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.
a huge glass bottle made out of thousands of glass bottles. mind-blowing.
the main hall of the glass bottle temple
the glass bottle wall around the main hall
the wall from another angle
glass bottle shitter
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