Dear Friend,

	A statue of Buddha

Buddhism is one of the main religions in Taiwan. Today, we visited the Chung Tai Chan Monastery, which houses a large Buddhist temple and a school for studying Buddhism and other religions.

Buddhism started
in India around
500 B.C., and
later spread to China. A main
goal of Buddhism
is to reach enlightenment, or Buddhahood, which means to have a complete understanding of the truth. This is reached through meditation, through detachment from desires and worldly things, and through studying with Buddha masters.

	The Chung Tai Chan Monastery

Statues of Buddha are generally not considered to be memorials to the man who founded Buddhism. Instead, these statues show “the form of the Enlightened One.” Buddhists believe that the statues are a reminder of how truth can be found in each person through meditation.

Your friend,

Carla