Chinese Ash Repository and 10.000 Statues in Saigon 🇻🇳

Between multi-story buildings, a colorful dome awkwardly sticks out. The entrance is between regular residential townhouses with bunches of black wires over the head.

In a dark yard, there is a door with dragons and red lanterns, hinting you are on the right way.

Semi-dark staircases lead from floor to floor.

There is an elevator in the building too.

Almost no people there which is a large contrast to overcrowded noisy streets.

This clears the mind soon and returns you the ability to use your senses other than eyesight.

Every floor has an altar, with colorful lights, flowers, fruits, and burning sticks.

This is also a place of remembrance for the dead.

These are rows of plates with images of people and Chinese characters (names and surnames?).

I came alone and had nobody to explain the meaning of the things I was looking at.

But you don't need a guide to feel

and to see that people come into this world, do their best, and leave this world.

Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple (Chùa Vạn Phật) was founded 65 years ago, in 1959 as a center of Chinese Buddhism. It acquired its modern appearance after restoration in 1998-2008 supervised by a native of Guangdong province (China) who was and is the abbot of the temple as phatgiao.org.vn states.

Vases in cupboards.

These are ashes of people.

There are more below:

Authors often compared human life to the candle. But this is not quite close to me; for me, a candle is when there is no electricity. I would say otherwise: life is a burst of energy from an organic star; when the energy ends, the star fades and eventually turns into ash.

On the top floor, you find out why they call the place Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple.

These squares on the walls are rows of statues.

Good work, much wood carving.

Cute yellow plates are present, with the number of the Buddha statue.

A monk performed a small concert for me and a couple of other visitors, coincidentally. It was a moment of great atmosphere.

I found another door and quickly sneaked into it not knowing if it was allowed and unwilling someone stopped me. Two floors above, I found a garden.

I found that the tower you can see from outside stood on that rooftop. There are more Buddhas inside the tower:

I couldn't help thinking this temple is a model of the world.

From the world of suffering with the faces of the deceased to the teaching of thousands of Buddhas ever existed; from the teaching to the beautiful open-air garden of nirvana.

Between residential multi-story buildings, a colorful dome awkwardly sticks out. That's Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple, a special place worth entering.

I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on June 3, 2024, at Ten Thousand Buddhas Temple (Chùa Vạn Phật) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.