ICONOGRAPHYYou may have noticed that Juniper’s website is virtually devoid of Buddha images and other Buddhist iconography. At the outset, we chose to be neutral about this, even at the cost of appearing on the sparse side. It’s not that we don’t like images of Buddhas or other iconography. For some individuals, however, they can be off-putting, smacking of religion or something strange and difficult to relate to. Our goal is to make Buddhist training approachable, so we decided to lead with simplicity, letting the words and ideas do the talking.

We like iconography, though. Taken in the right way, it can be a powerful hook to motivate and inspire us. For example, we have a beautiful statue of a Buddha in our temple in Redwood City, but this is not mandatory. We do not need to have Buddha images in our homes to participate in Buddhist training. It is a matter of personal choice, inspiration, and taste. We hoped to convey this in the initial design of our site.


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