The Kadampa Meditation Center is situated on 82 acres in Glen Spey in rural Sullivan County. It features the World Peace Temple, walking trails, a pond, cafeteria, and a more casual café. Construction took five years and the temple opened in 2006. It was founded in the Kadampa tradition of Buddhism and followers use the teachings to transform daily activities into the path to enlightenment.
Visit Kadampa's user-friendly website and it's packed with information about the center, Buddhism, publications, and upcoming events. They offer day-long, weekend, and weeklong retreats. Sundays at 11:30-1:00 is the weekly Prayers for World Peace service, which according to the website includes a guided meditation, short teaching, and prayers, all with a focus on solutions to problems in daily life, inducing genuine optimism, and increased happiness. If you call ahead and rsvp, you can stay for the $5 vegetarian lunch that follows. The center also facilitates drop-in meditation classes, in locations near and far: Goshen, Saratoga Springs, Scranton, Sparta, and Stroudsburg.
The temple is a spectacular photography subject for all seasons. There's a photo gallery on the website where you'll find images of it surrounded by snow, fog, sunset, flowers and tall grasses. For the taking are beautiful glossy publications. The temple is on top of a hill and is surrounded by a path for a view of 360 degrees. The walking path leads down a hill and comes to an interesting dry stone bridge. Dry stone is a building method in which stones are pieced together without using mortar. Stone walls are the most common dry stone creations, but bridges can be made by strategically wedging stones in a curved arch. The bridge at the Kadampa Center crosses a stream and continues around the ground's pond.
"Buddhist Temples are representations of a Pure Land of an enlightened being--an enlightened heaven. Whoever sees them immediately experiences peace of mind, or inner peace. When we experience inner peace we are happy, so Temples function to give happiness to everyone, whether Buddhist or not." -Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso
Kadampa Meditation Center New York: www.kadampanewyork.org
Dry Stone Construction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_stone
No comments:
Post a Comment