What was your experience at your first temple like?

BeachHouseGuy

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compassionate_warrior

OMG, Sam, you've been bringing up the strangest and some pretty seemingly deliberately provocative questions. (One member thought you might be a troll.)

I think it's nobody's business. HOWEVER, in an interview that he gave sometime in the last few years, he was asked what he felt he had missed out on in life, if anything, as a monk. Without hesitation, he pointed to his groin, and said "This!" (sex). Satisfied?

BeachHouseGuy

take it easy kemo sabe.

BeachHouseGuy

and yes thankyou.

taiyaki

i remember chanting maum a lot. also prostrations. also meditation. also the smell. also the silence.

vinlyn

The first Buddhist temple which I specifically remember going to was the one on Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I had been in several before that, but as a tourist only. In Chiang Mai my roommate's family was taking me on a day-long tour, and when we got to the temple they explained so much to me and taught me how to make offerings (lotus, candle, incense), explained their "prayers", and so forth. It opened the door for me.

Cinorjer

I was so nervous I was going to do the wrong thing, like sit in a spot on the floor reserved for senior monks or something. I didn't speak but a word or two of Korean, only "please" and "Hello" and "thank you" sort of thing, so my Korean friend who spoke English stayed by my side and translated where possible. And prostrations are hard!

But the people and the monk leading the service were fantastic. Too bad I didn't understand a word of his dharma talk. Chanting comes across in any language, though.

genkaku

Fifty or sixty people sitting still, straight and silent scared the crap out of me.

And I knew I was home.