Shogoji Temple

Shogoji is a Soto Zen temple set high in the mountains north of Kikuchi, founded in 1338 by Kikuchi Takeshige, the thirteenth head of the Kikuchi clan. Takeshige invited the Zen priest Daichi, who had spent a decade studying Buddhism in China, to serve as head priest and spiritual advisor to the clan. The temple was difficult to reach, a full day's walk from the castle town of Waifu, which kept it intentionally removed from political life. After Takeshige's death, his brother Takemitsu shifted patronage to a new temple in the castle town and Daichi eventually left. Shogoji fell into abandonment for over 500 years until a Nagasaki priest rebuilt it in the 1940s.