Bigger is better, according to a Taiwan-based religious sect planning a 10-story Buddha at a temple in a nondescript Vancouver suburb.
"The size of the Buddha and the building reflect his importance. You're supposed to be awestruck when you look at the Buddha. Hence, the substantial size," said project developer Kabel Atwall.
The large statue is part of a seven-year project to build a US$35 million worship and education center, expanding an existing Lingyen Mountain Buddhist temple fourfold. Included will be a scripture hall and library, conference rooms and dormitories for visiting monks and other faithful. Outside, an apple and pear orchard and a vegetable garden will spread across most of the property.
The shiny gold-leaf Buddha sitting on a lotus leaf will be shorter than the tallest Leshan Buddha in the world in China which stands at 67 meters, but will be the greatest tribute to the eastern deity in North America.
"Spiritually, it will expose more people to the teachings of Buddhism and help cement the faith in North America. Of course, there will be economic and tourism benefits for the city too," Atwall said.
Reaction has been mostly positive so far even though the building will dwarf surrounding housing and a dozen churches in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond. But city development director Raul Allueva warned that sentiment could change.
"This is not a small building. We don't see buildings this size except in our city centre. It's more than 30 meters taller than any nearby building," he said.
During the past 15 years, dozens of churches and temples have been built in outlying areas of Vancouver where land is cheaper and available in large parcels. The latest generation has evolved from small local churches to religious multiplexes.
"They don't just offer services on Sundays anymore. They have classes during the evening, child care and community outreach programs, so they have to be bigger and it's difficult to find space within a built-up urban area to accommodate these bigger churches," Allueva said.
But critics fear rural development is encroaching on farm land and increasing traffic congestion in a region flanked by mountains.
"We would like to have a world-renown complex in Richmond, but we have to balance that with community impact," Allueva said.
The Taiwan-based Lingyen Mountain Buddhists are part of the Pureland Buddhist sect and have 10,000 members in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching