Vietnam and Cambodia
Oudong and the Vipassana Dhura Buddhist Centre
The next morning, we followed the Tonle Sap River some 18 miles north of Phnom Penh to visit Oudong, the sometime capital of Cambodia between 1618 and 1866, and its Vipassana Dhura Buddhist Centre.
The Centre is a 264 acre site that encompasses all of Phnom Oudong (i.e., Oudong Hill) and some of the surrounding flatlands. Its primary purpose is to be a school that teaches vipassana meditation, but it also serves as the home to a large number of monks and nuns (the actual number isn’t known, but is easily in the 100s). We wandered its beautifully maintained public grounds for a while, and then gathered at the Centre’s Main Temple to experience a traditional Buddhist blessing.
After the blessing, many of us hiked to the top of Phnom Oudong, and quite the climb it was! The first part was up some fairly steep small roads, and that was followed by a long stone staircase leading up to a stunning stupa built there in 2002 at the direction of King Norodom Sihanouk to house holy Buddha relics. If my watch was correct, the climb was about 350 feet. The view from the top, though, was definitely worth the effort!
Here are some photos:
This is the temple at the Vipassana Dhura Buddhist Centre. It doesn’t have an official name, but is commonly referred to as the Main Temple (Preah Vihear in Khmer). It is a fairly modern building—its construction started in 2004.
The Sail with Seth group (and some other AMADara passengers) prepare to climb the steps to the Main Temple as our blessing time approaches.
Inside the Main Temple, this 10-meter (call it 30 feet) tall statue of the Buddha dominates the building’s altar.
These two monks conducted our blessing, all the while chanting—in perfect pitch and harmony—a fascinating counterpoint. At one point, they alternated tossing handfuls of jasmine and lotus petals over us, the alternation in perfect sync with the counterpoints in their song. They even made a perfectly performed key change mid-way through the chant. Absolutely captivating!
The grounds of the Vipassana Dhura Buddhist Centre have religious sculptures scattered throughout the grounds. This is an unusual 5-headed naga I found in my wanderings. Behind it is another sculpture of the Buddha sitting on Muchalinda’s coils while being protected by the naga king’s fearsome heads.
Another statue of the Buddha on the Vipassana Dhura Buddhist Centre grounds.
This is the Preah Sakyamoni Chedi at the very top of Phnom Oudong. It is a stupa (a “stupa” is a Buddhist monument usually built to hold remains or relics) that was commissioned by King Norodom Sihanouk in 2002. A striking silver-hued structure, it is said to hold holy relics from Siddhartha Gautama, aka, the Buddha (the Sanskrit name “Buddha” simply means “enlightened one” in English). The relics are said to contain bone fragments, teeth, and hair from Gautama that had been previously kept in the royal family’s private collection.
This is the view from Preah Sakyamoni Chedi back down to the Main Temple and its surroundings.
The smaller buildings in this photo are bungalows that one can stay in while attending “school” at the Vipassana Dhura Buddhist Centre. The school teaches students to use “insight meditation” to cleanse one’s mind of damaging or harmful thought and to become someone who seeks to do good. Vipassana teaching became widely used by the Cambodian people dealing with the PTSD brought on by the horrors of the Khmer Rouge genocide.
I was surprised to learn that the Centre survives solely on donations. It charges nothing for the school or to stay in the bungalows while studying at the Centre. Students are prohibited from donating anything to Centre until after they complete their course of study. After then, donations are gratefully accepted.
Yes, that’s your intrepid traveler standing on the final steps leading up to the Preah Sakyamoni Chedi. Because the stupa is considered a sacred place, one must take off one’s shoes before going up the steps. At the bottom of the steps, the sweetest little local girl (maybe 7-8 years old?) offered to put my shoes in safe-keeping for me (all by smiling and pointing!). At first I was reluctant, but then remembered that our guide had told us that the children can be trusted here—it was their way of doing a good deed at a holy site. So I handed her my shoes with my thanks (in English) and a smile, and turned to head up the stairs. Behind me, I heard her say something, so I turned around and she pointed at my camera and held up her hands as if she were taking a picture. What could I say? I handed her my camera and she produced this photo!
When I came back down the steps, she recognized me and retrieved my shoes. I soooo wanted to slip her a few thousand riels (there are 4000 to the dollar!)—heck, I wanted to give her a big hug!—but I didn’t dare. We had been told that in Cambodia one never gives money to a child, it would be considered for a nefarious reason and you could be arrested. If the child’s parent were around, it would be okay, if a bit unseemly, to give money to the child’s parent, but never directly to the child. And never, ever touch a child. So I thanked her profusely and headed back down the hill. I hope she grows up to be someone very special—she already is in my eyes.