Zhejiang Zouma, 20. Lingyin Temple

20. Lingyin Temple

This morning, non-stop, we visited the Orioles in the Willow Waves, Hupao Park, and Hu Xueyan’s former residence by the lake.

It was already half past eleven when I came out of Hu Xueyan’s old residence. Except for drinking a lot of spring water at Hupao Park in the morning, I haven't eaten any food all morning. Being thirsty or tired is the next best thing, but the most important thing is being hungry.

Fortunately, Hu Xueyan’s former residence is right next to Wangjiang Road, where there are many restaurants and so on. We walked around casually and saw some lobster restaurants and Scallop King. We didn’t dare to go in. After wandering around, I finally found a noodle shop and had a big bowl of hot soup and noodles. Comfortable. I have no shame in not being able to afford lobster. You eat lobster and I eat noodles. Everyone has his own way of living, so this is no different.

After eating and resting, we found a bus to Lingyin Temple on the roadside. Get in the car and open the Gaode map. The bus stopped and stopped all the way and arrived at Lingyin Road.

Suddenly, on the Amap map, I saw on the roadside where the bus was going to pass, there was a sign of a scenic spot with two peaks in the clouds. He quickly turned his head out the window and searched all the way, and actually saw the imperial stele pavilion of Emperor Kangxi on the roadside. It's just a pity that I didn't take a photo of this Royal Stele Pavilion.

I drove to Lingyin Temple and bought a ticket for 45 yuan at the ticket office. After passing through the gate with three gold and black plaques inscribed "Lingyin Temple" by Jiang Zemin, I saw a huge hunched turtle. The stone tablet has two big characters "Lingyin" on it. This stone stele may have been rubbed by tourists over many years, and it has become thickly coated, especially the turtle's nose, which has been touched to shine. The tablet is engraved with exquisite cloud and dragon patterns around it, and there is a large square seal above the characters. I looked carefully and didn't recognize the printed handwriting. Judging from the grandeur of this monument, the person who wrote these two words was either Kangxi or Qianlong.

Entering the gate of the scenic spot, you can clearly feel the crowds. However, the flow of people here is different from that on the edge of the West Lake. Most of the people here are aunts in groups, carrying sachets.

It is said that even in the early days, Hangzhou’s tourism market was supported by the aunts from Suzhou and Shanghai.

Relying on the power of faith, these aunts go to Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou to offer incense on time once every three years. He also donated the money he had secretly saved to buy food to the temple behind his family's back, in order to pray to the Buddha to protect his family's safety.

Going up against the small river flowing down from the cold spring, following the direction of the flow of people, we soon reached Feilai Peak.

Feilai Peak should be the most important scenery in Lingyin Temple Scenic Area. In the lower part of Feilai Peak, there are several caves connected inside and outside, such as Yuru Cave, Longhong Cave and Qinglin Cave. The strange-shaped rocks at the bottom and mountainside are covered with Buddha statues from various dynasties. The cracks in the rocks are also filled with old trees and thick vines. Standing at the foot of the mountain and looking towards the top of the mountain, except for the shade of the trees, it is impossible to see how high Feilai Peak is. In fact, Feilai Peak is a very small mountain.

Drilling through several caves under Feilai Peak, the cave walls are hung with various stalactites and carved with various Buddha statues, ranging from the Five Dynasties to the Song and Yuan Dynasties. , next to each group of Buddha statues are the dates and names. It's just that most of the heads of Buddha statues are incomplete. There is a group of three Buddha statues with the words next to them: "Jiangyin Prefecture Judge, Yulin Timur Heavy Armor". Timur must be a Mongolian name. It seems that this set of statues was carved by a man named Timur in the Yuan Dynasty who spent money. This Timur was from Yulin and served as a judge in Jiangyin Prefecture.

Beside Feilai Peak, there is a seven-level stone tower that is not too high, the Tower of Li Gong.

Li Gong is Monk Huili, the founder of Lingyin Temple. During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the monk Huili who came to China from India traveled to the North Peak of West Lake in Hangzhou. Seeing the beautiful scenery here, he thought it was a place where "fairies hide", so he built a temple according to the North Peak and named it Lingyin Temple. , so far, it has a history of 1,600 years.

Perhaps Monk Huili was homesick. He saw a small rocky mountain in front of the temple with seven orifices, which seemed very similar to Lingjiu Peak in his hometown. Do you think it was the Lingjiu Peak from my hometown that flew here? Therefore, the small stone mountain in front of Lingyin Temple was named Feilaifeng.

