Message from The Board
Honored Sangha,
For over 15 years, Wy’East Zen Center has been sustained by your practice, your presence, and your incredible generosity. Because of you, we have built a solid spiritual and financial foundation, with a little more than $40,000 in the bank.
Since losing our space at Scenic Pointe, our dream has been to find a physical home for WEZC. However, as we have looked over the years at what's available for rent and for sale in our area, and the reality of our small leadership team, we have come to realize that the energy required to manage a physical space is beyond our reach.
The Board has been struggling with the path of Right Effort, the middle way between striving too hard and not enough. After 15 years, your board members are no longer able to sustain our current pace. We have each approached or exceeded the limits of our personal bandwidth, and to continue as we have been has begun to detract from the very peace we come here to cultivate.
We are looking for ways to simplify. We want to protect the heart of what WEZC offers, while addressing the well-being of our volunteer board.
Our programs: We will continue to maintain our core offerings: Just Sitting Sunday, Metta Monday, our weekly meditation, our book discussions, our annual retreat, our precept studies, our annual July gathering and, if there is sufficient interest, our term student program. We also continue to encourage student talks, ideas for guest speakers, and any other offerings the Sangha would like to put forth and help organize, such as our Noble Eightfold Path discussions.
Our space: We will remain a digital and monthly in-person sangha, with some format modifications. We are letting go of the search for a permanent rental.
Our Finances: Because we are no longer saving for a building, we find ourselves in the unique position of having 'enough.' To honor the money you have already given, we will stop accepting new donations as of April 1, 2026. Our current reserves of $40,000 are sufficient to cover our operating costs and retreats for the next 4-5 years without needing to ask for a single donation.
We love this Sangha, and we each individually have come to cherish the spiritual friendships we have found here through the years. We want to ensure that WEZC continues to point not only towards our mission statement but also towards our vision statement: “sit, study, connect, rest.”
We look forward to discussing this further at our Sangha Forum in March. With gratitude,
The WEZC Board
February 6. 2026
Wy’East Zen is a legally incorporated religious nonprofit in the state of Oregon, and a 501(c)(3) with the IRS (EIN 47-2748574).