The Districts of Luk Wu ( 鹿湖 ) and Dei Tong Chai ( 地塘仔 ) in Lantau Island are historically sacred grounds for Buddhist practice for over 100 years. As Hong Kong’s precious cultural heritage, those lands should be jointly preserved by the Hong Kong Government and the public communities. Unfortunately, the Buddhist monasteries and spiritual oasis are now facing serious threats of being turned into a “Columbarium for Human Ashes”. Religious temples would become indistinguishable from columbarium for human ashes. Such situation is heartbreaking.
The reason is that powerful financial conglomerates have invaded the above lands to grab huge profits. In contravention of land lease conditions, columbarium and graveyards of massive scale are being constructed and expanded rampantly. These are causing serious disruptions to the peaceful practice of ordained Buddhists and lay practitioners, as well as extreme damage to the ecological environments. Worse still, some enterprises are deceptively posing with the names and appearance of a Buddhist monastery, and conducting business in ways contrary to Buddha’s dharma teachings, which causes harm to the genuine Buddhist religion, ecological environment and also spiritual environment. Throughout the past year, we have lodged numerous complaints to Government authorities, but to no avail. The Government recently put forth consultation papers on the question of columbaria, and indicated it would take 2 to 3 years to legislate the subject matter. Financial conglomerates exploit this transitional period to speed up their sales and construction works. “De facto established” columbaria are thus hastily constructed with attempts to pressurize the Government into issuing provisional waiver exemptions to “legalize” their unlawful business and to catch hold of a regularized status before legislation is implemented. If Government continues to turn a blind eye to such an appalling situation, this is like inciting the committing of unlawful acts by those financial conglomerates!
To protect the spiritual sanctuaries for Buddhist practice at Luk Wu and Dei Tong Chai at this critical moment, we, the monastics and lay Buddhists practicing at Lantau Island are forced to form into a “Concern Group for Protection of Sacred Grounds for Buddhist Practice in Lantau Island”. We are launching a signature campaign to express our strong disapproval, and urge the HKSAR Government to adopt immediate and effective measures to prohibit the aforesaid unlawful acts of the financial conglomerates (such as compulsory resumption of land found to contravene government lease, demolition and removal of illegal constructions and issuing prohibition orders, and prosecuting those in charge of financial conglomerates found committing unlawful acts), so as to restore peace and harmony of the Buddhist religion in Lantau Island.
A signature is a support ! To protect Buddha’s teaching, please help to circulate widely.
The fruits of your action will be countless.
Yours sincerely,
Concern Group for the Protection of the Spiritual Sanctuaries
for Buddhist Practice in Lantau Island
Master Hin Lung, representative of Dei Tong Chai；
Pei Lei Monastery, representative of Luk Wu
