Algonquin Beach Meditation Center Research Paper

My first experience in a Buddhist temple was quite different than anything I have experienced religion-wise. I visited the Quan Am Monastery (Vietnamese-American Buddhist) at 3500 South Goodlet. I got to experience first-hand how meditation in a Buddhist temple actually works. I was very intrigued to find out how someone outside of the Christian faith, worshipped. As one might expect, the atmosphere was very tranquil. My group members and I called ahead a few days earlier and a man answered the phone and it was very hard to understand what he saying but I know I heard him say “come on Friday so that’s what we did. When we arrived we stepped outside the vehicle we took a look around and there were two buildings outside. One that had

Suddenly, there was the Pacific Ocean, as blue as a large aquamarine gem. I was high on a cliff overlooking the beach far below. Huge black rock formations, like jagged, decaying teeth, jutted out of the water with wave after turquoise wave slapping against them. The waves also slammed against my cliff, spraying mist from the ocean onto my face. The roar of the wind embraced the land, and the thunder of the waves somehow had a calming effect.

The previous heliocentric “cosmos” transform into the “earth.” Her gradual reduction from the supernatural to the natural world ground her with her

Moving along the beach, I noticed a variety of vibrant rocks clustered together like bright patches of nebula against the darkened pitch of sand. Here was a crater of red, there, multiple rings of green set into a granite base, and even farther away there were whole galaxies of stone dusted in slices of quartz and coarse iron. Soon the rising and falling rush of water in my ears was accompanied by the gentle clacking sound of small, mineral galaxies colliding against one another in the confines of my palms. It was as we were preparing to leave that a final rock flashed across my peripheral. As if by some unseen cosmic force, I found myself reeling with the efforts to unearth it. Unlike the others already in my possession, this rock had a dull and rough exterior. Maybe, I was now realizing, it was much the same as the Sault Saint Marie I had always been so quick to scorn.

back up, and once again I felt with certainty that it was all a masquerade she was performing--but I was also struck by how intensely she performed, as though lives--not just our lives, or even the lives in this small, sometimes sleepy Massachusetts town, but all life, everywhere, from the worms beneath our feet that blindly dug their myriad and vermicular tunnels to the vast and tenuous astromorphs that feed on clouds of nebulae like earthly cetaceans sieve plankton and krill through their baleens--depended on her performance. She looked up at me, and said: "What were once billions of cycles about your small sun have now diminished over the aeons to an infinitesimal remnant; mere planetary revolutions, in fact. There are still

The storm had passed. Norval Gilmer careened the air cab to skim along the craggy mountain range past the Terra borough’s greenhouses in the south. Since he studied geology at Gnaritus University, he enthusiastically drew Surina’s attention to the unusual topography in the picturesque hinterland on the way to Algonquin Beach. Through the sunroof of the air cab, she glimpsed the congregation of the three suns, Spes’ rings, Fiducia, and Clementia in the endless turquoise sky. Suddenly, as they moved further south, the jaw-dropping view of the rainbow mountain materialized with its dazzling stripes of gold, black, green, orange, red, blue, and purple. Moreover, a soft alpenglow shrouded the snowy peaks.

It is not an experience unfamiliar to one of saturated mind to find oneself, stranded at the 2 AM hour, paralyzed by fear for the reality of the insignificance of humanity against an incomprehensibly massive universe. While it perhaps presents itself as scary, the vastness of the universe lends its limitations to more than just our sense of importance, but to our ability to study it as well.

Anne-Marie had never seen the stars before, only the moist and cold walls of the underground cavern she lived in. Once, a long time ago, she’d been told all the stars had fallen from the sky in great balls of fire and humanity had been forced to live underground. She remembered her parents saying they’d seen the stars before they had fallen. Bright white, shining, and angelic, was her mom had described them, like halos lighting up an endless darkness. Anne hadn’t believed her. Even now, as she walked down a scarcely lit pathway, she remained sceptical that they could have ever seen them.

I took the opportunity to visit Karma Thegsum Choling Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Center (KTC), located at 1000 Armeda Ave, Irving, TX 75061. The meditation center had recently moved from their Dallas location to Irving. After going through the course material on Buddhism, it got me curious to learn more about the culture, experience live worship ritual, meditation, and architecture of the temple. To understand the religion and culture better, I requested a friend of mine to visit the temple along with me. Since he practices Buddhism and also is a Tibetan, he acted as a personal guide during my visit to the meditation center. With little knowledge about Buddhism, he helped me understand the meaning of different symbols, prayer flags,

The Odyssey cautiously skirted around the titanic planet Spes so as to avoid becoming entangled in the ferocious maze of spinning icy boulders comprising the rings. Indeed, they had traversed ten thousand light years from the Orion spur all the way to the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. Nevertheless, looming before them was the even greater expanse of the intergalactic space leading to the billions of other galaxies in the

I sit within the steaming waters of my hot tub, releasing the stress of teenage life and summoning pure relaxation. I focus my gaze on the stars above, watching them dance across the raven sky. As I heighten my concentration, my physical state seems to melt away. I understand then, in this euphoric moment, that I am the universe experiencing itself.

Paradise Pool and Spa is a swimming pool contractor that is located in Torrance, California. They serve the South Bay area of Los Angeles. Their services include maintenance, repair, remodeling, and new construction. Paradise Pool and Spa is licensed, bonded, and insured.

Walking along the Florida coastline, I find myself not only travelling across space, but across time. I look down at the dozens of seashells - some small, some large, striped, dotted, blue, pink, grey; these seashells have been around the world. Just like people, these shells started off in one place, familiar and comfortable, and ended up somewhere new, ready for someone to pick them up and appreciate the grooves of the journey. Each seashell has taken a wild journey to get to this coastline, to be at my feet. Each seashell’s journey is unique to itself, just like each person has a unique story to their location on the coastline.

Surina often wondered what her place was in the world. It was a timeworn Cinderella problem where no solution quite fit. By focusing on alterity or otherness, the hidebound society on Earth made her feel as if she didn’t belong. Then, one summer night, she had a dream that she could not shake out of her mind the whole of the next day. Since she had stopped dreaming a long time ago, it was unusual for her to dream in the first place let alone about a comet. What’s more, she was riding on the glowing blue comet as it swept past the Sun and Earth at a dizzying speed. With her arms outstretched, she felt like a fearless giddy surfer on a once in a lifetime, giant wave. Then, just as it had materialized out of nowhere, the comet vanished into a thick cloud of dust beyond the edge of the Solar System, blazing an iridescent blue trail in its wake.

The sound of the emerald green ocean water crashing against the shores filled my ears. Children ran along the shore, smiling from ear to ear while laughing amongst each other clearly enjoying their day. Some people were searching contently for sea shells, that were visible for miles. I looked out at the ocean, it stretched out far into the horizon; as far as my eyes could see. There were jetty’s that were perfectly placed within the ocean. I could smell the salt radiating off of the water. I had been waiting for this moment for a long time; I dashed into the ocean I’d been waiting for for the past