Spirit of Sacramento - 2: The City of the Dharma Realm

A few Sundays ago, on August 15, I went to a Buddhist scripture reading class at a Chinese Buddhist convent in West Sacramento. I had driven past the large complex of The City of the Dharma Realm several times over the past year, and have always been intrigued, so I was very excited to finally see what was behind the mysterious walls and palm trees that surround its border. It was beautiful - a peaceful series of buildings separated by gardens and courtyards spread out throughout the entire campus. The class is held in a small classroom, and is led by 2 nuns, in this case it was one older Chinese nun, and one younger Argentine nun. There were 4 students. We spent the first 20 minutes or so in silent meditation in a small meditation hall where there sat 3 beautiful statues at the front of it. After the sounding of a small bell which marked the end of the meditation time, we went back to the classroom, where we spent the next hour and a half reading through parts of an English translation of the Shurangama sutra with commentary - according to the nuns, this is the most important sutra in Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. It was very detailed reading regarding the importance of the sutra, and how it can keep away evil spirits, etc. My general impression of this gathering is that it was academic in nature, detailed, and open/friendly. The participants seemed to genuinely care about learning and respecting truth from the Chinese Buddhist perspective, and were persistent in their efforts, no matter how tedious or laborious.