Where: Cincinnati, OH
When: Feb 14, 2004
What: Sri Lankan temple
Four of our members (Anton, Budi, Demmy & Ganda) left for Cincinnati at 7 AM from Columbus in Demmy�s car. We reached Andromeda�s apartment by 8.45 AM but we have no way to gain entry or contact him because we forgot to bring his phone number and so we had to resort to calling up one of our members, Caroline, to get his number (you have our gratitude).
We proceed to pick Andromeda up and head to the Cincinnati temple. We arrived there at about 9.10 AM. The temple was a nice two-storey townhouse with a shrine room for about 25 people. We were greeted by two Sri Lankan monks (Bhante Sumanajothi and Chandananda) and led to the shrine room where we did paritta chanting in Sri Lankan style. Each one of us held on to a piece of long thread. The paritta was then followed by a 15 minute meditation. Before we started the meditation, the monk gave us some directions on meditation. Meditation will be very difficult to do without having a calm and peaceful mind and so it would help to cultivate compassion in your heart before starting a meditation. Imagine that everyone is in harmony and peace, when you feel that you are in a peaceful state of mind, then proceed to meditation.
The Sri Lankan monk gave us Dhamma talk about �The Three Universal Diseases� (see next posting). We left the temple at about 11 AM and headed to Andromeda�s place before going to have very nice Dim Sum at The Pacific Moon Caf�.
We went straight to the temple from there at 2 PM. Since the other monks hadn�t arrived, we just waited there and met some interesting people. One of them was Shelley, an American lady, who told us about how she became a Buddhist. When she was 3 yrs old, she got hold of an encyclopedia and opened the book randomly. It happened to arrive at a page with a picture of Buddha. She then showed the Buddha picture to everyone and said, �This is my Buddha�. If the picture was removed from her, she would become upset and restless so her parents brought her to see a doctor to check if it was any kind of disorder. The doctor told them it was nothing to be worried about and advised them to let her keep the picture. Amazingly she was able to read afterwards even before she got any kind of formal education in reading. There was one misconception held by most Westerner about Buddhism and it was evident in a comment made by her parents in an effort to make her part with the picture �Don�t love the Buddha. Buddha is only for the Chinese.� Ever since, she became fascinated with Buddhism and then ended up being a Buddhist. What an amazing story.
The seven Tibetan monks and one Cambodian monk (Bhante Sok) arrived later at about 3 PM. Now there were three Sri Lankan monks, one Cambodian monk and seven Tibetan monks in one shrine room. We were truly luck as it is not everyday one can see 11 monks from 3 different countries in one room. The Sri Lankan monks started their chanting first, which was in Pali and then followed by the Tibetan monk, which I think was in Tibetan language. After the chanting was done, a forum took place. You can find the questions and answer in our coming posting. After the event was over, we were fortunate enough to have a discussion with the Cambodian monk. We will have the details in our next posting as well.
We left the temple at about 6.45 PM and went to have dinner in Cincinnati with Andromeda before going back to Columbus. After that we dropped Andromeda back at his apartment and then started our way back to Columbus at about 9.00 PM. We got back to Columbus at about 11.30 PM. That was a really wonderful and enlightening trip to Cincinnati. We sure wish everyone else could have experienced it.
I would like to thank Andromeda again for making our trip such a wonderful one. May all living beings be happy and be at peace.
