Rutland Shambhala Meditation Group

The sunlight that sat on the meditation cushions gave way to rain that drummed the roof, as nearly two dozen members of this town’s Shambhala Buddhist sangha gathered for what was anything but their usual Tuesday night teaching. “Welcome everyone,” practitioner and psychotherapist Roger Guest said through thunder and lightning, “to this rather auspicious occasion — the final session in this building.” Buddhists work to embrace the sometimes hard truth that everything is impermanent. So how do they practice this when one of southern Vermont’s most established centers, the Manchester Shambhala Meditation Group, is relinquishing its lease? Martha Schoenemann rewinds back three decades to the days when she and her husband, Bob, joined the then unnamed dharma study that bounced from living room to living room in a host of Mettawee River valley towns. The Vermonters — soon to be joined by peers from Massachusetts and New York — drove up to an hour to discover the teachings of Chögyam Trungpa, who fled the 1959 Chinese Communist takeover of his homeland of Tibet before flying to the Northeast Kingdom 11 years later to set up the first Tibetan Buddhist meditation center in the United States. By 2003, the group had grown to the point it formally affiliated with Shambhala International — a 250-sangha network now led by Chögyam Trungpa’s son, Sakyong Mipham — and began leasing space in a restored barn a stone’s throw from Manchester’s Northshire Bookstore. Vermont reports the country’s lowest church attendance — 23 percent of residents worship regularly, according to Gallup pollsters, compared with 42 percent nationwide. But while the state’s five largest religions (in order, Roman Catholic, United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Episcopal and American Baptist) all face declining membership, its number of Buddhists is increasing. Some estimates show the state has more Buddhists per capita than any other. One out of 20 Vermonters who claim a spiritual affiliation belong to an Asian tradition, according to the North American Religion Atlas. Members of the Manchester group still travel long distances, be it the veterinarian from Bennington or the lawyer from Rutland. But with increasingly busy lives, students often struggle to find time to practice, let alone finance and maintain their own meeting space. And so the group is returning to its roots, letting go of the only such dedicated facility in Bennington and Rutland counties at the end of the week. “We may be somewhat groundless, but the blessings of all of the teachers we have worked with are alive and well,” Guest told past and present members at a farewell gathering Tuesday. “We are not being abandoned or defeated or losing heart. We are moving — taking another step.” Guest will continue to offer public classes on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month at 7 p.m. at the RK Miles building at 618 Depot St. in Manchester. Maggie Bernstein, a retired psychologist and original group member, will teach on the first and third Thursdays of the month at 7:30 p.m. at the Left Bank at 5 Bank St. in North Bennington. Bernstein doesn’t seem too bothered by the loss of the building. “The real way to learn,” she said, “is with our heart