Meditation shack, solitude shed (sutra)

Householder can dream of futuristic designs harnessing cosmic energy, but a treehouse is easier

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Caution: DIY shacks may lead to mixed results

Sometimes, we just need a little time alone. This time of year can get stressful due to the political climate, holiday plans, visitors, work, and travel to visit others, so when we can get a bit of peace and quiet, it goes a long way.

If we’re ready to build our don't bother me sanctuary, Costco has it covered with its surprisingly chic line of "solitude sheds."

Palisade Storage Shed Palisade Storage Shed © amazon.com $2454.00

For $2,454, I got a VW van, a mattress, and a bucket. I love it and so does Rocky!

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Can I add a full bathroom?

What are solitude sheds? They’re essentially outfitted annexes to a home. The Studio Shed line takes what one gets from a normal storage shed up a notch in comfort.

Every model includes installation, shipping, a finished interior with drywall and insulation and, perhaps most impressive, a full electrical and lighting package! It can all be customized, everything about it, online -- from the flooring to the siding color.

Portable do-it-yourself model on wheels

All these extra elements take the shed from a simple shack or backyard storage space to an area a person actually wants to chill in. More:

• Costco is selling solitude shed that comes with drywall, electricity, and more!
• studio-shed.com/home-office-spaces

Building a backyard studio from Costco

What is there to do in a shed?

SUTRA: Wisdom

Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans), Paññā Sutta (AN 8.2) edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

What the Buddha taught still leads to awakening

“Meditators, there are eight causes and conditions that lead to gaining wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life when it has not yet been gained and furthermore to its increase, maturation, and consummation (fulfillment) by development after it has been gained. What are the eight?

I can do this, too!

(1) “Here, a meditator lives depending on the Teacher or on a certain monastic in the position of a teacher, toward whom one has set up a keen sense of moral shame and moral dread, affection and reverence. This is the first cause and condition that leads to gaining wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life when it has not yet been gained and furthermore to its increase, maturation, and consummation by development after it has been gained.

(2) “As one is living dependent on the Teacher or on a certain monastic in the position of a teacher, toward whom one has set up a keen sense of moral shame and moral dread, affection and reverence, one approaches that teacher from time to time and inquires: ‘How is this, venerable? What is the meaning of that?’ That venerable one then discloses what has not been disclosed, clears up what is obscure, and dispels perplexity about numerous perplexing points. This is the second cause and condition….

Solitude is of two kinds, physical and mental

(3) “Having heard that Teaching (Dhamma), one resorts to two kinds of withdrawal -- withdrawal of the body and withdrawal of the mind. This is the third cause and condition that leads to gaining the wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life….

(4) “One is virtuous; one dwells restrained by the [precepts or Pātimokkha], possessed of good conduct and resort, seeing danger in the smallest faults. Having undertaken the training rules, one trains in them. This is the fourth cause and condition that leads to gaining wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life….

(5) “One has learned much, remembers what one has learned, and accumulates what one has learned. Those teachings that are good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, with the right meaning and phrasing, which proclaim the perfectly complete and pure spiritual life — such teachings as these one has learned much of, retained in mind, recited verbally, mentally investigated, and penetrated well by view. This is the fifth cause and condition that leads to gaining wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life….

What a mystery it is to "go within"

(6) “One has aroused energy for abandoning unwholesome qualities and acquiring wholesome qualities; one is strong, firm in exertion, not casting off the duty of cultivating wholesome qualities. This is the sixth cause and condition that leads to gaining wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life….

(7) “In the midst of the spiritual community (Saṅgha), one does not engage in rambling and pointless talk. Either one speaks on the Dhamma, or one requests someone else to do so, or one adopts noble silence. This is the seventh cause and condition that leads to gaining the wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life….

(8) “One dwells contemplating arising and vanishing in the Five Aggregates clung to as self:

1. ‘Such is form, such its origin, such its passing away;
2. such is feeling…
3. such is perception…
4. such are volitional activities (mental formations)…
5. such is consciousness, such its origin, such its passing away.’

“This is the eighth cause and condition that leads to gaining wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life when it has not yet been gained and to its increase, maturation, and fulfillment by development after it has been gained.

Knowing and seeing

(1) “One's fellows esteem one [for these eight qualities and say]... This [meditator] surely knows and sees.’ This quality leads to affection, respect, esteem, accord, and unity....

(8) “‘This [meditator] dwells contemplating the arising and vanishing of the Five Aggregates clung to as self…. This [meditator] surely knows and sees.’ This quality, too, leads to affection, respect, esteem, accord, and unity.