It is also because of the efficacious results of Lingyin Temple and the magical legend of Feilai Peak. Since the Five Dynasties, some people have been carving Buddha statues in the grottoes and cliffs of Feilai Peak until the Song Dynasty. From the Yuan to the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 470 Buddhist statues on Feilai Peak. Now, there are more than 330 statues that are basically well preserved. The Feilaifeng statue is now a nationally protected cultural relic.

Seeing that there were many people on the mountain climbing steps at Feilai Peak, I did not continue climbing up the mountain, but turned around and crossed the river to Lingyin Temple.

To visit Lingyin Temple, you must buy a 35-yuan fragrant flower coupon. The so-called fragrant flower coupons are actually another name for tickets. I just bought a 45 yuan ticket to the Lingyin Temple Scenic Area, but I couldn’t even see the Lingyin Temple. I just laughed. When I enter a temple, I usually don’t worship Buddha or burn incense. Because there are so many rules in Buddhism, we don’t understand anything, and we are afraid that if we make a mistake, we will make the gods and Buddhas unhappy, and it will be unsightly.

Forget it, is it okay if I don’t enter? Going forward, on the side of the road, you can just see the majestic Temple of the Heavenly King.

From the previous work, I know that Lingyin Temple has been destroyed and rebuilt fourteen times since it was founded by monk Huili in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Now, the so-called Tianwang Hall, the oldest in Lingyin Temple, was only restored later.

Separated by a wooden fence, the tall and majestic Tianwang Palace is hidden in the green woods. The huge plaque hanging under the eaves of the second floor: "Yunlin Zen Temple" is a joke left by Kangxi.

When Kangxi visited Lingyin Temple, the old monk in the temple asked the emperor to leave his calligraphy treasure. It is said that Kangxi was a little drunk at that time, and when he started writing, he made the prefix "rain" of the traditional Chinese character "ling" in Lingyin Temple big. Now, no matter how Kangxi considered it, the words Lingyin Temple could not be moved around on the paper. Kangxi was embarrassed when a bachelor next to him wrote the words Yunlin Zen Temple on the palm of his hand and secretly stretched out his hand to show Kangxi. Kangxi was also very smart. He understood it at a glance and wrote "Yunlin Zen Temple" on the paper. When the old monk saw that the emperor had changed the name of the temple, he didn't dare to say anything and just put up the big plaque of Yunlin Temple.

Although the emperor changed Lingyin Temple to Yunlin Temple, the people did not recognize it and still called this temple Lingyin Temple. Therefore, Kangxi's name change became a joke.

Below this large plaque, there is another plaque that says "The vultures are coming", and there are couplets on the pillars on both sides: "There may be flying vultures from the peaks and mountains again, sitting at the mountain gate and waiting; the spring water has been Warmth gradually arises, and a smile greets us. "This couplet was written by Zhang Zaiyang, who was the governor of Zhejiang Province during the Republic of China. I personally think that this couplet is very well written with Feilaifeng, Lengquan and Maitreya Buddha in it. . In Zen, it makes people feel that we must have hope in everything in the world. As long as we persist, hope will become a reality.

After passing Lingyin Temple, we walked up the slope for a long time and reached a fork in the road. One side said it led to Yongfu Temple, and the other side said it led to Taoguang Temple.

On the bottom of Yongfu Temple, it is written that Venerable Huili founded the mountain in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the royal temple of the Southern Song Dynasty to pray for blessings, the first blessed place in Qiantang, and a panoramic view of the lakes and mountains - a beautiful place for literati and scholars of all ages to visit. Under the Taoguang Temple, it is written that Zen Master Taoguang founded the mountain in the Tang Dynasty, the place where Lv Chunyang practiced immortality and protected the Dharma, the earliest historical site of tea culture in Hangzhou, and Taoguang Guanhai - one of the eighteen scenic spots in the West Lake in the Qing Dynasty. Haha, each name is louder than the last.

First go to Yongfu Temple. Enter through a small door that says Brahma Buddha Land. The same stone-step mountain road leads to a small gate called Futian Huayu, and then the same-color stone-step mountain road leads to the mountain gate with the name Yongfu Zen Temple.

Entering the door is a small square with a screen wall with the four characters "Baifu solemn" written on it. After turning a corner, we passed a small gate that read "The No. 1 Blessed Place in Qiantang" and went up, up, and up again. I was so exhausted that I was covered in sweat. I sat by the stone steps and rested countless times, and finally saw several temples halfway up the mountain.

