Address | Fu Tei, Tuen Mun.
Year Built | Ching Yan Siu Chuk-around 1913；
Fat Din-1928
Monument Rating | Grade III Historic Building
Photo ｜Wong Wai Kit
Near Tuen Mun Fu Tei Lingnan University and surrounded by high-rises, there is a Buddhist temple named Ching Leung Fat Yuen. It was established in 1912 by the lay Buddhist Lee Kung Tat as a retreat for nuns. This temple is famous due to two eminent persons in history. The first one is the Venerable Master Fat Ho who came south from China in 1924. He used to live in a small house he built nearby. We can still find his calligraphy inscribed on some pieces of plaque and couplet around the temple. He later became the second-generation Abbot of Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island. Three years later, he was also invited to be the Abbot of Tsing Shan Monastery.
The second one is Lin Ze-xu of the Qing Dynasty, who was the Governor-General of Hunan and Hubei in 1837 and launched a suppression campaign against the trading of opium. A pair of wooden couplets with his signature is still kept in the temple, with his calligraphy engraved: "The wind, the streamers, the mind, they are calm. The mirror, the trees, the desires, they are void". The inscription was dated “Early autumn, Year Xin Chou of Emperor Daoguang” (1841). However, Lin Ze-xu had already left Guangdong in May of the same year and was in Henan in early autumn. Therefore, it is difficult to ascertain whether these couplets were indeed written by him.
There are two old buildings in the temple, which are Ching Yan Siu Chuk (the lodgings for the nuns) and the Fat Din built in 1928 respectively. They manifest a fusion of Eastern and Western architectural features during the era of Republic of China.
