Dear Westchester Buddhist Community,
We hope you are all healthy and enduring this period of quarantine as best as can be expected. We wanted to inform you of some changes to the Westchester Buddhist Center (WBC).
The founders and senior teachers of WBC, John Baker, Derek and Jane Kolleeny, together with Genie Bobker, who joined our team as a senior teacher when we moved locations from Bedford to Irvington, NY, have mutually agreed to dissolve the WBC organization and go our separate ways due to differences in approaches to curriculum, presentation style and communication. This is a mutual decision and we are moving forward amicably in all ways.
It has been a long and fruitful time together! Our first gathering occurred at the Bedford Post Inn’s yoga loft through the generosity of Richard Gere in February of 2009. Over time we moved our center of operations to Irvington, NY, for which we are grateful to Eileen Fisher for the use of her space on Sundays. Additionally, we are grateful to Matt Ludmer for the use of the Aligned Center on Tuesday nights; and to The Center for Health and Healing in Mt. Kisco for its use on Wednesday nights; both for many years. Over these last 11 years we have gathered in these various locations, we have seen many of you come and some of you go, we have hosted many interesting teachers, we have celebrated life together and we are extremely grateful for every minute of it.
While our organizations will change administratively, we will continue to spread the dharma as we have in the past into the future. Derek, Jane and Genie will form a new organization as will John, providing communities of practice and study that seek to enrich the world in our various ways. Those of you who have participated in activities of WBC will be invited to continue in the way that you see fit, with either or both of the two separate organizations, as both remain vehicles for enriching our appreciation and understanding of the teaching of meditation, Buddhism and especially teachings related to Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.
We thank you for being a part of our community. It has been a genuine pleasure and honor to know all of you and we look forward to continuing those relationships.As there is so much uncertainty right now about gathering together in person, we will be in touch over the next few months about plans for the fall and any other relevant details. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to discuss this further.
Yours in the dharma,
John, Derek, Gene and Jane