The Green Mountain Monk brings meditation and community to a longtime local studio
By Ahmad Yassir, Vermont Country Magazine.
For 25 years, The Yoga Place has quietly been part of Bennington’s wellness community. Tucked behind 532 Main St. #3, the studio has grown from a small local yoga practice into a welcoming space where people come to move, breathe, relax and reconnect with themselves. This year, that longtime role was recognized by the community when The Yoga Place was named Best Yoga Studio in Bennington County in the 2026 Readers Choice awards.
Now, the studio is opening its doors to a practice that naturally complements its longtime work: meditation.
Beginning Sept. 4, The Yoga Place will offer Meditate with a Buddhist Monk every Friday at noon, led by Bhante Dhammarathana, affectionately known as the Green Mountain Monk. The sessions will be free, with suggested donations, and no registration will be required.
The opportunity came after Bhante reached out to co-founder Jane Schaeffer with a simple purpose: to “carry the message of meditation to Bennington.”
For Schaeffer, the collaboration makes sense.
“It’s complimentary to yoga practice, and there’s a big value of sitting with others and meditating together,” she said.
For people who have practiced meditation before, the sessions offer an opportunity to experience it alongside other members of the community and with the direct guidance of an experienced Buddhist monk.
Bhante Dhammarathana is a Theravāda Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka with more than 26 years of monastic experience in Sri Lanka and the United States. Ordained at age 13 in 1999, he studied Buddhist philosophy, culture and classical languages before earning a bachelor’s degree in Buddhist Philosophy from the University of Kelaniya.
Today, he is the abbot and spiritual advisor at the Green Mountain Meditation & Wellness Center in Jacksonville, Vermont, and serves the region through meditation instruction, Dhamma teachings, retreats and interfaith programs.
His path has included time at the Lankarama Buddhist Institute in Los Angeles and nearly three years at the Bhavana Society Forest Monastery in West Virginia, where he served as personal assistant to renowned meditation teacher Venerable Henepola Gunaratana.
His approach draws from traditional Buddhist practices including breathing meditation, loving-kindness meditation, walking meditation and contemplation.
At The Yoga Place, the emphasis will be accessible and communal: an opportunity to stop, sit together and make room for stillness in the middle of the week.
It also reflects something that has been central to The Yoga Place since Schaeffer helped establish it 25 years ago. Yoga, she says, is not simply about performing a posture correctly. It is an ongoing practice of becoming more aware of the body, mind and spirit — and finding the approach that works for each person.
Meditation offers another doorway into that same conversation.
For a studio that has spent a quarter-century creating space for people to practice together, the arrival of the Green Mountain Monk feels less like a departure and more like another way to gather.
Meditate with a Buddhist Monk takes place every Friday at noon at The Yoga Place, 532 Main St. #3, Bennington. Sessions are free, with suggested donations, and no registration is required. For the complete schedule and current class offerings, visit www.benningtonyoga.com
Note from Jane: There’s also a weekly event at St. Peter’s called “Contemplative Evening Prayer and Meditation.” Evening Prayer begins at 5 p.m., followed by a half hour of meditation at approximately 5:30 p.m. At 6 p.m., the group begins a half hour of Lectio Divina, a guided meditation focused on a passage from the day’s Scripture reading.
