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Vietnamese people are not just following only one organized religion, instead, we tend to practice all the good things found in each religion. We are traditionally very much relying on nature’s powers, is both because we are superstitious and we are practical people who live on agriculture. Therefore, we worship various kinds of gods and deities, just in case! (more…)

During our talks about Vietnamese culture, we often mention temples and pagodas. So our travelers often ask us aren’t they just the same thing? No, they are not. As a matter of fact, they are two totally different worshiping places for different religions and beliefs. So, what really are temples and pagodas, and how do we tell the differences? For Vietnamese it is quite easy, but for travelers, it is hard to tell at first glance (that’s why you need to have a guide or read a lot).

In most countries rather than Vietnam, you normally call worshiping places temples, no matter who is being worshiped inside. But in Vietnam, where people tend to follow different religions and worship all saints, gods, and Buddha – just in case, temples and pagodas are two different places. Though both of them may look the same from the outside for visitors, they have different purposes and worship different gods.

What is the difference between Temples and Pagodas in Vietnam?

In Vietnam, Buddhist temple is called a pagoda (or “Chùa” in Vietnamese), which was built to worship Buddha. It’s where Buddhists come to pray at Buddha statues, learn Buddha teachings, or meet Buddhist monks. In some regions in northern Vietnam, the worshiping of Mother Goddesses is also practiced within a pagoda complex.

There are both Theravada Buddhist (the Small Vehicle) and Mahayana Buddhist (the Great Vehicle) pagodas in Vietnam. Because of the former Chinese dominations, Buddhists in northern Vietnam are following the Chinese Pure Land tradition of the Mahayana school, which centered around the compassionate Amida Buddha. While Buddhists in southern Vietnam follow the Theravada School, like those practiced in Laos and Cambodia.

In pagodas, you may see that there are more local women kneeling down and praying at Buddha statues than men. It is explained that Vietnamese women are more willing to endure and sacrifice to protect their families and communities than men, therefore the women tend to spend more time chanting in pagodas to guarantee family or community safety. On the contrary, more men are seen at temples due to an old tradition that allows only men to come to a temple (or communal house).

Temples are called “Đền” in Vietnamese. It’s a place, which could be on a grand scale and very ornate or maybe simple rooms, to worship a real person in the country’s history. The person is a Vietnamese national hero like a king, a queen, a general, a successful Confucian scholar, or a national liberator (Ho Chi Minh). There are also temples built to honor ordinary Vietnamese people, who saved the people from foreign invaders (Chinese) or a natural disaster (typhoons, floods).

Inside a temple, instead of Buddha statues, you’ll see one (or more) statue of the person being worshiped. To help educate the younger generations about the tradition, there are also documents about who is being worshiped. Documents can be books, handwritings or wood carvings, and stone steles… displayed somewhere in the temple.

Beside pagoda (Chua) and temple (Den), there is another worshipping place called “Đình”, or a communal house in English, which shouldn’t be confused with a temple. In communal houses, Vietnamese are worshipping their villages’ protectors, tutelary spirits, and saints of the mountains or rivers where their villages are located or nearby. In some regions, communal houses are also used as a public place to discuss the local village issues, where most respectful men make the last decisions.

In general, pagoda (Chua), temple (Den) and communal house (Dinh) in Vietnam are three different worshiping places influenced by the three teachings; Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. People go to temples and communal houses to show their respect and honor to national heroes or saints being worshiped inside while going to pagodas and praying to Buddha as a sign of thankfulness for Buddha’s teaching.

How to Show Respect at a Temple, Pagoda, and Communal House?

You can visit a local worship place to enjoy the tranquil atmosphere, the beautiful scenery or experience a local religious practice. You can come with incense, flowers, and teas. You can offer meat, alcoholic drinks, and other types of offerings in temples and communal houses. But you should never offer meat and alcoholic drinks in pagodas, which is strictly forbidden in Buddhism.

