A beautiful paradox

Can Tibetan buddhists run a profitable retreat centre?

I am having an interesting time staying on a beautiful archipalego which is the Tibetan buddhism retreat centre where Aron is helping out. It is a lovely small island with great nature, a few little cute houses and good meditation facilities. However, it is struggling with few business deals right now due to recession, etc.

I can't help but wonder if being a hard core buddhist goes along with running a profitable retreat centre and where is the balance really. As a rational business woman, it is not too difficult to consider being financially sustainable is the foundation of spreading buddhism. However, if we identify the bottomline as being financially sound, will we be able to achieve the result of spreading buddhism? What customer will we attract? What program will we provide? It is obvious that things won't work out on the contrary either.

So how to achieve the appropriate balance? Is this also a challenge to social enterprises today? If it is a hugely profitable business, then how much shall we invest back in community development to ensure the sustainability of the business itself? Then our focus is on improving the community or sustaining the business thought these two seem to form a positive viscious cycle already.

I guess the real answer comes from practices - continuously failing, learning and improving