Laughing at Life : Happy Monk, Temple Attract All Types of People

To laugh, according to the monk, is to be happy.

Life, says Thu Van Nguyen, the head monk at the Lien Hoa Temple, is too transient to do otherwise. So, he laughs as he recalls the trying days a year ago when he thought Garden Grove city officials were going to shut down his Buddhist temple due to zoning violations. He laughs as he explains the very structured rules of meditation. He even laughs through a bout of violent coughing as he contemplates facing death--his own.

“I must be close to dying,” the 63-year-old monk says matter-of-factly to a couple of followers who joined him for a simple, vegetarian lunch one day, his words not at all macabre to the fellow Buddhists who also believe that death is but a link on life’s unending chain. “I’m finding that I find peace and joy in many things, even in the thought that I may be dying--which means, I must be close to leaving this world since I can laugh about it.”

With his sparkling eyes and ruddy cheeks, Nguyen, who like all Vietnamese Buddhist monks is addressed by an honorific title--his is Thich Chon Thanh--said he actually is in good health. It is happy assurance for the people who visit.

And visit they do. People of every ethnic and religious background find themselves drawn to the laughing monk and his temple. Increasing numbers show up on Sundays to meditate in the praying room where sits a large gold-tone statue of the Buddha or to walk in the meditation garden that Nguyen planted a year ago.

Because of the expressed interest, Nguyen specifically opens his garden and temple every Sunday to the general public. After taking a walk, everyone is invited to stay for a vegetarian lunch prepared by Vietnamese Buddhists who come to pray.

The temple, a salmon-tinged pagoda structure, is in the back of Nguyen’s house in a residential neighborhood that also has several churches nearby. The meditation trail is a relatively short winding walkway that takes those seeking solitude through a profusion of persimmon, guava and grapefruit trees.

“I like the monk and what he tells us about meditation,” Adam Austin, a 25-year-old Seal Beach resident, said one Sunday morning before entering the temple to meditate. “It’s very simple. It rejuvenates you and clears your mind. And it reminds you to appreciate life.”

Nguyen, who was born and raised in the Mekong delta in Vietnam, became a monk at 18. In 1970, his master sent him to Japan to formally study Buddhism. When South Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1975, he stayed in Tokyo, where he remained 10 more years.

It was during these years that he learned about meditation, as practiced by Japanese Zen monks, as a way of clearing the mind of daily stress. He particularly liked the way nature is used as part of the routine, he said, hence his incorporation of the meditation trail into the contemplative process.

In 1985, an American friend living in Japan suggested in an offhanded manner that Nguyen come to the United States. Just like that, Nguyen did.

“It was my fate,” Nguyen said simply.

The first couple of years, Nguyen wandered around Los Angeles and Orange counties, staying at the temples of other monks. In 1990, the Vietnamese Buddhist community raised money to help him buy the four-bedroom house that he also used as a place of worship.

Traffic and noise from ceremonies led neighbors to repeatedly complain to the city, which ordered him to stop receiving so many visitors to his house and filed an injunction against him for zoning violations. To comply with city codes, last year Nguyen built the temple behind the house and spread praying sessions throughout the week to limit the number of visitors at any given time. Since then, city officials said, neighbors no longer complain.

“The monk is very open to people, and he’s always so happy,” said Ann Nguyen, a member of the Interfaith Council, a Garden Grove nondenominational organization formed to teach and learn about diversity in religions. “He doesn’t speak English well, but he makes attempts to reach out to the different faith communities and that really is important.”

A year ago, Ann Nguyen, 40, of Garden Grove heard from a friend about the Buddhist monk whose small temple is open to anyone interested in meditating in an informal atmosphere. She originally approached Nguyen to join Interfaith Council. Now, she comes to the temple at least once a week with her two young children to see the monk, whom she considers a personal friend.

Here, Ann Nguyen said, the two discuss the art of meditating as a way to purify the soul and to find inner peace away from the chaos of everyday life.

Father Wilfredo Benitez, rector of St. Anselm of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Garden Grove and a member of the Interfaith Council, also considers the monk one of his good friends. Benitez visits Thu Van Nguyen at the temple every other week.

Over endless cups of hot tea, the two men discuss Christianity and Buddhism and how the practicalities of the two religions could be interlaced with meditation, Benitez said.

“We have transcended the language barrier. We do a lot of laughing together,” the priest said. “On a few occasions, we have meditated together in the temple, alone as well as with a few other people.”

Benitez continued: “The monk has a presence that draws people to him. He laughs. He listens. He explains about the spiritual path of life through the eyes of a Buddhist, through the methods of meditation.”

It is a message Nguyen tells anyone who is interested in learning over tea, during lunch, after a contemplative walk on the meditation trail--a walk that takes at least 30 minutes on the short trail as every step is slowly measured.

Told of Austin’s summation, Nguyen said he couldn’t put it better himself.

“Human beings live such stressful lives, always wanting, always reaching, always worrying about things they have no control over,” Nguyen says. “If they only would set aside some time for themselves, they would be able to achieve some peace. If you think too much, all that you will achieve is a stressful heart and a heavy mind.”

“So, clear the mind, and turn inward,” the monk adds, the beginning of a smile spreading across his face. “And laugh. Always laugh.”

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Lien Hoa Temple is at 9561 Bixby Ave. in Garden Grove. It is open to the public daily for personal meditation, and formal meditation with the monks on premise Sunday, 7 a.m.-10 a.m.