Nanzen Temple

Nanzen is a Zen Buddhist temple in eastern Kyoto. Zen is a different flavour of standard Buddhism where Zen seeks the understanding of things through meditation and self awareness rather than the standard Buddhist study of the sutras (Buddhist texts). Nanzen is a Rinzai Zen Temple which along with seated meditation and hard work uses koen or riddles such as "What is the sound of one hand clapping". Incidentally that Koen actually has several official answers including the Zen pupil slapping his teacher! There are a lot of Zen temples in Kyoto as it was popular with the Samurai and nobles and quite a few have nice gardens for contemplating.