In order to acquire the breath and depth of understanding of the phenomenon of Christian mysticism you’ll have to visit on your own a certain religious site off campus (see the list of the suggested places on pages 5 and 6 of the syllabus) that emphasizes meditation as a central component of its spirituality. After visiting a site you will write a report in which you will tell your readers (it’s okay to have your notebooks and take notes while you are visiting a site):

A. 1) Where you are; 2) what religious tradition the site is a part of; 3) tell what this tradition is about (Christianity, for instance); 4) tell HOW the site’s BRANCH of this tradition (Eastern Orthodox Church, for instance) develops, evolves and manifests this tradition.
B. Discuss how the site’s architecture, symbols, images, style of worship and particularly MEDITATIVE practices represent and articulate the site’s religious views.
C. Mention a particular detail (s) specifically related to MEDITATIVE practices, that you found to be personally appealing and tell why do you find it (them) appealing.

You won’t be allowed to use any citations in your report. Write it in your own words.

I want you to learn how to paraphrase the information that you accumulate from different sources IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Imagine that you are writing an extended and very well articulated version of a home-take final exam. What if you want explicitly to refer to someone’s professional opinion on the subject matter? Let me give you an example.

“Eastern Orthodox Church puts a lot of emphasis on worship, liturgy, lighting candles, etc. It articulates its central spiritual goal as deification in Christ. This deification is identical with participation in divine energy of God. A famous Orthodox scholar Adam Smith discusses this in his book Deification in Christ. In particular, he argues that deification is inseparable part of Orthodox liturgy (Smith 33). This is totally correct. Orthodox Christians view liturgy as the primary way of achieving deification. Smith also believes that the idea of deification has definite philosophical Platonic underpinnings (Smith 44). He points out that even though this clearly the case; this does not in any way discredit the fact that the idea of deification is fundamentally Christian in nature (ibid.). He observes that Christians borrowed several crucial features from the pagan authors without compromising the essence of Christian faith. Even Paul did this (ibid.). George Washington confirms this view in his monumental History of the Orthodox Church in America (Washington 1444). For more analysis of this see Donald Trump’s How and Why I converted to Orthodox Church and Bill Clinton’s How Orthodox Church Helped Me to Become a Perfect Christian.

You can use MLA (and perhaps you should) as a way of citing sources. For the question on the correct use of MLA consult https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/.

Notice that this is written as a PARAGRAPH. Notice that most of my sentences are no longer than two lines. Notice that nowhere I used the connector-words like “therefore, however, nonetheless, so”) and yet connections between sentence have perfect logical sense. The word of advice: DO NOT USE these connector-words in your paper. Let the logic of your thought speak for itself. I am sure that your grandma and grandpa can understand this paragraph. This is how I want you to write your paper: write it keeping your grandma and your grandpa as your primary reading audience. I am quite serious about that!

If you cite additional sources you have to use an additional reference page for the full description of these sources.

Smith, Adam. Deification in Christ. Chicago, Il: Chicago Liturgical Press, 1995.

I Choose San Francisco Zen Center, Here is the website for you as a reference. http://sfzc.org/ Or you can look up some video on youtube about the Zen center. At last, I want to notice you: please use simple word as the professor asked, there is no need to be over-systematic thank you