Resident Buddhist Monk Gil Jin Lee told the Variety that the temple which stands on a portion of the 5,000-square meter lot can accommodate over a hundred people.
“The temple is open now and we welcome anybody who wants to come and meditate any time,” Lee said.
She added that the temple is for both Buddhists and non-Buddhists.
“This is a place where you can cast your cares away, meditate and attain inner peace,” she said.
Lee said that although followers can meditate in other places, the temple is the most ideal place.
She said the followers practice Zen Buddhism which originated from Japan and had become best known of the Buddhist schools in the Western World in the mid-20th century
“Zen” means “be nothing, think nothing”, Lee said.
Buddhist followers held the first services on Saturday noon led by Lee and four other monks. Lee said that the Buddhist followers on Saipan hope the construction work for a monk house will start soon. She said that the monk house will include a dining room or a cafeteria where the followers can share tea after worship.
There are over a hundred Korean Buddhists in the CNMI.
Saipan Mayor Juan B. Tudela earlier cited that Buddhism is not new to the people of Saipan.
“Buddhism was introduced here prior to World War II during the Japanese administration of the Northern Marianas,” he said. The Buddhist monks and followers who had been coming to Saipan to pay respects to their love ones offer prayers and respects at the Japanese cemeteries and memorial sites.
Origins
Recalling a little history, Lee said that Buddhism was founded in India, 528 BC, by Siddhartha Gautama who became known as “Buddha” or the enlightened one.
History states that Gautama, a Prince born in Lumbini near Nepal had 40,000 dancing girls at his disposal but he wandered around the palace until he met “an old man begging for alms, a diseased man, a dead man, and a monk.” The story goes that Gautama was so impressed that on his 29th birthday, he left the palace, his wife and child and started his search for the cause of suffering and to find peace and happiness.
At 35, he meditated for seven weeks under a fig tree until he “found his way in a flash” and he discovered that life’s problems were no longer an enigma to him.
