Wenshufang

This guide to Wenshufang in Chengdu opens beside the Free Life Pond, a basin filled turtle by turtle over generations under the Buddhist practice of fangsheng, in which pilgrims buy caged animals just to set them free. It also tells of Cidu, a little-noticed ascetic monk who lived on this ground in the late sixteen hundreds, and what witnesses claimed to see rise from his funeral pyre. You'll hear how that moment gave the temple its name. Listen for the scrape of shell on stone as you approach the pond.