To show respect to the local culture, no matter where you visit a pagoda (Chua), temple (Den), or communal house (Dinh), please:

1. Remove your shoes when required, most pagodas and temples ask visitors to walk bare feet inside the worship house.
2. Walk into the temples and pagodas by the gate on the right hand, and walk out by the gate on the left. The gate in the middle, which is larger, is only for important ones like abbots, heads of pagodas, or temples.
3. Never point at the statues on the altars with your fingers.
4. Respect the locals who are praying by staying silent, and don’t move around too much disturbing their praying. Don’t block the view between the prayers and the altars or statues.
5. In some circumstances, it is not nice to take photos of the statues and people who are praying. Check with your guides to see if it is ok to take photos.
6. Dress modestly. Never wear too short that show your knees and shoulders. Your chest should also be well covered.
7. Don’t make physical contact with monks, like offering him a handshake.
8. Don’t touch anything, especially the statues.
9. Show respect to the local practices. Just be a visitor since it is not your religion.
10. Put your two hands together in the shape of a lotus flower when praying or talking to a monk.

Being tourist guides, we love sharing our personal understandings of the local traditions and beliefs, as well as religious practices. We hope this article helps you understand the difference between temples and pagodas in Vietnam and also shows you the local belief practices to prepare you for your next visit.

Among more than 94 million Vietnamese of all 54 minority groups, Buddhism is the most practiced religion. There are two types of different versions of Buddhism in Vietnam that vary in North and South Vietnam. Buddhists often go to pagodas to worship and pray in both north and south. Vietnam’s major ethnic group, the Việt, live mainly in tens of thousands of villages in the plains. These villages, the nation’s repositories, each have one or two Buddhist pagodas.

Differences between temples and pagodas 

A pagoda comprises a central building and several dependences. The central building is in the shape of a reversed “T” in which the hall of ceremonies ( bái đường) makes up the horizontal portion and the principal sanctuary ( chính điện or tam bảo), the vertical. The principal sanctuary houses the idols of the pantheon of Mahayana Buddhism (School of the Great Vehicle), widely practiced in Vietnam, China, Japan, and Korea. The most common are those of A Di Dà ( Amitabha, Buddha of the infinity light ), Thích Ca ( Shakyamuni the historic Buddha ), Di Lặc (Maitreya, Buddha of the future), and Quan Âm ( Kuan Yin, Goddess of Compassion). Noteworthy is that Buddhism is an atheist religion for its metaphysical nature and does not admit the existence of divinities- everything is only Maya or illusion. Thus, originally, it denounced all forms of idolatry.

Besides the central building, the pagoda also has a Chapel Room of the Patriarchs (Nhà Tổ). Worshipped here are patriarchal bonzes who lived in the pagoda. However, there is always an idol or a picture of a patriarchal with a collar beard and brozen complexion. Who is he? The “chư bà” (female celery) and the “lam già” (old faithful) – pagodas are often visited by the aged- are at a loss for the answer.

The bearded patriarch is in fact the Indian Bodhi dharma called “ Bồ đề Đạt Ma” in Vietnamese. His presence is rather curios on an altar where the rest are Vietnamese patriarchs. The common man somehow feels closer to Buddhas who fill the central building because they, despite their Indian origin, appear more Sinised, more Vietnamese than “Tổ Tây” or Western patriarch, as he is known.

Bodhiharma ( 470- 543) was an Indian Buddhist master, founder of the Chinese Chan ( Thiền in Vietnamese, Zen in Japanese, and Dhyana in Sanskrit), and the 28^th patriarch after Shakyamuni. A scion of a Brahmin royal dynasty in South India, he left for Canton in China when he was 60, at the bidding of his master Prajnadhara.

He was a guest of Emperor Wu Ti of the Liang dynasty in Nankin. Wu Ti was an adept propagator of Buddhism. However, discerning that the ruler was not yet ready for the doctrine, Bodidharma crossed the Yangtse on a leaf, according to legend, went north, and took up residence at Shaolin monastery. He spent 9 years meditating in front of a wall before finding the way of Chan ( Thiền or Zen).

Thiền ( Chan or Zen) is a mixture of Indian Buddhism’s Dhyana and Chinese Taoism. Chan meditation is a concept drawn from the philosophic and religious thoughts of ancient India, but shaped by the Chinese school of Bodidharma, which was heavily influenced by the Sutra ( religious book) Lankavatara. The Chan school of Bodidharma teaches the immanence of the Buddha and techniques to attain Enlightenment; it advocates the transcendence of the intellect. Communication between master and disciple, and contemplation until Enlightenment .

