Madre Grande Monastery
Grounds and Facilities:
Madre Grande Monastery
is located on 264 wooded acres in a low mountain valley in San Diego's
southeastern backcountry.
|
 |
Madre Grande Monastery features
meadows and oaks, three seasonal lakes, cold water springs, miles of hiking trails, and
surrounding hills dotted with standing stones. These softly rounded giants have been
weathering away four times longer than the Himalalayas have been above water. Madre Grande
was a place for gathering and grinding acorns by the Kumeyaay tribes in their seasonal
migrations between the desert and the sea. Since 1975, the monks of Madre Grande
have preserved and protected this land as their home, the headquarters of their Order, and
as a place of pilgrimage and retreat.
The monastery facilities
include a shower house, meeting rooms, library, domes, sweat lodges, a wood-fired hot tub,
little stone huts, an outdoor stage, Bell Garden, and a number of little shrines, medicine
wheels, power circles and meditation areas.
The property itself is nestled
in a fold of the Dulzura hills, up a two mile dirt driveway off Highway 94. The community
of Jamul is only 10 minutes from Dulzura, with multiplex cinemas and shopping malls.
But just outside Jamul the countryside turns pastoral and civilization melts away.
Below is a short sample of
photos of the monastery grounds, each worth at least a thousand words. And yet, none of
them do justice to the power and beauty of this sacred place.
