Don't miss Yong'an Zen Temple! Admire the huge Yuan Dynasty murals up close

After visiting the Hanging Temple, head straight to the nearby Yong'an Zen Temple. Among the many ancient buildings and temples in Datong and its surroundings, Yong'an Zen Temple seems too low-key, but here you can enjoy the unique and huge Yuan Dynasty Shuilu (water and land) assembly murals up close! (To see the Ming Dynasty murals in Beijing's Fahai Temple, you need to make a reservation, and there are restrictions on the number of people and time.) Highlights: 1. The temple was originally built during the Jin Dynasty and rebuilt in the Yuan Dynasty. While most temples have one or three gates, Yong'an Temple's mountain gate has five openings, which is rare in Buddhist temples. 2. The four walls of the Chuanfa Zhengzong Hall are painted with heavy colors, gold leaf, and depictions of the Shuilu assembly and the ten great Ming kings (following the guide's UV flashlight, you can see the protruding gold leaf) The total area of the murals reaches more than 180 square meters. The north wall is lined with the ten great Ming kings of Tibetan Buddhism, and the other three walls are divided into three layers, depicting the 'procession of humans and gods,' with a total of 882 Shuilu figures and 135 Shuilu stories. The characters are delicately portrayed, lifelike in form, and despite hundreds of years, the colors remain vibrant, giving a strong visual impact and artistic appeal. Especially the fourth picture, where a Ming king tears off his mask to reveal kind and compassionate eyes... it is truly mysterious, eerie, and captivating. I feel that here one can see all the gods, Buddhas, bodhisattvas, immortals, demons, emperors, generals... It is not easy for these murals to have been preserved so intact over hundreds of years, especially since in the 1960s, this place was used as a granary. Although the Buddha statues were removed from the hall, the murals were preserved (due to the need for mural protection, the light inside the hall is dim, but there are replicas of the murals in the eastern and western side halls, which can be appreciated more clearly).