Yuen's Lair: Keeping the peace at Fo Guang Shan

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Keeping the peace at Fo Guang Shan

Actually this is the first post of essentially a multiple part story, but to keep the blogpost short, I've decided to split it up in several parts.

Fo Guang Shan, the largest Buddhist monastery order originating from the shores of Taiwan, having spreads its tentacles worldwide, of which the Malaysian chapter is the largest outside their home turf.

Since that this monastery is a NGO, it depends on the goodwill and generosity of its followers for its funding,........not that I'm a big contributor but all small tokens add up and my office colleague, who just happens to be a full-time volunteer, asked me to help out during their annual Chinese New Year Festival.

All sorts of volunteers (e.g. catering, hospitality, merchandizing, etc..) were required to keep the fundraising Festival afloat, but the security department was especially in dire need of some personnel.

Hate to admit this, but yes, thieves dare to do their business on the sacred temple grounds.....

So I was roped in to be part security/part traffic detail........thus ensuring that the visitors feel safe within the temple grounds and directing the waves of cars to the assigned car park area's.......sounds lots of whoohaaa.....

Apparently, the nearly one month festival attracted well over a million devout Buddhists as well as sightseers who flocked down to watch the night time splendour of the countless light fixtures that were hung around the temple........and yeah, a bit of touristy action combined with the blessing of Buddha himself guarantees a sure bet win. :)

The temple grounds were officially open till 10pm but that didn't stop people entering at the very last minute, just to catch a glimpse of the free light show.....people kept snapping pics up until the monks themselves gave the order to throw down the light switch, and only then did the visitors reluctantly made their exit.