Bodhi Dharma's Cave

The second of the Four days we went to Bodhi Dharma's cave. Bodhi Dharma was a Indian Warrior prince who abdicated his throne in order to move to China and pursue Buddhism. The legend has it, he traveled up the cliffs near the Shaolin Temple to a cave, in that cave he meditated for 9 years and attained enlightenment. When he came down he founded Zen Buddhism, and established Chinese Kung Fu. So he attained enlightenment, and is the father of both Zen Buddhism and all of Chinese Martial Arts. As Mr. Santillo says, he's the classic over achiever.

The second of the four days at the Shoalin Temple a group of just three of us, Mr. Santillo, Dianne, and Myself took the hike up to visit Bodhi Dharma's cave. It was up the mountain.

Do you see that small statue type thing at the top of the hill there, with the stair case leading up? Yeah we went up there. It was a lot of stairs....

The cave has since had a shrine built around it. And is actually located just below where that statue is. I wish I could say I got a good look inside. But I didn't sadly. There were people meditating there, and I rather thought it would be rude to go all touristy on them while they were attempting to achieve enlightenment....

After the cave we climbed higher, to get to the spot where the statue was. There was a great view up there, and you can see the Shaolin Temple off in the distance.

And of course, here is a close up of that statue that was way up there. I can only assume it is meant to represent an elightened Bodhi Dharma.

So that's Bodhi Dharma's cave! Pretty cool I thought. A tiring but rather worthwhile hike.