“These, meditators, are the eight causes and conditions that lead to gaining wisdom fundamental to the spiritual life when it has not yet been gained and to its increase, maturation, and consummation by development after it has been gained.”

• Source: Paññā Sutta (unabbreviated, AN 8.2, suttacentral.net)

Building backyard Studio Shed

(Calirado Kid) With home prices going absolutely bonkers in California, we decided to install a Studio Shed from Costco in the backyard. This decision saves thousands of dollars by not going with a traditional home remodel. We landed on the 10x12 foot Pagoda Signature Series Shed because we really loved the design but also wanted to reduce the amount of light coming in, hence the single door. This gives greater control of the lighting when we start doing more inside. The Studio Shed will act as an office and production room. We added several options onto the standard build, including electrical and lighting, split system for heating and A/C, and additional power outlets. We'll be setting up the Studio Shed for many uses to make it a fully functional space. People ask about the total cost of the project, which depends on who installs it. Questions? Feel free to message via IG or email at thecaliradokid@gmail.com. #studioshed #backyardoffice #costco

• Studio Shed Pagoda Model with full Costco installation: $29,038 in July 2021
• Add-ons (may differ with local contractors): Interior electrical install including canned LED lighting, outlets, and exterior lights: $1,800. Electrical to main breaker, including trenching: $1,575. Cat 6 run and termination: $500. Wooden floor frame (insulated): $1,750
• Be sure to follow me on Instagram: instagram.com/caliradokid...
• Check out Studio-Shed's amazing products: studio-shed.com

• Janae McKenzie, Good Housekeeping (via MSN), 11/13/24; Bhikkhu Bodhi (trans.), Panna Sutta (AN 8.2), suttacentral.net; edited and abbreviated by Dhr. Seven (ed.), Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly

FREE living in Santa Monica, Los Angeles

City streets are one thing, the beach another. Walk toward Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica Bay

WTF happened to Santa Monica, California?!

(Graham Stephan) Aug. 14, 2024: Let's talk about what is happening throughout the City of Santa Monica and larger Los Angeles in general. This is California? These are the problems the cities are facing and my thoughts on the entire situation. Enjoy it or shut the front door. Please add me on Instagram (GPStephan). Watch "German in Venice" video: WTF Happened to Santa Monica, California...

The collapse of Los Angeles

Los Angeles collapsed! Uncovering America's urban disaster 🇺🇸

(Adventure Elliot) Aug. 15, 2024: LOS ANGELES, California is one of the world's wealthiest places yet one of the poorest at the same time. Let's go downtown (DTLA) to meet up with Colby (AviatorUSA.com), a local LA business owner, to get the scoop on what's going on. Graham Stephan and Peter Santenello Los Angeles.

Homeless freeway mansions of Los Angeles

The solution to homelessness could be easy and inexpensive rather than a bureaucratic mess.

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Not all 'homeless' are alike on the streets of LA

What will become of the people in Los Angeles who are priced out of the housing market and oftentimes strung out on drugs? Even if they are detoxed and recover from addiction, what does the city and county plan to do with the billions devoted to solving the system problem? New stories like this only highlight what every Angeleno knows is going on under every freeway overpass and most sidewalks in plain sight.

Riverside properties along the 110 Freeway in Highland Park are a nuisance to nearly no one.

There may be tiny homes nearby, but they are run like a prison and people do not want that.

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  If only the inside were clean

  Homeless families say they have "no choice" but to take up space next to dangerous freeways because they can't find housing or jobs.
• Some of the unhoused have taken creative measures to bring creature comforts to their tiny shanty homes.
• The freeway families say they "look out for one other" and have built their own tiny community.
• Caesar Duarte didn't flinch as an Amazon truck barreled down the busy 110 Freeway in Los Angeles, missing his makeshift home by just a few feet.

I want to go off grid and live in peace

The only thing that stood between Duarte's outdoor kitchen and speeding vehicles was a three-foot retaining wall and metal fencing. 

The 44-year-old mechanic and house painter said he has learned to deal with the danger and noise since he erected his homestead by the freeway about four years ago.

With all new materials, a home like this might only cost $40K to build and place on a foundation

Is there any hope for a future of modular homes with A/C and protection from rain and sun?

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Could there be a double wide mansion on wheels?

"It doesn't bother me, and also I have no choice," Duarte told DailyMail.com. "Everything is too expensive. Rent is too expensive, and right now it's hard to find jobs.

"We are struggling like everyone here. We don't have any problems with anyone, and we don't make problems with anyone. The neighbors, we take care of one another."

