Happy Wesak 2008

My family went to Lunas with great anticipation today, not only because it is Wesak Day, the day of the Lord Buddha's birth, enlightenment and passing, but also because we wanted to see the brand new arch at the Buddhist Hermitage Lunas (BHL):

This is the front of the arch. It is similar in design to an arch in Rangoon except that I was told that it is higher to allow bigger vehicles to pass beneath.

And this is the other side of the arch. The two sides look almost identical except for the Chinese characters on the front and English on the back.

There was a bonus awaiting us at the BHL. The Suvanno Memorial Hall has been opened to the general public. This building, initially built for the late Venerable Suvanno to stay, was converted into a little museum in his memory after he died last year.

You have to climb a narrow flight of stairs to reach a small room on the first floor which housed photographs of Suvanno in Lunas, some of the notes to his dharma talks and a collection of books and compact discs on Buddhism. Here's a bust of Suvanno. Looks very lifelike, don't you think so? Personally, I feel it's very Caesar-like, but no disrespect meant to the person who made this bust.

I was also quite engrossed with his notes. With some good fortune, I was given permission to photograph this page to put up here. Hope you will enjoy it too. Noticed that Suvanno's handwriting was incredibly neat.

All in, it was quite an enjoyable way to spend Wesak Day morning. Maybe, the only blight on the trip was my attempt to park the car. Because of the big crowd at the BHL, I had to park at a nearby cemetery that had seen better days. There were schoolboys acting as parking attendants but they should be more properly trained not to guide people to park their cars on top of the grave mounds. Where's the respect for the dead?