Vol. II, No. 4

The Zendo Project

Progress on the Zendo Project (Phase Two of the Retreat Center)has been so swift that we’ve hardly been able to keep up with the changes. It’s been two months since our last Dispatch, and it seems to have taken that long to catch our breath enough to write about what’s been happening.

When the last Dispatch went out the only vertical structure to be seen above ground on the construction site was a curved outer wall of the future Kannon Room. That’s how things stood on Day 1 of the October 7-day sesshin,but we emerged from that sesshin to behold the newly-risen skeleton of much of the new building. It seemed to have sprung up like magic. It was not the quietest of sesshins.

Every weekday brought crews of framers and foundation workers streaming into the site in their pick-ups and SUV’s, sometimes well beforedawn, even before the 5:15 chanting, when they would have to work by the light of their headlights. Cement trucks and dump trucks would roll by just yards away from our temporary zendo,while morning dokusan was in progress. For the rest of the day our sitting would be punctuated by hammering, drilling, and other, unidentifiable (to most of us) noises. These intermittent sounds would sometimes be jarring, but mostly they seemed to echo the vigorous inner work that was going on in the zendo. They provided counterpoint to our zazen--and stimulus.

The speed with which the foundation and basement was completed, as well as the floor framing and wall framing, is all the more remarkable in that this has been an exceptionally rainy late-summer and autumn. What’s more, the work has been uniformly first-rate, a priority to us that we paid extra this time to ensure in order to avoid time-consuming corrections later. Before the trusses were fastened to the walls, our architects conducted a formal inspection of the work and verified that the wall framing was straight, plumb, and square—qualities close to our heart in Zen!

The climax of the work done during the October sesshin came on Day 6, when a large crane hoisted andthen lowered the entire steel structure for the zendo roof onto the steel-post-and-I-beam frame, where it was then bolted into place. The next step will be to erect the wood framing for the roof monitor (or cupola, which will provide both light and ventilation for the zendo), which will rest atop this steel structure.

Department of Impermanence

Buffalo, which is just 45 minutes west of Chapin Mill, made national news last month when it was clobbered with a freak storm that left two feet of snow in its wake.Chapin Mill got just half that, but with leaves still on most of the trees, the weight of the snow was enough to wreak plenty of destruction. Casualties included one of the three giant sycamores on the great lawn next to the Mill House; the showpiece magnolia by the waterfall; the willows in front of the retreat center, alongside the stream; and so many other trees that we’re still sawing up and carting away the debris.The cleanup effort got a big boost about two weeks ago at a special 2-day Sangha work intensive that brought out almost all of the Rochester staff as well as other local members.