The Pagoda Forest of Shaolin Temple

Buddhism

少林寺

Shaolin Temple

“Nine years facing a stone wall — where the wordless mind came east”

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Photo: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China · CC0

Scenes

The Forest of Steles, stone tablets of successive agesGary Todd from Xinzheng, China · CC0
Guardian beasts ranged along the eavesxiquinhosilva · CC BY 2.0
Shaolin's main hall, incense and pilgrims on the stepsGary Todd · CC0
The Five Hundred Arhats painted on a Shaolin hall wall, where Bodhidharma's mind lived onGary Todd · CC0

Meaning

Among the pines of Mount Song, the stupas of the Pagoda Forest stand like a grove of stone, and a mountain path leads toward the cave where Bodhidharma is said to have faced the wall.

A temple at the foot of Mount Song, said to have been founded in the late fifth century. Tradition holds that Bodhidharma, arriving from India, sat for years in a cave here facing the wall, and that from this Chan (Zen) took root in China. Beside the temple, the Pagoda Forest gathers the memorial stupas of generations of masters. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage historic monuments of Dengfeng, at 'the Centre of Heaven and Earth.'

Voices across time

“Vast emptiness, nothing holy.”

— Bodhidharma's answer to Emperor Wu, as the Blue Cliff Record tells it

Roads through this light

✦Zen — From Mind to Mind→

“Nine years before a stone wall — where that mind entered China”

Field notes

Location
Dengfeng · Mount Song · N34.5° · E112.9°
Best time
Early morning, when slanting light falls through the Pagoda Forest.
Getting there
From Dengfeng, enter the foothills of Mount Song.
Etiquette
Quiet is appreciated in spaces of practice and worship.

Sources

  • · UNESCO World Heritage
  • · Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Photographs are freely licensed works from Wikimedia Commons and similar sources; the author and license appear beneath each image.