After lunch, they talked about what had happened, about Shr Fu going out and inviting them in. He told them, "You can come and protest under the trees; you can also come to the conference and say what you want to say. You don't have to stand out here." Some came in and talked about what they had thought when they were protesting, and then how that changed. I thought, "Wow, how amazing! Shr Fu wasn't worried about his safety, and he didn't draw any attention to himself before going out and talking to them. Everything he did was very quiet. He didn't advertise what he did and he embodied all the virtues that he talked about. This is really rare.

Master Hua exhibited an amazing open-mindedness. What he cared about was not furthering "Buddhism" per se but helping people to realize their potential for wisdom. I remember once he gave a lecture saying that the term Buddhism could be done away with, and that we should only talk about the pursuit of wisdom. Anyone who was in pursuit of wisdom he befriended and encouraged. I remember that there was a Catholic priest from Humboldt State who would bring his students to visit the temple once a year. Whenever he visited, Shr Fu would have him offer mass in the Buddha Hall. Shr Fu was also a close friend with the Catholic Cardinal Yu Bin, to whom he said "I will be a Catholic among Buddhists, and you can be a Buddhist among Catholics."

Even within the Buddhist tradition, he tried to bring people together and eliminate schisms. For all ordination ceremonies at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, he would invite both Theravadan and Mahayana masters to officiate. This is usually unheard of. He also purchased and donated a piece of land to the Theravadan teacher Ajahn Sumedho to build what is now Abhayagiri Forest Monastery in Redwood Valley. Be­cause of this, Mendocino County has representative monastic communities from the two major Buddhist traditions in the world. As a child witnessing all this, I felt sure that despite differences in teachings and rituals, people with similar spirit and insight can be found in all religious traditions. I also developed a strong sense of optimism about human nature.

The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas is a very beautiful place. It is so peaceful and safe that the kids there always had a huge sense of trust. We had community meetings, neighborhood clean-ups, and potlucks, and the kids would cook in the kitchen once a week. A community garden grew in front of our house. I remember waking up Christmas morning with no one home. My mother had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night, and my parents had left me a note explaining what was going on. At first I was scared. Then I went to the Buddha Hall where an Amitabha session was going on. As I participated in the chanting I remember thinking, "Gosh, I'm so lucky, even if my parents aren't around, there are so many people who I can trust and be with. I don't even have to call anybody ahead of time." There was a real community feeling. I walked around the Buddha Hall and started counting the places where I could go. There were six or seven families, without any question, that I could have stayed with while my parents were gone. There was a sense that people cared about each other.

In some ways it is a mixed blessing to have grown up in such a safe, peaceful, and supportive environment. As a child I could talk to anybody, and I just figured that would be the case everywhere. In the places I have lived since moving away from the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, people who live only steps away don't even know each other. It is very different and it was hard to get used to at first. I have slowly come to realize that not everyone is able to care about other people, and we have to be careful about whom we trust. Nevertheless, I still have a firm faith in the basic Buddhist idea that all living beings have the Buddha nature and that everyone at their core is good and has the potential to manifest that goodness.

Even though I had a very good experience growing up, after going to college and realizing how unusual my upbringing was, I have felt a need to leave the community, to go away and learn about other places. At times I have felt really lonely, even hopeless and despairing. Was my childhood a figment of my imagination? Does anyone other than my family understand what it meant to me? I dated people who weren't Buddhist and didn't seem to know anything about Buddhism. I encountered a radical skepticism about religion. That was re­ally difficult. It was only last year during an exchange to Harvard that I met young Buddhists my age studying at the Harvard Divinity School. One of the women I met, Sumi differences in teachings and rituals, people with similar spirit and insight can be found in all religious traditions. I also developed a strong sense of optimism about human nature.

The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas is a very beautiful place. It is so peaceful and safe that the kids there always had a huge sense of trust. We had community meetings, neighborhood clean-ups, and potlucks, and the kids would cook in the kitchen once a week. A community garden grew in front of our house. I remember waking up Christmas morning with no one home. My mother had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night, and my parents had left me a note explaining what was going on. At first I was scared. Then I went to the Buddha Hall where an Amitabha session was going on. As I participated in the chanting I remember thinking, "Gosh, I'm so lucky, even if my parents aren't around, there are so many people who I can trust and be with. I don't even have to call anybody ahead of time." There was a real community feeling. I walked around the Buddha Hall and started counting the places where I could go. There were six or seven families, without any question, that I could have stayed with while my parents were gone. There was a sense that people cared about each other.

In some ways it is a mixed blessing to have grown up in such a safe, peaceful, and supportive environment. As a child I could talk to anybody, and I just figured that would be the case everywhere. In the places I have lived since moving away from the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, people who live only steps away don't even know each other. It is very different and it was hard to get used to at first. I have slowly come to realize that not everyone is able to care about other people, and we have to be careful about whom we trust. Nevertheless, I still have a firm faith in the basic Buddhist idea that all living beings have the Buddha nature and that everyone at their core is good and has the potential to manifest that goodness.

Even though I had a very good experience growing up, af­ter going to college and realizing how unusual my upbringing was, I have felt a need to leave the community, to go away and learn about other places. At times I have felt really lonely, even hopeless and despairing. Was my childhood a figment of my imagination? Does anyone other than my family under­stand what it meant to me? I dated people who weren't Buddhist and didn't seem to know anything about Buddhism. I encountered a radical skepticism about religion. That was re­ally difficult. It was only last year during an exchange to Harvard that I met young Buddhists my age studying at the Harvard Divinity School. One of the women I met, Sumi Loundon, who is writing a book on young Buddhists in America, was contacted by NPR (National Public Radio) to organize an interview of young people who grew up in Bud­dhist communities. She encouraged me to participate. Even though very little of the two-hour interview was included in the actual show, getting that opportunity to talk to other young adults who had grown up in Buddhist communities was a very positive experience for me.
Since then, I have made more of an effort to get to knowyoung Buddhists from my own and other Buddhist communities in America. This has been very exciting for me. In thisprocess I feel that I will be able to integrate my experiencesgrowing up at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas with the lifeI have experienced since leaving for college. What once seemedlike two entirely separate worlds are now beginning to come together.

(The End)

※Shari was born in 1970 in San Francisco, and moved with her par­ents to the recently founded City of Ten Thousand Buddhas (CTTB) in Talmage when she was six. She enrolled in Instilling Goodness Elemen­tary School at CTTB, graduated from Developing Virtue Girls Secondary School in 1988, and attended Stanford University. In 1992, she re­ceived both a Bachelor's degree in Human Biology and a Master's degree in East Asian Studies. After traveling in Asia, she has returned to Stanford University's Graduate School of Religion, where she is cur­rently pursuing her doctoral studies in Early Chinese Religions.