I’m starting to find that Buddhists around the world are pretty into environmentalism.  The Sunnyvale  Zen Center in Silicon Valley, California  has a solar photovoltaic system on its rooftop and an abbot who emphasizes the importance of protecting the environment in his Buddhism classes.  The American Bodhi Center in Houston, Texas has a large organic garden, and many of its members are avid organic gardeners, composters, and recyclers.
Last week, I visited a Thai temple in Northern Malaysia largely made out of used glass (beer!) bottles.  Unfortunately, I made the amateur mistake of forgetting to charge my extra camera battery, so  I had to resort to using my mobile phone.  Even worse, my mobile phone camera appears to be operating at a sub-optimal level:
According to this website, the temple’s buildings are constructed with 30,000 bottles. Â Worshippers at the temple told me that the abbot wanted to support the environmental protection cause by creatively re-using these used bottles. Â Practical or not, I think it looks pretty cool and makes a positive statement about the using our limited resources efficiently.
Here are some slightly nicer pictures of the temple.
April 16, 2013 at 02:13
We would like to build a temple at our centre with glass. Will I be able to contact the person who made the glass temple.
April 19, 2013 at 13:28
According to this website, here’s the contact information for the glass bottles temple:
Chief Abbot: Ven. Phra Acharn Neam Awutthammo
Address: Kg. Charok Padang,
08200 Sik, Kedah
Telephone: +604-4695616