Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Temple

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since September 2006. (help, talk)

The Venerable Hong Choon Memorial Hall of the temple, the centrepiece and the latest addition the temple, built in 2004. There is a large bronze Buddha statue on the top floor which is one of Asia's largest.

The Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery (Simplified Chinese: 光明山普觉禅寺; Traditional Chinese: 光明山普覺禪寺; pinyin: Guāngmíng Shān Pǔjué Chán Sì), is located at 88 Bright Hill Road at Bishan. It is the largest Buddhist temple in Singapore.

[edit] History

In 1920, Venerable Zhuan Dao realised that the time was right to build a place of practice to propagate the Dharma and to provide lodging for monks, as there were many Buddhist monks who came to Singapore without lodging. In 1921, the building of Phor Kark See Monastery started as the first traditional Chinese forest monastery in Singapore.

Since Phor Kark See Monastery is situated at Kong Meng San ("Bright Hill", formerly "Hai Nan Mountain"), it came to be known as Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery. The Monastery grew steadily and Dharma propagation began in Singapore. In 1943, Venerable Zhuan Dao died at Putuo Monastery at the age of 72.

In 1947, Venerable Hong Choon became the monastery's abbot. With great perseverance, he progressively developed and expanded the monastery with his followers into the largest and most majestic place of practice in Singapore. Venerable Hong Choon also initiated the monthly Great Compassion Prayer and taught the Dharma to benefit many.

Phor Kark See developed from a remote temple into a monastery well known to all. For the pass 20 years, more than 6000 people from all walks of life, from Malaysia and Singapore, had taken refuge in the Triple Gem here. It is also an ideal place of practice for thousands of Buddhists. News about it was soon spread overseas by the Sangha who visited the place.

In 1980, the temple began to build Evergreen Bright Hill Home with the donation of S$5.3 million from Venerable Hong Choon's followers, He Hui Zhong's family's company. In the year 1994, the then President of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong visited the Home and praised its cleanliness, good service and well-equipped facilities.

On 25 December 1990, Venerable Hong Choon died, and the monastery lost one of its most highly accomplished monks.

Venerable Yan Pei was next to take up abbotship in 1991, followed by Venerable Long Gen in 1994. The fifth Abbot of the Monastery was Venerable Sui Kim, the abbot of Xing Yuan Temple and Hwa Zhang Temple in the Philippines. He died in 2005.

On 5 June 2004, Venerable Kwang Sheng became the monastery's abbot.