Thai Buddhist temple attracts residents from across Las Vegas Valley

Marlene Karas/ViewMonks chant during a blessing on Buddha Day, Dec. 24, at the Thai Buddhist Temple Wat Bhuddhapavana, 2959 W. Gowan Road. Advertisement

Wat Bhuddhapavana, 2959 W. Gowan Road, looks like a tornado lifted it up in Bangkok, Thailand, and dropped it neatly down among the high gray walls and Spanish tile roofs of the northwest's planned developments. The Thai Buddhist temple, with its ornate gold roof and traditional architecture, contrasts sharply with its western surroundings.

Inside, on a recent Tuesday morning, a group of women -- members of the temple -- prepared white rice, vegetables and dishes such as chicken and tofu soup for the monks, clad in traditional orange robes, who sat in the main room of the temple on the raised platforms where they meditated. The women hurried because the monks could not eat after noon.

Before everyone sat down to eat, the women lit candles and incense before the altar and knelt as the monks chanted the five precepts of the Buddhist moral code.

Laughter immediately followed. Someone made a joke.

"Monks are very revered in Thailand," Banya Chanloi said.

Chanloi is a monk who came to Wat Bhuddhapavana from San Diego. He is one of four monks residing at the temple.

There is no central authority in this Hinayana, or Theravada Buddhist, tradition. But some monks are revered more than others for their age and level of accomplishment. Chanloi said in his tradition, one trains for five years before becoming a monk.

The monks shared the temple room with one larger-than-life gold Buddha at the center of a high altar, surrounded by dozens of other Buddha statues, flowers and offerings of every description.

Visitors to the temple might be confused by the statue of four-armed and four-faced statue of Brahma outside the temple.

In Hinduism, Brahma is a deity, the god of creation. Here, within Chanloi's tradition, the statue represents not a god, but the idea of brahma vihara, which Chanloi describes as "living with knowledge of dharma." All of these concepts are perhaps difficult to translate, but, most simply put, dharma is the teachings of Buddha.

There are actually four brahma viharas, often translated in English as compassion, loving-kindness, appreciative or altruistic joy and equanimity.

Yupin "Kitty" Sprague manages the day-to-day affairs of the temple. Originally from Thailand, the former blackjack dealer lived as a nun at the temple for three months before returning to secular life to attend to family affairs.

Now, she said, she doesn't come to the temple when she has problems.

"I come here and I want to see people smiling and proud. I come here happy and I leave happy," Sprague said.

Though she does not pray or meditate, she attributes her full recovery from a back injury to the time she spends in the temple.

"When they pray, I can hear them. That's all you need," she said.

She said the temple was looted recently and the donation boxes emptied by thieves.

The monks live on donations, and the boxes, which sit before the altar, are labeled in Thai script for different purposes, including electricity for the temple and support for a museum in Thailand.

The abbot of the temple, whose first name is Wijit, has been a monk for 49 years. He speaks very few words of English.

Through Sprague's translation, he demurred that it is strange to be a Buddhist priest in Las Vegas.

"There are many Asians in Las Vegas, a lot of people come here. He likes it," she said.

Chanloi said as the Thai community grew in Las Vegas after the Vietnam War, the need came for temples and for monks who could bless the marriages, new homes and even new cars of Thai Las Vegans.

Chanloi and Canning agree the temple was founded 24 years ago and that it is the first Buddhist temple to be built here. Now there are around 10, they said, including temples in Laotian, Cambodian and Sri Lankan traditions.

Steven Baugh, abbot at the Lohan Cultural Center, agreed it was the oldest physical temple in Las Vegas.

According to federal census data, Asians make up nearly 5 percent of Las Vegas' ever-expanding population, compared with 10 percent in Los Angeles and 30 percent in San Francisco.

Baugh said it would be difficult to estimate the number of Buddhists in Las Vegas because there are so many sects and many practitioners, especially Americans, who do not officially identify as Buddhist. Also, many Buddhists meet or practice alone in their homes.

One reason for the stark difference between Wat Bhuddhapavana and the rest of the neighborhood is the temple was there first.

U-Bol Canning, who helped prepare the meal, said she has been a member of Wat Buddhapavana since before the temple was built. She sold her homemade beef jerky and fried bananas to raise funds for its construction.

She said in those days, the surrounding area was empty land.

She pointed across the street.

"There was nothing here, only that house after five years. No Lowe's. No Wal-Mart. I should have bought land," she said.

On most days, the temple is pretty quiet, but on Sundays, a Thai food market draws people from the community, and on weekly Buddha days, Chanloi said there can be as many as 100 visitors.

Chanloi said nearly all temple members are Thai, but a quick glance at the temple's guestbook reveals entries in both Thai script and English, with addresses from down the street and as far away as Switzerland.

The founders, Luang Tah Juong and Long Po Yai, have died, but their life-sized, orange-robed statues sit nearest the altar in perpetual meditation.