a former abbott of a Tibetan monastery became spiritual leader of the center, she said
“We now have a resident lama, the resident spiritual director, Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Jampa. The title itself tells you that this is a high lama,” Ms. Kratenstein said. Several other monks teach at the center, including Sengtul Rinpoche and Thupten Phuntsoka.
The DNKL’s property once belonged to John Read, for whom Redding was named, and was later owned by Maurice and Martha (Lucas) Pate. Mr. Pate was founding director of UNICEF, the United Nation’s Children’s Fund, and his wife was president of Sweet Briar College, as well as a scholar of religion and philosophy, according to the DNKL Web site.
“The Pates’ foundation mandated that this place needed to stay affiliated with peace and compassion in the world,” Ms. Kratenstein said.
In 1997, The Maurice Pate Institute for Human Survival donated the grounds to the Mahayana Sutra and Tantra Center of Connecticut, a Buddhist organization committed to world peace, and now it has a new name.
Nonsectarian in nature
As a part of its mission for peace, DNKL offers a number of classes on Buddhism, Tibetan language and meditation. Though the center accepts donations, the classes are offered free of charge and are “nonsectarian in nature,” open to both members of all other religious traditions and to people who have no particular religion.
The Friday night meditation class is taught by a visiting monk, Sengtul Rinpoche, who was born in 1971 in India of Tibetan refugee parents. He became a monk at Sera Mey Monastery at the age of eight. He later studied at Gyumed Tantric University, and came to the United States in 2005 as resident monk at Lotus Spring Retreat Center in Bradenton Beach, Fla.
“Learn sitting and walking meditation to develop mindfulness and awareness in your daily life through Vipassana meditation. In order to help all other sentient beings, one needs a healthy body and pure mind. By this practice, the mind is purified and the body becomes healthy through better breathing and circulation,” the official class description reads.
Vipassana mediation seeks to relieve suffering though a focus on simple awareness, rather than intellectual or emotional analysis of the content of awareness. The word means “to see things as they really are,” according to multiple Internet sources.
Meditation class
Students come into the room, bow to the instructor, sit cross-legged on burgundy cushions arranged in a semicircle, and position their legs and cushions for a long sit. The half-dozen students are of varying ages, from venerable gray-haired to vigorous youth. Clearly, most know just what to do, and have been here before.
Sengtul Rinpoche in his orange robes greets the class, inquires about newcomers, let students know that if their legs began to hurt they can say so.
Once all the rustling, and leg adjustments subside, he rings a clear, pure sounding bell, and the silence begins.
In the hour and half class, only occasional quiet instructions from the instructor are heard, as a growing silence seems to infuse the very air. The room is devoid of ringing phones, radios, televisions or iPods, as well as mechanical noises and conversation. Every once in a while, someone clears his throat very softly. A tiny white moth flutters through undisturbed.
Walking in silence
After an undeterminable length of silence, Sengtul Rinpoche begins the walking meditation. Students rise from their cushions and circle behind him, in unbelievably slow motion.
“Right heel up, foot up, forward, heel down, toe down. Left heel up, foot up, forward, heel down, toe down,” he murmurs in a voice just audible. There is a rhythmic angular tilt to it all as each class member lifts the same foot at the same moment, balancing entirely on the opposing foot while each tiny segment of the familiar motion of walking is made with the other foot.
“Let your mind be in your feet,” he tells the class.
After many circles of the room, there is more sitting, this time with traditional arm motions, where extended arms are held out from the body in various positions for a sustained period of time to improve the circulation and provide a focus.
Finally, Sengtul Rinpoche rings the bell once more, signaling that the meditation portion of the class is over. Students rustle, rub their feet and stretch.
Consciousness
“Consciousness is the line that joins the past to the future,” Sengtul Rinpoche said in a period for questions at the end of the class.
“These people teach on many different levels and so there is a real assortment of people who can study here,” Ms. Kratenstein said. “People will come from many different places,” she said, adding that in the fall, another visiting lama will come to stay for a while.
The center offers occasional weekend retreats and yoga retreats as well, she said. It offers three different meditation classes, each with a different focus and a different time slot, (6 p.m. on Sunday, 7 a.m. on Monday, and 7 p.m. on Friday). Details are available on the DNKL’s Web site at http://dnkldharma.org.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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