It is said to be a Buddhist temple, but there are no monks and no pilgrims can be seen. After walking around, through the trees, I seemed to be able to see the water of the West Lake in the distance.

This is what the so-called Eofukuji Temple is all about. The biggest insight was when I saw a wooden sign standing on the way: "Indifferent and peaceful, is the true taste of life." Is this a Zen opportunity to gain? Indifferent and peaceful, I feel that I am already indifferent enough. However, I may need to work harder on being peaceful.

After coming down from Yongfu Temple, I actually walked onto the path of Taoguang Temple again.

Still climbing up the stone steps, stopping and walking, we arrived at a stone pavilion called "Taoguang Trail".

I feel so tired that I feel like dying. No matter how much I rest, it doesn't work. I want to drink water, but there is none. At lunch time, I drank some water in the restaurant. I just climbed Yongfu Temple and I sweated so much that my body was already dehydrated. I forgot my teacup at the youth hostel this morning and didn’t even mention buying another one. Why!

I wanted to stop climbing down the mountain, but I was unwilling to do so, so I climbed halfway. Have courage and go for it!

After climbing for a long time, I saw a short white wall with a small door on it, and the words Taoguang Temple were written on the small door.

There is a fork in the road next to this small gate. There is a fence on the side of the road and someone is guarding it. Looking at the sign, this fork leads to the ropeway station at the top of North Peak. If you want to pass through this fence gate, you need to buy a ticket of 70 yuan, which is a ropeway ticket.

I saw someone coming through this fence gate and asked. From here, the ropeway station to the North Peak is still about a hundred meters away, and it is all a mountain climb.

Oh, I’d better take a walk around Taoguang Temple. It was easy to get up there.

There is a square pool in the temple, with the words "Golden Lotus Pool" written on the wall of the pool. This should be a historic site. The rest, such as the Main Hall, Guanhai Tower and Taoguang Patriarch Hall, are all newly built. Like Yongfu Temple here, we can see neither a monk nor a pilgrim. Through the dense shade of green trees, you can also see the West Lake in the distance. These are the so-called Eighteen Scenes of the West Lake in the Qing Dynasty, so stay tuned and watch the sea.

I am reminded of the poem Lingyin Temple written by Song Zhiwen, a poet from the Tang Dynasty. There are several lines in it: "The building overlooks the blue sea and the sun, and the door faces the tide of Zhejiang. The osmanthus moon falls in the middle, and the fragrance of the sky is floating outside." "Personally, I think these are the best sentences written about Lingyin Temple in history. However, the great poet of the Song Dynasty was also very capable of exaggeration. The West Lake is still hazy when you climb up the mountain. Standing on the upper floor of Lingyin Temple, you can see the sunset over the Canghai Sea and the tide in Zhejiang? That’s ridiculous!

Go down the mountain and go back. Passing by Lengquan Pavilion and Feilai Peak. It reminds me of Wang Anshi's song "Climbing Feilai Peak": On Feilai Peak, I heard the rooster crow and saw the rising sun. Don't be afraid of the floating clouds covering your eyes, because you are at the highest level. With a thought in his heart, he climbed up the stone steps of Feilai Peak again.

?Compared with the mountain roads of Yongfu Temple and Taoguang Temple, Feilai Peak is much easier to climb. After passing through the trees and vines that blocked the road, we finally reached the top of the mountain covered with rocks. On the top of the mountain, besides rocks, there are trees. Qianxun Tower? No. There are trees all around, so you can't see the surrounding scenery even if you want to. Only on a stone, I saw four words written in red paint, flying to the top of the mountain. hehe. Speechless.

As I walked down the mountain, I thought, could the Qianxun Pagoda on Feilai Peak be the same as the Legong Pagoda at the foot of Feilai Peak? Flying to the top of the peak, flying to the bottom of the peak, Qianxun Tower, this is too much, right?

Seeing how early it was, we circled Feilai Peak and looked at the Buddha statues on the rock wall. There is a smiling Maitreya Buddha statue with bare chest and belly. It is said to be the largest statue in Feilaifeng. There are also eighteen Arhats scattered around this Maitreya Buddha. This is a representative work of Buddhist statue art in the Song Dynasty.

When leaving the scenic spot, the first thing to do is to buy water. Nongfu Spring, five yuan.

After drinking, the bus happened to be coming. Get on the train and go to Hangzhou East Railway Station. Take whichever train you can catch.

Target: Jiashan, Xitang.