Vinh Nghiem Pagoda Saigon

In 1954, two monks came south carrying something that no suitcase could hold.

The country had been divided that year, and millions of people were moving from the North to the South. Among them were the Venerable Thích Tâm Giác, who had been abbot of Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda in Bắc Giang province, and the Venerable Thích Thanh Kiểm, who followed the same line of Zen.

What they brought was the Northern school of Buddhism, the Trúc Lâm Yên Tử line of Zen, a tradition of Zen study that was a thousand years old. Zen is a school of Buddhism that puts meditation at its heart. They decided to rebuild in Saigon a pagoda with exactly that spirit.

In 1964, work began at 339 Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghĩa Street. The architect was Nguyễn Bá Lăng. Nine years earlier he had rebuilt the One Pillar Pagoda in Hanoi, after French troops mined it to destroy it before they withdrew. For this pagoda he chose the traditional architecture of northern Vietnam: curved roofs with upturned corners, carvings of dragons, phoenixes and lotus flowers, wooden columns, and brick walls painted yellow. But he used a modern material, reinforced concrete, so it could stand firm in a city.

After seven years of building, it was inaugurated in 1971.

The name Vĩnh Nghiêm was no accident. It belonged to an old pagoda in Đức La village, in the old Bắc Giang province, now part of Bắc Ninh. That pagoda was built in the Lý era. In the thirteenth century it was restored by Trần Nhân Tông, the Buddha Emperor.

Trần Nhân Tông was the third emperor of the Trần dynasty. He gave up his throne and went up Mount Yên Tử to live as a monk, and there he founded the Trúc Lâm school of Zen. It is the most distinctly Vietnamese line of Zen in the country's Buddhist history. The old pagoda in Đức La keeps three thousand woodblocks of Buddhist scriptures. In 2012, UNESCO recognized them under the Memory of the World, UNESCO's program for documentary heritage.

So when the Venerable Thích Tâm Giác gave the new pagoda in Saigon the name Vĩnh Nghiêm, it was more than a keepsake of the homeland. It declared that even though the country was divided in two, the line of Zen went on. Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda in Saigon is the thread joining the Zen of North and South, a thread that was never cut.

To the left of the main hall rises the Quan Âm Tower, seven stories and 40 meters high. It honors Quan Thế Âm, the bodhisattva who listens to the cries of the world. A bodhisattva, in Buddhism, is one who seeks awakening, someone on the path to becoming a buddha. The seven stories stand for seven levels of spiritual attainment in Mahayana Buddhism. The tower is the pagoda's landmark, seen from far away, rising among the crowded streets like a great candle.

Behind the pagoda is the Tháp Đá area, with the tomb towers of abbots who have passed away. The Venerable Thích Tâm Giác, who founded the pagoda, passed away in 1973 and was laid to rest here. He lived to see the finished pagoda for only two years.

Today, Vĩnh Nghiêm is one of the largest centers of Buddhist life in the city. It holds meditation courses and classes on Buddhist teaching. It marks the Buddha's Birthday on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month. It marks Vu Lan at the full moon of the seventh lunar month. Vu Lan is a Buddhist festival when people show gratitude to their parents, with a ritual of pinning a rose in their honor. On Lunar New Year's Eve the doors stay open all night. On these days, thousands line up to pay their respects.

Vĩnh Nghiêm is rare northern architecture in the heart of the South. It is the memory of a division. And it is proof that faith knows no geographic borders.