Buddhist Temples were my Disneyland

Visiting my "heavenly playground"

My fond childhood memories of Kek Lok Si bring me back to a place of my “heavenly playground”.

My family liked to visit Buddhist temples on a regular basis in my home city Kuala Lumpur and also whenever we were travelling to other parts of the country. There are several temples that I remember fondly from my childhood. One is in Malacca, where my father was born and the ancestral graves of my grandparents are located. Every year, we would visit the ancestral graves to pay our respects and every time we did so, we would visit the local Guan Yin temple known as Cheng Hoon Teng Temple. Years later after I have left Malaysia and moved to Canada, I discovered the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple is the oldest Guan Yin Temple ever built outside of China. Built in the 1600s by Chinese the Chinese Kapitan Tay Kie Ki alias Tay Hong Yong, Chen Hoon Teng was serving the community's religious needs, and also functioned as the official administrative centre and a court of justice for the Kapitans. To the locals, the temple is also known as Kebun Datok (Gods' Garden) and Kwan Yin Teng (Guan Yin Temple).

Kek Lok Si

Another temple is Kek Lok Si in Penang, where the tallest Guan Yin statue in Southeast Asia can be found. Built in 1891, Kek Lok Si is the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia, and also an important pilgrimage centre for Buddhists from Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore and other countries in Southeast Asia. My family visits this temple every time we go to Penang for a family vacation. My fond childhood memories of Kek Lok Si bring me back to a place of my “heavenly playground”. I loved wandering around in the temple, always fascinated by the magnificent

buddha and Guan Yin statues, by the sculptures of dragons and gods. It must have felt like a mini version of “Disneyland” to me back then. I’ve always felt a deep connection with Buddhist temples, even as a child. Whenever I am at a temple, it felt like a place I did not want to leave. I guess it’s not surprising to know that I have had many lifetimes as a monastic monk or nun in my past lives. Temples were like home to me.

San Po Cave Temple & Perak Cave Temple

The last two temples are San Po Cave Temple and Perak Cave Temple, both located in Ipoh, Perak in Malaysia. My family would usually stop by these two temples on our way to Penang. So our family vacation has always doubled as some kind of spiritual pilgrimage of sorts. The Sam Poh Tong Temple (Chinese: 三寶洞) (also known as the Three Buddhas Cave) is a Chinese temple built within a limestone cave and is the oldest and the main cave temple in Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia. The Buddhist murals in this cave are magnificent. As a child, I was also very fond of this temple for its mysterious ambiance in a cave. It was like an adventure to explore the temple built into nature itself.

Founded in 1926, the Perak Tong Cave Temple sits at the foot of a 120m-high limestone outcropping and was discovered by Chong Sen Yee and his wife, who came to Malaya from Jiaoling, China. Over the next 50 years, the couple worked laboriously to transform it into a beautiful place of worship. I’ve always been fascinated by its colourful hand-painted frescoes of Buddhist deities and mythical creatures like dragons and phoenixes.

Growing up, Buddhist temples were like my favorite “theme parks” in place of Disneyland and Universal Studios. And they still have a very special place in my heart till this day especially now that I know they were all part of my spiritual origin that prepared me for my Tao journey in this lifetime.