Is there a homeless crime problem? Yes

• More + PHOTOS: Inside LA's ramshackle city built on the side of a busy freeway
• ‘I’m a builder by day then go home to my squat’
• A better tiny home: Abodu Quiz

What's the tiniest "home" possible? LA's plan for "tiny tent" housing

With more than $100 million to spend, Mayor Karen Bass and LA County should be able to afford at least 800 "tiny tents," according to Fishbone and Crab in the Morning on 95.5 FM (j/k).

If they don't like their tiny tents, we have ways to convince or house them in our jails - LAPD

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• Daily Mail (mailonline.co.uk) via MSN, 4/25/24; Crystal Q., CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly LIVE from Highland Park, along the Arroyo Mojado (LA River tributary)

How to build easy, inexpensive house

We'll move to the high desert and brave the heat, winds, sun, floods, drought, and rodents.

Having secured the land for cheap, trekking into the wilderness to find a rural spot, it is time to build a structure on the real estate. Of course, what could be better than a yurt if living in the cold Stans? A vegan yurt, no wool, could really be something if it remained dry and kept snakes and rodents out. But someone or something might cut a hole to get in. Something better than cob and haybales is needed. What could be better than modular building blocks? It's a Lego house that's easy to expand, sturdy, solid, permanent, earthquake proof. What if all the blocks come tumbling down in a 9.0 apocalyptic tremor? There's a solution for that:

A kuti [\coo-tee\] is a "meditation hut," and that's what's needed more than a place to stretch or sleep. A quiet place, a place apart, a room with a view...a hearth with a chimney stack and solar panels for a fan. This structure is actually portable if one breaks it down and sets it up somewhere else. But it will stay in place, even in the wind, and be a forever home, a meditation lodge with many happy visitors.

• TikTok solves everything; Team Tiny House (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Into the forest: Seclusion Sutra (SN 9.1)

Dhr. Seven (trans.), Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Viveka Sutta, Wisdom Quarterly

What is the ideal place to meditate? The Buddha frequently repeats some of his suggestions. Would it be a thatched hut in the jungle, a tent of robes in the desert, a mound of kusa grass next to a river?

• Tiny house? Abodu Quiz (prefabricated small footprint)

The Seclusion Sutra

Viveka Sutta, (SN 9.1) translated by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

"Oh, foolish mortals! ever blind to fate; too soon dejected, too soon elate" (Alexander Pope).

Thus have I heard. On one occasion a certain wandering ascetic was dwelling among the Kosalans in a forest.

At that time, having gone to spend the day in seclusion, he was beset by unskillful thoughts, clinging to reminisces about the life of a layperson.

Then the woodland fairy (devata) inhabiting that forest, out of sympathy for the meditator, wishing him success, wishing to return him to his senses, approached and addressed him in verse:

"Wishing for seclusion one enters the forest

Yet the mind (heart) keeps running back.

Being a person, subdue the desire for people.

Then be at ease, content, dispassionate.

Dispel discontent with keen mindfulness.

Wisely reflect on the higher good.

For the mire of the abyss* is difficult to overcome.

Do not be led astray, pulled in by the draw of sensuality.

A bird its feathers coated with dust sheds it

With a shake so that it adheres not.

Just so an ascetic, mindful and full of energy,

Abandons dust that adheres from the world."

Indeed, that meditator, chastened by the glowing spirit, came to his senses with a sense of urgency for the goal.

• *Abyss: not literal (as in Avici or the Downfall of Niraya in general) but figurative in the sense that sensual craving can never be appeased by feeding it, as it is an endless consumer of more and more pleasures, stimuli, and novelty.
• Viveka Sutta (SN 9.1)—Ven. Sujato (trans.) suttacentral.net

Plunging into a forest grove cabin

Oh, you men. Settle down. We can feel you.

In West Virginia we visited Bhante G's Bhavana Society (bhavanasociety.org), a Sri Lankan Theravada Buddhist meditation center in the woods. I was assigned a cozy cabin with a funny stove. It was the warm season, so I could hardly imagine how cold it gets part of the year, snowed in, surviving by chopping wood to feed the hearth. Outside, mushrooms sprouted on the damp ground, and all around were trees and plants and a creek farther down by the old country road. This would do for meditation, but there were still many social distractions. One could hardly be silent as people were in the habit of small talk or getting to know one another. External silence is a great support for internal silence, where it really counts if one wishes to absorb into one's meditation object. The visiting nun leading us, as the abbot was no longer himself post-stroke, gave us instruction capable of producing absorption (jhana). One retreatant constantly slipped into piti and swirled his body on his cushion, blissed out. I would look at him, and rather than let myself become annoyed, I would follow suit. I swirled. And piti arose like magic, just a little, enough to know he was onto something. The woodland glen the center is on seemed ideal for fairy spirits of some description, as in "The Rape of the Lock." But I didn't see them. I couldn't feel them; I wasn't still enough. Females, being more sensitive and attuned to nature, claimed they could.

