Deer Garden Temple

The Deer Garden Temple, or Rokuon-ji in Japanese, is a Zen Buddhist temple in Newport, Oceana. The temple complex holds a monastery that adheres the Japanese Rinzai school but due to practical reasons is organized as an autonomous unit associated with the Sofasi Zen Buddhist Temple. This way the monks at the Deer Garden Temple can practice their ways while having its worldly affairs looked after by the central administration at Sofasi. The Deer Garden Temple lies in a garden shaped after the Muromachi period garden design and is itself a blend of three traditional architectural styles: shinden-zukuri, buke-zukuri and zenshu-butsuden. The school located at the Deer Garden Temple has restricted its access to students only, though part of the garden is available for public visit during the afternoon from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.