Every Sunday morning at nine, Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Center holds a “BIPOC Voices Weekly Sangha.” Since the pandemic started, these gatherings have taken place online, but they remain an important space for self-identified BIPOC to explore meditation and the dharma. Events like this help define Spirit Rock as a Buddhist community located at the intersection of religious tradition and progressive movements. This duality is illustrated on the community’s website, where members and leaders “reaffirm these 2,600 year-old Buddhist values,” while also explicitly affirming “oppressed, exploited and marginalized people, people of color, immigrants and refugees, poor people, women, disabled and differently abled people, Indigenous and LGBTQI peoples.”
While this merging of past, present, and future sometimes leads to conflict within the community, Spirit Rock has been largely successful in its mission to adapt Buddhism in the West while preserving its moral and spiritual foundations. Spirit Rock is an insight meditation center in Woodacre, California. The center practices a fluid and social-justice oriented form of Theravada Buddhism.
Jack Kornfield is the primary founder of Spirit Rock. Born to a Jewish family and raised in New England, Kornfield went to the Peace Corps in Thailand after graduating from Dartmouth College. This initial exposure to Buddhism in Asia sparked a lifetime of religious exploration and leadership. Kornfield became a Theravada monk, studying under legendary masters including Ajan Chah, Mahasi Sayadaw, and Dipa Ma. In 1975, Kornfield, along with Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein, and Jacqueline Mandell-Schwartz, established the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. By 1988, the group had set its sights on the American West. Through the support of financial donations, they founded the Spirit Rock Insight Meditation Center in the San Geronimo Valley on the northern coast of California.
Today, the town of Woodacre remains remote, with under 2,000 permanent residents tucked away in its temperate climate and scenic surroundings. Meanwhile, the center itself has grown into a flourishing community with a prominent online presence, international recognition, and strong financial support. At its foundation resides the notion of “Spirit Rock as a Living Mandala.” The dharma lies at the middle of this circle, with the dharma paths of “retreats, right relationship, study, hermitage, integration, and service” stemming outwards from the center.
Spirit Rock’s values and practices reflect Kornfield’s own monastic training. In explaining the fluidity of his own teaching of the dharma, Kornfield cites Buddha’s role as “master of many skillful means.” Although “skillful means” is a concept from Mahayana Buddhism, Kornfield employs the term to illustrate the importance of varying opinions and experiences. In an article entitled “This Fantastic, Unfolding Experiment,” Kornfield reflects on his impressions of various Asian monasteries where “either the teachers or their disciples will say, ‘Those guys in the other tradition don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. They won’t get you to liberation.’ There is a kind of competition between them. But in truth, there isn’t only one view or technique that brings liberation.” From Kornfield’s perspective, only the Buddha’s core teachings lead to awakening. The rest of the specifics are unimportant.
During the early years of the community’s formation, conservative voices conflicted with more progressive ones. For example, Kornfield invited U Ba Khin’s famous disciple Goenka to come teach, but the master responded in a letter, declaring, “If you open a center and have more than one lineage teaching there, it will be the work of Mara, and it will be the undoing of the dharma.” In the end, though, Kornfield, along with the other founders, committed to welcoming a variety of viewpoints. At the same time, the leadership adopted a rule that teachers from outside their Theravada lineage had to be accompanied by another teacher in order “to keep Spirit Rock connected to the core of our Buddhist tradition.” In this fashion, the community grounded itself in a specific tradition, while also remaining open to outside voices and practices.
Spirit Rock is a community composed mostly of Western practitioners. As of the 2010 census, Woodacre itself is a 91.3% White community. It is a highly affluent area with little racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic diversity. The actual center, however, prides itself on cultivating a culture of diversity and inclusion. As Spirit Rock is a place for retreat, most of its residents travel from great distances to stay at the center for short or long retreats. Additionally, with events like BIPOC Voices, the center exposes members and teachers to a wide range of perspectives.
