Volume II, No. 6

The Zendo Project is rolling along on schedule, with much having been accomplished in the three months since the last Dispatch. The latest photos are available on the Center’s website. Click here to view them.

• Most of the large-scale, most visible work has been done by our contracted workers: All the drywall for the new building (Phase II of the Retreat Center) has now been hung, a task that took the crew of pros just a month. (The drywall in Phase I took staff and volunteers many months to put up.)


• The heating and ventilation work is finished, as is the rough plumbing and most of the rough electrical work. The state-mandated fire-sprinkler system, not required by law when Phase I was built, has also been installed.
• Our hired crew of “mudding” specialists is currently applying the third coat to the drywall, another demanding task that took months for our ZC workers in Phase I – and left two of them with long-ailing shoulders. Final sanding will take place next week, during our 7-day sesshin.
  

In the past of couple weeks the Center has deployed a growing crew of our own workers at Chapin Mill, and over the next month we will take over completely. Already our members have effected big changes:

• Progress on the porch surrounding the innercourtyard has been dramatic, both top and bottom: the flooring was finished yesterday (by Mike Chrest, Ed Kademan, and Stevan Veljkovic), and will get its first use for early-morning outdoor kinhin at this sesshin. The beaded porch ceiling, supervised by Tom Kowal, has been completed about a third of the way around the courtyard. Today the flooring crew began laying the flooring for the east-facing yaza deck.





• Woodwork has been built around some of the windows and doors in the courtyard, so shortly we will be able to begin applying the individual wood shingles. These have already been factory-stained by the manufacturer—another task that took our staff months to do for Phase I.


• Stain is being applied to the interior trim around the large glass doors leading into the courtyard, as well as to the many (65!) windows in the zendo.


• Today the wood flooring for the zendo arrived, and we’ll begin installing it as soon we we’ve primed and painted the zendo.


• Across the creek and up the hill from this hive of activity, Roshi’s gravesite is soon to receive its finishing touch. The beautiful new bronze plaque bearing his name has finally arrived from the foundry, and now awaits only an appropriately sized stone for its mounting at the gravesite.