Springwater Center

The organization that became Springwater Center was formed on the last day of 1981. Toni Packer, authorized to teach at the Rochester Zen Center, had begun to question its hierarchical and authoritarian approach and to look for a more open, inquiring way of meditating. She left, and with a large group of supporters formed the Genesee Valley Zen Center. The group rented a house in Rochester and held retreats at a YWCA camp on Lake Canandaigua, but Packer had envisioned a place in the country. A land search committee bought property in Springwater in the fall of 1983.

Building began in the spring of 1984. Members mostly in their twenties and thirties, with some hired help, lived in tents and ate from a makeshift kitchen in a Quonset hut until the building was ready enough for the first retreat in April 1985. In 1986 the members voted to take the name Springwater Center, and a fire pond was dug the same year. From 1989 all activities took place on the land. Between 1999 and roughly three years after, four cabins were built so that staff, long accustomed to close quarters in the main building, could have private housing.

Today a 12,000-square-foot retreat centre stands at the heart of 212 acres of meadows, hardwood forest, streams and a pond, with miles of trails. It has 14 guest rooms, a library, a solarium, and a sitting room that holds up to 45. All meals are vegetarian, and a full-time residential staff maintains the place.

The retreat day is built on timed sittings, a morning talk, and an hour-long work period with communally prepared food. The only requirements are to keep silence and do one's assigned job. Packer called the work meditative inquiry, an approach not dependent on any technique. The teachers are people who worked for years with her, among them Sandra Gonzalez, Stew Glick, Wayne Coger and Richard Witteman. Packer died in 2013, and the pages record her reply when a visitor credited her with creating the Center: "Everything brought this about."

Beyond week-long retreats, the Center offers Saturday retreats, Quiet Weeks, guest stays, volunteer stays, and online sittings and dialogues.