Purnamidam Retreat to Vietnam: My Son

As I prepared for the retreat to Vietnam, I revisited all that the south central coast of Vietnam has to offer. I came across reports of beautiful Cham ruins about an hour from Hoi An. The Cham people are Hindu and the temples were erected in devotion to Shiva. While Vietnam has some Hindu influences, the blend of Buddhism and Animism is much more visible to the naked eye. I was intrigued by this religious and cultural intersection. 

Our lovely Linh agreed to make it happen! We set out by bus through the Vietnamese country side. We traveled over an hour through green rice paddies, ancestor shrines, houses on stilts, and packs of children playing by low palms.

Lovely Linh got us there and got us around. She gave us an informed history of the My Son ruins. We passed craters where bombs fell during the US-Vietnam war. We stayed on the paths as there are still said to be some live land mines. And we stumbled upon the temples.

Here, beautiful Leslie stands at the threshold of one of the Shiva temples. Each of these temples had a specific purpose. In some, you were meant to fast, meditate, and ready yourself for a greater ritual. Then there were other temples to enter once you were prepared for rituals of great devotion.

A few said, "we should chant!" So we did. We assembled off to the side and Julie started us off with call and response chants to Shiva. It was so interesting to engage with our understanding of Shiva, the legacy and stories, in this place of such reverence to Shiva.

Shiva is often revered in the form of the lingam, the symbol of male potency. Fertility and sexuality is a big part of this spiritual understanding, not separate from as we sometimes find in the West. Shiva lingams were erected throughout the temple sites. Sometimes, rituals occur where water is poured over the lingam. The water is said to gather potency and then might be washed over a worshipper. Sometimes the lingam was placed on a yoni, a symbol for female fertility, receptivity, and creativity.

Here we find a lingam. Cindy claims to not know what she was doing with her hands.

As you see from the photos, we were in My Son on a typical January day in central Vietnam. It was HOT. On this hot day, we chanted to Shiva. The next day, we experienced the full moon, torrential downpours, and a thirty degree drop in temperature that swept through Southeast Asia. The caretakers in My Son, Angkor Wat, and temples throughout Southeast Asia worried about the effect of such sudden temperature shift on the temples. 

From highs in the high 80s to low 90s, in a day we went to temperatures in the 60s. They stayed that way for a few days.

I have to say, Shiva felt really powerful in that moment.