Monday, June 25, 2007

The Watt Munisotaram Temple

After a recent article in the Star Tribune we decided to go visit the new Cambodian Wat which will be one of the largest in the United States. You can visit the website at http://www.wattmunisota.org/

Constructed at a cost of $1.5 million, the wat rests on a Dakota County hilltop just outside Hampton, a town of 434 people and is 30 miles south of Minneapolis amid lush farmland.

So far, the reaction from the locals has been wonderfully tolerant and curious. July 5-8th is the main consecration ceremony, which is immensely important to many of the local Buddhists, because it's not often that a wat is completed, and within the tradition, this is a moment of great and auspicious significance.

It's not quite completed- they're still finishing the painting when we went, but hopefully these pictures demonstrate that it will all be quite impressive and a fine treasure for the community for generations to come.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that’s beautiful, I’d assume that there’s a large Buddhist community in that area, thanks for sharing the photos.

novalis78 said...

We'll have to add it to the list of our American Buddhist pilgrimage places :-)
Very beautiful indeed. There are some pictures on flickr.com too.