This June and July, seven students from four universities gathered in Taipei, Taiwan, to read great books, explore the city, and experience a new culture. This scholarly adventure marks DRBU’s second year hosting its Summer Study Abroad in Taiwan program.

Students of the program read Buddhist sutras alongside writings from architecture, urban studies, and phenomenology. Several times a week, students visited sites throughout the city, to see firsthand the many interweaving realities that make up a cosmopolis like Taipei. These divergent perspectives—different traditions, different learning modes—allowed the students to “read” the cityscape as a text and take it as a mirror of their own minds.

Site visits this year included Taipei 101 at the start of the program, to give students a bird’s-eye view of Taipei, their summer home away from home; Taipei’s old city gates; the Jeffrey D. Schwartz Jewish Community Center and the Ruifang Qingyun Daoist Temple, two temples from different traditions; the National Palace Museum, a treasurehouse of Chinese history; the Lin Family Gardens; and Maokong, with its tea gardens and famous gondola.

The program also included a four-day stay at Xiangguan Mountain Monastery, a branch temple of the Luminary International Buddhist Society, an order of Taiwanese Buddhist nuns. Luminary nuns and laywomen offered meditation and mindfulness instruction and a glimpse into their way of life. The students showed great appreciation and admiration for their hosts and were excited to see how mindfulness could benefit them at home.

DRBU is thrilled at the successful completion of the program’s second year and looks forward to meeting new friends in Taipei in summer 2027.