Leaders in the renovation, from left, include Anne Naito-Campbell, Rick Gustafson, Robert Beatty, Kim Knox, Elizabeth Anderson and Pete Castleberry.
Photos by: Robert Beatty, Lora Dow

Supported by the generosity of many, Portland Insight Meditation Center is moving into 2022 with expanded facilities, a deeper array of teachers, and broadening reach through online dharma.

A highlight of the new facilities is a renovated room, off the back of the main hall, where smaller sits take place, and where center members meet for tea and conversation. The room is called the Naito Living Room in honor of the Naito family, who contributed financially to much of the renovation work.

The Portland Insight Meditation Center building, purchased in 2004, has been maintained and enhanced by community members’ contributions.

Other parts of the Naito-supported building project at Portland Insight Meditation Center, also called PIMC, have been construction of a wheelchair ramp, ADA-compliant bathrooms,  and a new entryway, as well as renovations to basement offices to bring them up to code. In addition work has started on a wider seismic upgrade to the 1930s building, to be completed in coming years.

However, physical changes to the center are just part of wider transitions at PIMC, as it brings traditional teachings of Theravada Buddhism into the 21^st century.

Founder Robert Beatty, who began teaching in Portland in the 1970s and is 75, has begun working with the PIMC board of directors to develop a strategic leadership transition plan. He continues as guiding teacher.

One aspect of the transition is developing a small group of “next generation” teachers, who several years ago began leading more dharma instruction within the PMIC community. They help facilitate a variety of different classes and sits throughout each week.

PIMC founder Robert Beatty was authorized to teach by the late teacher Ruth Denison.

This spring a new three-year teacher training program began, with the goal of adding more teachers and perspectives to the mix.

Additionally, the PMIC Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee launched last year, bringing challenging conversations about bias, privilege and representation to the center of the community.

This year also is bringing new adaptations to technology, with PIMC classes and meditation sessions moving to a hybrid format. This means some people are participating online via Zoom, and others in-person, at the newly renovated meditation center.

Soon after pandemic lockdowns started in 2020, Beatty began hosting online meditation gatherings each morning via Zoom, offering a virtual space for individuals to practice together and to share their own experiences.

The 7 a.m. daily meeting has at times attracted more than 100 participants, expanding the PIMC audience, with meditators from around the globe now knowing one another intimately.

The story of how PMIC was able to create a significantly renovated building centers on selfless giving, tied to one individual’s journey in mindful dying.  

The renovations completed over the last year have made the center more accessible to all and seismically safe

Four years ago Ron Naito met Beatty for the first time.

Naito, a doctor of internal medicine for 40 years, was part of a legacy of philanthropy in the Portland region. His grandfather, Hide Naito, arrived in Portland from Japan in 1917, and developed a business that in many ways reshaped the city through imports, retail, real estate development and more.

Through the decades, the family remained focused on giving back to the city that supported it, and a major thoroughfare in downtown Portland was in 1996 renamed Naito Parkway – in honor of Hide Naito’s son, Bill, a longtime civic leader.

As Ron Naito’s medical career developed, he began working closely with the Center for Ethics in Healthcare at Oregon Health & Science University, teaching medical students and professionals about the importance of presence in medical practice, especially in delivering bad news.

But then Naito received his own difficult diagnosis, learning in 2018 he had pancreatic cancer. Very quickly he found himself drawn to mindfulness practice, and after being directed to Beatty by colleagues, the two met almost weekly for a year.

“He took to the dharma like a duck to water,” Beatty recalls. “He lit up with the dharma.”

. The Naito Living Room was named in honor of Portland doctor Ron Naito, who left a legacy of mindfulness and philanthropy.

As Naito confronted the realities of death, PIMC was itself encountering change. The growing center had recently applied for building permits from the city of Portland to add a wheelchair ramp and new entrance door to make the building ADA accessible. But on reviewing the center’s application, city officials noted that offices in the building’s basement were not fully up to code, and that the entire structure required seismic upgrades.

In short, the building would need a complicated – and expensive – renovation.

Though he was slowly succumbing to cancer, Naito’s heart was growing ever wider.

“Most fulfilling of all is to experience all the love that’s everywhere,” he told his family at the time. “So much more than I’ve ever comprehended.”

In Naito’s final months he expanded his philanthropic efforts, dedicating his entire estate to the development of the Ronald W. Naito Foundation. He passed away in December, 2019, and by that time the foundation had already made gifts to 53 separate nonprofit entities.

Construction of a new wheelchair ramp and entryway were completed in early 2022.

As part of that outreach, he committed a major gift to the PIMC renovation project. Naito’s cousin, Anne Naito-Campbell, matched Ron’s contribution to PIMC with one of her own.

“I want to make sure PIMC continues to be a place of healing and awakening for generations to come,” Naito-Campbell said.

The construction project was completed in early 2022. In addition to support from the Naito family, many individual donors within the PIMC community made important financial contributions, and others donated time and skills to keep renovation efforts on track.

Today the sense of change at PIMC is palpable, and with transition comes the inevitable fear of the unknown. But as Ron Naito exemplified so clearly to our community, when approached with a sense of wisdom and love change presents the opportunity for meaningful action, for growth and tremendous generosity, even in the midst of death.

“Your final months may actually be the richest, most fulfilling portion of your whole life,” Naito said, “because approaching death is a chance to be much more awakened.”

Ultimately, PIMC’s mission is to offer dharma and sangha, so awakening can continue to take place in this world. In each act of generosity from the PIMC community, such awakening continues.