I was fortunate to visit Sedona earlier this year. It was my second visit, the first was about 25 years ago. Sedona is known to be a spiritual center, attracting new age and other spiritual thinkers and leaders. There are crystal shops in town and many healers and practitioners in all varieties plus some great health food shops. The area is known for its vortexes. We are told there are four main ones, but up to 15, including the lesser ones.
One of the lesser ones is the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park. It is considered one of the area’s spiritual vortexes, known for its calming energy and as a place for meditation and reflection. Many visitors report feeling a sense of peace while at the stupa.
I can vouch for that. As we walked around, listening to the mourning doves and seeing the rust colored dirt and buddha statues and stupa and prayer flags there was a palpable feeling of peace. This gives me awe and I wonder why? Why can a site like this emanate peace? It was a wonderful feeling. I’ve felt it other places, too, on hikes, in some buildings, and around some people but this park was really wonderful. I find that peace is usually associated with quiet and silence, and this park was quiet although it had quite a few visitors while I was there.
I took the two photos that follow.
Above is medicine wheel, to represent the connection between Tibetan buddhism and Native Americans.
The Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park in Sedona, Arizona is a beautiful outdoor venue and a spiritual destination for prayer, meditation, and the experience of peace in a sacred place. It was conceived of and built for people of all faiths. The Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park came into being as a result of the vision of Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo Rinpoche, Spiritual Director of Kunzang Palyul Chöling, a Buddhist organization committed to compassionate outreach. It has become a spiritual destination for prayer and meditation and a beloved place of peace and refuge for visitors from all over the world and residents of the Sedona area. The Amitabha Stupa truly is a living presence of peace and love. It is here in this world for the benefit of all sentient beings.
It is on private property owned by Kunzang Palyul Choling, a Tibetan Buddhist Temple in the Vajrayana Tradition. The park is open every day during daylight hours for people of all faiths. Any prayers, meditations, visualizations and spiritual practices that are done at the stupa will be made more powerful by the spiritual energy that is imbued within it. That spiritual energy is derived from how the stupa came into being, its location, how it was built, and the profound offerings that are inside of it. It works for people of all faiths, including nonhuman beings.
The Buddha statue came from Bali, Indonesia and is carved out of a single piece of mahogany.
The 14 acres located in Sedona Arizona that the Stupa is on is a wildlife sanctuary.
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