Monks to seal off Big Buddha
The Big Buddha and the Po Lin Monastery beneath it will be closed to visitors for a week from Friday as monks step up their battle to halt a government plan to turn the area into a tourist haven.
Monastery supervisor Reverend Sik Chi-wai warned that if the government remained intransigent, the monks would 'seal off' the temple for good. He also urged officials to 'wise up' and take heed of mass discontent.
'Like Bishop Zen Ze-kiun said, government officials must have more wisdom. There is widespread discontent among the people. Don't let this escalate to the religious sector too,' Reverend Sik said.
The monastery yesterday announced it would 'seal off the mountain' on Friday in response to the Planning Department's proposal to build a tourist area and food stalls in front of it.
'If the government refuses to listen to us, we will have to shut down permanently on the day when the cable car is put into service,' Reverend Sik said.
It would be the first time the monastery had been closed to visitors in its 78-year history, a monastery spokesman said.
He said the monks would also place a full-page advertisement in Chinese-language newspapers today to express their dissatisfaction.
The Planning Department published the Ngong Ping zoning plan in July. Under the plan, the government will take over an area in front of the temple and build a tourist bazaar. Bus stations will also be relocated under the plan.
The tourist area is part of the Mass Transit Railway Corporation's Lantau cable-car project, due to open in 2005.
But the monks say such a move will ruin the tranquility of the temple and cause inconvenience to visitors and locals.
The Po Lin Monastery and the Big Buddha are the most important tourist attractions on Lantau and the closure is likely to deal a body blow to the local tourism industry.
One tour operator on Lantau estimated that any closure would cost them $300,000 a week.
A spokesman for the Economic Development and Labour Bureau said the area in front of the monastery was government land used by the temple under a short-term lease.
A Planning Department spokesman said it had received 14 objections from green groups, religious groups and local residents about the development. The department will meet them in two months to hear details of their complaints.
Simon Clennell, of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, said it had drawn up a contingency plan for the closure.
The board will alert travel agents and transportation operators to warn visitors about the closure. It will also advise tourists through its frontline services and hotline to visit other attractions.
Jing Yin, acting director of the Buddhist Study Centre at the University of Hong Kong, said sealing off the mountain was a traditional, but rare, way for Buddhists to fight secular troubles.
'Buddhists are normally very moderate. It is only under extreme circumstances they will do that. It's a way of isolating themselves from the secular troubles,' Professor Jing said.
He said the temples would usually be sealed off for a week or three months, depending on the situation. He believed the monks adopted this extreme tactic as a last resort 'because they felt really desperate'.
