PROGRESS REPORT # 6 ON MAJOR RESTORATION PROJECTS at Still Mountain Dharma Center
We are making daily progress now as we focus everything we have to getting our Center ready to reopen!
THE DAWNING LIGHT—Daily Journal Of Transformational Writing
Volume 8, Issue # 852 for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
STILL MOUNTAIN CHRONICLES Section # 53 Stories by Chinmayan about our life and adventures in pursuit of simple living freedom, our spiritual path and our service to the world in a small rural Dharma Center in the mountains of Northern California
All images in this story by Chinmayan except as noted
PROGRESS REPORT # 6 ON MAJOR RESTORATION PROJECTS at Still Mountain Dharma Center
We are making major progress now as we focus every day and everything we have to getting ready to reopen!
Dear Friends,
We continue with our Diary of accomplishments from Progress Report # 5
Later…Thursday, March 14, 2024
It is late afternoon now as Ani and I wind down from the work of the day by sharing a peaceful time of meditation and silence together in the Hall as this beautiful day wanes.
We have all been hard at work on projects since this morning and have made major strides forward.
Even though our work restoring and upgrading the Meditation Hall is far from finished, I have already made it my primary place for prayers and sadhana.
SHIFTING ALL OF MY PRACTICES TO THE UNFINISHED MEDITATION HALL
I have shifted from doing my nightly Kirtan (“Kirtan is an active form of meditation and prayer in which we use the power of music and song to express our heart’s deep longing for experiencing the Presence of God”) aboard my tiny house to this Hall, followed by taking a long Prayer Bath in the special large tub adjacent to this Hall.
Kirtan practice, which is similar to the Worship music used in the Christian tradition, is the easiest way to open our hearts to feeling God’s presence.
Kirtan is one of the seven forms of meditation that we teach in our Meditation Training Intensive course that is simple to learn, wonderful to practice and amazingly uplifting and transformative in its results.
I understand that every session of meditation, mantra practice, prayer and kirtan that we do here adds to the shakti (Sanskrit term for the “divine creative sacred energy” or “sacred power”) in this space.
Another way of saying it, is that the more sincere spiritual practices that we do here, the more the sweet presence of God and the energy of the Divine is invoked and imbued into this Hall.
Our main altar…and my “Asana” (place for my prayer, meditation and kirtan practice)…still a work in progress
This is one of the reasons that some churches, temples and meditation halls become true holy places—because the people using them were doing really strong and sincere practice.
We are consciously recharging this hall with daily practice, even as we honor the fact that this sanctuary has been the spiritual home of many hundreds of country folks for more than 40 years when it was the “Grace Baptist Church.”
I can still feel their devotion and the energy of many, many thousands of prayers they offered to the Divine in this very hall.
CLEANING THE CENTER’S MOLDY KITCHEN
The main focus of our work today has been to launch onto a major cleaning of our Center’s kitchen, which has not been used for a long time.
When Ani inspected it recently, she was shocked to discover that mildew and mold was growing on its walls, cabinet doors, cabinets and refrigerator.
Since the kitchen will be in active daily use when we reopen the Center, we decided at the morning meeting today to shift our focus to cleaning it.
To make a start, Ani and Arnold packed up everything from the cabinets, shelves and under counters into tubs and emptied the kitchen.
Then, with rubber gloves and face masks, they bravely did battle with the mold, using a “natural” blend of distilled vinegar, Simple Green and water.
By the end of the day, they had made a good start, but the war is not over by a long shot. It will take a few more days before we can declare victory.
Meanwhile, the kitchen is closed and blocked off to air dry until we can get back to it.
Ani and Arnold working to clean the Center’s kitchen
CLOSING OUR FIRE WOOD STAND
The other major step that we took today is that we permanently closed our Fire Wood Stand.
For many years, we have helped support the Center through making Fire Wood and selling it on a big green Fire Wood Stand in our front driveway.
Most folks in this mountain valley heat their homes by burning wood in their wood stoves all winter, and many of them can’t make fire wood for themselves.
Since we have the skills, tools and connections to harvest wood in the vast forests which surround us, and have a Fire Wood production yard, complete with tractor and hydraulic log splitter, it seemed like a good thing to make extra wood beyond our own needs that we could sell.
And it did work well for a long time.
Folks loved our wood because we always made premium quality, perfectly seasoned Fire Wood they could trust would burn well in their stoves and keep their homes warm.
Our Self Service Fire Wood Stand in the front driveway of the Center
With our Fire Wood Stand, they could come by any day they needed wood and pick it up for a fair price.
We worked very hard to keep our Stand well stocked with several types and sizes of fire wood bundles, as well as large bins of perfectly sized stove wood.
