Buddhist temple vandalized for second time in two weeks Posted: Mar 20, 2010 7:14 PM EDT Updated: Apr 19, 2010 4:05 PM EDT By Shayla Reaves - bio | email LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE)- A Buddhist temple is vandalized for the second time in two weeks. It happened at the Phuoc Hau temple in the 8500-block of Old Third Street Road. Volunteers contacted WAVE 3 to help get answers. "It's hard to deal with this every year," Volunteer Jennifer Le said. Le arrived to help with yard work and discovered property destroyed by vandalism. Spray-paint covered statues and a temple sign near Old Third Street road. It now reads "Buddah's in Hell." "It's a really bad message that grown people will do this to a temple," Le said."This is our church, but it's temple. It's just a different religion, you know. There is no reason for any prejudice against it." This is the fifth time the property has been vandalized in the last five years, according to Le whose mother regularly attends services held there. It's a place families are working together to maintain daily for the monk who calls the property his home. "He say he don't feel mad, he don't get angry," Vietnamese Translator Minh Van Vo said of Monk Ven Thich Thanh Quang. " But feel bad for the person who did something." Egg shells are still on the property from vandalism two weeks ago, according to Le. Cleaning up is getting harder and harder to do. "It gets hard to replace this all the time," Le said of the temple that depends on donations to assist with maintaining the property. "I don't think you're a good Christian if you do this either. I don't think that's in the religion. I don't think you're following your faith if you do this either." The temple is located in LMPD's 3rd Division and WAVE 3 made a call to police to find out more information on the case. We were unable to get any details Saturday but we will continue to follow up. Copyright 2010 WAVE News. All rights reserved

Being Buddhist doesn't always make for an easy, non-suffering life in these neck of the woods. The Temple we usually attend has been vandalized annually by people proclaiming to be Christians, that mark up the statues and break them up. Spray painting on them "Buddah's in hell," and "Christ lives." It happened last year around Christmastime, two weeks in a row. This year, as a tenant of a house owned by a fundemental Christian, knowing not a single soul in the neighborhood less two kids that go to my daughter's school that she is good friends with and helped us move, and my best friend of 13 years, we woke up to this on our car this morning. I can't imagine who violated us like this. It deeply saddens me. Yet at the same time frustrates me because I want to take the same attitude as my fellow Buddhists, yet I am resentful at people who are ignorant and do not practice what they preach. Even if it wasn't connected to my landlord, and was some random people/kids, it was still unreasonable and in this area of the town the chances of them being Christian are about 95 to 10. That angers me too. But I am going to try to focusing on old Buddhist proverb etching my anger into water, or at least wood for now - and not stone. Stone is permanent, and not easily forgotten, or forgiven. It allows negative energy into the universe and therefore I will only get negative energy back. This I cannot afford. I am swarmed with negativity right now. I'm sick with strep throat, We are nearly packed to move to the shelter, and we are just counting down the days to begin a really tough haul. But I have to put this out there - Please be tolerant of other people. It is what Jesus has said in the Bible, it is why the fundemental Jews did not want him telling people there was another way. But there is not only another way - there is a myraid of other ways, and one of those is just being kind to your fellow human being.