Standing at the intersection of South Graham Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way South in the Rainier Valley neighborhood of southern Seattle, as Link Light Rail trains glide along the median tracks, a glance up the western hillside reveals a three-tiered curved-roof gateway and white stone statues of the Buddha nestled beneath evergreen conifers. This is Co Lam Pagoda (known in Vietnamese as Chùa Cổ Lâm), the oldest and largest Vietnamese Buddhist temple complex in Washington State and across the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
Growing from a modest house of worship established in the early 1980s by Most Venerable Thích Nguyên An and the first Vietnamese Buddhist families who settled around Puget Sound, Co Lam Pagoda has been steadily built over four decades into a traditional monastic sanctuary integrated into the North American hillside landscape. It serves both as a spiritual refuge rooted in Pure Land devotion and as a center for Vietnamese language preservation, outdoor Buddhist sculpture, and urban ecological stewardship in Seattle.
IPractice tradition and sacred iconography
The Sino-Vietnamese name Cổ Lâm Tự (古林寺) means the Monastery of the Ancient Forest, evoking the woodland groves where the historical Buddha taught as well as the long-standing mountain monastery tradition of Vietnamese Buddhism. In Washington State, known as the Evergreen State for its year-round forests of Douglas fir, cedar, and hemlock, the name Cổ Lâm connects ancestral monastic heritage with the natural environment of the Pacific Northwest.
In its doctrinal lineage and liturgy, Co Lam Pagoda follows Mahāyāna Buddhism with a central emphasis on Pure Land practice combined with meditation and traditional liturgical rites of central and southern Vietnam, sharing ritual forms with major Vietnamese ancestral temples such as Vĩnh Nghiêm Pagoda. Inside the Main Shrine (Đại Hùng Bảo Điện), the central and highest altar enshrines Śākyamuni Buddha (Đức Phật Bản Sư Thích Ca Mâu Ni) seated in meditation upon a lotus throne, representing the historical awakened teacher. In front of and flanking the main altar are statues of Amitābha Buddha (Đức Phật A Di Đà, Lord of the Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss), Maitreya Buddha (Đức Phật Di Lặc, the Future Buddha) with a welcoming smile of magnanimity, and two great Bodhisattvas deeply revered in Vietnamese devotion: Avalokiteśvara (Quán Thế Âm Bồ Tát, embodying great compassion that listens to the cries of the world) and Mahāsthāmaprāpta (Đại Thế Chí Bồ Tát, embodying the light of wisdom).
According to documentation compiled by the Northwest Dharma Association, the sacred imagery at Co Lam Pagoda is organized across two complementary realms: the solemn indoor sanctuary and the open-air terraced hillside. While the interior of the Main Shrine is dedicated to regular chanting of the Lotus Sutra, the Amitābha Sutra, the Ullambana Sutra, and daily devotional rites in the traditional Vietnamese monastic style, the outdoor sculpture garden is designed as a visual scripture in stone. Along the garden paths, the life journey of Prince Siddhārtha Gautama, from his renunciation and departure from the royal palace to his ascetic practice in the forest, awakening beneath the Bodhi tree, turning of the Wheel of Dharma, and entry into Parinirvāṇa, is depicted through sculptural tableaux so that American-born youth and local visitors who do not read Vietnamese can contemplate the teachings directly.
Passersby traveling along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South who see the monumental curved roofs and statuary on the hillside sometimes assume the complex is a private cultural compound reserved exclusively for Asian congregations. In reality, Co Lam Pagoda welcomes residents of all backgrounds across the diverse Rainier Valley neighborhood. Alongside Vietnamese chanting services, the monastic community and lay volunteers regularly host school groups, university students from across Seattle, and neighbors who come to walk the garden paths, learn about Buddhist history, and sit in quiet contemplation.
IIBuilding a major Vietnamese monastery in the Pacific Northwest
The founding of Co Lam Pagoda is closely tied to the resettlement of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in Washington State during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Arriving in the Puget Sound region with its long, damp winters and mist-covered hills, the earliest Vietnamese Buddhist families in Seattle sought to establish a homeland temple where they could pray for deceased ancestors, find spiritual solace, and pass on ethical traditions to their children.
