Cape Ann has a translucent
quality of light that is uncanny in its clarity,
and everyone who has ever lived there will tell you about its spiritual qualities.  It’s a healing place, blessed by the water, the glacially carved land, and the light.

In 1963 Ina Hahn and her husband Herb bought the last working farm in Pigeon Cove, and with their own hands turned it into a performing arts center.  They put sturdy wood floors in the barns and stalls, and built a simple raised platform against the woods for a theater.  They brought music and dance from around the country.  You’d walk by a little barn and someone from Juilliard would be teaching cello.  In another barn Ina would be dancing with her local troupe.  You’d hear African drumming from the hollow, or catch a glimpse of someone training in martial arts. The place was named Windhover, and it was rustic and magical.
 
In the summer of 2004 I heard that Ina might be selling some of her property to keep Windhover running.  I drove straight to her house to ask what I could do.  She had been my dance teacher when I was young, and had taught me far more than dance.  In the manner of every great teacher, she taught me to join what I was doing with a firm moral code.
 

That night I stayed up late thinking about Ina’s qualities and the spirituality of Cape Ann, and there came into my mind the man with whom I was studying Buddhism in Los Angeles, the American-born Tibetan Buddhist monk and teacher extraordinaire, Lama Marut.  By morning I had come up with an idea: I would rent Windhover in the summer, and create a retreat, to join together two great loves: Cape Ann and my heart teacher, Lama Marut.  

The rest is, as they say, history.  We started the retreat in the summer of 2005, and ran it at Windhover for five years.  We outgrew every building on the place and had to pitch a huge tent in order to fit everyone in.  Hundreds of people began coming to the summer retreat.

In 2010 we moved to the beautiful Governor’s Academy to accommodate our growing group, and once again found an extraordinary place and a warm welcome.
 

The Summer Retreat is something very special, very unusual.  The teachings of Tibetan Buddhism are unique in the world.  For one thing, they explain why we should be moral.  We have all grown up with “do unto others” as a spiritual and cultural expression of how we should behave, but in truth we have only a tenuous connection to it.  We practice it occasionally, mostly when it’s easy, and expect to rely on our own inherent goodness to keep it up, but our instincts, frankly, are not to be relied on.  We fail again and again. The truth is that as astute, educated, modern people we don’t see what’s in it for us.

To have it elegantly and clearly explained why we should do good, and what’s really in it for us when we help others, is a gift like no other.  It restores us to our own good intelligence and sophistication, and shows us – perhaps for the first time – how to act of our own volition and not out of some abstract notion of “what is right”.  “What is right” is too general to be effective – too easily mucked with by the sliding scale of our self-interest.  Buddhism says morality doesn’t refer to what is right: it refers to not harming anything.  Now that’s doable.  That’s concrete.  We can start doing that immediately.

People who come to the retreat stop drinking, return to their marriages, apologize to parents, gain patience with children, renew friendships, become good listeners and more confident people, giving and affectionate.  

Ghandi said that if there is no harm in your heart, there can be no harm in your vicinity.  All those who have spent one week out of the year at the retreat have seen his vision come true.

* * *
It has been my commitment every year to bring everone to the retreat, even if they can’t afford it at all.  For this reason I have kept the cost low.  I price every retreat to the bone.  As the numbers are growing I am deeply concerned that many will be excluded if I have to raise the price.

I simply will not do it. I am searching for sponsors to help fund this retreat or even to underwrite it.
 
I am not of the philosophy that “If you don’t charge a lot for something people won’t value it.”  A few people might think so when they arrive, but they won’t think so by the time they leave.

We want all classes, races and traditions at this retreat, including the agnostic and the atheist, the scholar and the biker, the aristocrat and the underdog.  We must not settle for simply co-existing and coping with each other, but we must understand that we can end our mutual suffering entirely, possesing the tools to make peace, and the means to become truly happy.

To participate in sponsoring this event, please get in touch.