Talk:Birken Forest Buddhist Monastery

Wiki Education assignment: Asian Religions in America
— Assignment last updated by Ziegenbalg66 (talk) 00:35, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

The most glaring problem with the page is the citations. There are only two works cited, which explains the sparse information on the website. One of the pages cited is the official Birken Forest Buddhist Monastery page, which is an incredibly biased source. The only other website is a 2008 journal about Buddhism. Neither of these sources are particularly reliable, and because of this there

The other most prominent issue is the About section. Many of the sentences are copied word for word from the monastery's website. The Services section has much of the same issue. This makes the entire page read like one big advertisement. While the monastery has not experienced any major controversies, there are still valid criticisms of any establishment.

I plan to use a scholarly article about the monastery as my primary source of information. This article details much of the group’s history, and more importantly, their values. The current Wikipedia article needs an update that describes the strict rules the residents live by. Monks are not allowed to be alone with women or even touch money. This addition is important because it describes the actual lifestyle of people in the monetary, not just the way visitors can interact with the group. Savoryyyy (talk) 16:49, 16 November 2022 (UTC)