In Vietnamese, the term Dao Mau refers to the worship of mother goddesses. It represents a systematic mother goddess cult, which draws together fairly disparate beliefs and practices. The worship of mother goddesses includes the worship of goddesses such as Thien Y A Na, the Lady of the Realm, the Lady of Storehouse, the Princess Lieu Hanh, or legendary figures like Au Co, the Trung Sisters, the Lady Trieu, and the cult of the Four Palaces. (more…)

Today I took my guests, a lovely couple from Boston, to visit the Temple of Literature in Hanoi before eating on a street food tour. And while we walked by a giant incense-burning pot decorated with two dragons my guests asked me a difficult question: “How much incense do you light at a time?” As they have seen people burning a few incense sticks at a time, or sometimes the whole bunch of, like, 20 sticks.

At the very moment, I could not explain wholly the ideas to them as I was confused by the meaning of how much incense we should burn. So I consulted a friend of mine who studies a lot about Buddhism and spiritual life and here is the answer. Brian and Meghan, I hope you have some spare time to read this as I promised to answer you in writing.

According to ritual, one may light one, three, five, or seven incense sticks at a time. This has to always be an odd number of incense sticks that you burn. Each and every one of those numbers has its own meaning and symbolic value.

When you burn one (1) incense stick. It represents unity, the whole, and the fusion of male and female principles. Buddhists who pray to Buddha by lighting up one incense stick want to release the “incense of the heart”, in which there are five meanings: preventing the violation of taboos, upholding constancy and protecting against temptation, lucidity, and intelligence, emancipation, lastly endurance.

When one is facing difficulty in life or there is somethings that makes him down, he offers Buddha three incense sticks. Burning three (3) incense sticks shows the mobility of the uneven number that tends to move towards infinity, stability, and equilibrium. During Tet, the Vietnamese New Year Festival, it is customary to light up three incense sticks, the same at funerals. But one should only burn one incense stick at ordinary rituals like praying to ancestors or admiring the work of a dead king/ national hero.

Five (5) sticks of incense are only for when you pray to the Mother Goddess of the Forest, attended by the Five Tiger Lords, to ask for their protection.

Seven (7) incense sticks are burnt on the occasion of the “Pardon for all Wandering Souls” ( Cúng Cô Hồn in Vietnamese which happens every year on the 15^th day of the seventh moon. Those seven incense sticks are then planted on their behalf near banyan trees ( or any big tree available, as Vietnamese believe spirits and ghosts live in big old trees). This is more or less a sign of Buddhist compassion.

And about incense burning, there are some interesting rituals I can list here:

During the praying time and the incense sticks burst into flame, Vietnamese believe that some message is coming from the unfamiliar world, the second life, or their ancestor wanting to tell them something.

The third lunar month we have the Pure Brightness Festival Vietnamese families in the Northern part go to the cemetery clean the graves and decorate with flowers and new paint. Incense sticks are burnt there to ask their ancestors to go back home for a visit. It is believed that if the burnt incense sticks are blown out three times in a row, the spirits of the dead refuse to come back for a moment to the world of mortals.

The smoke from the burning incense makes it possible to communicate between the two worlds. That’s why Vietnamese people burn incense at home on death anniversary to communicate with their ancestors, and at pagodas to try to talk to Buddha.

It is not allowed to blow incense sticks with your mouth, but to wave them in the air until there is no flame on them.

One should always plant the lit incense into the incense pot with their two hand, to show respect.

FAQs

How many incense sticks to burn for good luck (Money)?

Lighting a few sticks of God of Wealth incense requires accurate understanding. In particular, everyone should light a stick of incense for Mr. Than Tai every morning when opening a store or company. This symbolizes a positive number, expressing respect and praying for peace and luck from the homeowner’s gods. Furthermore, this also helps make the business process more convenient.

How many incense sticks to burn for the dead?

The number of incense sticks you burn for the dead can vary depending on tradition and personal preference, but here’s a breakdown of two common practices:

• One incense stick: This signifies unity, wholeness, and honoring the deceased.
• Three incense sticks: This represents stability, balance, and a connection with the departed. It’s a common choice for funerals.

In some traditions, burning seven incense sticks is associated with bringing peace to wandering souls.

May you love to read: Buddhism in Vietnam, Differences between temples and pagodas, Vietnamese Tet New Year Festival