More than Digging

While there’s been more than a month of excavating and sculpting the land to prepare for Buddha Hall construction, a whole lot more is going on, too.

Abbey Carpets

The Buddha Hall team has been meeting to look at the tiniest details. They’re even perusing carpet samples from the interestingly named Abbey Carpet & Flooring company in Idaho. Vens. Semkye, Samten, and Damcho felt an instant kinship with the kind and knowledgeable flooring folks by virtue of our shared name.

Abbey nuns hold up the merit robe for all to see

Altar & statues

Stephen, one of our resident anagarikas, was an architect before moving to the Abbey. (Sravasti Abbey, that is.) He’s been working with Buddha Hall architect Tim Wilson and sculptor Peter Griffin on refining the main altar design. Of course, abbess Venerable Chodron is involved in too

Peter has trained Ven. Pema and Anagarika Gyatso to do the very fine sanding work to smooth the surfaces of the exquisite main altar statues.

More meetings

Regular meetings happen with the contractor and his team, the Abbey team—including Ven. Tarpa who joins on Zoom—and relevant sub-contractors to assess the project, troubleshoot as needed, and plan ahead.

Communications teams have been taking photos, making videos, and writing text to invite generosity for the project, especially since we announced the very generous $500,0000 Ground Breaking Challenge.

Gallery of What Else Is Going On