The monk who laid the foundation and guided this monastic community for decades is Most Venerable Thích Nguyên An, affectionately known among local Seattle residents as Master An. Regarding the exact founding year, oral history within the Seattle Vietnamese community and several local accounts note that the earliest chanting gatherings began in 1981 in a small residential house in Seattle, whereas official records of the Northwest Dharma Association and the Global Vietnamese Buddhist Directory list the formal incorporation of Co Lam Pagoda in 1983. The library records both 1981 and 1983 to reflect the full progression from the initial prayer group to the formally established congregation.
- 1981 - 1983Founding of the Co Lam congregation in SeattleMost Venerable Thích Nguyên An and pioneer Vietnamese Buddhist families in Washington State began gathering for chanting in 1981 and formally established Co Lam Pagoda in 1983 in a small house in Seattle.
- Early 1990sAcquisition of the Rainier Valley hillside siteAs the Buddhist community across greater Seattle, Tacoma, and Bellevue grew rapidly, the congregation raised funds to purchase the sloped property at 3503 South Graham Street, adjacent to Martin Luther King Jr. Way South.
- 1995Stone-laying ceremony for the new templeCo Lam Pagoda held its official stone-laying and groundbreaking ceremony to construct a traditional Vietnamese Main Shrine on the hillside parcel in Rainier Valley.
- 2000Completion of the Main Shrine and Buddha enshrinementAfter five years of dedicated construction, the Main Shrine was completed and consecrated with a grand Buddha enshrinement ceremony (Lễ An Vị Phật), establishing a permanent monastic landmark in the Pacific Northwest.
- 2009 - 2011Completion of the hillside sculpture garden and Triple GateCoinciding with the opening of the Link Light Rail line along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South in 2009, the temple completed its curved-roof Triple Gate, bell and drum towers, and terraced hillside sculpture garden.
- 2010Hosting the Jade Buddha for Universal PeaceCo Lam Pagoda served as the Pacific Northwest host venue for the world tour of the four-ton Jade Buddha for Universal Peace, drawing tens of thousands of Buddhists and visitors from across Washington and Oregon.
- 2017 - 2019Green infrastructure and rainwater cistern projectIn partnership with the environmental organization ECOSS and the City of Seattle, the temple installed four giant rainwater-harvesting cisterns holding over 20,000 gallons to irrigate its terraced gardens and protect the Lake Washington watershed.
The growth of Co Lam Pagoda from 1995 to the present has unfolded alongside the transformation of Rainier Valley, one of the most culturally diverse neighborhoods in the United States, where Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipino, East African, and long-time local communities live side by side. Throughout the construction of the Main Shrine (1995 to 2000) and the expansion of the sculpture garden (2009 to 2011), Most Venerable Thích Nguyên An personally oversaw the terraced grading of the steep slope, turning a challenging hillside lot into a verdant Buddhist park. In the late 2010s, when Seattle's RainWise program and the environmental nonprofit ECOSS sought ways to reduce stormwater runoff from large roofs into municipal drains, Co Lam Pagoda pioneered the installation of four massive cisterns (each holding more than 5,000 gallons, capturing over 20,000 gallons of rainwater per season). Highlighted by the urban ecology journal City Habitats and King County environmental agencies, the initiative stands as a model uniting the Buddhist ethic of non-harming and respect for nature with modern watershed conservation in the Pacific Northwest.
IIITraditional monastic architecture and the terraced sculpture garden
Viewed from Martin Luther King Jr. Way South on the east looking up toward the western slope, Co Lam Pagoda rises like a classical East Asian mountain monastery backed against a wooded ridge. Because the parcel at 3503 South Graham Street slopes upward from east to west, the architects and temple builders employed a terraced layout: each architectural structure and garden court rests on a distinct platform linked by stone stairways, winding footpaths, and relief-carved retaining walls.
Standing at the front of the compound facing the main thoroughfare, the Triple Gate features three arched entryways, four pillars inscribed with Sino-Vietnamese and Vietnamese parallel couplets, and reddish-brown glazed tile roofs with upturned dragon and phoenix eaves, flanked by solemn bell and drum pavilions.
Completed and consecrated in 2000, the Main Shrine combines traditional Vietnamese curved-roof temple aesthetics with seismic-resistant reinforced concrete engineering suited to the Pacific Northwest. Its interior is adorned with gilded wooden carvings, horizontal plaques, and altars enshrining Śākyamuni, Amitābha, Maitreya, and Avalokiteśvara.
Climbing the hillside behind and beside the Main Shrine, this park-like sanctuary houses the largest outdoor collection of Buddhist statuary in Greater Seattle, featuring dozens of white stone and bronze figures of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Arhats alongside scripture-inscribed stelae set amid Japanese maples, conifers, and rhododendrons.
