My Retreat at Dharmakaya Center for Wellbeing, NY
Yoga + Meditation → Read, Reflect and Relate
by Kumar Vadaparty, Ph.D.
Background
A few days before Christmas Day, 2021, I needed to change my plans and find a new place for vacation. Totally on a whim, I decided to go for a place that offers “peace of mind”, and is within driving distance. I found the Dharmakaya Center for Wellbeing at NY as a possibility. This being the first time I was going for a “personal retreat”, I called the center and enquired about the workings with Frank, the Executive Director at the center. After that, I felt comfortable enough for signing up for a full one-week stay (including New Year’s day).
One more activity that made me comfortable was the conversations with one of the senior teachers, John Henderson. When I expressed my concern of not having any prior experience with meditation, Frank set me up with John. John kindly agreed to speak to me multiple times, and these conversations not only provided some “footing” in the process of meditation but also comforted me that as a beginner — I should not feel dispirited for not being able to “properly” meditate.
Little did I know about the extraordinary ecosystem that I would be immersed in for a full week. This is an ecosystem of excellent staff, just the right amount of activities, kind-hearted co-travelers in this journey, a serene meditation room, a library filled wall-to-wall with rare books and a fireplace, and healthy-yet-superbly-tasty vegetarian food thrice daily.
The Location
Nestled in the woods and hills of upstate New York, an hour away from Poughkeepsie, the center is a quiet, peaceful place that allows you plenty of time to read, reflect and relate — just the things I wanted to “accomplish”.
As you take the turn from the “main” road into the center, a Buddha “Dwaram” (“Doorway”) invites you into the new world you are about to enter.
The parking lot is not far from this entry post, and if you have a lot of “stuff”, you can drive up the hill (0.3 miles) and unload, and someone will accompany you down to the lot for dropping your car, and drive you back to the campus.
As you go up the hill to the campus, on both sides of the road you can see several small beautiful “observation points”: carefully arranged stones reflecting spiritual shapes (offerings, meditation spots, etc.), spiritual vigrahas (statues) Bodhisattvas, chimes, and many more. This could be a part of your meditative walk on some days.
The daily “Not So Routine” Routine
This being a “personal retreat”, there is almost no routine. But, as if to nudge you “just so” into the right mood to read, reflect or relate to people or the flora/fauna around you, there is a very light schedule: a morning yoga + meditation, mid-day meditation, and sunset meditation. All three are optional. I took full advantage of all three.
I connected with three other co-travelers: Jim, Elisabeth, and Vasanth. Jim and Elisabeth were well trained in the art of meditation and yoga. Although I used to do yoga fairly regularly, it’s more than 8 years since I did serious yoga. This peaceful time and kind-hearted company allowed me to get back into doing Yoga daily. Also, they provided some guidance, expectation, and nuances in the art of meditation. For the first time, I did meditation, despite growing up in my childhood with my grandparents who performed daily meditations.
In addition to being fully furnished with yoga supplies, the center has an excellent meditation room with the seated Buddha at the center. The room, the lighting, and the whole space are very serene and invite you to do yoga or meditation.
We were very lucky. The large room was basically for a handful of us who are in this personal retreat program. The times we spent in this room are very memorable and the mood has always been quite reflective.
The Library
Adjoining the meditation room is the library. With wall-to-wall books on one side and a fireplace on the other, the library is very comfortable. You could get a cup of hot tea, and settle there for hours. The range of books is quite varied. You have, obviously, books on various strands of Tibetan (and non-Tibetan) Buddhism. Surprisingly, you will find books in many other faiths, books that are very rare and I only heard of.
There is a set of books on ancient medicine and surgery in India, the names of the books being: “Caraka Samhita” and “Susruta Samhita”. These books — I only heard of in the past.
I always wanted to re-read and reflect on Dharmapatham (“Path of Dharma”) that the Buddha wrote in Pali, a language for the “masses”, instead of Sanskrit, a language of the learned in those days. This is one of the rare examples of a book that was “reverse translated into Sanskrit” more than 2,500 years ago; and from then on, into numerous other languages throughout the times.
This library has a copy of Dharmapatham translated into Tibetan (from Sanskrit) and then to English. I have a copy of my own Dharmapatham, translated from Pali to Sanskrit to Telugu (my mother tongue). This gave me the unusual opportunity to compare how these translations withstood the test of time of about 2,500 years of separation.
My copy is fully of Indian origin: Buddha’s Pali from India (technically, today’s Nepal) to Sanskrit to Telugu, my mother tongue. However, the Library’s copy went from India to Tibet (from Pali to Sanskrit in India, and from Sanskrit to Tibetan, in Tibet) during 1100AD-1300 AD. Then, it stayed there till the Colonial times, when it got translated into English and brought back to India. Then from there, it came to the USA.
I expected little commonality between these copies of Dharmapatham temporally separated by two millennia, linguistically transformed through multiple languages, and spatially separated by twice the radius of the Earth.
But to my surprise, the tightness of the conformity was surprising. To ensure I am reading it right, I used the Tibetan alphabet book; to my utter surprise, I learned that the Tibetan script is derived from the old Sanskrit script (called Brahmi). See here. This was a pleasant surprise and made my ability to read Tibetan writing somewhat easier (probably at the 3rd-grade level).
The library also has some standard texts from various faiths that originated outside India also. There are those from Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and many other varied topics and faiths.
The food
Diana is the chief chef of this center. She creates food that is tasty, healthy, and almost feels spiritual when you finished eating. I am hardly capable of describing how the food is made; I can only add that occasionally, I had to hold back from being perceived as a glutton. Here are some examples of the menus.
The menus hardly do any justice to the food, the taste, and the whole “gestalt” of the experience.
Short of actually experiencing the process of eating, I can not think of any other way of simulating that experience with any number of adjectives, complex-compound sentences, or gerunds.
The co-travelers
I benefited immensely from the company of Jim, Elisabeth, and Vasanth. Elisabeth, like me, set up this trip completely at the last minute. Jim was there twice before.
In addition to gaining nuances of Yoga and meditation practices and technicalities from Jim and Elisabeth, I gained a lot in terms of relating to each others’ lives. We exchanged ideas, life’s experiences, and lessons learned.
Time spent with the co-travelers is probably the most unexpected sweetness of the stay there.
On the penultimate day, Jim and I had a long 3-mile talk, and I will cherish the contents of the conversation for a long time to come.
The Hikes
There are many hikes one could take. We did the usual “loop” through the hills and another spectacular “Bear Cliff” hike. This second hike is about 2.5 miles long with spectacular views at the end. You will reach a wide opening from a hilltop and you can see the entire valley.
On some of the days we walked, it was more foggy and snowy than others. But here are some attempted efforts at capturing its natural beauty.
Conclusion
I’ll go there again, hopefully not too far into the future!
