This paper investigates the relationship between the spatial imagery of Buddhism and the poetry of the Xuelang Hongen School. Within this relation, there are separate styles such as the "forest" style and "cultural context" style. The poet tries to write about personal thoughts through analyzing the poems of monks in the Southern School of Huayen Buddhism. A comparison of those poems shows that this type of poetry can best present the microcosmic changes in the poet’s thought, recounted in a macrocosmic way of writing. My approach focuses on mental images to present the process of contention between the external and internal factors, including personal matters and the different ideological backgrounds in the Northern and Southern parties within the school. I try to explore the dynamic spiritual history, especially to dissect the various factors that cause such debates. Although Wutai Mountain, China’s first Buddhist holy mountain, presented a bleak picture of decline during the mid-Ming Dynasty, in the late-Ming, many recreated a new view of Wutai Mountain with the support from Wanli Empress Dowager Cisheng. Among them, Yuechuan Zhencheng invigorated the Baotong school of Xianshou (Huayen Buddhism). After the rise of Yuechuan Zhencheng, the central school of Xianshou, located originally in the Temple of Da Baoen, Nanjing, opposed the Southern party of Xianshou in the Temple of Gratitude, Nanjing. In the meantime, monks of the Southern party of Huayen Buddhism disagreed with the Huayen teaching method on Wutai Mountain. Nevertheless, both contending parties still communicated with each other in some ways, the most important intermediary being Hanshan Deqing. The prosperity of Buddhism on Wutai Mountain also affected its value to the Qing court; meanwhile Wutai Mountain consolidated its place as the foremost of the four famous mountains of Buddhism.