While Spirit Rock does not have any explicit ties to other major religions, the community has many connections to secular mindfulness. For example, an ongoing event entitled “Everyday Life as Mindfulness Practice” is led by a trained psychotherapist and reflects a broader mindfulness movement in the secular West. In addition, founder Jack Kornfield studied in monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma, which allows him to draw on a diversity of Buddhist traditions. Indeed, Kornfield calls the history of Theravada and the broader history of Buddhism “a weaving of a number of different strands.” This philosophy of weaving together traditions is central to Spirit Rock’s Westernized approach to Theravada Buddhism.
The blending of traditional Theravada Buddhism and Western conceptions of mindfulness and social justice reflect the merging of Theravada and folk religion in Thailand. Just as the Rocket Festival and Bun Phraawes combine local customs with ancient Buddhist teachings, so too does Spirit Rock combine Western values with the traditions of Theravada. For example, Spirit Rock offers both residential and non-residential retreats. Residential retreats reflect the forest monk monastic tradition, while non-residential retreats accommodate the busy schedules and undisciplined minds of Western practitioners. Residential retreats at Spirit Rock “combine the fertile atmosphere of silence with extensive time for meditation and walks in nature, supported by systematic Buddhist teachings.” Through Woodacre’s remote location, an emphasis on meditation, and close attention to the dharma, these retreats are modeled after traditional Theravada forest retreats. They are distinct, however, because Spirit Rock does not address enlightenment. While Eastern Theravada communities viewed forest monks as the most likely candidates for liberation, Spirit Rock residential retreats are commonplace and accessible and, therefore, do not highlight achieving awakening. Non-residential retreats are a way “to integrate your practice into your daily life.” In both forms of retreat, Spirit Rock teachers instruct students in Vipassana, or insight meditation, which reflect the teachings of Mahasi Sayadaw.
The views of the Spirit Rock community, which represent a marrying of contemporary and traditional Buddhist perspectives, are laid out in the teacher code of ethics. Spirit Rock teachers must abide by the same five precepts that reside at the heart of Theravada Buddhism: no killing, no stealing, no false speech, no intoxicants, and no sexual misconduct. They do not, however, take on the additional five precepts of traditional monastics: no eating after noon, no high or wide beds, no jewelry, no handling money, and no dances or parties. In addition, the code of ethics elaborates on the five foundational precepts to integrate them into a more modern context. For example, “no sexual misconduct” is interpreted primarily to address student-teacher relations. Other precepts, like “no intoxicants,” apply only on the grounds of the retreat center. In this sense, the Spirit Rock code of ethics adopts the traditional precepts largely in spirit.
In a more sharp departure from the Buddha’s teachings, Spirit Rock places a strong emphasis on diversity and inclusion. The community’s statement of values affirms, “We denounce racism, misogyny, xenophobia, trans- and homophobia and all forms of oppression and the valuation of certain lives over others. We value and celebrate diversity, inclusivity and respect for all beings and the inherent dignity of all peoples.” While the Buddha certainly taught loving compassion, he also placed additional restrictions on nuns that positioned them in subordination to monks. For example, according to the additional nun precepts, all monks are superior to all nuns. This means that a nun ordained for a hundred years still has less authority than a monk ordained for one day. By contrast, Spirit Rock rejects hierarchies based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other form of identity.
Yet, finally, Spirit Rock’s views on environmental conservation align with the views of traditional Theravada forest monks. The Spirit Rock website includes an extensive list of “Green Practices,” which seek to promote environmental consciousness and responsibility within the community. According to the website, these views extend to office and operational practices, solar energy, transportation, plants and land care, recycling, air quality, and architecture. One of the main obstacles to forest monk lineages is the difficulty of complete isolation in an increasingly developed world. Spirit Rock’s values align with conserving spaces for retreat and intensive meditation so that such practices can exist in harmony with technological advancement and rapid urbanization.
Jack Kornfield refers to Spirit Rock as a “fantastic, unfolding experiment” because the fusion of Western life with the Theravada Buddhist tradition is accompanied by an acute unpredictability. As the community attempts to tune itself to the evolving views of progressive America, they risk diluting the sanctity of the Theravada tradition. At the same time, Spirit Rock has the potential to create something “fantastic” by combining a diversity of voices and practices into a new tradition with the potential to adapt itself across time and space.
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by Abby Comey