September 28, 2005
SISTER SPIRIT ANNISE
My name is Annise. I am Catholic and raised Catholic.
Six days ago, Girls Club took a trip to Chinatown, to visit a Buddhist temple. The first temple we visited we were not allowed inside because they were having a meeting or celebration of the dead.
Then we visited another temple. On the outside it was a red building with three Chinese characters over the door. Inside, the first thing that caught my eye when I walked in was the red colors and this huge statue of the Buddha on the other side of the room. What interested me about the Buddha statue was that it was so big, gold and shiny, I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
We were told to wait for the Master. In my mind I was expecting an Asian man in his forties or fifties. But when we saw his face it was totally different from what I expected. It was weird because he was a Caucasian man in his 40s. I had never seen a Caucasian monk before. At the time that we were visiting, he was teaching his students—who were Asian adults and children—to speak English. The Master told us, he was born a Christian but changed to Buddhism.
What was different about the Catholic Church I usually go to and the temple that we visited was the change of colors. In my Catholic Church you usually see colors like cream, greens and browns but in the temple that we went to there were these bright reds, bright oranges and bright yellows. All the colors just burst into life. It made me excited to know more about what they studied here. Interacting with the people at the Temple brought more meaning for me to being Buddhist.