Spirit Rock Meditation Center, is a nonresidential Vipassana retreat center that sits on a four hundred-acre plot of land in the San Geronimo Valley, north of San Francisco. A great deal of the land surrounding the Center is privately owned, sparsely populated, and largely undeveloped. Based on its vision of serving as a “living mandala,” Spirit Rock Meditation Center has continued to expand the ideals of “right relationship” and “service” to include all Earth-beings. Building on ancient Buddhist traditions from Southeast Asia, teachings and practices at Spirit Rock incorporate ecological appreciation and land stewardship in various ways. Gratitude for the land is expressed through attentiveness to practice and a meditation of loving kindness. Ecological awareness is cultivated through outdoor walking meditations and pilgrimages, while dharma teachings include the plants, animals, and topographical features of the wider land community. The ideals of simplicity and low-impact living are borne out in the Center’s commitment to vegetarianism, hermitage principles, and ecologically sensitive land development, use, and management.