It is not exactly where someone would think to find a temple.
The Losel Shedrup Ling of Knoxville is located on Kingston Pike in the back corner of a shopping strip. Driving by, it is practically unnoticeable.
But the temple is there, and so are its members.
Jay Meeks, who is on the temple’s board of directors, said before a Wednesday class that he expected the number of attendees to be in the double digits.
“This class, we’ll probably have around 10 people today,” Meeks said. “Our Thursday meditation is usually lightly attended. Last week we had three, but we’ve had 10 or 15 people in there. And then the Sunday practice tends to be a bit more heavily attended … If we have special events, like if we have teachers from out of town, that can fill the place up.”
The temple focuses on the Tibetan denomination of Buddhism, which is a subset of the Mahayana branch.
Tibetan Buddhism typically utilizes various practices, including teachings by a guru, meditation and skepticism (defined as testing the words of the Buddha in order to promote analytic meditation). Mahayana is the most practiced form of Buddhism in the world. It attempts to dive further into the teachings of the Buddha.
The Losel Shedrup Ling temple was founded in 1993 as a satellite to a monastery in Atlanta that is affiliated with Emory University.
“I think in 1993, they basically planted this seed, for lack of a better term,” Meeks said. “The way that tends to work is they get it started, (funded) those types of things. And then it’s kind of hands off and we become an independent center.”
The Losel Shedrup Ling conducts two main practices. The first is made up of teachings taught by a Lama, who takes the practitioners through an 800-year-old text and applies it to the modern world.
The second involves group practices in which practitioners conduct various meditative exercises together.
Taylor Bell, a practitioner at the temple, was drawn to the Losel Shedrup Ling because of the familial atmosphere that it offers.
“The community that we have here is really strong and really tightly knit,” Bell said. “We do some really amazing things here. If you go to some of the bigger temples in the Southeast, it’s got a much different vibe. It’s like having a family. So this is why I come here to practice.”
Despite the close relationships among the temple’s members, Bell has experienced some confusion from the outside world as to what the Losel Shedrup Ling — and Buddhists — believe and practice.
“I heard this one guy, he said ‘Oh, I heard them Buddhists sacrifice goats and stuff,’” Bell said. “That can’t be further from the truth. We don’t kill anything. Most of us are vegetarians.”
However, Bell doesn’t feel that her beliefs and those of her Christian family members differ very much.
“I go to church with my grandmother every once in a while,” Bell said. “We can relate really well because our whole thing is about just being good to people and kind. I find that with good Christians, that’s kind of their same thing.”
The Losel Shedrup Ling has four officers: a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer, all of whom are appointed by its board of directors. It is a not-for-profit corporation and does not require members to renounce affiliation with other religious groups or churches.
The temple’s weekly schedule includes classes and other meetings Sunday through Thursday. Sunday’s sessions feature mostly practices and teachings; Monday’s session is focused on meditation; Tuesday, the temple hosts a book group that reads various Buddhist publications; Wednesday’s meeting is an introductory class to Buddhism; Thursday’s is based on practices.
Traditional artwork hangs from the walls of the temple.
