Watt Munisotaram
Our second film explores one of the largest Cambodian Buddhist temples outside Cambodia, which arises amid the cornfields of Hampton, MN. It is a visually stunning monument to Cambodian American resilience in the context of genocide and historical trauma and their resourceful place-making. In 2007 the complex was consecrated by establishing a Sima Boundary, a series of nine holes in the ground at appointed places at an auspicious time marking the space as a sacred sanctuary. This sacred placemaking makes monastic meditation and the ritualized exchange with lay people that ensures Theravada Buddhists are on salvation’s path. In 2009, the community received a relic of the Buddha from a Sri Lankan monastery and began construction of a stupa, a structure reserved for the veneration of the Buddha.