Spirit Rock Meditation Center is dedicated to the teachings of the Buddha. We provide silent meditation retreats, as well as classes, trainings, and Dharma study.
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Whale Song
Before 1970, most of us didn’t know that they sang. The military knew it—while listening, ever vigilant, for the approach of Russian submarines during the Cold War, soldiers heard and recorded whale songs for several decades— but in the world above, we heard nothing, knew nothing. When the recordings finally emerged into the nonmilitary world, the power of the surprise and the beauty of the songs, more than any other factor, gave birth to the modern environmental movement. Rivers in the homeland were aflame with toxic solvents, corporations were honing the ability to lie, the government was as corrupted as a washed-up seal carcass seething with maggots, and yet here was this beautiful, haunting sound that pierced the heart—an ancient song from the blue shimmering world in which all life began. More » -
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To Uphold the World
The Catholic theologian Hans Küng observed that “a global market economy requires a global ethic.” Yet at the very moment when the need for just such an ethic is more urgent than ever, our national and global systems of governance seem effectively paralyzed in moving toward it. More » -
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Whose Buddhism is Truest?
Two thousand years ago, Buddhist monks rolled up sutras written on birch bark, stuffed them into earthen pots, and buried them in a desert. We don’t know why. They might have been disposing of sacred trash. Maybe they were consecrating a stupa. If they meant to leave a gift for future members of the Buddhist community—a wisdom time capsule, so to speak—they succeeded; and they could never have imagined how great that gift would turn out to be. More » -
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One Dharma
This is a unique time in the history of Buddhism. Different Buddhist traditions are meeting and interacting with one another here in the West, often for the first time in centuries. Just as the dharma spread from India through many countries in Asia, each one finding its own voice, here, too, we're seeing the emergence of a Western Buddhism, something that is unique to our own time and culture. More » -
13 Ways of Looking at a Madman
View photos that relate to this article here. More »
