"There are some wonderful forces in reality, starting with one's own wishes." Choosing a Zen life may stem from faith in the Buddha, or from a desire to get rid of the hustle and bustle of everyday life, and more and more people are beginning to speak and practice Zen experience.
What is Zen?
Sometimes, it's in an ink landscape painting;
Sometimes, it's in a landscape of a garden;
Sometimes, it's in a poem —
"The rain of mountains and fruits falling, the sound of grass insects under the lamp"
This is Zen, it is a state of mind, a state of mind, it does not say a word, but it does its best. It is a clear stream in the busy and bustling life of modern people, purifying the troubles, relieving stress, and purifying the soul. Under the bath of Zen, people gain a sense of liberation and attain a state of ease and ease.
People have begun to be satisfied not only with a cup of tea and an incense zen state, but also eager to go out, to a more abundant time and space, to take a journey of meditation and nourishment, in one experience after another, let go of themselves, realize the authenticity of life; in a simple and exquisite environment, feel the grace of nature and the artistic conception of Zen.
From Lingshan to Huangmei
Wuxi Nianhua bay, which can be said to be the first cultural tourism town in China to create a cultural tourism town with the beauty of Zen as the main purpose, has been affirmed by the market. Today, in Huangmei County, Hubei Province, the birthplace of Zen Buddhism, another cultural tourism town that permeates Zen aesthetics is being conceived and is about to be born.
From the initial participation in Wuxi Nianhuawan, the members of the Wildebeest design team showed their skills to experimentally integrate the Zen theme into the design, to the Huangmei project, from a more comprehensive perspective and a more complete design strategy, to explain and shape a Lohas Wellness Tourism Town based on Zen culture.
Huangmei Zen Cultural Tourism Zone is facing the global Zen school and Zen people, respecting the ancestral court of the world around the source of Zen Buddhism, and becoming a pilgrimage site of World Zen Culture; it will also be for global tourists and urban vacationers, creating an international Zen capital around the spiritual vacation, and becoming a pan-town with international Zen cultural characteristics.
Aerial view of Huangmeichan Cultural Tourism Zone
Huangmeichan Cultural Tourism Zone
Historically, Zen Buddhism was passed down in "Middle-earth", and Huangmei was an important "turning point". During the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang in the Southern Dynasty (the end of the Southern Dynasty and the Song Dynasty), Bodhidharma, the twenty-eighth ancestor of Indian Zen Buddhism, came to China to teach the Dharma and became the ancestor of Chinese Zen Buddhism. When his mantle was passed on to the Four Patriarchs Daoxin and the Five Patriarchs Hongnin, he changed the previous practice of wandering in all directions and begging for food, set up a dojo in Huangmei, lived in a temple to promote the Dharma, and practiced both agricultural meditation and sitting and double cultivation. Since then, the door has been handsome, and the returnees are like clouds. Later, although Tang Wuzong promulgated the extinction law, the Buddhist temples that "eat imperial food" in the country were almost extinct within seven days, and the Huangmei Zen Sect survived and became popular in the world because of its secluded residence in the mountains and forests and self-livelihood. Laozu Temple, Sizu Temple, and Wuzu Temple have all been passed down in Huangmei to this day and enjoy the name of "Ancestral Court of the World".
The project is a connection, integration, repair and upgrading of the existing Wuzu Temple scenic spot and the surrounding area to be developed, so as to revitalize the existing scenic spot resources and expand the influence. It mainly includes the mountain area (the existing Wuzu Temple, 100,000 caves, Dongshan Ancient Rhyme, etc.) and the mountain area (the saleable property to be developed, 33 Lanruo Hotel, Dongshan Town (formerly Bodhi Town), centralized parking lot and park green space, etc.), totaling 113.3 hectares.
The base involves a wealth of historical relics and relics, such as the Dongshan Ancient Road, shakya duobao Rulai Stone Pagoda, Wuzu Temple, a number of cliff carvings, white lotus ponds, 100,000 caves, etc., and many more, containing hundreds of years of Zen culture. Here, the ditches are weaving and the vegetation is dense, which also forms an important ecological resource.
"Dongshan protrudes in the middle, and the jade belt double flutters and locks the phoenix", the plan continues the overall style pattern of Wuzu Temple - Dongshan - town area, and builds an ecological town space texture that is compatible with nature and symbiosis. According to the strategy of wildebeest design, the existing cultural heritage and forest water resources are maintained landscape improvement or protective avoidance, so that they can be integrated into nature and more ornamental and vital. The original drainage channels have been preserved and sorted out to ensure the perfection of the drainage network and not forget to make it a beautiful scenery.
Depends on Gozen
The moving line strategy allows tourists to enter the zen realm according to a certain sequence, from the bottom of the mountain to the mountain, from the beginning to the end, a total of five realms are arranged, and it is also the five most important tourist points, the meditation avenue - Dongshan Town (formerly Bodhi Town) - Dongshan Ancient Road - Bodhi Jingshe - Wuzu Temple Area - White Lotus Golden Peak, forming a core axis that runs through the scenic spot, named "Five Zen Grades", which means that people gradually realize the meaning of enlightenment.
Preamble - Meditation Avenue
It is the prelude to the five Zens, as soon as you enter the avenue, you will first understand the eight sufferings of life, which remind the world on both sides of the avenue, and the meditation avenue also contains a meditation square and an activity square, which can not only gather popularity, but also seem to remind you that Zen is always there, no matter how it moves.
