Protecting these buildings means protecting a place of practice, a living lineage, and a home for future generations.
Crestone Mountain Zen Center was founded in 1988 by Zentatsu Baker Roshi, five years after he established Dharma Sangha in 1983. Today it is home to thirteen buildings, including a traditional Japanese wood-joinery zendo, one of the most remarkable meditation halls in the United States. Hoto-an, the building where students meet their teachers, carries the quiet magic of the highest level of craftsmanship.
"Our effort is to make Zen Buddhist teachings conceptually, emotionally, and practically accessible to contemporary Western practitioners."
— Zentatsu Baker Roshi
Inside the Main House lives a beautiful Kannon, the sister statue of one in Hiroshima Peace Park. We are also caretakers of irreplaceable lineage treasures: Suzuki Roshi's handwritten notes, transmission scrolls, robes handed down through generations, his teacher's okesa, a 700-year-old Jizo Bodhisattva.
"These are not museum pieces. They are living artifacts we are meant to pass on. Once lost, they cannot be replaced. Objects aren’t sentient, but they do accumulate history - and they bring a physical thread through time and space. Once burned, this is lost."
– Tatsudo Nicole Baden Roshi
And of course: we need to protect the people who live and practice here. In a recent survey, fourteen of fifteen current Dharma Sangha residents said they would never have committed themselves to practice the way they have, were it not for their time at Crestone.
The zendo, the Kannon, the scrolls: they matter because of what happens around them. A place of practice is the people in it.
The forest around Crestone has not burned in more than 130 years, against a historical interval of roughly ten. Insurers have withdrawn from every center in Crestone. This summer, three firefighters were killed nearby. A fire started on our own stream. The Hooper fire came close enough that we packed and prepared to evacuate, and the wind turned. There is a hundred-acre fire near Alamosa. And we have just taken in practitioners evacuated from Tassajara, whose own monastery was no longer safe.
"It's not if the fire comes, it's when. We are 130 years into a gap that once reset every decade."
— Ben Brack, former local fire chief
One gravel road leads up to the center. Fire runs uphill, so it comes from below, from the direction of that road. Driving away is not always the answer. That is why the buildings themselves have to be defensible.
Phase I · Conception, engineering and life safety — $60,000 — complete. Fire assessment, engineering, sprinklers on the Dome and clearing around it, fire and evacuation training.
Phase II · Water storage and site preparation — $110,000 — complete. A 47,000-gallon fire reserve above the campus, gravity-fed so it works when the power is out, with its foundation, water connections and electrical rough-in. Installed September 2026.
$170,000 raised and spent, almost entirely without a public campaign. Everything we build from here connects to that water.
Nine out of ten buildings lost to wildfire are not burned by the fire front. They are ignited by windborne embers, which travel seven miles or more ahead of it. The defense is to soak the building before the embers arrive: water, and firefighting foam that makes a structure too wet to burn. Every option below puts sprinklers on all thirteen buildings. What differs is who notices the fire in time, and who turns the water on.
Every building gets water. Someone has to be here to turn it on.
Every building gets water. The campus watches for fire and turns itself on.
The same protection everywhere, to the same standard.
The manufacturer reports that in the 2025 Los Angeles fires, 59 of 61 protected properties with activated systems survived.
Move across the map to see what stands in each building: the Kannon in the Main House, the scrolls, the zendo joined without nails. The map answers what; the bar below answers how far. A gift can be dedicated to a building by name. It counts toward the same fund, and the bar moves with it.
A special object for sure
This bar counts Phase III only. Phase I and II are complete and paid for. From the first goal on, every building on the campus is protected. Each further goal buys better technology, not more buildings.
Every building on the campus protected by a system we build ourselves. Manual: someone has to be here to turn it on.
Adds: the campus watches for fire and turns itself on, seven miles out. Firefighting foam and full warranty on the four principal buildings.
Adds: the same professional standard on all thirteen buildings. Nothing self-built.
This bar counts Phase III only. Phase I and II are complete and paid for. From the first goal on, every building on the campus is protected. Each further goal buys better technology, not more buildings.
Card gifts go through Stripe. For larger gifts, a bank transfer or a check is usually simpler. Your confirmation will show “Dharma Sangha”: that is the right account.
Stock and securities. We can receive gifts of appreciated securities. Write to development@dharmasangha.org for the transfer details.
Questions about giving. Paul Rosenblum answers them personally: development@dharmasangha.org · +1 720 897 0116
This page is about the first circle. If you would like to know more about Refuge or Restoration, write to development@dharmasangha.org and we will send you the right document.
A location that locates you. Sprinklers and foam on every building, so that fire meets a campus that is already wet.
For people and what cannot be replaced. A shelter and a fire-rated vault, for the case where the buildings are not enough.
The land's capacity to hold water. Watershed work, beavers and mycelial restoration with our local partners. The only circle that reduces the danger itself.
Dharma Sangha is a US Internal Revenue Service 501(c)(3) public charity; gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. EIN 68-0012140.
Questions about giving: development@dharmasangha.org · +1 720 897 0116
Dharma Sangha · 2000 E Dream Way, Crestone, CO 81131