(I googled and found their name and website, which has a history section about them here. The rest of this comment is a list of other links and recollections from our interaction with them that I found as I looked back into our chat logs and did a little googling, in case anyone is interested.)
Habryka linked it to me, I phoned the number to set up a viewing, we visited it that evening (10th March, 2022, the day after I turned 25). After Habryka and I visited that night I don’t believe we ever talked with them again.
We thought it was a coworking space (“Coworking With Wisdom”, 4 reviews on yelp, 39 google reviews) that was open to selling, but it turned out to primarily be a Buddhist space called Dharma College (whose website I’ve just found now for the first time).
The Executive Director, Wangmo Dixey, walked us around. My vague recollection is that her father had brought the family to America to spread their tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and he bought the place (Wikipedia says the building was bought in ’09), but for whatever reason she didn’t have as much demand for the space these days (it’s 35k square feet) so she was trying out renting it as a coworking space, and also was quite open to us renting the majority of the building while she had daily meditation classes upstairs (and ran other classes). We told her a bit about our community’s cognitive science / reductionist / AI background, I recall her suggesting it could be exciting to have shared public dialogues with invited Buddhists and rationalists about the mind and consciousness.
The space had a lot of windows and high ceilings and multiple kitchens and more, and I think we could get a lot of use out of it if we were there. If we did co-own I thought many people would quite like the affordance of an upstairs daily meditation session at lunchtime.
I tried to find online photographs of the Temple inside, but there are none. This combined with her initial intent to not unlock the doors for us, makes me think they’ve intentionally made it a secret space and kept photographs off the internet. I think both Habryka and I were somewhat awed by the temple room and I remember positively reinforcing myself for overcoming the slight social awkwardness in asking to go back and open those doors. I recall using the word ‘glorious’ when describing the room as we walked out of it.
The Dharma College site has more about their traditions. Its history can be found here (including a photograph of Dixey and her father at a ceremony at the White House in 2021), and Dixey’s bio can be found here, where I’ve just learned that she has an honorary degree from Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University in Thailand.
Interesting background. They sound like they are struggling and, like many organizations (not to mention, individuals), wound up buying more house than they could handle—I imagine that COVID was probably a bad thing for large urban temples like that, and it’s not like the Bay Area was undersupplied with various flavors of Buddhism AFAICT. If a Buddhist temple is trying to run a coworking space on the side, they must have a lot of excess room indeed. Might be worth keeping in touch for overflow or backup purposes? They sound well-equipped for conferences or other functions.
I do agree it’s likely they’d be very open to a deal. In general office space in the Bay has taken a nosedive in terms of prices since many tech companies have stayed remote post-pandemic, and a lot of places will take any deal you offer them (I know places that previously would only consider 12-24 month leases will now jump at a month-to-month).
But we have (rough estimate) ~24k sq ft indoor space and ~20k sq ft outdoor space, the vast majority of which is not utilized and not got a set use planned, plus we’re renting a 9bdr house v nearby for overflow housing, so for now we’re certainly not looking for additional space!
(I googled and found their name and website, which has a history section about them here. The rest of this comment is a list of other links and recollections from our interaction with them that I found as I looked back into our chat logs and did a little googling, in case anyone is interested.)
This was the LoopNet listing we responded to, where it advertises itself as a coworking space one block from the Downtown Berkeley BART station.
Habryka linked it to me, I phoned the number to set up a viewing, we visited it that evening (10th March, 2022, the day after I turned 25). After Habryka and I visited that night I don’t believe we ever talked with them again.
We thought it was a coworking space (“Coworking With Wisdom”, 4 reviews on yelp, 39 google reviews) that was open to selling, but it turned out to primarily be a Buddhist space called Dharma College (whose website I’ve just found now for the first time).
The Executive Director, Wangmo Dixey, walked us around. My vague recollection is that her father had brought the family to America to spread their tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and he bought the place (Wikipedia says the building was bought in ’09), but for whatever reason she didn’t have as much demand for the space these days (it’s 35k square feet) so she was trying out renting it as a coworking space, and also was quite open to us renting the majority of the building while she had daily meditation classes upstairs (and ran other classes). We told her a bit about our community’s cognitive science / reductionist / AI background, I recall her suggesting it could be exciting to have shared public dialogues with invited Buddhists and rationalists about the mind and consciousness.
The space had a lot of windows and high ceilings and multiple kitchens and more, and I think we could get a lot of use out of it if we were there. If we did co-own I thought many people would quite like the affordance of an upstairs daily meditation session at lunchtime.
I tried to find online photographs of the Temple inside, but there are none. This combined with her initial intent to not unlock the doors for us, makes me think they’ve intentionally made it a secret space and kept photographs off the internet. I think both Habryka and I were somewhat awed by the temple room and I remember positively reinforcing myself for overcoming the slight social awkwardness in asking to go back and open those doors. I recall using the word ‘glorious’ when describing the room as we walked out of it.
The Coworking with Wisdom website however links to a very faithful virtual tour of the rest of the building.
The Dharma College site has more about their traditions. Its history can be found here (including a photograph of Dixey and her father at a ceremony at the White House in 2021), and Dixey’s bio can be found here, where I’ve just learned that she has an honorary degree from Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University in Thailand.
Interesting background. They sound like they are struggling and, like many organizations (not to mention, individuals), wound up buying more house than they could handle—I imagine that COVID was probably a bad thing for large urban temples like that, and it’s not like the Bay Area was undersupplied with various flavors of Buddhism AFAICT. If a Buddhist temple is trying to run a coworking space on the side, they must have a lot of excess room indeed. Might be worth keeping in touch for overflow or backup purposes? They sound well-equipped for conferences or other functions.
Coworking with Wisdom was around pre-pandemic, although that could mean they overbought years ago instead of recently.
I do agree it’s likely they’d be very open to a deal. In general office space in the Bay has taken a nosedive in terms of prices since many tech companies have stayed remote post-pandemic, and a lot of places will take any deal you offer them (I know places that previously would only consider 12-24 month leases will now jump at a month-to-month).
But we have (rough estimate) ~24k sq ft indoor space and ~20k sq ft outdoor space, the vast majority of which is not utilized and not got a set use planned, plus we’re renting a 9bdr house v nearby for overflow housing, so for now we’re certainly not looking for additional space!