James Baquet

    jamesbaquet@gmail.com

    FINISHING up in Fuzhou, I was moving to Putian, but there was a temple in Fuqing I would stop and see on the way.

    It took some doing. I left the highway bus in a place that I guessed might be near the temple. A kind bus conductor helped me figure out what to do, and I boarded a local bus to go a few more kilometers, where I was unceremoniously dropped at a small side-road and told “It’s thataway.”

    How far it was, or how to get there, I had not a clue.

    After I walked (with all my luggage) for about an hour a family of four in a large car stopped to pick me up.

    And so I arrived at Wanfu (Unlimited Fortune) Temple on Huangbo Mountain, about 6 kilometers from where the bus had dropped me.

    Founded by Huangbo Xiyun (died in 850), this smallish, rebuilt temple holds a significant place in Sino-Japanese Buddhist relations. In 1654 Huangbo Xiyun’s 33rd successor as abbot, the Linji master Yinyuan Longqi, went to Japan. In 1661 he founded a temple at Uji, south of Kyoto, called Obaku San Mampukuji — the Japanese pronunciation of the characters used to write Huangboshan Wanfusi.

    In addition to Linji (Rinzai) and Caodong (Soto), Obaku San is a third sect of Chan (Zen) in Japan, and Mampukuji is the headquarters of its 420 sub-temples. I have been there, too; the statues and layout are in the same style as we see in Chinese temples today.