Dharma Bum Temple

Founding Dharma Bum Temple was founded by a group who met at a local Buddhist temple in San Diego in 2003. One of the members of the group, Jeffrey Zlotnik, eventually became president of the English-language chapter of the local temple. However, due to logistical problems and a lack of funding, the group abandoned the project shortly after opening the temple. In September 2008, the temple officially changed its name to Dharma Bum Temple. In downtown San Diego Dharma Bum Temple was located in and operated from downtown San Diego from the end of 2006 to April 2017. Due to its proximity to SDSU, Dharma Bum Temple and its services at Buddha for You became popular among college students and the temple eventually started holding regular events on the campus. This included the organization of an SDSU meditation club called the "Aztec Dharma Bums" and the founding of the first Buddhist college fraternity in the United States, Delta Beta Tau (ΔΒΤ). The temple spent five years looking for a place to expand to but was unable to find a suitable location until 2016. To raise the money, Zlotnik launched a fundraising campaign on Facebook to ask for donations. Since relocating, the temple consolidated Dharma Bum Temple and its separate gift shop, Buddha for You, as well as all of the services that were held there into the new larger location. The new temple is expected to have three meditation areas and be able hold up to 300 people at one time. == Services ==

|alt= Dharma Bum Temple focuses on being an introductory center for westerners to learn Buddhism in a culturally approachable way. Although it does not identify with any specific school of Buddhism, the temple emphasizes principles of Mahayana Buddhism such as the teachings of the Heart Sutra. Its teachings include overcoming problems and eliminating suffering through meditation and the development of Buddhist principles. Like many temples influenced by Mahayana Buddhism, Dharma Bum Temple stresses the benefit of pursuing the Bodhisattva Path through the cultivation of the Six Mahayana Paramitas. It regularly hosts guest speakers from various traditions of Buddhism and holds field trips in the summer to other Buddhist temples in San Diego to introduce attendees to their traditions. The temple also offers introductory classes on Buddhism in Spanish. According to temple co-founder Jeffrey Zlotnik, this policy is in place to avoid pressuring attendees into giving unwillingly, which he says reduces the value of the practice of generosity. Along with traditional Buddhist services, Dharma Bum Temple also hosts a Buddhism based support group called the "Recovery Sangha". The program combines elements of the traditional Twelve-Step Program with Buddhism and meditation to help drug and alcohol addicts overcome their addictions. == Community outreach ==

Food redistribution Dharma Bum Temple operates a weekly feed the homeless program called "Food Redistribution". The temple and volunteers for the program do not purchase food for the program but instead collect food from stores and farms in the area who would have otherwise thrown it away for not being fresh or being too close to the expiration date. The focus of the program is not just to feed the homeless but also to combat excessive food waste. All food prepared for the Dharma Bum Temple food redistribution program is vegetarian. == Delta Beta Tau ==

In 2015, Dharma Bum Temple started to organize a Buddhist college fraternity at the suggestion of its co-founder Jeffrey Zlotnik, who was in Beta Theta Pi in college. Although the temple originally planned on creating a fraternity and a sorority, it ended up organizing a single co-ed fraternity. The first chapter of the fraternity was founded at San Diego State University (SDSU), which the temple already had a strong presence on. The temple had already been running a meditation club on the campus called "The Aztec Dharma Bums". The co-ed fraternity was founded on the principles of the Six Paramitas of Mahayana Buddhism. == See also ==