NEWS

The UAE’s Only Buddhist Temple Serves a Growing Population of Buddhists

By Craig Lewis | | Buddhistdoor Global

An unassuming villa in a bustling suburb of Dubai is home to the only Buddhist monastery in the United Arab Emirates, which since 2009 has become a focal point for the country’s burgeoning Buddhist population, currently estimated to number as many as half a million people. Mahamevnawa Buddhist Monastery in the busy Dubai neighborhood of Jumeirah is something of an oasis of calm from the frenetic pace of the city outside its doors, and serves as a place of refuge and comfort for thousands of Buddhist in the emirate and further afield. “I work as a quantity surveyor, which is very stressful,” said Sasika Ranasinghe, 34, a Sri Lankan national visiting the temple from the neighboring emirate of Abu Dhabi. “It is good to have a temple like this to release our stress. Our minds can get polluted—we get angry. So I come here to purify the mind.” (The National) Clad in simple white garments, a women respectfully carries a metal bowl of water to the temple’s Bodhi tree, which she circumambulates in deep contemplation. “The Bodhi tree is a symbol of where Buddha became the enlightened one,” said 43-year-old Sri Lankan volunteer Susika Vishwanath, “It gives shelter and shade so we are repaying.” (The National)

Demographic data for the UAE is inherently fluid as a result of the country’s large expatriate community, which makes up the vast majority of the country’s residents. Islam is the official religion, with 76.9 per cent of the population identifying as Muslims, according to official census data for 2005. The UAE had an estimated population in 2018 of 9.6 million, up from 4.1 million in 2015, of which expatriates made up 88.5 per cent, while Emiratis accounted for just 11.5 per cent. Of other religions practiced in the UAE, principally by expatriate communities, Christians represent an estimated 12.6 per cent, Hindus 6.6 per cent, and Buddhists 2 per cent, with other religions accounting for the remainder, according to the census data. Mahamevnawa Buddhist Monastery is part of a Sri Lanka-based organization, founded in 1999 by Venerable Kiribathgoda Gnanananda Thero with the aim of benefiting all sentient beings by sharing the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. In addition to the main monastery in Polgahawela and 40 branches across Sri Lanka, the organization oversees a network of international branch temples in Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, South Korea, the UAE, the UK, and the USA. Buddhists in UAE are largely expatriate workers from countries in Asia with large Buddhist populations, including China, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as a smaller number of engineers, company directors, and managers from countries such as China (including Hong Kong), Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.