If we were ever to build another building for use as a monastery it would be there. There is a little valley deep in the mountains that is a another sacred space. According to the Chinese science of geomancy, the spot on which the Monastery stands is a sacred space because it has two rivers meeting in front and a mountain in back. Shortly after we bought the place, before we moved here but after we already had a deposit on it, the Karmapa of the Tibetan Kagyu lineage came with a group of people and immediately wanted to purchase it. At another time an old Chinese Taoist came to the area looking for the sacred place where the two rivers meet and a mountain stands behind.
Geomancy is one way to recognize a sacred space.
Another way to recognize such a place is by the sense of the space, the way it feels, how it affects the body. We take up this koan to appreciate what sacred space is really about. In the prologue it says, Within a single speck of dust, the whole earth is contained. When a single blossom opens, the entire universe arises. You are the moment, and when you are the moment, the moment is a hundred thousand eons, and a hundred thousand eons are the moment.