The community of people from the Fo Guang Shan Hsi Lai Temple identify

themselves in the Chinese Mahayana tradition. For more than four decades, Go

Guang Shan has become the largest Monastery in Taiwan, that spammed over 370

acres. This temple covers 15-ace land parcel that offers more than 102,000 square

feet of interior space remain faithful to the traditional Ming and Quing Dynasty

style of architecture. The Mahayana tradition in China can be categorized into

eight different schools: Tiantia, Pure Land, Chan, Huayen (avatamskaa), Faxiang

(Yogacara), Sanlun (Madhyamika), Yinaya, and Esoteric ( Tantra). The order

works to united all Buddhist sects, giving a opportunity and environment to allow

and foster inter-religious dialogue among all spiritual traditions through symposia,

conferences, and outreach services. That’s what makes this branch so unique and

special, they want to promote an environment that nurture Buddhist missions

through education and cultural activities. The Mahayana believe enlightenment is

for all human beings and that once you reach enlightenment you will achieve

Nirvana. The earlier forms of Buddhism share a common core of values and moral

teachings, practices such as meditation, chanting, scriptural study and veneration of

relics and forms of monastic life and buildings, focusing on a path to reach

enlightenment. (1)
 The Temple’s is most known for its symbolic gate, this gate displayed

Chinese characters on the back of it that listed the four universal vows of

Buddhism: to save all sentient beings, to eradicate delusion and stress, to study the

boundless Dharma and to attain enlightenment. In order to go into the temple you

must pass the gate, therefore the gate symbolizes the entry to Buddhism. Before

we entered the Bodhisattva Hall, our tour guide Andrew had brought our attentions

to these two statue on both the left and right side of the outside temple. These

statues represented the Bodhisattva warrior/protector Wei Tuo/Que Lan, Andrew

had us describe each statue and mention how the Chinese used art as a form of

symbolic meaning. Here we have this statue of this character but displayed

differently because the artistic representation of how each artist saw this

warrior/protector thus resulting in a difference of symbolizations. This theme of

how they used art that was displayed throughout the temple to give some sort of

symbolic meaning. Once you enter the hall, I was taken back by how beautiful and

colorful the hall was, you saw people bowing and making offering to these five

statues, Samantabhadra, Ksitigarbha, Maitreya, Avalokitesvara and Manjusri. Later

Andrew told us that the act of bowing was to show respect o the Bodhisattvas and

Buddhas in seeking their guidance to develop the virtuous qualities they each
represented. Something that I noted was how often we saws these tiny buddha’s

and when we questioned why they were everywhere, we were told that they

represented this idea that everyone has potential to become a buddha. We visited

the Arhat Garden that seated the eighteen arhat that were the disciples of the

Buddha and depicted as either young, old, sitting, moving, or with an animal. We

then went to the Avalokitesvara Garden that was currently being cleaned out of all

the coins that were being thrown into the water, therefore we didn’t get to see the

water streaming like it usually does, but we at least got to see another depiction of

this compassionate women holding a vase that was pouring out water. This

Bodhisattva was named Guanyin. She was seated on a giant rock with her youthful

attendants, alongside the pond were the four Deva Kings with them, Virudhaka,

Virupaksha, Dhanada and Dhritarashtra. After that we visited the Main Shrine very

briefly because the service was about to start, but sat silently watching people file

into the shrine and observed the room. It was so beautiful and shiny, there was 3

Buddha statues and tens of thousands tiny Buddha statues surrounding the whole

hall and below the altar to the left was a large sculpted drum like instrument called

the wooden gish. There were seat placements where the people would typically

kneel and chant and there was a huge chandelier in the center of the shrine. The
men and women were integrated together for what I saw, but unfortunately I can

not make a full assistment because we were unable to stay and watch the service.

What I loved the most about my experience there was the overall welcoming

vibe I got from not only the people who worked there but the people who attended

the shrine. When we visited the art gallery, I was so amazed with contrasting the

pieces of the art they had in their tiny museum. I was overall amazed on how much

this tradition places value on art because one of the artifacts in the museum was a

statue that had to have been at least 800 years old that depicted Gan Yen. This

showed me how much they highly respected their piece of art within their

tradition. I love how the ages ranged from toddlers that were around three or four

from older adults in the eighty-nineties at the most. What really impressed me was

how integrated they were with Western culture, for they had a group of children

outside the Shrine on the sets dressed up in Halloween costumes, taking photos and

going around the Temple receiving candy. My experience within my own tradition

is that of one age group, and mind you, I’ve gained some pretty nice perceptive

over the years from them, and made some great friendships I just sometimes find it

hard to truly relate and feel comfortable being myself due to the lack of people my

age attending my church. Just like this tradition, my church is really welcoming of
all people, regardless of what religious background you come from or practice we

accept you into our church to worship with us. There was these small similarities

that were notable, such as the fact that they chant while we sing hymns. They

devote themselves attend service to honor the Buddha and seek a spiritual home

when I feel like I’m doing the same things when I attend church.

(1)​Oxtoby, Willard Gurdon., and Alan F. Segal. A Concise Introduction

to World Religions. Don Mills, Ont.: Oxford UP, 2007