Liaoyang Shoushan Qingfeng Monastery

On the southern slope of Shoushan, in Mayitun Village, stands the Qingfeng Monastery. Established in 1571 during the Ming dynasty, this complex earned the historical title of the First Temple Outside Shanhai Pass. It survived centuries of political shifts, serving as a Buddhist sanctuary, a late-Qing school, a workers' sanatorium in 1955, and later a poultry farm, before its major restoration in 1993.

At the entrance, the Mountain Gate greets visitors with the cool touch of white marble plaques. Here, the brushstrokes of calligraphers Wen Tongchun and Yang Yulin preserve poems by Emperor Taizong of Tang and the Kangxi Emperor. Above, a couplet by the Qianlong Emperor evokes a cool mountain breeze blowing through a troubled world. Flanking the gate, the pointed, sweeping eaves of the bell and drum towers rise into the sky, once carrying a deep resonance across the valley.

Passing through, the Main Hall reveals its original 1571 wooden framework. Built in the single-eave Xieshan style, these ancient pine beams carry the scent of aged timber and the physical marks of Ming dynasty carpenters. Behind this hall stands a rare white lacebark pine, its pale bark shedding like paper in the wind. Nearby, a pair of green granite stone lions guards the courtyard. Visitors can feel the rough, fractured surface of the male lion's deep crack, a physical scar that birthed generations of local folklore.

Further inside, the three-room Rear Hall, built in the Yingshan style, contains stone tablets from the 1857 reconstruction embedded directly into its walls. In the quiet meditation room, visitors can view a plaque bearing the inscription 'Tanhua Xiangyuan.' Carved by the local scholar Wang Erlie, the characters represent a fleeting spiritual bloom.

Today, the 3,418-square-meter complex remains a quiet sanctuary where the physical materials of the Ming and Qing dynasties endure.