By Bob Audette, Vermont Country Magazine.
At the Green Mountain Meditation Center at Serenity Central of New England, the “Green Mountain Monk, the Venerable Bhante Rathana, has taken up residency, in partnership with Dr. Joseph Burke, a life-long Catholic who moved to Jacksonville in 2024 with the vision of creating a haven for a wide variety of spiritual events and practices.
“Bhante has a ministry focused on meditation and the Buddhist practice of loving kindness,” said Burke.
Burke said he got connected to Bhante Rathana through his sister-in-law, who had worked with him before.
“I thought why don’t we bring him over, test it out for a week or two and see how it goes,” said Burke, who said their visions clicked immediately. “He’s been here ever since.”
Since 2024, Green Mountain Meditation Center at Serenity Central hasn’t been beating its own prayer drum very loudly, but it has hosted a number of events, including a convocation of sorts of Buddhist monks, ceremonies that have never been performed in Vermont, such as Kathina the annual celebration known as The New Robe ceremony, which typically occurs in early November.
Serenity Central is sponsoring a special program for New England attorneys on April 16, 2026. The program will explore issues on mental wellness and ethical behavior of attorneys. See their website for details and registration.
Vesak, an annual celebration of the Buddha’s birthday, day of Enlightenment, and the Buddha’s final transformation will be celebrated at the Serenity Center on May 24.
Serenity Central has also been hosting weekend AA retreats, with morning meditation from Bhante Rathana and Reiki from a local practitioner, and Dances of Universal Peace groups.
Burke, who graduated from Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., as a philosophy major, has worked in education in Florida and Massachusetts.
“I’ve always been really interested in other faiths and other religions,” he said. “There are these universal themes that cut across all of the major religions. And so, we’ve been committed since we first got here to be interdenominational.”
Every Wednesday and Sunday, Serenity Central hosts meditation sessions free to the public, live and on Zoom.
Burke said he was really excited to return to New England and had been scouting around for a place to settle down when he found Serenity Central of New England.
“The last day I was up here looking, I came over here to this place,” he said. “It just had everything I wanted. And it’s a wonderful place.
“My idea coming up here was to have a retreat center that would serve a wide variety of needs for different groups, a spot for people who needed a place to come and have a good experience. That’s really all this is.”
Burke said he and Bhante Rathana have been welcomed heartily in the community and look forward to expanding their friendships with believers of all types.
Burke said they’re planning a big public event on July 12, tentatively entitled “Holy Dissent,” with a focus on honoring the spiritual principles behind non-violent resistance, with a guest appearance from a Buddhist monk who participated in the Walk for Peace.
“It’s going to be a real positive, upbeat sort of thing, where we basically look at the history of spiritual leaders taking on regimes that are oppressive, cruel, or unjust, and then come up with some kind of a plan to activate the community to model a different vision of what our society should look like.”
The Green Mountain Meditation Center at Serenity Central of New England offers a number of regular weekly classes including sessions of yoga and twice weekly meditation at 6 p.m., and is open for community meetings, business retreats and other events.
The center will have a formal dedication and opening of a Library of Spiritual Literature in May.
For more information, visit serenitycentralofnewengland.com, email info@serenitycentralofnewengland.com, or call 802-368-2015. You can also email Dr. Joseph Burke at burkejoseph941@gmail.com or call him directly at 407-615-1447.
