December marked the end of our 2025 programme, and the end of the Men’s DharmaLife Course, who have been much missed since they left. Fortunately for us, Jnanaruchi – who was leading the course – will be returning to Adhisthana in April to take up a long-term position in the Management Team. To raise funds for a new set of mats and cushions, the Monday class held a ‘festive soirée’, which included harmony singing, a dramatic reading of Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’, and a hilarious spoof of a guided meditation from Bodhiketu.
As Christmas approached, most of the community left Adhisthana to visit family and friends (or go on solitary) while a team from the London Buddhist Centre arrived for their annual Winter Retreat takeover. Around 160 relative newcomers attended over the course of two weeks, and the activities concluded with a New Year’s Eve ritual before their departure on New Year’s Day. The Operations Team then had a couple of days to restore the retreat centre to its usual self, before the Communities held their biannual At Home Days.
We bade a sad goodbye to Prakashamitra, who decided to step down as Operations Manager and leave Adhisthana exactly five years after he first arrived. We will miss his diligence, energy and sense of humour, and are wishing him well in this next stage of his journey. We also happily welcomed Jnanagarbha, the International Order Convenor, into the Men’s Community, just in time for At Home Days. For four days, the Residential Communities had the site to themselves, and enjoyed a two day retreat, a single-sex day, and a round of “Dana Marbles”, where various charitable causes are put forward by members of the community and then selected to receive donations through a process of marbles being dropped into bowls.
In January we saw thick snow fall around Adhisthana, causing travel disruption for the European Chairs Assembly (ECA) meeting and the Tree Planting Retreat. Fortunately most of the chairs made it in the end, and the weather eased off enough for the tree planters to get plenty of work done on the grounds, endowing us with around 500 new trees that will help to support the local ecosystem and provide cover for the Sunrise Hut. One evening during the ECA meeting, the five members of the somewhat inaptly named ‘Adhisthana Quartet’ gave a harmonious performance of songs to the chairs, tree planters and community members, before teaching the audience a simple song for us all to sing together. We then heard a beautiful meditative improvisation from Prajnaghosha on the autoharp, whose sound seemed to float and dance about the space.
Our newest community member Jnanagarbha, in his excitement at having been “given a retreat centre to play with”, decided to host a wassail at the orchard. Members of the Communities and the Local Sangha gathered to recite the Ratana Sutta, sing wassailing songs, pour cider over the trees, eat flapjack and drink a delicious alcohol-free concoction of Jnanagarbha’s making. The trees weren’t upholding the Fifth Precept that evening, but we were. Let us hope that we pleased the local spirits, and that the apple crop of 2026 is a good one!
Finally, we received a very generous donation of a beautiful double vajra for the shrine room. Thank you, Annette!
