"Let me say that I am very grateful for the opportunity to participate in this program and be able to stay in the monastery. DDM has wonderful atmosphere and I felt really refreshed and rested after living here for a month. It is very great sight to see all the monastics and lay community working for the wider community. Very inspiring. Food we were so kindly provided with was so delicious, fresh and healthy. On some days it felt like we are being fed in fancy vegetarian restaurant. I also enjoyed company of classmates and kind attitude of Professors. I have also highly enjoyed reading and trying to understand Lankavatara sutra quite a lot, for the part I could follow and understand. As it was such an amazingly difficult text!"

"I enjoyed learning about the connections between Sanskrit and Chinese as well as being introduced to the Lotus Samadhi Repentance. Prof. Teng and Luke Gibson provided a lot of insights into how Chinese was translated from Sanskrit, which helped me better understand the Buddha's sutras and the translations that are possible based on the Chinese. I will be bringing what I learned back to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in order to help with the translation. Prof. Wang and Dharma Master Guo Kai's presentation of the Lotus Samadhi Repentance (integrated with practice) gave me a better understanding of the Chinese Buddhist tradition. From being exposed to the systematic approach of cultivation in the Tiantai school, I have a better understanding about practicing repentance in the monastery as well as helping explain the practice to other Westerners like myself."