CENTRAL FLORIDA'S GROWING ASIAN COMMUNITY COMES HERE TO WORSHIP. AND MORE AND MORE NON-BUDDHISTS ARE COMING TO SEEK A RESPITE FROM STRESS.

    It's a Sunday scene unlike any chapel in Central Florida. The worshipers have come from Vietnam, Sri Lanka,Thailand - and Yee Haw Junction. Some wear traditional sarongs, others sport suits. Nearby, a barefoot monk in a saffron robe paces the temple grounds with a Dairy Queen Blizzard in his hand.
    The Wat Florida Dhammaram Buddhist temple sits less than a mile from U.S. Highway 192, the tourist strip cluttered with neon discount souvenir signs, fake castles and giant concrete reptiles. The back door of the temple opens up to a view of the shuffleboard courts at the RV park next door.
    A place so serene must have fallen out of Buddha's pocket to land between the ears of Mickey Mouse in vacation Mecca. Built in the back of the two-acre compound, the 50-foot-high temple looms over nearby lots of mobile homes.
    Gold-colored spires bend upward on each of three triangular rooftops, stacked one on another. Above the entrance is a mosaic of tiny mirrors and shiny red, green and blue metal pieces. "Wat Florida Dhammaram," is spelled with these sparkly pieces in English and in Thai.
    A concrete path leads visitors past rose bushes, around a fountain and through a perimeter of stone tablets shaped like head-stones. The tablets and everything beyond them are stamped with religious symbols and art: gems, which Buddhists say protect them from temptation, and flowers with eight petals representing the religion's eight precepts - no lying, killing, stealing, adultery or mind-altering substances plus three extra rules followed by some temple-goers - no eating after noon, no entertainment and no sex.
    Between two sets of crimson double doors stands a 10-foot tall Buddha - the icon of Theravada Buddhism, the strictest of the religion's three branches - chiseled like an Oscar, adorned like a Faberge.
    His gold lame sheen is flaking a bit, giving him a worn look that aptly represents the leader of the 2,500-year-old religion. His palms are open, and his arms are extended down in an upside-down V as he is ready to scoop up the flock.
    Buddhists believe this is how he looked when he floated down from the heavens, where he had learned the secrets of the world and the way to happiness through meditation.
    Inside the temple, only a few chairs are set up along the walls. The rest of the floor space is saved for kneeling, bowing and praying to another golden Buddha icon. This one is 30 feet tall and sits crossed-legged on an altar that's speckled with so many candy-colored jewels that it looks edible.
    There's a throne to the right, where a monk sits when leading prayer or chants. On the other side, a jewel-encrusted container holds a tiny bit of the ashes from the bones of the Buddha. The ashes were a gift from high-ranking monks and government officials in India, where Buddhism began.
    There's a history lesson here, too. Fourteen paintings, imported from Thailand, cover the walls. Ten depict the last incarnations of the man who began as a mortal, but meditated his way to his holy status, became known as the Buddha and shared his sermons with followers. Pictures of the first Buddhist temples hang in each of four corners.
    Before there was the Buddha, the story goes, there was an Indian prince named Siddhartha Gautama, who lived more than 2,500 years ago. Wrought with stress and dissatisfied with life, he renounced his throne and set out into the woods, where he focused on finding what Buddhists call "refuge" through happiness and truth. He concentrated on single thoughts and ideas, and through this meditation, he experienced an awakening and a glimpse at deathlessness. He had reached the height of being by practicing good kamma (also known as "karma" from its Sandskrit derivation).
    Before he died, he entrusted the monks and nuns with his teachings. The Buddha taught that through meditation and the acceptance of kamma, anyone can glimpse at deathlessness and reach the same level he achieved.
    Buddhists practice the five basic precepts in everyday life, but they do not worship the Buddha. They worship the spiritual awakening and meditation through which he found refuge from the dangers of the world.
    Phrakrupalad Sunun, head monk of the Kissimmee temple, says he was raised with Buddhism, but once he grew older, he found that through meditation, he began to understand life. "When you chant every day, you make your mind know. You can understand nature," he says.
    The temple in Kissimmee is built to house this kind of refuge and meditation - from the smell of fresh flowers and spices that ooze from the walls, to the thick red carpet that has been bathed in the smoke of incense. The aroma drapes anyone who walks a few feet inside the door and clings to clothes long after they leave.
    The monks will spend their days teaching the art and other Buddhist ideas to anyone who wants to learn. What they don't know in English, they'll demonstrate through scripture and brochures. They'll sing some of the chants in English, or loan out books with English translations of the Pali words of the Buddha himself.
    Tim Martsching is an American who found his peace at the temple. He and his wife own Siam Orchid restaurant in Orlando. His wife is a Buddhist, and he became a Buddhist while teaching in Thailand at Bangkok University. The meditation and the quiet getaway, he says, is what brings people to this American temple. "The main things are pretty much the same. It's how the people arrive." In Thailand, people are raised with Buddhism and eventually get around to the meditation aspect, he said. Americans come looking for a spiritual way to relive stress and eventually get around to the cultural aspects of Buddhism.
