[tintuc]
Van Hanh Zen Monastery
is located at 39 Phu Dong Thien Vuong Street, Ward 8, the city of Da Lat, Lam
Dong Province. (Phone: 063.826487). Monastery not only attracted many monks and
nuns everywhere, but also be a attractive tourist sight of Dalat.
Records of Van Hanh
pagoda
Origin of Monastery is
Van Hanh Assembly set up by local Buddhists for worship and activities. In
1980, superior Buddhist monk Thich Vien Thanh has built a pagoda on an area of
2 ha.
In 1994, superior
Buddhist monk Thich Vien Thanh has organized the huge restoration of the main
building and designed beautiful landscapes for the monastery such as: Happy
Buddha statue, Buddhist Garden, Guan Yin statue on dragon …
Most famous thing of the
monastery is the golden statue of Sakyamuni Buddha raising a lotus in his hand
– a symbolic image of Buddha in Linh Son Dharma Conference, expressing the
philosophy of ‘existence in nihilism’ in Buddhist Zen. The statue was built on
14/4/2002 under directing of superior Buddhist monk Thich Vien Thanh. It is 24m
high, 20m wide, right hand holding a lotus with the original meaning in a
Buddhist story: Once at the Linh Thuu congress, when the Sakyamuni Buddha rose
a lotus up, all the assembly fell silent and bewildered, only Kassapa Buddha smiled.
Sakyamuni Buddha said: “I have the eye of Dharma, Noble Mind of Nirvana… those
I gave to Kassapa.”
Van hanh pagoda is not only a sanctuary for munks, nuns,
buddhists and pilgrims worshiping, but also is considered one of the unique
cultural sight showing specific characteristics of Buddhist architecture.
Inside the Main Hall worship Sakyamuni Buddha statue with
nine dragons spraying water. It is also unmatched characteristic in decorating
art of the Buddhist Main Hall in the country. There are also Bodhisattva
Maitreya statue, Bodhisattva Manjushri statue, samantabhadra statue,
bodhidharma statue…
