Jietai Temple

This guide to Jietai Temple in Beijing centers on the monk Fajun, who in 1069 built the stone ordination altar on this mountainside and was named head of an entire school of Chinese Buddhism after the Liao emperor sent back a handwritten sutra as recognition. You'll hear how later rulers, including the Qing emperor Kangxi, kept returning to leave their own mark on the site. Listen for the wind moving through the temple's thousand-year-old pines, a sound monks here have sat with for over fourteen centuries.