    Part of the temple's success is the area's growing Asian community. The Thai community that supported the temple from the start has also grown alongside the tourist industry. Florida's Asian community is expected to grow by 30 percent in the next decade. And many of the Asians who have moved to Central Florida come to the temple as a way to practice their religion and to try to teach it to their first-generation Thai-American children.
    "Over there, they're surrounded by the culture," says Laxsamee Levin, a Thai-born woman who now lives in Kissimmee. "Over here you don't have that. You know teenagers. I cannot get my teenagers to come, even if I use a crane." She thinks when her children grow older, they'll want to come to the temple for the same reason Americans have discovered the temple. "Buddhism is a religion of freedom. We're not so aggressive about converting people. Many times, we attract people by the way we live."
    Indeed, these aren't proselytizing people. But attracting followers or at least visitors is the reason the monks and the temple community want it to be an eye-catching place. It's the reason the temple founders joined the Kissimmee-St. Cloud Chamber of Commerce. It's the reason the monks themselves tend the gardens, install sprinkler systems bought from Home Depot and ride - robe and all - on a Craftsman mini-tractor/mower to keep the grass trimmed.
    Even without a membership drive, temple spokesman Richard Vejmaneesri says Buddhist numbers are on the rise. He and other founders say they want the temple to be a place where people can come sample Buddhism.
    It seems to be working. Temple officials estimate that of their more than 1,500 members, 35 to 40 percent are American, and their numbers grow each year. Some were servicemen who lived in Thailand or teachers who worked at universities there. Others are Christians who practice meditation to deal with everyday stress. Anthony Ventresca is Catholic. His wife, Pongsri, is Buddhist. Thirty-nine years ago, they were married in the Catholic church in Thailand. All five of his children were raised Catholic, yet he, too, came to the Buddhist temple seeking refuge from the daily grind. "They offer something that nobody else offers here. They offer meditation. Practice meditation," he advises. "It's good for what ails you."
    The little hand-carved golden teak house at the front of the temple property was donated by Martsching and his wife. The eight gold leaf-dipped Buddhas inside are really just for fun, founders say. Visitors can bow three times at the Buddhas' feet, shake a container of numbered plastic straws, pick one and read the corresponding fortune from slips of paper on the wall. Roughly translated from Thai and Chinese, one of the campy fortunes states, "If you're looking for love, he or she is close."
    The little teak house was an afterthought, really, donated after the main temple was built as a way to attract Americans, be they locals or tourists. In 1993, an old Florida house was the only building on the two-acre parcel. Pictures of the white wooden house still hang on the monastery walls. In one picture stands an aged man in a rust-colored robe and no shoes - Ven.Phra Radchadilok, founder of the temple and the assistant abbot at the Wat Sommanut in Bangkok, the parent of the Kissimmee temple. Other pictures show the ground breaking. Osceola County officials, Kissimmee police officers, businessmen and several monks stand together with shovels in-hand, breaking ground on the giant, edifice that now stands on the lot.
    Ven.Phra Radchadilok lives in Thailand, but said in a phone interview through an interpreter that before he finished building 13 schools in Thailand, he came to visit friends in Orlando in 1992 to see how American high schools were run. Thai people in the area begged him to build a temple, he said. Land in Kissimmee was inexpensive compared with Orlando. Yet it was close to Walt Disney World, a major employer and international hub. He left Kissimmee and returned to Thailand, but only after promising to build the temple.
     He promised to complete it in six years. He finished the $1 million temple in four. Much of the temple's furnishings come from the temple in Thailand. Much of the money to operate it comes from local donations. But over and over again, the monks emphasize that everything here is free. Donations are appreciated, but never asked for. No offering plates are passed around in the middle of chants. "We don't solicit donations," Vejmaneesri says. "You don't even have to become a Buddhist to appreciate it. We just show them what Thai culture is."
    The monks are ready. It's still well before noon - the deadline for their meals, according to Buddhist precepts. Too much time spent eating takes time from meditation, reading, learning and teaching. Today's feast will stock the monastery fridge for the next three months. The monks can leave during the day to bless a house or offer prayer to a bed-ridden temple member, but before the sun goes down, they have to return to the temple grounds. For these three months they'll pay homage to Buddha and the time he spent meditating his way to the awakening.
    Today and almost every other day in Thailand, monks wander the streets, starting at dawn. They walk around the city carrying bowls for food. People know that the food they give is all the monks have to eat for their single daily meal. The monasteries in Thailand are often in the middle of town, and people know the monks will be coming around in the morning. In Florida, Buddhists are scattered, so they gather at the temple each day to feed the monks.
     A line has formed in front of the temple entrance, and a Thai-American girl in her early teens waits for the monks to walk by with their offering bowls. She's waiting to add her bowl full of spiced incense, flowers and rice dessert cakes to the bounty. She is a first generation American. This is what her mother - a Buddhist from Thailand -showed her how to do. Teams of young men separate the food from flowers or incense and use plastic laundry baskets to stow the offerings.
