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Buu-Quang Buddhist Temple
Wichita, Kansas

by Julius Lollis

On December 15th, I visited Buu-Quang Buddhist Temple, here in Wichita, Kansas. I was really nervous and didn’t know what to expect upon my arrival. I had talked to an individual in the temple a week prior and he told me that their services started at 1100 am. So I arrived at 1045 and had seen the temple on the outside before because I normally would pass by it taking my daughter’s to daycare. But when I actually went inside the gates, I noticed how big the temple was. There was a courtyard on the outside and also a garden with statues on almost every corner of the temple. Members of the temple in the parking lot greeted me and when I arrived at the door I had to take my shoes off before going inside. When I got inside the temple there was a foyer and standing in the foyer where people putting on gray robes and certain individuals had on white bandana’s tied to their heads. At this time, I met Lisa and the head Monk whose name was “Tai”. Monk Tai didn’t speak English so I spoke to him through Lisa. Lisa is a Buddhist lady who I meet that spoke English. The majority of the temple populous where of Vietnamese descent with a few being from Japanese decent. Lisa then introduced me to Traci, who was a Caucasian convert to Buddhism and he explained everything to me that was going on during the ceremonies. 

The ceremony started out in a huge room with paintings on all four walls with a loud bell being rung three times. In the room, on the east wall was a shrine set up consisting of pictures of individuals, food, candles, figurines, and paper money. Traci told me that the day of the ceremony was a day of mourning for two families. They had recently lost loved ones and that at the temple they would perform 7 weeks (49 days) of mourning. Each family after the initial 7 weeks of morning would mourn for 100 days afterwards and every yearly anniversary after that. 

The ceremony for the dead relatives started with a procession of people. Men were on the left side and the women were on the right. In between were the families of the deceased, each wearing a white bandanna on their head. There was men, women, and children in the middle. To me it looked like the immediate family and maybe grandparents were involved in the ceremony. Monk Tai came in quoting Vietnamese scriptures and handed each individual in the family a burning incense and each member held it about forehead high and bowed their heads to the floor three times. Another junior monk picked up each incense stick from the families and placed them back on the shrine. 

That ceremony lasted about twenty minutes and from there we entered in a procession into the next room. Which had an altar at the front and nothing but sit-down space after that. As we passed into the next room, individuals handed out what Traci told me was there scriptures or bible. We all stood in a line as before with the men on one side and the women on the other with the family of the deceased in the middle. And once the monks came in, and entered the raised area where the altar was, we all sat down. We stayed in this room for about an hour. To describe the raised area, there was about a 25 foot statue of Buddha in the front, and in front of Buddha was a little statue about 5 feet high of a little boy with only a cloth draping his body. He was holding one hand up with the index finger showing. He also had the swastika sign on his chest. In front of this, is where the monks where kneeled down in prayer. In front of the monks, was a giant table sat up with fruits and food (rice, chicken, banana leaves rolled up) on it and in the middle of the table was another statue, of a woman with about 18 arms and each arm had something in it. For the next hour, they prayed their scriptures out of their bible and I followed along because it was in Vietnamese. Certain points in there scripture they would bow to Buddha and the other statues. There were certain parts that the monk would sing and the congregation would join in. We prayed for about an hour. From there the books were gathered up and we went back into the first room again. 

Back in this room, we continued the mourning of the dead. Traci told me that know we would offer up the food to the deceased ones and they would present them gifts, hence the money, clothes, and games sat out for them. The families joined Monk Tai in front of the shrine again and this time, there was people standing on both sides of the families and the little children performed the giving of food and gifts to the deceased ones. The congregation participated in the ceremony by continuing to sing the scriptures and the family gathered around as the children poured tea in a cup for the deceased members and they also put some chopsticks in a bowl of rice for them. After the offered the deceased people the presents, a monk grabbed them up and Traci told me that the monk would take it outside and burn it as an offering to the deceased. At this time the ceremony was over and the food that was on the shrine, Traci told me that it would be ate by the congregation down in the basement of the temple. By this time, I had to get ready to leave and before I left, Traci explained to me the statues in the other room. And he told me that the little statue and the 18 arm statue plus various other pictures and statutes in the room, represented Buddha at different stages of his life. 

As I was leaving this room, there were individual people bowing to the 18-arm statue and stuffing money into the front part of the table. Traci told me that they were giving there offerings onto the statue like a Christian would give there offering when the offering plate would pass by. There was also statues of Buddha outside in the courtyard and surrounding the building. Traci told me that, the monks also daily take food out there and place around the statues. As I was leaving, I found out through Lisa that the second monk partaking in the ceremonies was Monk Tai’s brother from Vietnam who had just came in the day before. It was a learning experience and one I will never forget. 

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