Eihei-ji

Eihei-ji is one of two main temples of the Sōtō school of Zen Buddhism, the largest single religious denomination in Japan. Eihei-ji is located about 15 km east of Fukui in Fukui Prefecture, Japan. In English, its name means "temple of eternal peace".Its founder was Eihei Dōgen who brought Sōtō Zen from China to Japan during the 13th century. The ashes of Dōgen and a memorial to him are in the Jōyōden at Eihei-ji. William Bodiford of UCLA writes that, "The rural monastery Eiheiji in particular aggrandized Dōgen to bolster its own authority vis-à-vis its institutional rivals within the Sōtō denomination."Eihei-ji is a training monastery with more than two hundred monks and nuns in residence. As of 2003, Eihei-ji had 800,000 visitors per year, less than half the number of tourists who came ten years before. Visitors with Zen experience may participate after making prior arrangements and all visitors are treated as religious trainees.