    If they were roaming the streets in Thailand, food, flowers and incense might be the only gifts offered, but at this ceremony, some people place paper towels, dish soap, new robes and supplies for the temple directly into the laundry baskets.
    Just before the oldest of the temple's six monks comes to the young girl for her offering, she impatiently plops the bowl down with a lazy clang on a nearby folding table. Her mother gasps and shudders at her daughter's disruption of the quiet setting. "What are you doing?" she scolds. `Geez! I'm sorry!" the young girl snaps back. When the monks pass in front of her, the mother tells her daughter to place the gifts in the metal bowl and they both bow with their hands together.
    The aged monk smiles, nods his head and seems tickled that the young girl is learning what to do. After the offering, the monks leave to eat alone. An hour or so later, the shoes of those who have come to worship pile up at the temple doors. Shoes are dirty. The temple is pure. Everyone who enters kneels and bows three times to the Buddha altar, then three times to the six monks, who sit with their legs crossed on raised wooden dais. Nine chandeliers hang from the ceiling. Each is mounted in the center of nine round ornaments. The ornaments and the lamps are gold-dipped and jewel-encrusted. About 70 people are on their knees listening to calls to worship in Thai.
    After Phrakrupalad makes several announcements, the six monks begin chanting. The oldest begins and the rest match his hum. The words in Pali and Thai are chanted in a single note, but every so often, they break their purr for a breath or for a jump in pitch. The words and changes in notes make a kind of cadence, and a woman in the congregation taps a rhythm on the leg of the toddler she holds on her lap. The small child, like the American men sitting in chairs along the back of the room, is mesmerized. The chants in Pali are the same words spoken by the Buddha. Like Latin in the Catholic church, the chants have remained unchanged since they came from the Buddha's mouth 2,500 years ago. Monks chant about kamma and bless the offerings made by the temple-goers. Worshipers offer faux trees decorated with dollars and Thai currency to the temple, and they chant about the precepts.
    In the front row are nine women and one man dressed in white robes. They have accepted the eight precepts during this period, including the three additional precepts prohibiting eating after noon, entertainment and sex. During these three months, they'll give up these distractions to focus on meditation. A few rows behind them, the crowd is diverse. A young boy in a Voltron cartoon T-shirt fidgets as his mother holds him. A 78-year-old woman sits next to them with hair so white it's almost clear. All three generations bow together when the chant is through.
    In the back of the room, four American men, ranging from about 40 to 65 years old, are dazed in the rhythm of the chants. They aren't on their knees, but their eyes are closed, and several of them move their lips in time with the words. Most of the chants are in Pali, and several Thais say they don't understand the words, but they know the general themes. Recently, the monks have translated more chants into Thai - a break with tradition. "I want to make it easy for people to pray," says Phrakrupalad. He is asking for a shift in ideals in return. Slow down. Let go of material possessions. Live simply. "Need is a kind of sin," he says. "You have one thing, you want more."
    A young looking man, he has spent 21 of his 41 years as a monk. He has followed 227 precepts of Buddhist ideology that apply to the monks. He has owned nothing but a saffron-colored robe sown together from a couple dozen pieces of small fabric. Some of the earliest Buddhist monks pulled the scraps of material off the bodies of the dead who might float down the river in India. They could own nothing, Phrakrupalad says, and the dead had no use for clothes anymore. Their temporary earthly stint had expired. Like other monks, his head is shaved so he does not have to take care of his hair, and he rarely wears shoes. He's approachable, friendly. He smiles frequently, jokes and can immediately comfort those who might fear making faux pas in his presence. When he talks about Buddhism, his passion moves faster than his English. He touches the thumbs and index fingers of each hand together and interlocks them. "Like a chain," he says describing his decision to abandon a material society and become a monk. "After you cut loose, you don't have to join again."
    He is a living example of Buddhist lessons. He has cut loose from need, and now he wants to share what he has learned with as many people as he can. His goal, he says, is to translate chants into English. Buddhism is full of tradition, but the monks say all of the precepts are flexible if a person's intent is good. "We don't have the God," Phrakrupalad says. They worship the practice of good kamma, believing it will let them grow closer to a divine peacefulness.
    The chanting and meditation goes on all day, but after a couple of hours, some wander out of the temple to the picnic tables outside. Here, there are rice and coconut milk cakes, bean cakes glazed with egg yoke, sweet rice custard and tapioca. Scents of orange and honeysuckle incense float in the breeze. The treats have been cooked by the owner of the Thai restaurant in the Days Inn down the street, or by the wife of the retired American Catholic serviceman, or by anyone else willing to dedicate a spare moment.
    The monks have taken what they can eat and have left the rest for the temple-goers. The picnic is blessed by the six resident Thai monks. "When you give food to the monks, you give the goods to the spirits that are waiting to be born," Vejmaneesri says. And as the day draws to a close and people start to leave, they get a sort of reminder of where they are. The worshipers hear a screech, and turn to see the mud tires of a modified, 4x4 van spin and bark across the asphalt road in front of the temple grounds. Some classic rock tune - by Boston or AC/DC - blares out of the van window.
    "We bring Thailand here," the temple spokesman said earlier in the day. In Kissimmee.

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