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Avatamsaka Monastery was established in 1989 in a small, eighty-some year old, two-story building (about 3,000 square feet) in the Ramsey area of southeast Calgary, Canada. The founders were mostly refugees from Vietnam who needed a place to practice their religion and promote Asian culture. After making a small down payment, this seminal group set out to find Buddhist monks or nuns to live in the temple and conduct the many services and classes traditionally held at Buddhist centers of worship. After some searching, they finally found the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, whose leader, the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, agreed to accept and run the new Calgary temple.
Because the number of devotees attending functions at Avatamsaka Monastery has been increasing yearly, and because the present building is very small, members have been searching for a new, larger location for almost five years. The Association has finally found suitable facilities in the former home of the Mountain Equipment Coop, a one-story building with a full basement and over 21,000 square feet of floor space. This new location will be occupied by the end of July 1996. The address of the new building is: 1009 4th Avenue, South West, Calgary, Alberta T2P OK8, Canada.
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