We even built a bundle making shop and invested in a Bundle Maker that we had specially made for by the Amish crafts folk in Minnesota.
We did this work of making fire wood for sale every winter since 1989, partially because I love the whole production process…from going into the woods, usually alone or with Ani, to harvest dead trees and bring them back to Still Mountain in “rounds” where we split the rounds into firewood size and then loading the finished wood products onto our Stand.
Harvesting Mountain Oak from one huge 200 year old dead tree that was donated to us
And even though I still love the work because it is so demanding physically and mentally, yet rewarding as we turn the dead trees into a vital and natural way for heating…we recently realized that we had to stop making wood for sale.
We will continue harvesting and making firewood to use to heat this Hall, but we realized that producing wood to supply the Stand was so labor and time intensive that on a practical level, it consumed most of our daylight hours just to keep it going.
After many winters of doing firewood production full time almost every daylight hour, through rainstorms and freezing weather, and then being utterly exhausted by day’s end, we realized we must stop.
WE ARE MOVING OUT IN A MAJOR LEAP OF FAITH
If we kept on giving most of each day to making firewood, then we would have little time or energy to do the really important work of producing this newsletter, restoring and reopening this Center, or the teaching, counseling and other services we are strongly called to do now.
We never actually made much money from firewood sales. Even by working so hard every day, we barely covered our living and operating expenses.
Today is the day that we chose to close our Fire Wood Stand for good by pulling all of our postings, taking down all our signs and promotions.
Today is the day we take a leap of faith, and choose to prayerfully focus ONLY on reopening the Center and producing our programs, publications, and services as we feel so strongly called to do by the Divine.
Kalu Rinpoche and the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa
FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MY TEACHERS
We choose to live by following in the footsteps of my teachers, who all were and are 100% dedicated to serving the world through teaching the Dharma principles and practices that anyone can use for self transformation and healing.
My teachers all gave every second of every day to serving others.
Now, we are stepping out boldly to do the same.
I know that this is why my own teachers invested so much love, time and attention into training me…so that I would be throughly able to take up this work and make a real difference in the lives of countless people who need help in the years ahead.
I know this work is my purpose for this life and the very reason I was born.
Even though I am in my seventies, we now move out with full confidence to serve because I know I am a thoroughly trained, trial and travail tested spiritual warrior who has a compassionate and caring heart of one who sincerely wants to make a difference for others while I am still here.
It would be a great loss to the world if I didn’t, just as how tragic it would have been if my own teachers, who gave me and countless others the greatest gift possible of teaching the Dharma principles and practices that have illuminated my life, had not given themselves to this work unreservedly.
I realize that for this work to grow and become all it needs to be to serve and make a difference for all of those who we are meant to help, I must be 100% focused on this work alone.
My wise and wonderful Grandmother would often say…” Son, when you take care of the things that are dear to the Lord, the Lord will take care of the things that are dear to you!”
I know from the hundreds of times we have had our prayers answered magnificently, that this is absolutely true!
Our story continues in the next issue of “The Dawning Light.”
We are devoting this full week of stories to sharing the wonderful and challenging work we are doing daily now as we push to reopen this Center.
In case you missed our previous stories in this series about our restoration, here is a link to these stories:
THIS WOULD BE A GREAT TIME TO MAKE A DONATION TO OUR BUILDING FUND
We are extremely frugal in the use of all the money that our friends and supporters have generously donated to this work.
As of this writing, we have a few hundred dollars left in our building fund, and a lot more that still needs to be done or purchased before we reopen.
This would be a great time if you feel drawn to help us by clicking on the donation button below and giving us any amount!
Chinmayan teaching the Meditation Training Intensive Course
WE THANK EVERYONE WHO ARE SUPPORTING THIS WORK
We are sending a big thank you! To all those of you who have written to encourage us, who have made financial donations to keep these projects going, who have offered their help through volunteering and most of all, who believe in us and value what we are doing to serve the world. We could not be doing these great and wonderful things without you!
We still need your on going help and support to complete these projects and re open this Center.
Here are the links to our ultra safe donation site… We are asking for donations of any size, even a few dollars makes a massive difference!
DONATION PORTAL to Support Restoration Projects At Still Mountain Mediation Center
Or use this QR code:
In return, everyone who donates any amount to our cause will receive a generous discount on tuition to upcoming new programs and courses, plus we will send you our “Meditation Training Intensive” video course ($150 value) as a reward.
Meanwhile, we will continue to keep on working to do everything we can to be a source of inspiration, information and encouragement for you, our friends and family in the “Dawning Light.”
Thanks again for being here and shining your own light of Love which is needed now more than ever!