General Guidelines for Your Visit
Monastic life is significantly different from daily life outside the monastery. To help you prepare for your visit, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the guidelines below. These are established to help support everyone's spiritual practice and growth.
Eight Precepts
These precepts foster a lifestyle of non-harming (ahimsa) and loving-kindness, tune into our sense of integrity and consideration for others, and encourage mindfulness and clarity. There is also a range of observances around maintaining a contemplative environment in residences, using the lodgings and material items with care, and dressing in a modest and simple way. These are designed to help us train in cultivating more awareness in our daily activities. These precepts and observances (sila) lay a foundation for a unified heart-mind-body (samadhi) that culminates in insight and wisdom (prajna). Sila, samadhi, and prajna are the three non-outflow trainings that are the hallmark of the Buddha’s path of awakening and compassion for all beings.
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