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Visit your local temple

Ever wondered what people do in a Buddhist temple or Buddhist centre? Find your local temple, call them and arrange your stay or visit or just drop in. You don't need to be Budddhist and Buddhist don’t convert people.

Submitted 13/04/2006 By petr Views 5869 Comments 1 Updated 19/07/2007

The Lowdown

When:
Where:
Costs:

What’s involved?

There are many Buddhist temples in Australia but not many people know about them.

This could be becasue many of them are seen as purely ethnic places such as Vietnamese, Cambodian or Chinese temples. However majority of people who go to temple or Buddhist centres are just like you and me: "people who just live in Australia".

Most Buddhist centres and temples are visitied by very diverse mix of people from diverse backgrounds and interests.

Ever wondered why Buddhism is said to be the fastest growing religion in Australia? Who these people are and what they do?

What to do?

  • Visit Australia's largest Buddhist portal, http://buddhanet.net and find your nearest or most interesting Buddhist organization or temple.
  • Call them or just turn up.
  • Ask about where they come from, what the do, and why they do it.
  • Ask what activities they organise for the community and whether they have Youth Group.
  • Visit other temples or Buddhist centres or make time for regular visits in the temple you like.
  • Once you find your favorite place arrange for a stay, help out, join in their activities and learn more about them.

Let us know about your experiences !!!

I want to do this!

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petr 24-Apr-2006

Well as I have written the action it was easy to follow it and realize it.

I have joined the my (Monash) university Buddhist society and asked what events they organise during Easter week. They organised one day visit to the regional Victoian town of Kinglake to visit Korean Zen Buddhist centre. Joining the trip was easy as sending an email and arranging carpooling.

Bringing some food to the temple was a good ideas as we could share it for lunch. The temple provides facilities for cooking, sleeing the the resident Buddhist nun has been giuding us through the day.

I found that the temple does have regular activitie such as daily meditation and chanting, and regular work in the garden or in the grounds.

The redident nun is active in the local community by helping as a chaplain in the Commonwealth games, inviting loca people such as Yoga group and others while occasionally travelling interstate to interfaith and Buddhist meetings and conferences.

So it was easy done and I learnded a lot. There are many other temples in Melbourne and many of them are congregated in Springvale so next time lets visit some other temple.




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