Went to a Tibetian Dharma Center today.

I'm copying and pasting this from a Buddhist forum I post in, but thought I would share it here and see if anyone had any questions/comments about my experience.


I just thought I'd give an update about how things went. I really enjoyed myself and learned a lot. We started off with mindfulness of breathing mediation for 15 minutes. They called it something else, which leads me to believe I may have the name of this type of mediation wrong, but the content is the same and I can't remember what they called it. Then we did something called the 7-limb practice which entailed reading chanting of mantras, taking refuge, chanting the Heart Sutra, and a few other things which are hard for me to describe, but it was about focusing on the Pure Land on Shakyamuni. (It was one of the strangest parts for me) Sorry, this is a poor description, I'm trying to find a link to this practice online, but if anyone is familiar with it and wants to explain it better than me, please feel free too. There was also a recording of a teaching, the group is mostly a lay group. There are two lamas in our area who come and give discussions on Thursday, but they weren't there today.

Overall, I plan on going back. Even if I do have some issues with Tibetan Buddhism, I feel like it would be helpful for my practice to have a community. Also, every Sunday evening they do a reading group for sections the Pali Cannon. It was cancelled tonight, but I'm looking forward to that in the future and I'm glad to see they don't neglect the Pali Cannon.