By Alberto Surís
More than a thousand believers of the beloved mother Quan Âm Bodhisattva arrived in Lawrence over the weekend of Friday 12 to Sunday, July 14, 2013. Many were residents of the valley and some came from as far as Houston, Texas and Edmonton, Canada.
They came to the opening of the fabulous outdoor temple built around the gigantic ten-ton image of carved stone by artisans in Vietnam and now presides over the Lumbini Buddhist Temple located at 79 Margin Street St. (behind Merrimack Courts), in Lawrence, Massachusetts, under the leadership of its President Thich Nhuan Binh.
Thich Nhuan Binh was born in Hue, Central Vietnam in 1977. At age 10, and for the next 10 years, he attended rigorous studies to turn his dream into reality: becoming a Monk. At age 20, already a Monk, he moved to Taiwan. Due to the shortage of monks in the United States, he was invited to come to this country, settling at first in Worcester, Massachusetts. According to him, he used to come to Lawrence on Sundays to direct services at the Temple Lumbini which for 26 years had been at Margin Street. In 2006 he moved to this city to provide better services to the great community that worships Quan Âm.
Since his arrival, he began working towards the preparation of the birthday celebration of the statue, which culminated in the last weekend’s festivities. The temple offers services to adults on Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 PM. Saturdays from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM are dedicated to children. They are taught religion, Vietnamese culture and their language.
As a point of interest, Binh said that in Cambodia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Laos they do not venerate in Quan Âm, only Buddha. Unlike in Vietnam, China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea, although they worship Buddha, they lean more towards her.
