The Ann Arbor temple is a small urban temple in a Victorian house, surrounded by a large garden with a meditation area and large trees. We offer daily meditation practice, weekly courses in meditation, and yoga. Public Services are on Sunday at 9:30 am and 4 pm. We offer monthly retreats and children's programs.
Five-day Buddhist Peace camp in July, Life of the Buddha study, Summer Lecture series (Tuesday evenings in July) and special services throught the year. They include Buddha's Birthday Celebration, Buddha's Enlightenment All-Night Sitting, Ullambana Day, and more. Funeral and wedding services are conducted.
Each year the temple runs a yard sale to raise funds, selling donated and salvaged household goods.
In the media
The priest of the temple, Rev. Haju Sunim, gave a talk that tied both into this reading and Mother's Day, and incorporated an actual meditation practice. She said that in thinking about our parents, we often think about the things that bother us rather than the larger picture, giving a highly slanted view. She extended this to other people as well, and asked people to think about someone they have had problems with. Then we were first asked to think of that person as being another copy of ourself, with the same desire for happiness. Second, flip that around--think of ourselves as being those other people. Finally, also think what it would be like if one of your closest friends were acting like that person. These were exercises for cultivating compassion and a type of mindfulness.
- Zen and the Art of Dumpster Diving, TreeHugger, 2007
According to Andrew Revkin, a Zen Buddhist Temple in Ann Arbor, Michigan has taken it up as a method of raising money for the temple, and for spiritual reasons- a priest at the Ann Arbor temple,explained that Dumpster diving is actually a modern variant of an ancient tradition by which Buddhist “patched-robe monks” and nuns reclaimed clothing, sometimes from corpses, and would repair garments repeatedly to extend their life as much as possible.
- Buddhist Dumpster Diving, Great Lakes Radio Consortium transcript, 2007.