Typical Retreat Days include meditation, Dharma talks, discussion, and movement; with some unstructured time for hiking, reading, and resting. In addition to traditional retreats we also offer workshops with specific themes —creativity, creative-writing, martial-arts, deep-ecology, as well as queer-specific themes and retreats for transgendered people, as well as for people of color and of mixed-race.

Manzanita Village

Although we are a Buddhist inspired center and offer traditional Dharma practice, we are ecumenical in spirit, inquisitive by nature, and averse to those who espouse a singular point of view. We hold to the basic Buddhist Precepts and also recognize that "the understanding we presently posses is not changeless, absolute truth".

The teachings given here are flexible and practical. The style in which they are presented is non-coercive, non-hierarchical, and creative, and always honors the wisdom that we understand to be inherent in every person. As a result of our open approach there is a natural sense of community that is felt on every retreat, no matter how long or short it is.

All of our work is informed by the traditions of Socially Engaged Spiritual Practice, soon we will conclude our first two-year Dharma training for Social and political Activists— Sanctuary. The next program is scheduled to begin in March 2007.

Topography. When you see a topographical map of Southern California you can imagine the Coastal Ranges, not as hills, but as waves breaking on the land mass of Turtle Island (North America). This is not entirely imaginary. The action of tectonic plates colliding with each other creates a movement similar to the movement of waves. What once lay deep beneath the ocean floor are now mountains and hills. The particular mountain wave that we are surfing at Manzanita Village is about ten million years old. Even though it has been above ground for a geologically short time its substance is ancient rock, decomposed granite and clay, almost as ancient as life on the planet.

Once, not too many centuries ago, vast areas of this continent were forested. In a much more ancient time, around a hundred and twenty million years ago, before the existence of oaks and pines as we know them, the forests began their journey westward from the East Coast, acorn by acorn, drip line by drip line, to become what they still were a couple of centuries ago.

Zen Master Dogen, the great teacher and innovator who revived Zen practice in Japan in the thirteenth century said, “Do not doubt the walking of mountains even though it does not look the same as human walking.”

Birds. During one week of a winter retreat a few years ago, someone compiled this list of the birds they had spotted:
Coopers Hawk, Red Tailed Hawk, American Kestrel, Prairie Falcon, California Quail, Morning Dove, Anna's Hummingbird, Northern Flicker, Red-naped Sapsucker, Black Phoebe, Say's Phoebe, Scrub Jay, American Crow, Raven, Plain Titmouse, Rock Wren, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, California Gnatcatcher, Western Bluebird, Loggerhead Shrike, California Thrasher, Spotted Towhee, California Towhee, Lark Sparrow, Dark Eyed Juncoe, White Crowned Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Lesser Goldfinch, House Goldfinch, Wrentit, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Great-horned Owl, Brewer's Blackbird, Short-eared Owl, Canada Goose

Human Populations. The European-American story is that human beings have been in these parts for between sixteen and eight thousand years. People around here say that their ancestors have been on this land from the beginning. The original human occupants of this land are the Cupeño people, named after the village of Kupa, which stood at what is now Warner Springs, about four miles away. The Cupeño people were forcibly removed to Pala in 1903.
It is said that human beings have been in these parts for about eight thousand years, perhaps longer. The people who lived in the area of Warner Springs were known as Cupeño. The survivors of that community now live in Pala, thirty miles to the west. 

The Missions. The first Europeans arrived from Mexico in 1795. The Mission at Santa Ysabel, a few miles south of Warner Springs was established in the 1830s.

John Warner. In the 1840s Jonathan Warner (Juan Warner) took Mexican citizenship and became a rancher in the place that is now named after him,

After the war in which Mexico lost California to the U.S. Juan Warner was elected to the California State Senate where he took the considerable risk of standing up for native rights. From California: Land of New Beginnings by David Lavender:

(John Warner) the lone dissenter on the committee, retorted angrily, "Will it be said that ... while our doors are open to the stranger from the uttermost parts of the earth, we have not spare room for the residence of the once sole inhabitants of our magnificent empire? ... Has the love of gold blotted from our minds all feelings of compassion or justice?" It is well to recall that voices such as Warner's were always raised against the more flagrant injustices-but there were seldom enough of them; the cost in unpopularity was too great. Cowed by the howls of the white settlers and angered by the excessive expenditures of the Commission (for Indian Affairs), (the State Senate) rejected all eighteen treaties (made with the Indian Nations).

The Butterfield Stage. For a few years in the 1850s, before the completion of the railway across North America, the Butterfield Stage was, for a time, the preferred way of getting to the West Coast. It took twenty-four bone-shaking and dangerous days, in a coach without suspension, from St Louis to San Francisco. The Butterfield route ran west to Warner Springs on what is now local route S2 and continued north on what is now Highway 79. Stories still circulate of highway robbery and buried gold,

Dispossession. In 1903 the Cupeños were dispossessed of their land. The reason, in part, was a personal feud between Harvey Downey and Teddy Roosevelt. The following is taken from a speech by Cecilio Blacktooth, elder in the community, to a federal investigation committee:

We thank you for coming here to talk to us in a way we can understand. It is the first time anyone has done so. You ask us to think what place we like next best to this place where we always live. You see that graveyard over there? There are our fathers and grandfathers. You see that Eagle Nest mountain and that Rabbit-Hole mountain? When God made them He gave us this place. We have always been here. We do not care for any other place. It may be good, but it is not ours. We have always lived here. We would rather die here. Our fathers did. We cannot leave them. Our children were born here - how can we go away? If you give us the best place in the world, it is not so good for us as this. My people cannot go anywhere else; they cannot live anywhere else. Here they always live; their people always live here. There is no other place. We ask you to get it for us. If Harvey Downey say he own the place, that is wrong. The Indians always here. We do not go on his land. We stay on ours. Everybody knows this Indian land. These Hot Springs always Indian. We cannot live anywhere else. We were born here and our fathers are buried here. We do not think of any place after this. We want this place and not any other place. There is no other place for us. If you do not buy this place we will go into the mountains like quail and die there, the old people and the women and children. Let the Government be glad and proud. It can kill us. We do not fight. We do what it says. If we cannot live here, we want to go into those mountains and die. We do not want any other home.

The Four Directions Institute — to Preserve the Cultural Continuum of Native Americans

Original Voices — "before you celebrate the gold rush, read the horrible truth"

Drawing by Michele Benzamin-Miki