To Sangha and Other Friends of Windhorse

[First Section]
This evening we begin the week of Rohatsu, Buddha’s Enlightenment Sesshin -- our last retreat of the year. Before diving in, we’re sending out this letter with photos to show what’s happening at Windhorse, and to ask for your support in completing the new residential space. 

Once we finish the building – and we’re not so far from our fundraising goal -- we can begin to use this beautiful place in the woods! It will provide much-needed rooming for more residents, sesshin participants and visitors, and will make possible a greater range of Zen-related workshops. Such programs should help us reach more people and be more financially resilient in the years to come.

For the past couple of years we’ve been fortunate to receive very generous fund-matching donations. These, and the Phil Gable legacy fund, helped to keep this project moving forward, in spite of an amazing number of roadblocks along the way. No one at this time has stepped up with such an offer; yet, if enough people make a tax-deductible donation, we believe we can still get the work done.

We hope the photos show that we’ve held to high standards of design and construction, with a view to this building being around for future generations of Zen practitioners. The outside is now finished, and workers have moved indoors to put in the radiant floor tubing and pour the slab. To go beyond this, into the final phase of construction, we are asking for your help.

[Second Section]

Grass, trees, earth, sky – all these are the Way of the Dharma.  
                                                                          - Zen Master Bunan

With a long-term view toward more sustainable community living, a crew of Windhorse residents recently planted an orchard. This was done under the direction, and with the hands-on help, of Jack Jarvis, local tree guru and Japanese garden artist. The back hills of the property, near and beyond the vegetable garden, will in time be filled with blossoms of different kinds of fruit trees: carefully selected varieties of apple, plum, nectarine, peach, pear and apricot.

Western porch

Detail of cypress deck

All this planting has required putting in a much more extensive watering system, a big project now completed. This system will also feed the large, newly dug asparagus patch near the main garden, as well as the many blueberry and raspberry bushes we plan to put in next spring.

Another positive development: Landscape plans are in the works for the area around the new building, integrating it with the rest of the property. Master gardener Wynn Wright and her husband Mike, both Windhorse members, have sketched out plans that include pathways and plantings, as well as a dry-streambed and rock garden. Their plan has one path leading out past the new building to ‘Sunrise Point,’ another into the recently created trail that winds through the lower property and opens into one of the new orchard areas.

More good news at Windhorse: An amazing gift arrived this fall from a founding member of our center. It is a magnificent bronze Buddha, a seated figure over 3-feet tall, along with the beautiful altar table on which it rests. This figure shines forth now in our alcove window, which is the ‘enlightenment center’ of the house according to feng shui principles. Doesn’t get much more auspicious than that!

So many gifts – so much time, skill and practice-energy -- have gone into making this property a fully functioning and beautiful Dharma community center. It’s exciting, seeing all this coming together now, and we’re deeply grateful to everyone for the support -- past, present and future -- that makes all this possible.

Now, in these tumultuous times, it feels more vital than ever to be able to provide a place like this -- a place where people can focus on the deepest healing of their hearts and minds, for the sake of all.

With hands palm-to-palm,
Sunya and Lawson, for Windhorse

To make a tax-deductible donation click here, or

Send a check to:
Windhorse Zen Community
580 Panther Branch Road
Alexander, NC 28701