Architecture
While the exteriors of the centers often fit in with the areas they inhabit the interiors tend to have Asian influences. While not required, most Zen centers have a zendo or meditation hall. Zen centers may have residents, also known as monks (for males) and nuns (female), who may live in the center's residence area. Most have kitchens and communal areas.
Some centers do not have mirrors in the bathrooms. This is to assist the practitioner from focusing on unimportant parts of zen practice, such as facial appearance.
Read more about this topic: Zen Center
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Defaced ruins of architecture and statuary, like the wrinkles of decrepitude of a once beautiful woman, only make one regret that one did not see them when they were enchanting.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“In short, the building becomes a theatrical demonstration of its functional ideal. In this romanticism, High-Tech architecture is, of course, no different in spirit—if totally different in form—from all the romantic architecture of the past.”
—Dan Cruickshank (b. 1949)