Dharmakaya Center for Wellbeing

Every Tuesday at 7:00 PM, people of every level of experience settle into the Meditation Hall in front of an 11-foot bronze Buddha, designed to enhance meditation practice. For 30 minutes to an hour they sit in Shamata, Chenrezig practice, or a guided meditation. There is no teaching, the evening is free, and reservations are required.

The hall is the result of a long gestation. Trungram Gyalwa Rinpoche, PhD, chose the Catskills in support of the people of greater New York after September 11, 2001. After much searching he settled on a property in Cragsmoor for its inherent spiritual feeling. The affiliated Dharmakaya Organization bought it in 2004, the year Rinpoche completed his doctoral studies in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism at Harvard. Nine years of planning followed, then a groundbreaking on July 18, 2013. Rinpoche conceived the design himself, and the Center opened in July 2017.

The campus sits on a wooded hillside, with trails, cairns, statues, a fire pit, and two terraces looking over the trees. Beyond the light-filled Meditation Hall, with its soaring ceilings, are a library with a fireplace and a dining room serving seasonal vegetarian meals. Guests stay in Birch and Oak Halls, in private rooms with shared baths or junior suites with a private terrace. Each room has a meditation table, cushion, and zabaton. There are no televisions, telephones, or internet in the rooms.

The calendar mixes weekend retreats in mindfulness, yoga, and Buddhist silence with a retreat on grief co-led by a rabbi. Discovering the Dharma, a five-retreat series led by Rinpoche, covers the major topics of Mahayana Buddhism. Personal retreats run from a few nights to longer stays, with discounts for stays of a week or more. Most programs hold 10 to 20 participants, and an online Sunday study group is currently reading Gampopa's Ornament of Precious Liberation.