Our Path to Now Chapter 3

“There’s a certain kind of shelter in your own simplicity, and we can make a home within this moment on the endless journey.” The truth of these lyrics, written by Rachel Faro, an early  student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche who titled her first album Refugees, was one that the Atlanta sangha needed to rely on during the next chapter of our history.  

The refuge vow, taken when people choose to fully embrace the Buddhist teachings, acknowledges that ultimate satisfaction in life is not possible by manipulating the material world. Instead, our refuge lies in the example of the Buddha, in the dharma teachings that turn us back on our own resources, and in the support we find in companionship with others who share that view, the sangha.

When the rent on our beautiful home over Blues Harbor in Buckhead was raised beyond our means, the sangha made a concerted effort to find a new space. As it would turn out, our community wandered from place to place for more than a decade before we found what we call, even as we acknowledge the truth of impermanence, our (relatively) forever home on Church Street in Decatur. More on that location and how it grew in the next chapter.

Now, in the spring of 2023, in the midst of meeting the challenges of reconstructing Turquoise Hall following the winter flood, the sangha has been making a different kind of concerted effort. We’ve been plumbing our collective (and aging!) memories to reconstruct our peregrinations between 1986 and 1998, a challenge complicated by the fact that two paths diverged and meandered for a number of years before coming back together.

The sangha was without a practice space for ten months in 1986-87; dedicated Dharmadhatu members met and practiced together in the homes of Richard Macgregor and Keith and Jackie Muse. Patton and Carol Hyman had recently bought and renovated a large home on Lanier Place where they hosted open houses and various levels of Shambhala Training. When a place around the corner from them, on North Highland, became available, Logan Patterson and Jim Okel rented it as a residential practice house, although zoning prohibited putting up a sign.

Over the years we looked at many places for rent and for sale, weighing our options. Should we try to find a space to put the Buddhist and Shambhala Training paths back together in one building? Maybe some members of the sangha should buy a place and lease it to the community? Meanwhile, while we searched and pondered, where could we gather?

The house on North Highland provided a cozy space for practice and Buddhist programs. Jim Okel heard that a group of Tibetan monks were doing a tour, “Sacred Music, Sacred Dance.” He invited them to Atlanta and they found fertile ground here; the Dalai Lama’s influence on Emory University has been profound. A rotating cast of residents helped host various Tibetan and western teachers and, in spite of having no sign in front of the building, word got out. The place became a vibrant hub of dharma and community.

Meanwhile, Betsy Berman, Logan Patterson, and Carol Hyman had started a renovations business, Sunrise Environments, which operated from the terrace level of the Hymans’ home. Shambhala Training held programs in an unsold house they’d renovated in Morningside until neighbors called the city zoning board. The program then shared space with a group of therapists on Monroe Drive, held a Level One in an Omni Hotel auditorium, and rented a vacant dental office for a Golden Key program. 

The community was rocked by the death of the Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in April of 1987; many of our members traveled to Vermont for his cremation. Inspired to continue practicing and offering his teachings in Atlanta, we kept searching and, in 1990, found an old print shop to rent that could house both Sunrise Environments and Shambhala Training. It was in what was then a run-down commercial area on Zonolite Road. (The building must have good karma because it now houses the Atlanta Soto Zen Center.)

We signed a seven year lease and renovated. Countless Shambhala Training levels and other gatherings took place there. When the time came to leave the house on North Highland, the Dharmadhatu moved in as well and we were all together again. We hung a sign that officially proclaimed ourselves as the Atlanta Shambhala Center. When Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche visited, we set up an event tent in front and gathered to hear him sing the praises of Trungpa Rinpoche’s accomplishments in bringing the dharma to the West. 

Seven years felt like a long time when we signed the lease and it was long enough to see many changes. The Hymans uprooted themselves, spent a year in a bus traveling the continent, teaching meditation and homeschooling their children, after which they settled in Vermont near Karme Choling. Tom Haynes and Betsy Berman became the next Resident Directors of Shambhala Training and Cara Thornley took over as the director of the Atlanta Shambhala Center. A land fund that had been started by Harry Tate and John Propst grew and as the end of the seven year lease drew near, we began searching for our next home.

The conventional definition of a refugee is someone seeking a safe haven after being forced to flee violence, persecution, or war. Buddha taught that those conditions arise from human confusion when people don’t connect with our basic nature. And so ultimately, as the chorus of the song says, “We are all refugees.” Relatively, however, we do sometimes find a safe haven. The Atlanta community found that on Church Street in Decatur and we’ve been making a home there, within many ever-changing moments, ever since.