Origin of Chu Un Temple

【Origin of Chu Un Temple】

My husband Paterno Luym呂希宗is a Christian, but because his mother is a devout Buddhist for decades, he then sincerely built the Chu Un Temple to honor her late mother’s devotion to Buddhism. At the same time, to provide the elders of Buddhist devotees a palace to get together, a spiritual home for them to spend their old age happily.

The building of temple started in 1987 and was completed in 1988. My son 呂崇桀told me: “Dad is a devout Christian, now the temple was built, it has already spent a huge amount of money. From now on, I have to manage all things in the temple, I started to panic, where shall I start from all these plenty of things? Still need to look for monastics to manage temple affairs.”

Due to above problems, one day, I wrote to my friend  謝素瑛, I requested her to help me invite Buddhist monk. 謝素瑛 is a devout Buddhist, hence she also worked on this. But there was no favorable result. In October of 1988, I joined an organization in Cebu to Taiwan. My purpose of travel was to look for venerable who could come to Cebu and propagate. Again, I sought help from謝素瑛, I joined the delegation in day time on our tour, I also went to Foguangshan. But time was short, I didn’t have much impression. I felt so anxious when we went back to Taipei, “Things seems not that simple, I don’t know what to do next?” We also approached some venerables we knew, we told them my case, but they said: “Life in Taiwan is good now. Venerables are quite busy with their Dharma services, who would like to go to Philippines?” I felt so disappointed.

Our delegation was about to go back to Philippines in two days time, that night, I received phone call from 謝素瑛, she blamed herself by being so forgetful. When she chatted with her brother, she mentioned my purpose of tour to Taiwan, “Rosita呂林珠珠is looking for venerable to propagate in Philippines, but until now there is still no news, she is very anxious.” Her brother told her “if you are going to invite venerable, you have to go to Foguangshan. Master Hsing Yun of Foguangshan has many propagation projects. There are many monastic graduates from Foguangshan University every year. They send monks to different places.” 素瑛also said, “her sister-in-law who is also a devout Buddhist, is a good friend of Venerable Cirong. Let them contact Venerable Cirong.” “In every cloud has a silver lining”, on next day, we met each other. My impression of Venerable Cirong was she is very solemn, amiable, nice and kind. I told her the purpose of building Chu Un Temple and its future plans, Compassionate Venerable Cirong said she will relay to Venerable Master Hsing Yun. Afraid that Venerable Master will not fully understand from the verbal narration, I sincerely requested Venerable Cirong to send two Venerables to visit Chu Un Temple, and to take a look on the actual situation.

On the second day, our delegation came back to Cebu. Along the way, I was full of hope, and I was confident that my dream will be fulfilled! It didn’t take so long, compassionate Venerable Master Hsing Yun sent Venerable Yongguang to visit Chu Un Temple. Later on, Venerable Cirong also came and visited. By Spring of 1989, with the aspiration of Buddhist devotees, Venerable Yongguang and other venerables came to Chu Un Temple. The devotees then had a holy place for practice of worship. My sincere gratitude to the compassion of Venerable Master Hsing Yun and  Venerable Cirong, they visited several times in preparation for everything, their efforts, sacrifice, full support, dedication. I would like to thanks all venerables that came to Chu Un Temple to propagate Buddhism, they bore hardship without grudges for all these years, they made Buddhism flourish in Cebu and Philippines. It is the effort, courage, dedication with no regrets of all venerables who made this Chu Un Temple clean and magnificent, and became a paradise in this human world. Thank you to Venerable Master Xing Yun, once again thank you to all venerables for all these years.

Omitofo!

呂林珠珠 kneeled with respect

March 25, 2013

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