Buddhists in Merced

This morning I went with my friend to a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of town to do a meditation with a monk. Who knew there was such a temple here in the middle of nowhere?

From what I can gather, the monks (2 of them) are from Thailand and may be Hmong. The "temple" is a new house with an alter and platform in the living room. The alter holds about six large golden statues of the Buddha with a ton of flowers (both fake and real) in vases surrounding the buddhas. The platform in along the west wall and is a rectangular type of table(?) that has thin, red square cushions where the monks sit. The monks and buddha statues face east. The monks wear their orange robes and sometimes a bright orange sweatshirt - the kind that deer hunters would wear hunting.

There is a falling down skeleton of a house on this property as well. They are trying to raise money to demolish it and build a real temple, so that they can worship over there instead of in their house. We found out today that they are part of a sect that has a temple in San Francisco and Santa Cruz. I really do not understand why they are in Merced, but our monk (who came from Hawaii) says he loves it here. His mother and brother want to buy property here.

We've been going to this temple once a week for a couple months now for 30-45 minutes of silent meditation with the one monk that speaks a little English. We sit on the floor - there are a couple of area rugs sitting on top of the wall-to-wall carpeting - facing our monk teacher. I love that although the monk teaches us which leg should be in front of the other when sitting cross-legged, and which hand should be resting in the other, the rules don't have to be followed exactly. He says its okay if I slouch forward and even fall asleep, because even in sleep my mind will be meditating.

I love this silent time. It is always just what I need on a Tuesday morning.