Our Programs

• Green Appalachia is an environmental initiative which consists of: 

Bald Eagle Biofuels, an enterprise for converting blue collar to green collar jobs in Bald Eagle Valley, by retrofitting home heating systems from conventional heating oil to biofuel.  Currently in planning, we expect to produce our own biofuels, one source being switch grass grown locally, including at Ahimsa Village.

Earth Education, a program in environmental education and human interrelationships offered to low-income children in the region.

This is conducted in partnership with Ahimsa Village, an organic farming community in the Bald Eagle Valley, near Julian, PA.  Ahimsa’s contact people are Kelle Kersten and Bob Flatley. The program, expanded to a year-round project from an existing summer program, will serve 15 children between the ages of 5 and 11 and young people 12 to 18 years, and will employ 3 local economically disadvantaged adults as staff and mentors.

It will provide children with opportunities for contemplative intimacy with the natural world, and experiences in moving through the seasons – for example, maple sugaring in the spring, camping in the summer, harvesting a garden in the fall.

Highly experiential, it will offer also art, science, storytelling, construction projects, wilderness survival skills, and strategies for resisting consumerism, as well as skills in Non-Violent Communication and conflict resolution.

No Harm Farm, a community-sustained agriculture (CSA) initiative in partnership with Ahimsa Village that will provide healthy, organic food to local subscribers while donating surplus vegetables and fruit to homeless shelters, group homes, and women’s shelters, and teaching low-income people in the area how to grow their own organic food cheaply and efficiently.

No Harm Farm eventually will employ several low-income people as staff members and laborers, and may receive help – particularly in the summer months – from Zen Peacemakers interns, Montague Farm Zendo volunteers, and Harvard Divinity School students engaged in field education placements.

Gardens-to-Gro will deliver information and components for growing raised-bed gardens to impoverished and homebound people as a rural equivalent to community gardens. This program will improve nutrition and health of participants and provide an available secure supply of free food.

Green Appalachian Eco-Tours, Inc., a for-profit business that will offer day hikes, bicycle tours, and kayaking in a region that includes trails through beautiful old-growth forests; a nearly 80-mile scenic bicycle trail acclaimed as one of the best in the United States; and the waterways of Pine Creek and the Susquehanna River.

The packaged outings, led by trained guides, will offer engagement with the natural world in a context that – while generally not promoted as explicitly “Buddhist” – will emphasize qualities of aware presence, watchful silence, and recognition of the oneness of life, while also providing education about wildlife, habitat, and ecological interrelationships.

• Many Paths, One Heart, a multi-faith initiative, consists of partnerships with area churches and synagogues serving those in need. We are a member of State College Area Interfaith Mission and have board representation along with Christian and Jewish congregations. Interfaith Mission is a member of Centre County United Way.

Interfaith Mission conducts a furniture and appliance recycling program, and provides emergency basic needs for low-income residents in: rental, security deposits, and mortgage assistance to the homeless or those facing eviction; utilities or heating payment to those facing termination of services; emergency medical, dental, and prescription needs; gas vouchers and bus tickets for transportation; and one-night motel stays for the homeless and transients. Interfaith Mission also provides short-term, low-interest loans to low-income applicants who are unable to obtain emergency small loans through more conventional avenues.

• Floating Lotus Zendo is affiliated with the Zen Peacemakers Sangha and is providing zazen and basic Zen instruction. It consists of:

Floating Lotus, a zendo without fixed physical location, currently moving weekly between Ahimsa Village, State College Yoga Studio, and sangha homes.

Steve Kanji Ruhl provides the sangha members of Floating Lotus with private interviews and basic dharma talks.  Rosalind Jiko Kisan McIntosh gives dharma talks, private interviews, serves as tenzo and ino, and performs ministerial activities as needed.

Pastoral care and counseling, offered to sangha members by Kanji, who received appropriate training in his ministry studies at Harvard Divinity School. Kanji serves as a first point of contact for sangha members who request basic counseling regarding issues in their personal lives and relationships; for those challenged by more deeply rooted psychological problems, he will offer referrals to a qualified therapist in State College, PA. Kanji also will offer home visits, and is available for hospital, prison, or hospice visits.

Wedding ceremonies, birth celebrations, and funerals for sangha members and their families, conducted by Kanji.

• Speak Your Peace is a program of training and workshops in communication skills vital for growing sustainable communitie. These include meeting all needs in situations of conflict using Non-Violent Communication, speaking and listening from the heart in Council Circle, and questioning stressful patterns of thought as influenced by Byron Katie’s Loving What Is. Sunny Rehler coordinates this program.