Senior Dharma teacher Larry Yang writes:

‘We are just finishing the 20th anniversary retreat for People of Color at Spirit Rock. It was a full house with 94 practitioners taught by Gina Sharpe, Bhante Buddharakkhita, Konda Mason, and myself, with Rolf Gates as movement teacher and Tere Abdala and Gullu Singh as teachers-in-training. What is especially auspicious is that for the afternoon of July 1st, we merged a daylong retreat also for Communities of Color taught by Amana Johnson in the CMC Great Hall. We practiced together as the largest gathering (about 180) of Dharma practitioners of color in the history of contemporary Western Dharma. During the afternoon we experienced the Five Elements through the Four Meditation Postures and the Four Foundations. The theme of the day for both the residential and daylong retreats was Collective and Shared Joy. It was quite phenomenal, and six people from the original 1999 POC retreat were in attendance. We are attaching one of the photographs of the event. 

With much gratitude to all the aspects of our Spirit Rock community which worked together to make this not just possible, but imminently successful’,
Larry