That is still more or less what happens here. On most weeks the centre is quiet. On the days it is not, people arrive after work or on a Sunday morning, take off their shoes, and sit. Children learn stories in one room while adults chant in another. Afterwards there is tea, and usually more conversation than meditation.

What Theravāda means here

Theravāda is the older of the surviving Buddhist traditions, preserved in the Pāli language across Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia. In practice, for a lay centre like ours, that means an emphasis on the discourses as they were recorded, on sīla — ethical conduct, and on bhāvanā — meditation as something you actually do rather than read about.

We teach in English, which has shaped who finds us. Our congregation has always included people who grew up in Buddhist families and people who arrived with no background at all, and both are equally at home.

How the centre runs

Metta Lodge is a registered non-profit society run by a volunteer committee. Nobody here is paid to teach. Classes are led by senior lay practitioners and, when they visit, by monastics from Malaysia and abroad.

There has never been a fee for anything, and there is no membership to join before you can attend. The centre is sustained entirely by dāna — voluntary giving, which is the traditional arrangement and one we have no plans to change.

What comes next

A purpose-built four-storey centre is under construction at Taman Johor Jaya, with a dedicated meditation hall and proper classrooms. It is the largest thing the society has ever attempted, and it is being built the same way everything else here has been — slowly, and with whatever people are able to give.