Not Two: the Appamada Story

Peg Syverson, Flint Sparks, and the Appamada Sangha

This book is about the history, evolution, and principles of Appamada, a contemporary Zen center in Austin, Texas, with affiliated sanghas in England, Madison, Minnesota, and online. It is also intended as a guide and operating resource for our sangha and other sanghas. It can provide a foundation that orients and shapes the ongoing evolution of sangha, now and into the future.

Our Zen practice at Appamada is what we refer to as “relational Zen,” and is based on the meaning of Appamada, the Buddha’s last word, which properly translates as “mindful, energetic care.” In other words, in accord with the history of Chan/Zen Buddhism, we believe we wake up and grow up together, in meeting, in relating, in genuine encounter, and in mutual care.

In these pages, we have included not only the narrative history of Appamada and its unique organizational architecture, but the reflections and contributions of sangha members, in accord with our understanding of the collaborative co-creation of Appamada’s evolution and story.

A note about the format: You’ll find the main narrative text on the left hand page, for the most part, and sangha reflections, photos and other images, quotes, poetry, maps and diagrams on the righthand page. If you are primarily interested in the unfolding story of Appamada, you might read just the left-hand page. But we believe the contributions of the sangha and others illuminate and enrich this story immensely.

Perhaps you are a new sangha member or a new Board member, and you would like to understand this center better, or to have a sense of its background. Perhaps you are the leader of a small Zen group, looking for ways to foster its development. Perhaps you are part of a larger Buddhist center, and looking for fresh ideas or resources. Or perhaps you are an editor or publisher of Buddhist content interested in an entirely new approach for organizing and developing Buddhist sanghas. Perhaps you are a long-time Appamada sangha member who is interested in filling in some gaps in your knowledge about the sangha. And, possibly, you are interested more generally in organizations and their development and evolution, and looking for fresh and interesting models. If so, this book is intended for you.

The overarching narrative (on the left-hand page) is authored by the senior teachers, Peg Syverson and Flint Sparks, who have had the most experience with Appamada from the very beginning, and who are the principal architects of its evolution and structure. We are so fortunate to have come together in a unique teaching partnership with complementary skills, capacities, and experience. However, the evolution of Appamada is impossible to imagine without the dedicated practice, work, collaboration, ideas, and implementation of sangha members who have helped Appamada thrive and grow, who have offered their time, effort, and financial support so generously. We have practiced deeply together, celebrated together, grieved together, played together, laughed together, inquired together, and studied together for nearly 15 years as Appamada, over 28 years since the first tiny band of earnest meditators began sitting together at Live Oak Unitarian Church, and in Flint’s psychotherapy office.

Here is where we bare our souls and share that journey, the way-seeking mind not of a solitary practitioner, but of a whole sangha of contemporary householder practitioners, immersed in everyday lives of family, work, parents, children, neighbors and friends, technology, traffic, and civic responsibilities. This is our great joy.