The Bhāvanā Society, rural West Virginia, not far from DC (bhavanasociety.org)

Housing alternatives, modern options (video)

Akimbo, 8/6/23; Editors, Affordable Housing Options Committee, Wisdom Quarterly

It's economical, good feng shui, lots of light, more barrel than box, what's not to like?

They laughed...until they looked inside

(Akimbo) "Home" is where the heart is or where homme arrives at night to be greeted by some warmth and nourishment, a place to reflect, meditate (cultivate), and rest to be able to greet the world the next day.

Keeping up with the Joneses is really more about appearances than substance. It's a thin house.

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And by treehouse I meant tree house.

What with the prices of ordinary box houses, apartment flats, commune living space, trailer homes, four-wheel campers, vanity vans, and parking spaces at trailer parks, it's time to get creative.

I'm going to build a house made of semi-truck cubes or hob (clay mud mixed with fibrous material), or made of sandbags or bundles of straw/hay covered in cement, red bricks and mortar, a cave with a giant segment of corrugated pipe...

It may not be much, but it's mobile and quiet.

I'll think of something. Real estate will not ruin me. "Property is theft," TSOL quoted someone as saying. It might have been Marx. So I may have to go into the woods and find a tree hollow, a meditation hut, a good treehouse on bamboo stilts. Imagine the possibilities. What about a passenger plane with no engine, a space built into the well-insulated ground, or something that looks like a pile of potatoes?

Housing ideas for creative types

I just need a place to sit -- then sleep -- then sit some more. A good wilderness hut will do.

The view's great, but the steps! It's like my own personal monastery. I can make lots of noise, but the wind is louder: La Noguera, Catalonia, Spain (bbsferrari/iStock/Getty).

Houses are cheap. It's the price of land that makes it expensive. No real estate, no prob.

Now we're talking! Tiny houses built into a nice neighborhood with lots of trees.

Meditation apartments for private practice in a supportive sangha ("spiritual community").

Spain's Buddhist cave meditation community

Beth Upton (bethupton.com), Sanditthika Community on FB; Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Guru Viking, you ask the best questions!

Beth Upton is coming to the end of her brief time in the UK and heading to Spain. She is happy to let everyone know that she will be taking a well-deserved break offline for a personal retreat from August 15th-22nd and will be back online from the 23rd onwards.

Sanditthika Meditation Center | Facebook

As well as looking forward to time offline, she is excited to get to Spain to continue working on the new community home. They are currently fundraising for Sanditthika Meditation Community (Join the community – Beth Upton), and she is delighted to announce that they are already nearly two-thirds of the way to reaching their target of 30,000 euros!

Thanks to all who have already offered generous support to this Dharma project. They will be busy this summer using donations to work on the legal and administrative side of the project, in preparation for their second round of fundraising, such that we can move forward with buying the land as soon as possible.

For those who have not yet done so, please consider making a donation. If unable to offer financial support, then support the cause by spreading the word far and wide.

Guru Viking, ginger interviews (audible.com)

In other news, she wants to let everyone know that she recently recorded a podcast with Guru Viking. It is always a pleasure to be interviewed by him, as one can count on him to raise some interesting topics.

In this podcast they touch on topics such as community, finding a natural balance in practice, and her sex life.

Tuesday August 9th will be the next group interview. These online sessions offer the chance not only to ask questions about one's own meditation, but also to listen and learn from the questions of others.

These group sessions are open to everyone and are also a good option if one is having difficulty booking a one-on-one Zoom appointment with her. Book a place at the group interviews up to a month in advance.

On Friday August 12th, 8:00-10:00 pm UK time, she will be hosting the next full moon gathering. These gatherings are a great opportunity to come together to deepen our connections to the Dharma and to each other.

This month's gathering will be on the topic of anger and its role in our Dharma practice. Everyone is welcome! Book a place at the gathering. Although she is taking a week offline in August, there will still be plenty of availability later in the month.

Book a regular one-on-one Zoom appointment with her up to two weeks in advance. As ever, all of Beth Upton's work is given on a donation basis. For information about some ways in which she and her work can be supported, take a look at bethupton.com.

With much metta and gratitude