CaoShansi, 曹山寺, was established over a thousand years ago by CaoDong Chan/Zen’s founder’s disciple. In 2003 ShingLiang Fashi (Venerable) rebuilt this temple. This temple is currently being run by Bikkhunis.
Like other temples we’ve seen before, this one is also under construction. During our visit here, we were again invited to eat lunch. The volunteers and young bhikkhunis served us. Each temple has slightly different procedures for their guests. Here after we finished our meals, we left our bowls and chopsticks on the table as opposed to washing them as in the previous temples.
A very friendly German shepherd followed us all over. She played with us whenever we stopped to look around. One of her paws seemed to be have been previously injured and healed with a slight, hardly noticeable limp. I later saw another beautiful healthy husky missing a hind leg. It appears that people are leaving their injured pets here for the monastery to take care of them.
Yichun, JiangXi, China