Judy Nguyen remembers when she first visited the Chùa Hương Đạo Buddhist temple in southeast Fort Worth nearly a year ago. Nguyen, who lives in Georgia, fell in love with the architecture and nature around the temple.
Her immediate desire was to one day return to the temple. Alongside hundreds of others on May 4, she did.
With more than 300 monks and community members in attendance, leaders of the Fort Worth temple hosted a groundbreaking ceremony to build hundreds of monuments called stupas. The gathering punctuated a 10-day celebration filled with chanting, meditation and fellowship among the Buddhist community.
“This is a big project that I wanted to witness,” Nguyen said. “I’m very happy (and) honored to be here.”
Construction of the stupas is part of the Buddhist temple’s $150 million expansion, called the Dhammacetiya, announced in May 2022. The project will expand the temple by 14 acres and build 840 large and small stupas, with the largest structure expected to tower at 130 feet tall.
U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, was among the elected officials who attended the ceremony. Addressing the audience, he shared how construction of the sacred monuments will help the neighborhood’s revitalization efforts.
The temple is located in Fort Worth’s Stop Six neighborhood, which has been the focus of city revitalization efforts since 2017, when it was announced as the first target area for the city’s Neighborhood Improvement Program. The project aims to reduce the number of felony incidents, enhance pedestrian safety, improve residents’ perception of their community and improve neighborhood aesthetics, according to the city’s website.
Leaders of the Fort Worth temple, located at 4717 E. Rosedale St., hope to complete the expansion within the next 15 years.
“It’s amazing to see what this temple has done to beautify the community,” Veasey said.
What is a stupa?
Stupas serve as the most important iconic element of Buddhist practice, said Johan Elverskog, a Buddhism and Asian religions professor at Southern Methodist University.
In the early Buddhist traditions, stupas were used as burial mounds before developing into sophisticated structures that housed the Buddha’s teachings as the religion spread across southeast Asia.
Stupas are typically built with a square base, a dome-shaped body and a spire at the top. The structures often represent Mount Meru, the huge axial mountain of Buddhist mythology believed to be the axis around which the world revolves.
The monuments are housed with relics of Siddhartha Gautama, commonly referred to as the Buddha, or other prominent Buddhist figures. Relics may include physical remains such as the ashes of monks, sacred objects or classical Buddhist sutras. Sutras are the sayings of the Buddha that were passed along orally after he died and eventually compiled into collections.
“One of the hallmarks of Buddhism is the skillful integration with local culture and indigenous and religious traditions,” Mark Dennis, a Buddhism and Asian religions professor at Texas Christian University, said. “Stupas are a model of the cosmos and envisioned as a guide toward enlightenment.”
The construction of the stupas in Fort Worth is a major milestone for the temple’s predominantly Vietnamese American community, symbolizing the diversity that makes up North Texas, Dennis added.
‘Preserve what is best for the future’
Although the southeast Fort Worth community is prepared for the expansion, progress on the project hasn’t come without its challenges.
The expansion could be slowed down as the temple actively searches for funding to support it. The temple has raised roughly $6 million as of May 5.
In recent years, Tue Nhan Bhikkhu, also known as Rev. Nguyen, has traveled to India, Nepal and Myanmar to promote funding for the expansion. The temple’s annual Lunar New Year celebrations, which are open to the public, serve as one of its largest local fundraising efforts.
“We’re working hard to promote it, and, hopefully, more people will hear about it and join hands to support this project,” he previously said.
Once the expansion is completed, Rev. Nguyen hopes the site will become a place in Fort Worth where people can learn more about the faith.
“My vow is to support the Buddha’s teachings. I want all the future generations to be able to learn from the correct and original text,” he said. “Because nowadays, we have so many things online and we don’t know which one is right, which one is wrong. I want to preserve what is best for the future.”
As the consecration ceremony came to a close, Judy Nguyen couldn’t help but think of her 17-year-old son. She looks forward to sharing more about her faith with him back home.
She hopes other families in Fort Worth will do the same.
“I hope that all the parents and all the older people try to guide their kids right,” Judy Nguyen said. “So they have someone that they believe in (and) know that someone is there to bless them.”
Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org.
David Moreno is the arts and culture reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@fortworthreport.org or @davidmreports.
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