Thien Lam Pagoda

People who come to this pagoda for the first time often stand still and look, and do not hurry to take another step. The pagoda is called Thiền Lâm. It stands on Quảng Tế hill, in Xuân Thủy ward of Hue.

The Venerable Hộ Nhẫn founded the pagoda in 1960. It belongs to the Nam Tông school of Buddhism, known in English as Theravada. Theravada is believed to be the oldest form of Buddhism, and it is dominant today in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. That heritage shows in every line of the building. The curved roofs, the decorative patterns and the arrangement of the grounds all have a Thai look, as if a piece of the land of golden pagodas had been set down in the heart of the old capital.

Two treasures belong to the pagoda. A reclining Buddha, more than eight meters long, lies at rest in the posture of entering nirvana. His face is so peaceful that anyone looking at it feels their own heart grow quiet. Beside the reclining Buddha, a standing Buddha holding an alms bowl glitters gold against the blue sky, upright and dignified, as though he had appeared among people.

The Venerable Hộ Nhẫn was more than the founder. He also stayed on as abbot through many ups and downs. Under his care, Thiền Lâm grew into a center of Nam Tông practice in Hue, a city where Mahayana Buddhism had long taken deep root.

The pagoda keeps a light scent of incense and a deep silence. A bell rings in the early morning, and Pali chanting drifts out of the main hall. Pali is the language in which the oldest surviving recorded sayings of the Buddha were set down. The bell and the chanting together make a tone quite different from that of the Hue pagodas people know best. A visitor does not need to understand the words of the chants. Standing quietly for a moment is enough to feel the difference.

Thiền Lâm is much smaller than many other buildings in Hue, but it carries a layer of culture of its own. Here two Buddhist traditions meet on one quiet hill, and that makes the place rare in the portrait of the old capital.

In the late afternoon, sunlight falls on the golden standing Buddha, and his shadow stretches across the courtyard. People who have seen it still remember it long afterward.