Entering The Zen - Higashiyama Town (formerly Bodhi Town)
It is a scenic spot, a Zen community, or a creative industry park. It integrates the functions of worship, blessing, meditation, leisure, vacation, ecological and organic industry, etc., it is distinctive in character and highly open and inclusive.
Masanobu Zen - Higashiyama Trail
It is an ancient pilgrimage. After experiencing the worldly prosperity of Bodhi Town with the smell of fireworks in the world, as soon as you enter the Dongshan Ancient Road, you turn around and plunge into another world, quiet and bitter, along this winding stone road, to the sacred place in your heart. The wildebeest design sets up an up-and-down line for the ancient road, using different landscape greenery and appropriate trimming to revitalize several attractions along the route. At the same time, canals are dug to store water, creating wetland landscapes, setting up walking boardwalks, pavilions, hard activity platforms, and embellishing landscape lamps and landscape furniture, forming a resident space in the moving line.
Theravada Zen - Bodhi Essence House
The ashram for meditators and tourists, close to the foothills, is a secluded place for the entire project, away from the commercial streets, and is pure for the perception of meditation.
Mahayana Zen - Wuzu Temple Area
The pilgrim's destination is also the spiritual territory of the entire scenic spot.
Bodhi Zen - White Lotus Golden Dome
The highest point of the scenic spot. Looking at the emptiness of emptiness, sensing the Zen path and the circle with the void, that is, attaining the Buddha's heart.
Higashiyama Town (formerly Bodhi Town)
In the process of planning and reorganization, Dongshan Town has become an important glue, which uses the village-style layout and streamline, multi-point network structure, and effectively connects the existing visitor center, Dongshan Famen, Pagoda, Mountain Gate and other spaces that lack interconnection with each other, so that it can be friendly integrated and form a continuous and stable aura.
The town of Dongshan is also the centerpiece of food, lodging, and study tours for tourists and pilgrims. It is bounded by the central square and is naturally divided into two parts: the former town and the rear town. The front town is mainly retail catering along the street and lake, and the main street is used as an inn; the area near the central square is mainly cultural experience and leisure and entertainment, and some catering is added along the water; the back town and the foothills are mainly residential formats, concentrating on inns and meditation retreats.
People will pass through the town and enter the Dharma Gate, climb the mountain to participate in Zen, and the bustle of the town's commercial market highlights the leisurely purity of the Zen environment in the mountains.
Schematic diagram of the cross-section relationship of the design of Dongshan Town
Zen charm, the beauty of silence
The green bricks and green tiles of Gozu-ji Temple record the events of Rokuzu Huineng inheriting the mantle of Gojo Hiroshi and becoming the Six Patriarchs who started the heyday of Zen Buddhism.
A perfect meditation place is the whole of a harmonious field formed by the building and the natural environment around it. The choice is low-key and restrained, harmonious and simple beauty, but the impression is still "house"; what is weakened is the design sense expression of the visual impact as the focus, retaining the sense of existence of "not invisible and not bionic".
In the overall tone of the building, it does not aim to self-manifest, the color is low-key and soft, melting in nature. In terms of the form of the building, its sense of artificiality and geometric shape is reduced, "although it is made by people, it is like opening from heaven". All in all, the existence of architecture places more emphasis on the relationship between man and nature, the relationship between architecture and nature. After the designer's in-depth discussion with many Zen practitioners to visit various forms of Zen expression and try to experience zazen meditation, the design that is too gorgeous or too blank will aesthetically interfere with the spirit and is not conducive to the state of meditation for beginners.
Appropriate restraint of the design itself expresses the desire, can not see the design of the sense of design is the highest realm. The modernist style that overemphasizes the simple design will often form a contrast when integrating into the natural environment, forming a visual focus, and nature has become a "matching scene" that sets off, and such a contrast and the formation of the focus will become an "abrupt" interference factor in the process of meditation.
The realm of "nothing in itself, where to stir up dust" should be to actively face the imprint of time formed on the architecture of natural years such as dust, weathering, water erosion, and fading. The wildebeest design uses logs, as well as natural materials such as bamboo, rattan and hemp; it adopts modern construction technology, and the combination of glass and steel structures will give the building a light and transparent temperament and dissolve into the artistic conception of the mountain forest. Through the natural variation of these natural materials, it is more in line with the Zen philosophy, recording the traces of time, presenting the state of natural growth as the language of architecture, conveying the flow of time and nature outside of design.
Designed with vague interior and exterior spaces, architecture and environment complement each other. Nourishing life water, solid and moist stones, vibrant plants, dotted in the middle, so that their texture and temperature infiltrated the entire scenic environment, producing a silent aura, or Zen mood. When visitors are in the town and do not see the town, immersed in a cool, lonely place for self-forgetfulness.
Dongshan Town (formerly Bodhi Town) was partially built
Huangmeichan Cultural Tourism Zone Logistics Center
Wildebeest Design will launch the project completion article to share later, so stay tuned.
Owner unit: EluTou & Lingshan Group
Project Leader: Zheng Hongjie
Culture and creativity: Zheng Hongjie
Planning and design: Zheng Hongjie, Zhou Yang, Peng Ge
Architectural Design: Zheng Hongjie, Zhang Sha, Zhou Yang, Peng Ge, Liu Yanmin, You Lihua, Li Jing
Landscape Design: Pan Yingxing, Guo Hongyu
Project Location: Huangmei County, Hubei Province
Planned land area of the project: 129,600 square meters
Total construction area: 52,100 square meters