Walk About: at Chuang Yen Monastery

Our friend Brian Vaugh, who is a Buddhist Priest, led us on a tour of the Chuang Yen Monastery in Carmel, New York, on Saturday. Brian has a delightful way of saying profound and useful things as if he were telling you the time of day, and he did that on Saturday. He explained that the figures outside of Buddhist temples represent chaos and confusion; you need to get past these two ugly dudes to get to the temple, to the sacred site of worship--your soul. From the outside of the temple, Brian said, there are three floors. Go inside, and you will find that there is one. The point: though things seem complicated from the outside, once you step inside them, you find they are much simpler than they appear. The point is that you must make that step inside to discover this. On and on.

How do things get done at the monastery? People show up and do them.

Thank you, Brian.

(Click here for the "Geometry of the Sacred.")