Andrew Fitts
Founder
Andrew was born in 1954 in Rochester, N.Y. He was raised as a Unitarian and schooled as a Quaker. He graduated from Naropa University in 1982 with a masters in Buddhist and Western Psychology. He has had careers in psychotherapy, real estate, and 20 years as owner/manager of a wholesale clothing company that manufactured in Iceland, Nepal and China. He lives on Kauai with his wife Prairie and their two cats, Aya and Romy.
A few words from the author of the blog:
Having followed the Buddhist path for over 30 years, I felt inspired to create this web site to share my experiences. I have had the good fortune to visit numerous temple sites around the world and to experience the cultural context of Buddhism in Asia. These moments have helped me feel its living spirit and it has transformed my life. With that inspiration, I was moved to build a stupa complex on the island of Kauai. I wanted to recreate something of the Asian experience as a support to fellow Buddhists in the West. I have lived next to this public site for the last five years. The project was completed in early 2009.
I appreciate the daily round of visiting a temple site and interacting with other pilgrims. It is deeply satisfying to be in the presence of sacred, empowered architecture surrounded by the beauty of nature. It is a direct experience of something dear to us on the Buddhist path. It is not a purely mental appreciation, but is something environmental, a feeling that one is in touch with something profound. This context is very helpful for you and I as Western practitioners. It has been a core support for Asian Buddhists through the centuries.
My desire is to help others create this tangible experience of Buddhist sacred architecture in the form of stupas and temple spaces for themselves and their communities. It is part of the natural progression of the Dharma coming to the West for this to happen, and is an exciting development for all of us.
I invite you to share your thoughts and observations in this blog, and to make this web site a satisfying resource for those interested in creating and experiencing sacred space/form.
