Dharma with Jonathan

I. The Threshold: Embracing the Albany Design Challenge It has been fourteen years since I last considered myself a practicing permaculture designer. In August of 2012, when I left a rural site in Maine, I believed I had walked away from the discipline entirely. Today, in the spring of 2026, I am finally ready to admit I was wrong. I didn't quit vegan permaculture; I simply entered a deep-winter cycle of reflection. That fourteen-year hiatus was a necessary fallow period for the seeds of a more resilient, urban practice to germinate. I am re-emerging by accepting the Albany Design Challenge. I am no longer looking for a utopian escape; I am choosing to start where I am , in a modest 1920s bungalow in the Whitehall neighborhood. This return is framed by the Watch of the Dharma Body , a two-hour daily slice of my horarium dedicated to manifesting the Trikaya—the three bodies of the Buddha—as living forms of ahimsa (non-violence) mapped across the seven zones of a 300-year Ancestral V...

As we enter the month of Nisan, my focus shifts toward a deliberate integration of the Watch of the Dharma Body into the changing of the seasons here in Albany. This month is about taking stock—mining my experience in vegan permaculture, from the Maine homesteading days to the present, to map out a regenerative future through a new series of blog reflections. I will also be tending to the Buddhakaya by returning to the sacred rhythm of walking, both in solo contemplation and with my mother, just as soon as I have the green light from my surgeon to step back out into the spring air. Equally vital is the work of refinement within the hermitage. I’ve committed to at least four dedicated sessions of decluttering and tidying, stripping away the excess to maintain a resilient and modest footprint on our Spaceship Earth. To anchor these physical acts, I will be immersing myself in three study sessions focused on Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching . By aligning the material w...