History of the Land 

Dhamma Dena is located on the ancestral, unceded and occupied territories of Newe Sogobia of the Western Shoshone and Yuhaaviat and Maara’ of the Serrano. The surrounding area of Joshua Tree National Park also includes the ancestral homelands of the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi and Mojave, all collectively known as the Great Basin peoples. The Great Basin Culture historically has extended as far north as what is now known as Wyoming, Idaho, and eastern Oregon, and throughout Nevada, California and parts of Utah and has been continuously occupied by the Great Basin peoples for nearly 15,000 years until the first European settlers invaded the region in 1847. The Yuhaaviatam clan (pronounced yuh-HAH-vee-uh-tahm) of the Maara’yam (pronounced MAH-ree-ahm) is now known as the Yuhaaviatam of the San Manuel Nation and is headquartered on the San Manuel Reservation located in the present day San Bernardino Mountains that can be seen just west of Dhamma Dena. The properties on which Dhamma Dena Meditation Center lies were acquired by Ruth Denison in 1977 as the United States federal government began to establish and expand what would become the world’s largest marine corp training base of Twentynine Palms into the Southern Mojave high desert. The border of the military base lies less than one mile north of Dhamma Dena. The military live-fire training operations can be seen and heard daily and are an inescapable reminder of the legacy of the colonial occupation of these unceded lands.

We pay deep homage to the original occupants and ongoing stewards of this sacred land.