I want one!

Yes. No. Not one statue. I want a gigantic wall of buddha statues, is that too much to ask for? Gold buddha statues 20 feet high, all with their own individual inscription identifying which buddha they are... ;) This was taken at the Hsu Lai temple, http://www.hsilai.org/ ... Happens to be about 5 minutes away from where I am staying, the Dari Rulai Temple. It is one of the largest Buddhist temples in the US! It was beautiful, but still pales in comparison to the temples in China :)

Eat sleep poop

I'm having a hard time blogging. Not because I don't have the time or I forget, but because first of all, this experience is really hard to put into words... so my first reaction is to just blablahblah everything that happens to me for the world to see... the problem with this is that there are normal everyday experiences that go on here, normal "drama" if you will, that happens when four people (three for the last month) are forced to eat, sleep, pray, meditate, chant, and poop together virtually every waking second of every day. (We do have a private bathroom, that was just for dramatic effect:) Thankfully, for now, we each have our own rooms, so when I need to be alone (I almost wrote 'when I get sick of people's chatter', gawd! See what I mean?!) I can just go hole myself up in my room, I'm sure much to the dismay of some people sometimes... The idea is you become a much better reflection of eachother if you spend all this time together (with an alotted amount of time agreed upon to stay, 100 days), therefore learning more about yourself. Anyway, my point is that there is a lot of drama going on here, mostly just simple stuff, but personal stuff, that I haven't quite decided to fully disclose bc its not all mine to disclose...

It is one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.

It is also one of the most mind-blowing things I could ever imagine.

:-)

My current favorite thing to do :D

If anyone reading this hasn't tried the "Diamond Wisdom" meditation (available at www.dari-rulai-temple.org in CD form) they really really really should. Then practice it as daily as possible. I have been doing it regularly for a few months, and actually, believe it or not, it just gets better the more I do it! It takes me to a state of mind that is not comparable to anything else I have experienced in this life. (besides maybe pharmaceuticals, ha! picture zanex without the side effects) I am finding myself a much more patient, well-rounded, happy, centered human being.

My purpose to this post is not to sell things (although it is also a huge merit for the giver to support the temple I am staying at)...

But to reach fellow seekers!

About My Temple Experience

Well, my temple stay has so far been amazing and I've only been here for five days. The main teachings, or dharma, here are very specific meditations that use a mudra, mantra, and visualization (a mudra is a hand gesture, if you look you may notice that almost all representations of the buddha have him holding his hand(s) in a specific way.) Our main rule is that we practice practice practice (meditate), so instead of, say, focusing on being happy and a good person and treating others with compassion, we just do our meditations and they make us happy and good and we start treating others with compassion... does that make sense?

If we want to help others, we first have to help ourselves, and only then can we do a lot of good. One of our main focuses right now is Medicine Buddha, which enables the person who practices it to do healings on people. Anyone can do healings on themselves through the meditations that we have, but we can do healings on others if we practice every day. There are specific healings for many different ailments, and they have people who have come in with cancer and left in remission, or with the cancer disappeared. The healings are easy for the patient, the only guideline is to sit and close your eyes! Here's the website:http://www.dari-rulai-temple.org/ Let me know if you have any questions, I can go on and on an on...

We don't really have typical days here, but one might consist of getting up around 7 or so (except sometimes we have dharma rites that require us to get up at 5) and doing office work, then practicing for an hour or two or three... :) and then healings every day at 10am and 7:30pm, more office work or learning mantras (I am doing a LOT of that right now, a TON!) and then more chanting and then... we usually end up home around 9pm! Its a long day but doesn't feel like it! It's really great.

Day 3- Tara's temple adventure

Have been meditating and chanting a LOT, and I feel pretty amazing today... hope this keeps up!