Linji Temple was first established in 540 AD during the Eastern Wei dynasty, making it one of the oldest Buddhist foundations in the Zhengding area. But its history reads less like a timeline than like a heartbeat, pulsing between destruction and restoration. The Tang dynasty brought Linji Yixuan to the temple in 854, and his teaching gave the site its enduring identity. When he died in 867, his disciples built the Chengling Stupa to house his relics, and Emperor Yizong bestowed the stupa's name. Then came the wars between the Song and Jin empires, which ran from 1125 to 1234 and destroyed the entire temple complex. Only the stupa survived. Emperor Shizong of the Jin dynasty ordered the temple rebuilt in 1183 in the architectural style of the Liao and Jin periods. The Yuan dynasty brought another restoration, with the celebrated calligrapher Zhao Mengfu contributing a tablet inscription.

Through every cycle of destruction, the Chengling Stupa remained standing. Also called the Green Stupa, this multi-eaved brick tower rises 30.47 meters with nine stories of octahedral hollow tiers. Its base is composed of a stupa platform and a sumeru throne carved with patterns of flowers and birds. Originally built in 867 to hold Linji Yixuan's relics, it has been rebuilt numerous times, but the essential structure preserves the architectural vocabulary of the Liao and Jin dynasties. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, six buildings still stood at the temple. After the Chinese Civil War, only the stupa remained. When the Communist government confiscated temple lands and forcefully disrobed the monastic community after 1949, the stupa stood through that upheaval too, a physical argument for persistence.

Linji Yixuan could not have known that his teachings would eventually reshape Buddhism in a country he never visited. In the Song dynasty, two Japanese monks, Eisai and Shuniyo, brought the Linji school across the sea to Japan, where it became the Rinzai school, one of the major branches of Japanese Zen Buddhism. Centuries later, that connection saved the temple. In 1982, an abbot named Shi Youming took charge of what was essentially a ruin. In 1985, the Japanese Rinzai and Obaku Buddhist orders provided financial support to restore the Chengling Stupa, recognizing the site as the cradle of their tradition. Zhao Puchu, president of the Buddhist Association of China, wrote the plaques for the restored Linji Temple and its Mahavira Hall. On May 19, 1986, Chinese monk Benhuan and Japanese monk Makoto Shinohara held a joint canonization ceremony, a public acknowledgment that Linji Buddhism spans borders.

Today Linji Temple has been substantially rebuilt, with the Mahavira Hall, Hall of Four Heavenly Kings, Faru Hall, and monks' dormitories all added since the 1980s. The Mahavira Hall, rebuilt in 1987, houses statues of Shakyamuni flanked by Kashyapa and Ananda, with Eighteen Arhats along the sides and bodhisattvas positioned at the cardinal points. The Faru Hall honors the lineage of the school's teachers, placing Bodhidharma at center with Huineng and Linji Yixuan beside him. The Yuantong Hall and medicine hall were added in 2001. In 1983, the State Council listed Linji Temple among the first group of National Key Buddhist Temples, and the Yongzheng Emperor's 1734 stone tablet, granting Linji Yixuan the posthumous title 'Chan Master Zhenchang Huizhao,' still stands as testimony to the imperial recognition this school of radical questioning earned.