A Temple Across the River, Phnom Penh

One day my friend Kakkada came and picked me up on his motorcycle and took me on the ferry across the river at Phnom Penh. The captain turned out to be kind of a hunk.

The other side was mostly Vietnamese, and had a Vietnamese Catholic church. I convinced Kakkada to come in - it was his first time on the grounds of a Catholic church and he was fascinated. 
We also visited the local temple, where we met the most adorable monk.

I was interested to find a statue of Ganesha on the temple grounds - this is still reasonably rare in Cambodia.

Kakkada, a trained artist, was amused by the murals inside the temples. He was bothered by the fact that the hands were too big.

Cambodian Buddhist Statuary

People far away often ask me what are the major differences between Vietnam and Cambodia.
Now, to answer that question would require several hefty volumes, but to me, a regular habitue of Buddhist monastic spaces, one of the most significant differences is that between Buddhist statuary in each of the countries.



This is my special interest area, you see, though I have zero training in Buddhist art and iconography. I am merely a keen amateur.
I have long been in love with Khmer Buddhist art, particularly if it is popular or modern.




Of course, it is easy to wax lyrical about the exquisite transcendence of the Buddhist statuary of the Angkorean period. It is without equal. 
But I am talking about the everyday stuff, the statues rendered in cement and plaster, gaudily painted and often left open to the elements in small temples across Cambodia.

These are the images that interest me most, and I think they are possessed of their own special beauty.

A Di Da Phat

This is a pic of the Amitabha Tower that my friend designed and built at his temple in Quy Nhon City after he had a prophetic dream.
Amitabha Buddha is the central focus of worship in Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhism. The worship of Amitabha is a characteristic of the Pure Land School of Buddhism, though in reality it is very rare for any particular school to be practiced exclusively in Vietnam. Most teach a combination of various schools, which is the prevalent mode throughout East Asia, including in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.

Amitabha Buddha

The name you will hear most consistently if you spend any time in Vietnamese Buddhist temples is that of Amitabha Buddha - or A Di Da Phat in Vietnamese. In his fascinating book Buddhism in America, Richard Hughes Seager calls Amitabha "among the greatest of the cosmic buddhas of the Mahayana tradition."
The vast bulk of Vietnamese Buddhists practise a basic form of Pure Land Buddhism, and for the most part the monks advocate recitation of Amitabha's name as the most effective form of religious practice for lay-people. This is what all of those wrist malas and long prayer beads are for.
Within the temple, Amitabha's name is also a kind of shorthand replacement for everything. When you say hello, you say A Di Da Phat, when you say goodbye, when you want to attract someone's attention and when you express surprise. Once I was at temple when one of the large vases that are found in the main prayer hall tumbled over and smashed, and a number of monks looked up and exclaimed, as one, A Di Da Phat!
The true form of Buddha recitation is, of course, Nam Mo A Di Da Phat. This is enunciated clearly during communal temple worship, but at other times it is shortened to Mo Phat, and this is in fact the standard greeting amongst Buddhists, both monastics and laity.
Despite his name being constantly on everyone's lips, statues of Amitabha Buddha are not normally very prominent at temples. It is rare to have him as the main object of devotion in the prayer hall, and he is rarely seen on other shrines. Normally there is a printed image of him on the wall in the monks' offices, or a small statue on a shelf somewhere. People seem to set much greater store on statues of Kwan Yin and Sakyamuni Buddha.
One place where an image of Amitabha does become important is at people's death beds, which is why monks always have a small-ish statue of him to hand to take to hospitals and houses of the faithful, should the need arise. It is thought that if the dying person lays eyes upon an image of Amitabha, they will be reborn in his paradise. In Tibetan Buddhism there are much more elaborate forms of Amitabha worship involving initiations and various other practices. But in Vietnamese Buddhism the devotion to Amitabha is restricted to the recitation of his name while using the rosary and, in a very few temples, the chanting of the Amitabha Sutra.
The image with this post is from the large Buddhist nunnery that stands atop the mountain overlooking Phan Thiet. It is part of a massive reproduction of the Pure Land Trinity that stands on a sunny terrace carved into the side of the mountain.

