Along the bustling corridor of V. Rama Avenue, where midtown traffic hums in an unrelenting rhythm, an ornate gateway opens into unexpected stillness. Past the threshold, the city's concrete skyline gives way to swept eaves curving against the sky, quiet courtyards paved in cool stone and red lanterns swaying gently in the breeze. Incense drifts across the grounds, muffling the noise of passing jeepneys into a faint murmur.
It is a space where locals and travelers alike can pause, catch their breath and reconnect with a calm the bustling city so easily sweeps away.
Upon arriving for my interview for SunStar Cebu, Venerable Miao Jing, the abbess of Chu Un Temple, asked through temple staff member and translator JR Lopez: "Has he noticed that coming in from this major road, the outside and here are actually two completely different worlds? Has he noticed that upon coming here, his mind becomes much calmer?"
I felt the shift immediately. During the drive I had been racing the clock, hemmed in by the dense, clattering sprawl of midtown traffic along V. Rama. Crossing the temple threshold felt like stepping out of one reality into a quiet refuge.
But this sanctuary is far from an isolated museum piece. Behind meditative stone paths and monastic discipline sits an active community hub, led by a resident monastic whose vocation bridges timeless spiritual practice with civic reality.
The master of the sanctuary
Inside the main hall, Venerable Miao Jing greets guests with an open, disarming smile.
For many outsiders, monastic life reads like a solitary retreat to a misty hermitage — a deliberate turning away from society's entanglements. Venerable Miao Jing dispels that notion with a warm laugh alongside her Bisaya-and-English translator, JR Lopez.
She has walked the monastic path for 32 years under the direct tutelage of the late Venerable Master Hsing Yun, founder of the Taiwan-based Fo Guang Shan order. Her renunciation, she says, was never an escape.
"When I entered monastic life back then, there were no family issues or anything like that," she said. "I simply felt that getting married is one path and renouncing is another. But I wanted to serve the public and society. Because Master Hsing Yun's philosophy of Humanistic Buddhism aligned with my own thoughts, I followed him into monastic life."
That spirit of Humanistic Buddhism — bringing practice out of distant monasteries and planting it into the messiness of everyday life — guided her assignment to the Philippines. Yet arriving in Cebu presented an immediate test of equilibrium. When Venerable Miao Jing and Lopez took up residence at Chu Un Temple, the compound's scale and the unfamiliar city felt intimidating.
"On the first day coming here, I felt it was very big. It's very large, and being alone, I felt a lack of security," she said. "There was a little bit of fear because Chu Un Temple is so large and I had arrived in an unfamiliar place. But with the Buddha and Guanyin Bodhisattva here, my heart felt more settled and at peace."
The street miracle
The practical reality of her calling materialized just outside the temple gates.
Earlier that year, the street fronting the sanctuary was plagued by unmanaged roadside waste. Household refuse accumulated along curbs, torn open by strays and scavengers before dawn, and passersby sometimes relieved themselves against perimeter walls.
"When we first arrived, trash on the main road was thrown around haphazardly. By 9 p.m., it would be rummaged through and scattered everywhere, stretching a long way," Venerable Miao Jing said. "People would even urinate and defecate there, and the stench of garbage would waft all the way up here. To improve the situation, I thought of a solution in order to help the community."
Rather than isolate the temple behind locked doors, call in punitive enforcement or erect barricades, Venerable Miao Jing turned to dialogue. Every month, Chu Un Temple opens its Main Shrine to local barangay residents for educational and community assemblies.
"Every month, about 400 people from the barangay come to learn; the entire Main Shrine is completely packed," she said. "During one of the assemblies, I spoke with them and asked whether they liked this temple, emphasizing that everyone should help maintain and care for it. Then I told them that if they see anyone urinating or illegally dumping trash, they can take a photo and bring it here to exchange for a bag of rice."
The initiative coincided with city-wide interfaith meetings initiated by the Cebu City mayor on household waste segregation. The combination of civic education and community incentives worked: within months, the dumping stopped, the neighborhood took collective ownership of the street frontage and the odor disappeared.
"Actually, I feel that when you communicate properly with the residents, they are genuinely willing to change," she said. "We never aimed to forcefully dictate what they must do; rather, we worked together to find a mutual solution so everyone here can help one another, cooperate and coexist harmoniously."
Education as transformation: the performing arts
Beyond clean sidewalks, Chu Un Temple's deepest investment in Cebu sits behind its primary worship space: the campus of Guang Ming College.
