Juniper Story
The quest for depth without dogma
From 1994 to 2002, in a small country house in Sebastopol,
California, Segyu Rinpoche operated a traditional Tibetan Buddhist center.
High lamas from Tibet visited regularly and marveled at its authenticity and potency, and students came from all over the world for meditation and
retreats.
Segyu Rinpoche had been trained at the highest levels
of Tibetan Gelugpa tradition, spending over 30 years under the
tutelage of Kyabje Lati Rinpoche, one of Tibetan Buddhism's most
renowned masters.
Yet Segyu Rinpoche and four of his students
felt that it was possible to have a more widespread impact with these
practices. They believed that to do so would require something different,
a new approach that dropped the religious and cultural artifacts of the
past, embraced new knowledge and discovery, and spoke to contemporary times.
Beginning on January 14, 2003, Rinpoche
and those four students set out to examine how to accomplish the task of making
the essence of these practices accessible in contemporary life.
Each believed that meditation is a timeless
endeavor to refine our experience as human beings, and to
cultivate the very best in our potential.
Their work included dissecting the tradition as handed
down from the past, identifying those principles and precepts that no
longer stand the test of contemporary knowledge, and embracing the
claims and findings of science where they clearly supplant older views.
Ten years later, the result is Juniper, a meditation
school in which the wisdom and experience of a long-standing
meditation tradition are presented in a secular form, tailored to
modern culture, knowledge and sensibility.
The cultural and religious wrappers have been shed, all
the while respecting that the essence of this path is
about undoing limiting dogmas and unlocking the mind’s
potential to soar joyfully and freely in an ever
changing world.
Juniper's story continues to unfold. In 2009 we opened
a meditation hall in Redwood City, California; in 2011 we launched an
integrative care clinic in Palo Alto, California; and in 2015 we opened
a beautiful meditation center in San Francisco and moved our
integrative care clinic there. We also introduced our first online
meditation offerings, created to enable individuals anywhere to engage
this path. We invite you to be part of it.
Juniper's name comes from the Juniper tree. It is strong
and graceful; it grows in a variety of conditions; and its
berries are used for their purifying and medicinal qualities.
It is also famous for growing high in the Himalayas of Tibet,
where the 1000-year-old Reting Monastery, home to several
important masters in Indo-Tibetan meditation tradition,
sits in the middle of an ancient and beautiful juniper forest.
Curious about meditation and its benefits? Read
"Why Meditate"
