Tathagata Meditation Center - San Jose, California

Nathan

This place is the real deal. Not that hippie woke variety that represents most of American Buddhism. Very rigorous and disciplined. Ha Truong is a saint. Very earnest, humble and dedicated.

Tran N.

One of the most authentic meditation centers I’ve ever been to. Highly recommend for beginners as well as advance practitioner who is looking for Mental and physical well-being. Enjoy the quite space, and therapeutic energies here a lot. Hope there’s more meditation center like this around the world.

Glenn J.

Great place to explore the mind and body by practice Buddha' teachings

Kim L.

Early 90s My father and his friends built this place and my brothers and I would play and take Sunday kids meditation class and it was gatherings and mediation session and teachings. It’s a wonderful place that gave me wonderful memories. I’m so grateful to be part of this place of peace. Namaste

Jagdeep S.

Vipassana Meditation camps are held at the center. Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu!!!

Mikey

Wow, what an amazing center. It’s the real deal.

Mandatory donation was $25/day. 90% of people get their own room. Food included. Very cheap for America in my opinion. You have to send in a check with your application or pay through PayPal (but PayPal has a fee). Other centers usually fill up super fast and have a wait list months in advance, but for some reason this one was pretty easy to apply to. I was skeptical to send a check, but clearly the center is real and there is nothing to be worried about.

I’m not sure if Ha Truong is the coordinator for all month long retreats here, but she was extremely nice and very helpful. The other staff all seemed very nice as well.

The location is not rural. As such, I was worried that the center would feel constrained or that the walking path would be boring, however the center is beautiful and the walking path was ample. There are also a lot of squirrels eating from the trees, which is cute to look at sometimes. This one baby squirrel jumped into a rain gutter and popped his little head out to have a staring contest with me. I lost. But you get the idea, it’s a peaceful environment.

There are some police and car sounds, but it’s not much of a nuisance in my opinion.

The food is clearly separated between the vegetarian Vietnamese dishes, and one standalone meat dish. There was not a single day where the food wasn’t fantastic. There’s always fruit, salad, and some kind of desert. For breakfast there’s oatmeal with those giant looking raisin things, Nutella, peanut butter and jelly, different breads and crackers, and cereal, milk, and soy milk. There are different juices every day at 4. No dinner.

The rooms have a bed, a night stand, and an openable window with blinds. Good size rooms.

The crowd at the retreat I attended seemed to be about 2/3 women and 1/3rd men. It’s mostly a Vietnamese crowd, but other races definitely do show up, and generally it seems like the practitioners all greatly respect each other. It does seem like some people from the pragmatic dharma crowd attend retreats here.

The schedule is intense, and somehow it seems like almost everybody sticks to it fully. For every sitting meditation almost everybody attended every time, backs straight, barely any fidgeting for the whole hour. I don’t know how these people do it, but they are all serious about practice to say the least. With that said, you’re expected to attend every sitting meditation, but unless it gets out of hand no one is going to talk to you about it, so if you were hoping for someone to discipline you and make sure you attend every sitting meditation, that is not the case. Perhaps you could ask one of the staff members to keep an eye on you, but I don’t know if they’d accommodate that.

In the meditation hall, you’re given a zafu and zabuton, but the zafu is not made of husk or of some sturdy material like at a Goenka center, so if you’re picky about that you should bring your own. There are resting chairs in the back, and you can request a chair to sit in your normal spot. Some people used those seiza benches, and a lot of people used various cloths and whatnot to keep up their knee if doing half lotus, that sort of thing.

The monks were great. Super friendly, knowledgeable, nonjudgmental, helpful.

Interviews are 10 minutes twice a week. Seems rather light in my opinion, but really, as long as you’re noting, there’s not much to talk about. If you feel like you need more, I’m sure they would accommodate more times per week.

There’re daily loving kindness chants at 9:40PM, which ends at 10PM, after which you are expected to go to bed/continue to practice laying down in your room.

That's about all I can think of. A perfect environment to practice Mahasi style noting.

Rachana K.

It was my first meditation retreat ever and it was the best experience of my life. Really learnt how to meditate and learnt so much about my mind and body during my time here. I felt the most calm and peace than ever while I was here.

Huy L.

This place is just what a monastery, a meditation center is. Not a fancy place with big statue, decoration and burning incense like you would expect but a place to teach buddhism and meditation. I highly recommend their program for beginners as well as more advanced folks.