Lingyin (Soul's Retreat) Temple is tucked away in a secluded valley northwest of West Lake, 9 kilometers away from Hangzhou city proper. It stands at the foot of the Beigao Peak and faces the Feilai (Peak That Flew Here) Peak across a stream. With many old trees, groves of bamboo, and quiet and beautiful surroundings, the Lingyin Temple, as one of China's ancient temples, had a tremendous influence on Buddhist communities inside and outside China, ranking among China's most celebrated Buddhist temples still existing. 

Legend goes that the monk Hui Li insisted that the hill looked exactly like the Grdhrakuta in India and asked when the peak had flown to Hangzhou. To fortify his claim, he said that the Grdhrakuta had a white monkey and a black monkey in one of its caves. When the two monkeys were indeed found in a cave in the hill, it was recognized as the Feilai Peak (Peak That Flew Here). Later, in 326 during the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420), the houses built there by Hui Li were called the Lingyin (Soul's Retreat) Temple.

In its heyday, the temple had 9 towers, 18 pavilions, 75 halls with 1,300 rooms and housed as many as 3,000 monks. After recurrent reconstruction and neglect and damage through the ages, it now has only the Celestial Kings Hall and the Main Buddha Hall. The latter, 33.6 meters high, is a single-storey, multi-eaves ancient building. It contains a sitting statue of Sakyamuni (19.6 metres in height, including the carved aureola board at the back and the lotus seat) which is the biggest such sculpture of wood still extant in China. On the wall in the rear of this hall is a colorful group-sculpture of 150 figures depicting the Buddhist story of Sudhana-Kumara visiting Avalokitesvara Budhisattva on an island. It is a masterpiece of a high artistic value. 

Opposite the Lingyin Temple stands the Feilai Peak. At 548 feet (167 meters), it is marked by a multitude of rocks and limestone caves with some 380 stone sculptures. Most of them date back to the 10th and 11th centuries and are now under the protection of the state government.