Westminster Swathed in soft gold and crimson robes, the 70-year-old shuffles over gleaming wooden floors in the prayer room of Orange County’s first Tibetan Buddhist Center.
The prayer room is empty now, but Sunday 400 people are expected when high lama Khen Rinpoche Lobsang Jamyang, among the most senior Tibetan masters alive, comes to deliver his Tibetan Buddhist teachings when this new facility opens.
Rinpoche, as he is called by other monks, left his monastery in Canada and permanent home in India to be the abbot of the new center.
“Very happy to be here,” Rinpoche said Thursday, giving a thumbs up. “Very warm here in California.”
The Dalai Lama gave his blessing for the center and named it Geden Shoeling, which means Virtuous Dharma Land. For devout Buddhists like Phuong Dung of Huntington Beach, Rinpoche’s arrival and the new center means she and others will finally have a guru to look to for guidance. For years, Dung had to settle for the occasional prayer tours of Tibetan monks who traveled from India to several Southern California cities for brief Buddhist teachings.
“But after they left, it was like, ‘Oh what do we do now with no one to lead us in prayer and meditation?’ ” said Dung, who owns a Westminster cosmetic beauty shop.
Dung and several people from the Vietnamese Buddhist community of Orange County came to Rinpoche during one of the tours and asked him to open a worship center. He agreed. Through private donations, the group purchased a two-story, 4,700-square-foot building on Olive Street to house the prayer room, a library and an exhibition room of ancient Tibetan artifacts. “I’m very happy this will be available to everyone in the community now,” said King Ta of Tustin, who spent about $400,000 of his own money to cover most of the costs to buy the building.
Ta, who owns a few furniture and water shops, said he felt compelled to bring a worship center here after he witnessed Rinpoche cure his sister-in-law of mental illness.
“I was never a religious Buddhist before that,” said Ta. “I never even went to temple, but now I plan to be at the center almost every day for prayer and meditation.”
On Thursday, the monks were putting last-minute touches on the center for Sunday’s grand opening, fashioning clay into flowers as offerings to Buddha.
Rinpoche, who was once the abbot of Sera Mey, the most crowded monastery in India with 4,500 monks, brought two Tibetan monks and two assistants along to help him.
Rinpoche giggles when asked why there were so many heads coming out of the golden Buddha statues that adorn the elaborate, colorful altar. “So many heads, because so many people Buddha has to help,” said Rinpoche. On Sunday, he will deliver the Buddhist prayers and teachings in Tibetan, which will be translated into English and then Vietnamese.
Becky Kersey, who lives next to the center, said her new neighbors invited her to attend the grand opening.
“I wish I could go, but I made plans to be out of town,” said Kersey, who’s lived in Westminster for 27 years.
Kersey said she objected to the initial bright gold color that was painted on the outside of the center and went before the City Council to complain. Gold and crimson are traditional colors of the Tibetan monks, but the monks quickly repainted the center to a muted shade of yellow.
. “If they didn’t change the color, we would have lived with it, but thank goodness they did.”
Across the street from the Tibetan Buddhist center, 1,000 people are expected for the Vietnamese Mass at Blessed Sacrament Church on Sunday.
Kersey said she and her husband Paul are used to noise from the church and nearby park, so they won’t mind any chanting from the center, which will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Rinpoche said anyone is welcome. Prayers and meditations are two hours long.
“Just take off shoes, sit down and listen and then question,” Rinpoche said.
