Hsi Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights, CA

Before you go

Hsi Lai Temple is at 3456 Glenmark Drive in Hacienda Heights. It is open 9 AM to 5 PM every day. Admission is free and so is parking.

Wear something with sleeves. Tank tops, shorts, short skirts and flip-flops are not appropriate inside, and if you turn up in them there are wraps at the Main Shrine you can borrow. Photography is fine outdoors and not permitted indoors.

What it is

Fifteen acres on a hillside, inaugurated on 26 November 1988. The temple describes itself as the first imperial-styled temple built outside of Asia, and it is the North American headquarters of Fo Guang Shan, the order founded in Taiwan by Master Hsing Yun.

It sits on high ground on purpose. Siting a temple above the land around it is part of the tradition, not an accident of the lot they could get.

What to actually do there

Walk the courtyard first. Most people go straight for the Main Shrine and miss that the approach is designed to slow you down before you arrive anywhere.

The vegetarian buffet is ten dollars and open 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM on weekdays, until 2 PM on weekends. It is not a tourist add-on, it is what the community eats.

Guided tours run by request for larger school and community groups, booked ahead. If you are arriving as one or two people, pick up a self-guided brochure and map at the front instead.

Why this one is on our list

Serenity Zen was founded by Dr. Nick, DAOM L.Ac., a Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine and a California Licensed Acupuncturist, and the hand technique underneath the way we work is tui na, one of the oldest branches of Chinese medicine. Tui means to push and na means to grasp and lift. China's imperial medical school taught massage as a department of its own from the Sui dynasty onward, before acupuncture had one.

So this is not a nearby-attraction listing. The tradition that fills that temple and the tradition behind the time you spend on our table came out of the same place.

Diamond Bar is the closer of our two studios, about fifteen minutes away at 1168 S Diamond Bar Blvd. Open daily, 10 AM to 9 PM.

Driving Direction from Hsi Lai Temple to Serentiy Zen