Along the pure mountain stream at the foot of Mt. Yamizo, Otawara City, Tochigi Pref. Unganji Temple stands calmly. It is a Zen temple of the Myoshinji school of Rinzaishu sect. Comparable to Shotokuji Temple in Chikuzen (Fukuoka pref.), Eiheiji Temple in Echizen (Fukui pref.) and Kofukuji Temple in Kishu (Wakayama pref.), Unganji Temple is called one of Japan’s four famous Zen dojoes (schools). It is said to have been opened during the Daiji era (1126?1131). When Zen Master Bukkoku Kokushi was going on a walking tour around Kanto area, he decided to live in a hermitage at the foot of Mt. Yamizo to the east of Haguro Mts.. Later Hoin (practitioner) Takanashi Shogan visited this hermitage to do Zen sitting practice under the teaching of Bukkoku and Shogan gave Mt. Yamizo to Bukkoku to repay an obligation. In 1283, Tokimune Hojo took refuge in Bukkoku’s teaching and built Unganji Temple for him. Attacked by several fires in military conflicts in the later times, the temple had been rebuilt again and again. Now only the gate remains as its original structure. In the Edo period, a famous haiku poet Basho Matsuo visited this place and seeing the remains of the priest Buccho’s hermitage, he wrote a haiku poem admiring his teacher’s state of mind.