Sakyamuni Buddha

Sakyamuni (Thich Ca Mau Ni Phat vn.) is the historical Buddha, and the central figure of worship that unites all of the schools and sects of Buddhism.



All agree on his life and teaching, though there are some minor disagreements on points of his teaching (did he advocate vegetarianism or not?) and his biography (when exactly did he live and die?).




Sakyamuni is normally the central image in the main prayer halls in Vietnamese temples - on very rare occasions the central image might be of Amitabha, and even more rarely Vairocana.



But almost all Buddhist temples in Vietnam feature a statue of Sakyamuni as their main object of worship.

Buddha Statue, Hoai Nhon

What is a Bodhisattva?

One of the requests I hear a lot is: "Please explain what a Bodhisattva is."

Now, I have moved in Buddhist circles for many years, so perhaps have a strange view of the world.

It would seem to me that "Bodhisattva" is one of those words that has well and truly made the progression into common English usage, but I think I am quite wrong. Just a casual survey of friends and acquaintances results in puzzled looks. No-one, it seems, knows what the hell a Bodhisattva is.

My common understanding is that a Bodhisattva is a perfect, enlightened being who has renounced the benefits of nirvana and chosen to be re-born into the world in order to continue to help and enlighten human beings. It is the Bodhisattvas who so enliven the Mahayana Buddhist pantheon, and whose statues so clutter up the average Buddhist temple.

The most famous Bodhisattva is of course Kwan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

She is almost universally revered throughout East Asia, and her statue can be seen everywhere.


Indeed, the popularity of her cult often seems to eclipse the supreme status of the Buddhas themselves.



Other commonly seen Bodhisattvas include Jizo (the Lord of the Underworld), Zhuan Di (the multi-armed manifestation of Kwan Yin) and Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom.
While the Buddhas might serve as exemplars of behaviour, in general it is seen as poor form to ask them directly for supernatural favours.


One merely respects the Buddha and studies his path. But the Bodhisattvas are much more approachable, and are seen as intercessory beings who will carry your prayers to the proper places. This is why their shrines are so important in the popular religion of Buddhist Asia.

Maitreya

The figure of Maitreya Buddha is one of the most commonly occurring in shrines throughout Vietnam. His chubby form is always represented at temples and frequently can be seen in shrines in businesses and private homes. Known in Vietnamese as Di Lac Phat, Maitreya Buddha is the Buddha that most Westerners imagine when that word is mentioned.
Maitreya is the Buddha of the future, and in Buddhism's journey through Chinese culture he shifted from the slender, elegant figure that is still present in Tibetan Buddhism (see picture of Maitreya at Khuong Viet, the Vajrayana temple) and in the Japanese tradition. People's hopes for the future began to be embodied in Maitreya's iconic form, and so his fatness and patent happiness became symbolic of a wonderful future in which everyone was blessed with contentment and enough to eat. These allegorical representations increased until today we see pictures of Maitreya surrounded by quantities of children, or clutching gold bars! It doesn't have to be stated that such symbolism seems out of synch with the more pleasure-denying aspects of traditional Buddhist theology.
Apparently the present-day popular form of Maitreya is in part inspired by representations of a real-life monk of Chinese antiquity called Budai, but this is not common knowledge among the average lay Buddhists. Their devotion is to the fat, cheerful and barely-clothed Di Lac, whose shrine is normally the first you see at a Buddhist temple, acting as a kind of benevolent mascot for the more austere messages of the Buddhist faith.
My own likeness to the chubby Maitreya is frequently commented upon, and I know it is meant kindly though it always causes me a shudder of regret - I'd much rather be favourably compared to Brad Pitt, for example. But I know what a special place Di Lac Phat has in the hearts of most Vietnamese, so I take comfort in the fact that people are really paying me the most enormous compliment. Maitreya embodies the qualities of kindness, hope, prosperity and good luck. So if people look at me and are reminded of such good things, I really can't complain!
There is another big-bellied man in the Vietnamese pantheon who is probably even more ubiquitous - the all-important household God Ong Dia - but more about him later.