The very first thing I noticed, is they hadn't set out nearly enough chairs for everyone who showed up. They ended up bringing in a lot more chairs and moved the refreshment table back farther in the room. When the lady stepped up to the microphone, she said she was "thrilled to see such a turnout because they were not expecting nearly this many people." So that was good to hear, she was pretty excited.
Then, a man who practiced Buddhism and was a priest came up and talked about his experiences, what it means to Buddhists, and some of the main things these faiths do. He started with about three minutes of just pure silence. During this entire time I was constantly swallowing trying not to cough and sneeze, it was pretty hard. After the silence, we all had to bow the upper half of our body. "Silence is a deeper way of learning", the man said. I didn't really agree with this. I don't know what you could possibly learn by just sitting there. Sure, it's a way to think about things, but I didn't understand why 100 people would meet to just sit in silence. He said that he has been to meetings where they sit in silence for two hours. That just seems like a waste of time to me. You may as well sit in the comfort of you own home and be silent.
The image below is what I have always pictured when I thought of Buddhism, the large Chinese man. I thought that Buddhism was something that you had to be born into, it was interesting to hear I was completely wrong..
The man mainly focused on the topic of Buddhism, the only Catholic thing he mentioned was that he was a preist..
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