Running along the western flank of the complex is a continuous sculptural installation roughly 50 feet (15.2 meters) long that chronicles key milestones in the life of Siddhārtha Gautama, from riding his horse Kanthaka out of the palace and cutting his hair by the Anomā River to his awakening and first teaching.
In the open courtyard stands a tall white stone statue of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Quán Thế Âm) atop a lotus pedestal. Further up the slope stand four high-capacity rainwater cisterns fed by the Main Shrine roof, supplying natural irrigation throughout the dry Pacific Northwest summer for the flower beds and vegetarian garden.
A notable quality of Co Lam Pagoda's spatial design is its acoustic buffering and sensory transition through hillside planting. Although the property borders one of southern Seattle's busiest transit corridors, stepping through the Triple Gate and ascending a few dozen stone steps into the terraced garden places the visitor beneath a canopy of evergreens, bamboo groves, magnolias, and quiet stone benches that screen out urban traffic. This vertical progression from city street to contemplative mountain sanctuary echoes the spatial principles of major North American Mahāyāna monasteries such as Hsi Lai Temple and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, while retaining the intimate warmth of a Vietnamese village pagoda garden.
IVThe lie of the land and the facing
Buddhist teaching is grounded in dependent origination and mindfulness, taking the purity of mind as its foundation rather than teaching geomantic fortune-telling as religious dogma. Even so, throughout centuries of building monasteries in Vietnam, founding masters carefully observed natural topography to create harmonious environments shielded from harsh winds and conducive to contemplation. The reading below offers the library's comparative interpretation through traditional landform feng shui applied to the geography of Seattle.
On the macro-geographical scale of the Pacific Northwest, the city of Seattle occupies a narrow glacial isthmus embraced by two vast bodies of water: to the west lies Puget Sound (a saltwater inlet of the Pacific Ocean shielded on its far side by the Olympic Mountains), and to the east stretches Lake Washington (a deep freshwater lake running north to south, backed further east by the Cascade Range and the snow-crowned peak of Mount Rainier rising 4,392 meters to the southeast). Within this landform gripped between two waters, Rainier Valley forms a natural north-to-south corridor in southern Seattle flanked by the Beacon Hill and Columbia City ridge on the west and the Seward Park uplands beside Lake Washington on the east.
Situated at coordinates 47.5454 degrees North and 122.2876 degrees West, Co Lam Pagoda occupies the eastern slope of the Brighton and Columbia City ridge. In traditional landform reading, the site embodies the pattern of leaning against the hill and facing the avenue, high at the rear and open in front: the back of the temple to the west rests solidly against the rising hillside (where the terraced sculpture garden and evergreen trees serve as the rear backing, or hậu chẩm, shielding the sanctuary from chilly westerly winds off Puget Sound), while the main facade and Triple Gate open toward the east and southeast overlooking Rainier Valley to greet the morning sun. Directly in front of the gate, Martin Luther King Jr. Way South and the light rail line running along the valley floor act as a virtual water channel (roadway qi flow) curving past the forecourt, while roughly 2.5 kilometers to the east the broad expanse of Lake Washington serves as the outer water-gathering bright hall (minh đường tụ thủy). Because the temple grounds rise in stepped terraces from the street gate up to the Main Shrine and garden, the energy of the sanctuary is not struck directly by fast-moving street traffic, instead, the stone steps and layered tree canopy temper the flow and preserve a quiet node that gathers qi within the city.
VAnnual festivals and community life in Washington State
For more than forty years, Co Lam Pagoda has served as the primary hub for Vietnamese religious festivals and cultural gatherings in Seattle and neighboring King County cities. Major observances follow the traditional Vietnamese lunar calendar (with large public celebrations often scheduled on the nearest weekend on the Gregorian calendar so that thousands of working families, students, and local Washington residents can attend).
