After we moved from Ang Mo Kio to Bishan, I often visited Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery (光明山普觉禅寺) for praying and to bring me closer to Buddhism. I choose to believe in this religion not because of the influence of my parents. Nevertheless, my dad’s plaque is now situated at Kong Meng San, I have even more reasons to visit when I am back in Singapore.
Kong Meng San monastery is the largest Buddhist temple in Singapore. It is the parent organization of the Buddhist College of Singapore founded in 2006 and offers a four-year bachelor’s degree in Buddhism. Although it is a Buddhist temple, it does not mean that other believers could not visit. So if you happened to travel to Singapore, I would suggest a visit to this Buddhist temple and monastery in Bishan, Singapore. It is very easy to get to the place by public transport.
The temple is very big and has many impressive individual buildings. It consists of stupas, prayer halls, a crematorium and a columbarium which houses over 200,000 niches, bell and drum towers, and an outdoor statue of Avalokitesvara. Also, there is a large bronze Buddha statue located in the temple’s Hall of No Form. It is one of Asia’s largest Buddha statues, with a height of 13.8 metres and weighing 55 tons.
They celebrate Vesak Day annually with a variety of ceremonies such as “Bathing the Buddha”, and “Three-Steps-One-Bow”. If you are keen, do look out for their posters for more information. I did the “Three-Steps-One-Bow” in 2000 and it was not easy at all. So if you are physically unfit, you might want to think twice. They also do a praying ceremony for the Qing Ming festival.
As I mentioned earlier, my dad’s resting place is there. His plaque is inside the hall, while his urn is in another part of the temple. According to my mum, I can visit his plaque on any day but not his urn. Up until now, I still have had no opportunity to see what the building where they kept his urn looks like. Chinese people are very superstitious, hence there is only one day you can visit the urn which is on Qing Ming festival.
Nevertheless, during the seventh-month ghost festival, the temple will be packed with believers/followers. They offer praying and many other services for our ancestors. We will bring offerings to him, like this photo below. There will be a lot of tables around the praying areas for users to use to place their offerings. This is a simple offering my mum bought, for example, tea, cooked food, fruits, joss sticks, paper offerings and other favourite items of the deceased. Once my dad ‘finished’ his ‘food’, we will then take the paper offering (with his name written on it – to make sure he gets it) to the eco-friendly burner near the four-storey car park. As for the food, we will bring it back home to consume.
This is a very impressive monastery that is worth a visit. I would definitely recommend it if you are keen on the architecture.