This old Chinese temple name could be translated into dragon and lotus temple. The short name is Wat Mangkorn or Dragon temple; the temple was built in 1870 making it just over 152 years old. This temple is a Mahayana Buddhist temple built according to the southern Chinese temple architecture. This is where most of my elderly Chinese relatives would come for their religious worship and ceremonies.
On my way towards the temple, several shops selling incense and paper offerings for performing ceremonies at the temple.
I was too small when my Chinese grandmother went for her monthly religious ceremony with lots of food and goodies to offer at the shrine. But she would come back with lots of snacks and fruits she had exchanged among friends at the temple. It would have been quite an experience to have gone there with her on the tram or rickshaws in those days. Only when I returned home from overseas that I began to find my own cultural roots.
My journey back to the past did help me to find ‘myself’ and teased out all the confusion or inner conflicts of the self. Through time and abiding patience, I have found the solid foundation of all the streams of confusing values which integrated into a whole basis upon which I could learn about the universe and wonderful but hidden gifts. So, I always walked around old shrines with the memories of my ancestors and their good wishes towards their families. How many times had they been praying for our happiness and well-being in these shrines? I felt very nostalgic and humble by these ancestors’ dedication.
Looking back towards the main gate with the school building.
I was quite surprised by some kind of construction around the temple which meant that we couldn’t enter the front entrance of the shrine hall. There’s a small side alley painted in bright red that led to the side door. The temple put up a big sign telling us that they had to solve the problem of recurring flooding during rainy season; a big project has been undertaken to build a big water reservoir under the temple! I could hardly believe the audacity of this costly project but it was very imaginative. This will drain all the rain water underneath the temple whilst small amount would be regularly drained into the drain pipe under the footpath.
I entered the shrine hall which was decorated with many red lanterns. The atmosphere was very quiet and calm with people moving around slowly. I had to greet the four guardians of the cardinal directions in the front entrance. They looked less threatening than before; I did wonder what had changed during the long lockdown. Perhaps they were sad and upset by the plandemics and adverse efffcts on livelihood and the economy. Unfortunately, they weren’t allowed to interfere with worldly matter on earth. I thought they were rather stressed out by less visitors and worshippers. There were no public chantings in the shrine hall for two years.
The main hall seemed to have shrunk a bit though there were people making offerings and paying respect to the Buddha statues. The three big Buddha statues represented the Buddha, Amitabha Buddha and the Medicine Buddha. I used to visit this shrine on a full moon day when there was a special evening chanting. It was quite an amazing experience listening to over fifty monks and novices chanting in strange tones with the sounds of two drums. The whole place was throbbing with powerful vibes which went through my head and body giving me mild electrical shocks. It was as if my body was drinking all the energetic energies floating around in the air. I promised myself to get back there on special occasion in the near future.
Being Mahayana Buddhist tradition, which shares some common features to Tibetan Buddhism, the Buddhist ecology involved different realms of realities or dimensions with magical power and several deities. So you could find various statues of all kinds of deities, almost up to 58 deities, each with special power or blessing to help people.
The most popular one would be the god of wealth or fortune (Cai Shen). There’s also the monkey god which appeared in lots of children stories and old legends. I often wondered, as a kid, whether the ‘monkey god’ did really exist as I used to dreamed about him and saw him jumping down from the sky onto my grandma’s veranda, without knowing anything about him as I was still a little kid. Later on I recognised him from some old paintings and statues.
Walking around all the different shrines tucked away in various corners of the temple made me wondered about the history of each statue. There must have been some fantastic stories about these deities in the past. But this knowledge has been lost through time and has not been properly recorded.
I wished I could have met some elderly Chinese monk who had done years of meditation and contemplation so that he became blessed with special psychic and healing power. I heard of such a Chinese monk years ago but he lived like a hermit and stayed away from people. I would have so many questions to ask him but he was wise to hide away from inquisitive people with insatiable urge to know too much.
The overall vibes at the temple was rather reserved and guarded somehow. It was as if all the deities became wary of demanding people who didn’t know when to become still. But there’s a cooling and peaceful energy around the whole place despite the construction at the back of the temple. We had to follow another narrow alley to get around the back of the temple.
I walked past the construction site which was as big as a football field; the water reservoir must be really deep and huge.
I stopped for an iced dessert before making my way back to the shopping mall where I parked my car. The black jelly was made from Chinese herb which was supposed to be cooling for people with too much Yang energy. I would have to get myself more organised and disciplined so that I could attend the special evening chanting at the temple before the New Year.
Wishing you peace, good health and prosperity.
Stay strong and cheerful.