Ling Yen Mountain Temple (Richmond)

The Ling Yen Mountain Temple (zh-cp |c=靈嚴山寺 |p=líng yán shān sì)in Richmond, British Columbia, Canadais a Buddhist monastery built in 1999 in the Chinese palatial style.The temple has about 10 000 members in Greater Vancouver and several dozen resident monastics.

Tradition

The temple is in the Pure Land tradition of Ling Yen Shan near Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.It is an offshoot of Ling Yen Shan monastery near Puli, Nantou, Taiwan,which was founded by Master Miao Lien in 1984. [cite web
url=http://www.twlingyenshan.org.hk/
title=Taiwan Ling Yen Shan Temple
accessdate=2008-04-28]

Location

The temple is on a stretch of Richmond's No. 5 Road that is thick with regional temples, churches, mosques, and associated schools, which has been dubbed Richmond's "Highway to Heaven".The area is within British Columbia's Agricultural Land Reserve.The temple is one of few religious establishments there to have complied with the city's requirement that a certain portion of the properties be actively farmed. They have established an orchard of apple and pear trees.

Plans for Expansion

Having such a large membership along with a desire to become a pilgrimage destination,plans were drawn which would quadruple the floor area at a cost of 30–50 million dollars. The new buildings would include more dormitories for the monks and nuns, and a convert|140|ft|m|sing=on high hall to enclose a convert|100|ft|m|sing=on tall gilded Buddha statue. The statue in the current hall is convert|15|ft|m tall.This would become the tallest building in the city, taller than city hall, and would require a variance to height restrictions.

There has been opposition from area residents and from the City of Richmond, primarily due to concerns about increased traffic from visiting tourists. On 2005-09-06, at the temple's request, the city deferred a special public hearing of their land use application, to allow them to address the insufficiency of parking space for the proposed expansion. The neighbouring Richmond Bethel Mennonite Church, which has both English and Chinese congregations, and four ideally situated acres, had rejected the temple's proposal to purchase their property and relocate them. [cite web
url=http://www.richmond.ca/cityhall/council/agendas/council/2005/090605_minutes.htm
title=Council Minutes|date=2005-09-06
publisher=City of Richmond|accessdate=2008-04-27] [cite news
url=http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/040923mennonites
title=Mennonites turn down deal with neighbouring Buddhists |last=Dewsbury|first=Jeff
date=2004-09-23|work=canadian christianity
publisher=Christian Info Society|accessdate=2008-04-27] [cite news
url=http://www.bclocalnews.com/richmond_southdelta/richmondreview/news/16128367.html
title=City mulls architectural awards|last=Hoekstra|first=Matthew|work=Richmond Review|accessdate=2008-04-28]

Celebrations

The temple has regular celebrations of events during different seasons. During the celebration of Buddha's birthday and Chinese New Year, the building is surrounded with 1000 special lanterns. Paramita Ball prayers are also set out on occasion.

References

cite web | last = Bennett | first = Nelson | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = "Temple touted as North American centre" | work = | publisher = Richmond News | date = 15 June 2005 | url = http://www.richmond-news.com/issues05/063105/news/063105nn2.html | format = | doi = | accessdate = 2006-11-11

External links

* [http://youtube.com/watch?v=AdV0O9RQPuE Ling Yen Mountain at YouTube]