Venerable Master Hsing Yun believed a temple is a school, promoting Humanistic Buddhism through education, culture and the arts. He believed education could transform human hearts, elevate individuals and reshape society. Recognizing Cebuano culture's expressive gifts, he tailored his mission here.
"Master Hsing Yun knew that Filipinos love singing and dancing very much," Venerable Miao Jing said. "Therefore, he decided to establish a school right here in Cebu, allowing the youth and children of Cebu to come here and study."
Through Guang Ming College, the temple offers tuition-free education through full scholarships to Cebuano youth passionate about theater, music, dance and stagecraft.
Lopez adds: "When Venerable Master Hsing Yun came to the Philippines, he was amazed by the natural talent — how Cebuanos love to sing, and the rich quality of their voices. He realized, 'What if I build a performing arts college in Cebu?' That's why we have the performing arts wing behind the temple, offering full scholarships to those gifted in singing, acting and the technical aspects of performance."
Taming the ‘monkey mind’
In a city defined by shift work, commercial pressure and non-stop screen time, the temple frequently receives residents carrying silent burnout.
Venerable Miao Jing traces much of this modern exhaustion to human disconnection. "Nowadays, because of technology, people are constantly interacting with machines and rarely talking with other human beings. Because of that, people have forgotten the original warmth and connection that comes from interpersonal relationships."
Lopez recalls a night-shift BPO professional who walked through the gates seeking relief from severe anxiety.
"He came in feeling overwhelmed and uncomfortable from stress," Lopez said. "We sat down with the Master to talk through it. In Buddhism, there is a term called the 'monkey mind' — a restless state where your awareness cannot settle in the present. Your mind is like a jumping monkey; at every moment, wherever it reaches. The Master counseled him that he needed to face reality directly, practice meditation and learn to truly listen to himself."
For Venerable Miao Jing, mastering that inner turbulence is continuous: the mind travels with you into every room, requiring constant mindfulness. When anger or irritation threatens to boil over, one must gently rein it in, pausing to examine subtle impulses before they turn into harsh reactions. Her students and staff say she has never raised her voice or yielded to temper.
To help the public cultivate balance, Chu Un Temple offers weekly meditation sessions and Tai Chi classes led by resident instructors, with plans to introduce traditional tea-ceremony workshops designed to help busy urbanites slow their breathing and settle the heart.
The universal gate
Chu Un Temple weaves itself into Cebuano life through a radical lack of sectarian barriers. Visitors do not need to convert or renounce their faith to find shelter within its walls.
Lopez himself is living proof. A Buddhist Studies graduate of Guang Ming College who completed advanced studies in Taiwan, he remains an active Roman Catholic while serving the temple community.
"The temple is open to everyone," Lopez said. "You do not have to be Buddhist. I am Catholic myself. We welcome everyone who wishes to learn. Venerable Master Hsing Yun taught that having an open appreciation for different traditions broadens our wisdom and gives us tools to live more gracefully each day."
This openness — known as Pu Men, or the Universal Gate — dates back to the temple's foundations.
Chu Un Temple was born out of filial devotion: the Catholic children of Cebu’s Lu Ym family purchased the property and constructed the sanctuary as an offering to their Buddhist mother. Stewardship was later entrusted to Fo Guang Shan and Head Abbess Venerable Yong Guang. Today, the V. Rama sanctuary is the mother institution for Fo Guang Shan’s five centers across the country, linking Cebu to Manila, Cavite, Bacolod and Iloilo.
Leaving with peace
Stepping back beneath the archway and onto V. Rama Avenue, the raw tempo of Cebu rushes in. Motorbikes weave past idling jeepneys, roadside vendors hawk goods above the mechanical drone of delivery trucks and the machinery of city life charges ahead without missing a beat.
Yet something shifts on the walk back into the noise. The chaos doesn’t feel as deafening as it did on the way in.
The quiet inside Chu Un Temple is not a fragile bubble that shatters when you leave the courtyard; it lingers like the faint scent of sandalwood on your sleeves. That stillness becomes an internal anchor — a reminder that the rush of the outside world only controls you if you let your thoughts jump with it.
Behind its high walls, the temple continues to stand tall in midtown. It does not ask Cebu to silence its streets or retreat from modernity. Instead, Chu Un Temple remains an open doorway on the curb of V. Rama, proving every day that peace is not a distant, unreachable mountain — it is a choice we can step into, cultivate and carry back into the crowd.