Retreat
Tibetan Buddhists coming to Berne


BERNE — Students of Tibetan Buddhism from throughout North America will soon enjoy the beautiful scenery of the Hilltowns. The Tibetan word for retreat, "tsam," means "to make a cut." Cut off from the busyness of everyday life, Buddhist students on retreat will meditate, pray, read, contemplate Buddhist teachings, and exercise on the heavily-forested 350-acre Berne campus.

On Sunday afternoon, as snow fell, brave souls defied the slippery slopes of Game Farm Road to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Retreat House at the Tenzin Gyatso Institute for Wisdom and Compassion. The Retreat House, renovated from a residence, is the first building completed in the center’s much larger project.

The one-story shingled house holds seven bedrooms, two-and-a-half bathrooms, a living room, a meditation room with a skylight, a basement, and a kitchen.
Students will spend "anywhere from a weekend to a month to three months" at the Retreat House, said Judith Brown, the executive director of the center.

Joanna Bull, who, after looking at properties in New England, discovered the Berne land, cut the ribbon. Spirits were high as smiling guests removed their shoes at the door so as not to track snow onto the new carpet and floors. They wandered throughout the house, admiring the brand-new accessories in its freshly-painted rooms.
Brown presented a check for $2,500 to Helen Lounsbury, library trustee and Vice President of the Friends of the Berne Library. Brown called the gift "a token to the community."
"We want to be a part of this," said Brown of the Hilltown community.
Brown called the library — which is planning to move to the west end of the Berne hamlet at Berne Town Park — "a wonderful resource" that "deserves to be supported."

Brown also acknowledged the team at the Tenzin Gyatso Institute, including its retreat advisor and its manager, its cook and the man who plows the fields.
"We love the town," Brown said, and lauded Berne’s beauty — its views of the Catskill mountains, its woods and pastures. Students on retreat make their own schedule, Brown said. "We will encourage them to walk around and exercise."
Purchased by Rigpa, an international Tibetan Buddhist organization, the institute is home to a sangha of about 30 people; sangha is a sanscrit word meaning "community of people," said Jonathan Pollei, the center’s manager.
"The whole point of retreat according to Buddhist teachers is, as far as possible, to leave behind our ordinary responsibilities and distractions, so as to be able to focus on meditative practice," says institute literature.

Each of the seven newly-painted rooms in the Retreat House has a small personal shrine, where sangha members will meditate, pray, and give symbolic offerings while looking at an image of the Buddha. Members will also have video streaming and internet access.

The house, accessible to those with handicaps, contains new flooring, carpet, cedar shake siding, fixtures, and appliances. Remodeling was completed by Buhl Construction.

The center

Tenzin Gyatso is the birth name of the current Dalai Lama, the traditional government leader and highest priest of dominant sect of Buddhism in Tibet, who was displaced when the Chinese took over. Tibetans believe he is the living incarnation of the Buddhisattva of Compassion.

The Tenzin Gyatso Institute was formerly called the Rigpa Center for Wisdom and Compassion. Rigpa closed on the purchase of the 350-acre parcel in July of 2004, buying it from the New School University, of New York City. The center had been under contract to buy the land for two-and-a-half years while it developed a potable water supply, designed a wastewater treatment system, and obtained appropriate approvals and permits.
Rigpa, which means "the innermost nature of the mind," is an international organization founded in 1975 by Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

Rigpa also has centers in Ireland and France. The Tenzin Gyatso Institute in Berne is the first of its kind in North America.

The property already had a lodge, where the sangha meets on Saturdays. The lodge was built in the 1960’s by Frank Miller.

The land had been used to hunt pheasants, and was sold to Sanford Logging Company, said Tommy O’Malley, whose property neighbors the institute.

The center has raised money and grown, and, if all goes according to plan, will blossom into a compound with several buildings to support crowds of hundreds learning from Rigpa’s spiritual leader, Sogyal Rinpoche.

One of the main purposes for the center in Berne will be to provide education to those treating people near the end of their lives.

Additional buildings — retreat houses and a children’s center among them — are planned for the center’s project, slated for completion in 2020. Hospice care will be provided in conjunction with one of the local hospitals, said Pollei.

What is Buddhism"
Peg Tyndell, a long-time Hilltown resident, was directed to the Tenzin Gyatso Institute by Berne Supervisor Kevin Crosier. Tyndell said she’d been praying for "something to come in" to the Hilltowns and "provide a boost." When Crosier showed her the plans for the institute, which includes multiple buildings, a water supply, a water treatment plant, and water storage tank, Tyndell was amazed.

The institute helped Tyndell following the death last year of her husband; she took a course at the center on loving-kindness.
"It was a crucial thing in my life at that time," Tyndell said.
Tyndell, who said she was just starting in her Buddhist teachings, conceded she was "not very versed." Tyndell, raised as a Roman Catholic, said of Buddhism, "I thought it was a religion, but it’s not a religion."

The institute’s objective, said Center Manager Jonathan Pollei, is to enact the Dalai Lama’s vision of wisdom and compassion, and to make a 2,500-year-old tradition accessible to those of any faith, while at the same time being a home to Sogyal Rinpoche’s students.
"My religion is simple. My religion is kindness, as the Dalai Lama says," Pollei said.

Pollei cited Ethics For the New Millennium, a book in which the Dalai Lama calls for greater responsibility and compassionate action.
"The essence of the Buddhist path is a deep and transforming compassion towards all living things, coupled with wisdom — the penetrating insight into ‘shunyata,’ the nature of reality itself," says the Dalai Lama.
"Interdependence cuts through all flavors of Buddhism"There’s a lot derived out of that one point of view," said Ann Hart, the center’s retreat advisor. Hart provides guidance and support for individuals and groups during retreats. She described interdependency as the cause and effect inherent in all human actions, and the importance of cooperation between groups with different goals. Hart has attended long-term and solitary retreats in Dzogchen Beara in Ireland and Lerab Ling in southern France.

Compassion and action, Brown said, is not just a Buddhist principle. In Sogyal Rinpoche’s book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Rinpoche emphasizes dealing with those who have life-threatening illnesses, as well as the family members of those who are dying, said Brown.
But learning to die well, she said, is just one aspect of Buddhism. Buddhism, Brown said, "is regarded as one of the world’s greatest religions." She added that Buddhism is highly spiritual, and more philosophical than theological. Its purpose, she said, "is to get others to understand their own true nature," and its emphasis "is to encourage people to grow and practice loving-kindness toward others and oneself."
Brown applauded Christianity’s ability to practice loving-kindness, saying she thinks Christianity "does it genuinely."
"We all espouse to it, but do we do it"" she asked.