Greetings friends,
About two weeks ago, Khenpo, who’s organization is renting the house that we are renting a room from, informed me that by October or November he will be leaving Colorado. He informed me that if we wanted to rent in full with the owner, Venerable Rakshi, we could get in direct contact with her.
This was quite a surprise, I was not expecting to have to think about finding a new place only a little more then a month after moving to Colorado. At this point I realized there are two options, either I need to find another place to live by October, or… PERHAPS if things go right, with help from the devas and supporters we can rent the whole house, Antakara can move in, and we could truly have a full and true Maggasekha Vihara.
Of course renting a whole house was not in the plans this early, not for a year or two. I have looked at house renting prices in Denver before, hence why I set the current rental dana goal to $3000 a month. Maggasekha is still a small community and dana is limited, still though my intuition was telling me this could be an important opportunity and to gather all the info about renting this home in full before I give up and look for another room to rent.
So I spoke to Ven Rakshi, who is a Tibetan Bhikkhuni currently residing in New Zealand because that’s where her main teachers are. We had a good long talk during which I learned a lot of information that I will pass on here. Ven. Rakshi lived in Denver before ordaining. The house we are currently renting was the first house she bought as a lay woman. She has no plans to sell the house and indeed she is thinking to eventually return back to the states and reside in the house as she gets older, but not anytime soon.
She currently rents out the house to cover the mortgage and maintenance of the home. For those who may be confused, Tibetan monastics have different rules and expectations about money. Indeed many western Tibetan monastics are expected to still work to support themselves and even tithe some back to Tibetan organizations.
She told me about how she has a fund set aside for maintenance of the house and that before Khenpo started renting last December she was renting out to a big family who did a lot of damage to the house and things like the septic and piping had to be recently replaced. This house is from the 1950s or 60s I’d guess, its a good well made house with no major issues I can surmise, and some new systems due to previous renter damage. Ven Rakshi has a vested interest in keeping the house up, so I suspect she would be a good landlord.
She also has an obvious wish for a monastic organization to continue renting the house, as she does not know what she may get if she has to rent out to the secular society. She hopes that Maggasekha can rent the house. I told her that we are a small organization and most likely we would not be able to , but I would bring it forth to the board and then the community.
Ven Rakshi asked if she could know sooner rather then later, as she would like to have at least two months to go through the marketing process to try and attract new renters. I told her that we should be able to give her a solid answer either way by the first week in August, which will give her the two months to prepare to find the new renter if we could not, during which time I would be looking for a new room to rent.
Last night I brought this information to the board, and while some concerns were expressed for us to be aware of, like overextending and worries about a bad economy suddenly hurting dana and therefore our ability to rent (all very valid concerns) , generally the consensus was to bring this forth to the community. I felt this is just too good an opportunity to not at least try and see if we take hold of.
So lets get down to details. The rent for the home is $2000 a month. Khenpo’s organization pays the rent, and we are sub-renting the room and use of the house for myself for $900 a month. Total for utilities ( electric, gas, water, garbage, internet) seems to be around $2-500 dollars a month depending on time of year ( gas more expensive in winter, etc) and usage. That brings the total rent + utilities to be around $2200-2500 a month.
For context, the minimum house rental prices in Denver in the worse locations start at about 2500, not including utilities of course. Englewood, where this house is located, is considered a very good location, the neighborhood is nice and safe. The house is a corner lot and as seen in the picture above has indoor room for 10-15 people to come for meditation events. The backyard is big enough to hold events of 20-30 people, like ordinations, Vesaks, Kathina etc, with plenty of road space for parking.
Adding up all the pros of this house plus having a monastic landlord, renting this place as a full and true Maggasekha Vihara would be an absolute steal and no-brainer. Of course, that would be if the Maggasekha community could afford the support to rent the home.
Now for Maggasekha Dana accounting. the Maggasekha community currently generously donates around $1200-1300 of steady monthly dana towards the rental fund. This is not counting general donations that are of course random and sporadic.
That would mean that we would need at least $1000 more a month to cover the rent and utilities. So as of today I’m putting out a call to action, and Maggasekha is starting a funds drive to see if we can garner enough support to rent out this house as a true full Maggasekha Vihara.
It is with all of your generosity, energy, and support that we have gotten this far. I know there are some of you who a very keen on wanting the vision of Maggasekha to succeed and donate much already. I’d ask that those people be very careful and not over donate.
As stated above the last thing we would need is for a bad economy to cause the floor suddenly drop out on us because people cannot afford to provide dana anymore. Besides funds we obviously need people willing to spread the word and get the message out to anyone who would like to support a small but growing Buddhist organization. So there are more ways to help then money.
This is a very solid plan and vision, a true Maggasekha Vihara, cheaper and years before planned. If we can do it, what an opportunity for a home to grow the vision in, including Antakara moving in with me as a lay person with intent to ordain.
A word about Antakara, formerly Anthony and current board treasurer who was introduced to the community via video recently. For over a year now Antakara has advoctated his position and desire to support Maggasekha as a lay person until he can ordain. He has offered even since last year to pay half the rent and work as a lay person while living with me until the support is there for him to ordain.
This is not an idea I’ve been a fan of, as I’ve told him a number of times, because frankly I do not want antakara to be locked in as a lay person until some nebulous future where finally we have enough support for him to ordain. He is aware of this concern but persistent, telling me that he would be a lay person waiting anyways, living by himself in Colorado and giving rent to a landlord instead of towards growing Maggasekha.
I have finally relented but still have concerns. I told him that if the community was able to cover the rent to the point where whatever Antakara covered as a lay person could conceivably be covered within a year by new donations, then I’d be ok with the arrangement. Antakara reminds me too much of myself, my dedication and willingness to go above and beyond for Bhavana is matched with Antakara’s willingness to do the same for Maggasekha. However as his future preceptor and monastic father I have to look out for him like I was not looked after and supported.
The ideal would obviously be the rent being fully covered so that Antakara could move in and I could move him towards ordination, spending time as an Anagarika, then a year as a samanera before full ordination. I have no expectations that this will happen, but I cannot discount trusting in kamma, and the generosity of people.
My hard limit for Antakara is about 500 a month. If the community is able to cover enough for the vihara that antakara supports with $500 a month, i’m reasonably confident that within a year that would be covered and I would move him forth as a samanera.
So now is the call to action, the start of the drive. We have about a month and a half to see if it will be feasible to rent this wonderful house as a full and true Maggasekha Vihara. My intuition tells me this is possible, and I believe the devas are helping, i’ve had some interesting signs of late. However there is no guarantees and it will be up to all of us who support the vision of Maggasekha for the benefit of many people to do our best in growing that vision.
If by the beginning of August its pretty clear we won’t be able to do so, then the focus will shift to finding a room to rent somewhere for about the same price we pay now, 1k a month, and progress will continue as it has been.
If however the Maggasekha community is able to pull this off, then what an amazing feat that would be, and an early start to a small city center for the monastic and lay community of Maggasekha to grow.
https://maggasekha.org/rental-support/
