Dear Friends,
Our last sangha home was a leased space on Forest Street on the edge of downtown Bellingham. We moved there from a rented room at the Masonic Lodge a block or so away in 2007. We had a wonderful procession in September of that year to move our altar, a Buddha and a few bells to have our first service in the relatively finished downstairs area of our new Red Cedar Dharma Hall. The upstairs was a blank canvas - a burned out shell of what had once been a church social hall. The next 6 months would find us remodeling that space completely: adding floors, lights, heat, walls. We created a beautiful space for practice. It was a miracle.
Procession to Red Cedar Dharma Hall on Forest Street, November 2007 
The Zendo at Red Cedar Dharma Hall on Forest Street, 2009
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We all remember what was happening in early 2020. As everything was starting to shut down for Covid and the future looked very uncertain our landlord at Forest Street was insisting on a significant rent increase. We loved our place. It was our home. Thousands of hours of meditation had happened there in 13 years. Many retreats and cermonies. Jukai and ordinations. I was installed at Guiding Teacher of the sangha there in 2017.
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Sangha Procession leaving Forest Street, September 2020
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Like so many groups we continued all online through the magic of Zoom. This even freed me up to follow my heart to California for 6 months at the start of 2021 and remain fully engaged in sangha life.
And sometime in early 2021 an idea was born: rather than finding another leased home in Bellingham might it be possible to raise enough money to purchase our own place? A fundraising campaign was born. We called it "Our Journey Home."
A lot of hard work by so many in the sangha and so many generous donors later and we had another miracle on our hands: what we hoped was enough money to make a down payment on a building we could make our new home. The "Zoom Boom" real estate market in town at that time created even more challenge. I remember thinking to myself: "it's amazing we raised this much money, and it's amazing that it might not be enough!" Luckily it was. We purchased our building at 2509 Cedarwood Ave in August 2022. It wasn't until well into the purchase process that we realized how oddly perfect at new home for Red Cedar Zen Community on Cedarwood Avenue was!
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Our Journey Home has led us to a home but our 1980 office building needed a remodel to become a Zen Temple. The scope of that work gradually dawned on us. At first we wondered if we could simply pull out of all of the little offices and paint. But the geography of the building just wasn't quite right. And so the major remodel we've all been watching and helping with was launched in earnest in November 2024.
Our first work party in the zendo-to-be, January 2025
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Sansui-ji Exterior, May 30th, 2025
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But now, at last, the real miracle of Our Journey Home is coming to its conclusion. There's a good bit of work to finish up the remodel, but we expect to be ready to come home to Sansui-ji, Mountains and Waters Temple, with our first weekly zazen meeting there on Wednesday July 2nd.
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Words can't quite express how much I'm looking forward to practicing together at Sansui-ji,
Nomon Tim
p.s. at first our current weekly practice will simply move from Thursdays 7pm-9pm to Wednesdays 6:30pm-8:30pm. In the Fall look for our weekly Sunday program and many other new opportunities to practice to follow. We'll keep the website updated with the latest news!
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