| Date | Calendar | Festival / Activity | Ritual and community observance |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Year's Eve to 15th day of the 1st month | Lunar calendar (January - February Gregorian) | Lunar New Year (Tết Nguyên Đán) and First Full Moon | Midnight New Year prayers, lion dances by the Co Lam Pagoda Lion Dance Team, spring blessings, vegetarian food stalls, and floral displays attended by thousands of Vietnamese Americans as well as Seattle and Washington State civic leaders. |
| 19th day of the 2nd, 6th, and 9th months | Lunar calendar | Feast Days of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Vía Quán Thế Âm) | Processions, chanting of the Universal Door Chapter of the Lotus Sutra, recitation of the Bodhisattva's name, and floral offerings before the outdoor white stone Guanyin statue. |
| 15th day of the 4th month | Lunar calendar (May Gregorian) | Buddha's Birthday (Vesak / Đại lễ Phật Đản) | Traditional Bathing of the Baby Buddha ceremony, floral float displays, cultural performances, Dharma talks on the awakening of Śākyamuni Buddha, and contemplation walks along the hillside Buddha life relief. |
| 15th day of the 7th month | Lunar calendar (August - September Gregorian) | Ullambana Festival of Filial Piety (Vu Lan Báo Hiếu) | Rose-pinning ceremony honoring parents, chanting of the Ullambana Sutra, requiem prayers for deceased ancestors, and charitable gift distributions. |
| Weekly on Sundays and summer months | Gregorian calendar | Vietnamese Language School, Lion Dance, and Youth Retreats | Sunday chanting services, Vietnamese language and heritage classes for children, martial arts and lion dance rehearsals, and summer ethical youth programs. |
Beyond its liturgical role, Co Lam Pagoda plays a vital part in passing on Vietnamese heritage to second- and third-generation youth raised in the Pacific Northwest. The temple's Vietnamese language school and the Co Lam Pagoda Lion Dance Team have trained hundreds of young Vietnamese Americans to speak their ancestral language, practice filial piety, and perform traditional lion and dragon dances at multicultural festivals across Seattle.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Getting there
- From Downtown Seattle or Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac), visitors can ride the Link Light Rail (1 Line) along Martin Luther King Jr. Way South to the Graham Street area (between the Columbia City and Othello stations) and walk 5 to 10 minutes to 3503 South Graham Street. By car from Interstate 5, take the Columbian Way or Martin Luther King Jr. Way South exit heading south directly to the temple.
- Coordinates
- 47.5454, -122.2876
When visiting Co Lam Pagoda, guests are asked to dress modestly, remove shoes before entering the Main Shrine (Đại Hùng Bảo Điện), and maintain a quiet demeanor while walking along the stone stairways of the terraced hillside sculpture garden. Because the sloped paths and stone steps can become damp and mossy during Seattle's rainy season, visitors are advised to wear flat, slip-resistant footwear and refrain from picking flowers or climbing on statue pedestals and rainwater cisterns.
Nearby places in the library
VIIContribute To This Page
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Góp ảnh, thông tin hoặc video cho Chùa Cổ LâmEveryone is welcome to enrich this page: a photo you took, a detail the page misses, a short video. Every contribution is read and answered.
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?Quick Questions
Who founded Co Lam Pagoda in Seattle and when?
Co Lam Pagoda was founded by Most Venerable Thích Nguyên An (affectionately known as Master An) together with the local Vietnamese Buddhist community in Washington State. Initial prayer gatherings began in 1981 and the temple was formally incorporated in 1983, followed by groundbreaking at the South Graham Street site in 1995 and completion of the Main Shrine in 2000.
What is the most distinctive architectural and landscape feature of Co Lam Pagoda?
Alongside its traditional curved-roof Triple Gate and Main Shrine, the temple is renowned for its Terraced Sculpture Garden climbing the western hillside, which includes a 50-foot-long (15.2-meter) continuous sculptural relief chronicling the life of Siddhārtha Gautama.
Why has Co Lam Pagoda been recognized by the City of Seattle for environmental stewardship?
In the late 2010s, Co Lam Pagoda partnered with the environmental nonprofit ECOSS and King County's RainWise program to install four massive rainwater-harvesting cisterns holding over 20,000 gallons, reducing urban stormwater runoff while naturally irrigating the hillside gardens.
What Buddhist tradition does Co Lam Pagoda follow and which figures are enshrined?
The temple follows Vietnamese Mahāyāna Buddhism with a primary focus on Pure Land practice. The Main Shrine enshrines Śākyamuni Buddha, Amitābha Buddha, Maitreya Buddha, Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (Quán Thế Âm), and Bodhisattva Mahāsthāmaprāpta (Đại Thế Chí).
Are non-Buddhists and visitors who do not speak Vietnamese welcome at the temple?
Yes, visitors of all cultural and religious backgrounds are warmly welcomed. The outdoor sculpture garden is open for quiet contemplation, and thousands of neighbors and civic guests join the congregation during major celebrations such as Lunar New Year (Tết) and Vesak.