Millions of tourists have dropped in Truc Lam Zen Monastery when they come to Dalat. Some just want to enjoy the beauty of this pagoda, which is located on Phung Hoang Hill side above Tuyen Lam Lake and surrounded by pine wood.
Others come here to have some peace and get away from their hectic lives. Only a few people have been fortunate enough to contemplate the sunbeam streaming in the Truc Lam Zen Monastery.
Truc Lam Zen Monastery is about 7km from Dalat. Designed by Ngo Viet Thu, it was built in 1993, and inaugurated in 1995. There are three separate areas: an external monastery and two internal areas for Buddhist monks and Buddhist nuns.
This is the biggest research monastery of the sect of Vietnam's Truc Lam School of Zen, which was founded 8 centuries ago. In the pagoda grounds there is a huge bell tower with a large bell called Dai Hong Chung (great bell), 1.98m high and over 1 ton in weight, which was made by Hue artisans. A poem is carved on the bell expressing the philosophy of human life by King Tran Nhan Tong.
Inside the pagoda is a sanctum, flower garden, ornamental plants and stairs down to the orchard next to Tuyen Lam Lake.
About 50 Zen students take rums every day from 5a.m. cutting the grass, picking up garbage, cleaning the paths and such. On arriving there guests are allowed to view the sights and take photos or videos freely around the external monastery.
However, the internal monastery is different; it is just for meditation. The monks do not recite the Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit or Han language, rather in Vietnamese, so that everybody can understand. This pagoda does not organize sumptuous sacrifices or resort to sortilege, or tell fortunes by the traditional Chinese diagrams.
Near the sanctum is a guesthouse. There are three shifts for sitting in religious ecstasy at 3:30a.m., 2:30p.m. and 7:30p.m., each lasting two hours. After the first sitting everybody gathers to clean before tourists visit the monastery. That is when the early sunbeams pour into the monastery, signaling a new day
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