Beopheungsa Temple, Yeongwol, South Korea

Beopheungsa Temple, Yeongwol, South Korea

1352, Mureungbeopheung-ro, Mureungdowon-myeon, Yeongwol-gun, Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea

Administratively, Beopheungsa Temple belongs to Beopheung-ri, Suju-myeon, Yeongwol County, but in practical terms it is considerably closer to Wonju. On a map the distance looks manageable enough, yet by public transportation it is a journey of genuine remoteness — a place that truly requires crossing mountains and fording rivers to reach. Beopheungsa is perhaps best known as one of the five Jeongmyeolbogung sanctuaries, where sacred relics of the historical Buddha are said to be enshrined. In 634, the great Silla monk Jajang returned from the Tang Dynasty bearing relics and bone fragments of the Buddha, which he distributed among five sites: Beopheungsa on Sajasan Mountain, Jeongamsa on Taebaeksan Mountain, Bongjeongam Hermitage on Seoraksan Mountain, Sangwonsa Temple on Odaesan Mountain, and Tongdosa Temple in Yangsan. These are the five great Jeongmyeolbogung of Korea.

Beopheungsa is situated on the southern face of Sajasan Mountain. The temple buildings are arranged on rising ground above a large parking area capable of accommodating several full-sized tour buses at once, and the view that opens up before the visitor is strikingly expansive — almost difficult to believe one is in Gangwon Province. The layout of the temple complex bears a resemblance to that of Yeongoksa Temple on Jirisan Mountain close enough to cause momentary confusion. Within the precinct, several newly constructed halls have gone up and construction work was still ongoing during my visit, leaving little of the atmosphere of age one might hope to find. The crowning jewel of Beopheungsa — its Jeongmyeolbogung hall — can only be reached by crossing the full length of the precinct and climbing a steep mountain slope for some distance. The view from the forecourt of the Jeongmyeolbogung brings to mind the scene one encounters at Sangwonsa on Odaesan.

Distant peaks spread out like a folding screen along the horizon, and far below, the eaves of Beopheungsa's main halls are just barely visible — or seem almost to be. It is a setting that could not be more fitting for the enshrinement of the Buddha's sacred relics; one would be hard pressed to find a more auspicious site. Having visited most of Korea's Jeongmyeolbogung sanctuaries, I can say that this one ranks among the finest. The essence of a temple, as I have come to believe, lies nine-tenths in its site and the arrangement of its buildings — and this place does not deviate by even a fraction from that principle. It strikes one as entirely worthy of holding so mysterious and sacred a Buddhist relic. It is easy to picture the many faithful who have made the arduous climb to this forecourt and stood before the hall — its roofline seeming almost to graze the sky — and offered up their prayers and deepest wishes.

Like so many temples, Beopheungsa endured repeated disasters over the centuries and underwent numerous cycles of repair and reconstruction; the halls standing today date largely from the 1930s. The Jeongmyeolbogung itself was rebuilt during that same period. To the rear left of the sanctuary, there remains a small earthen cave said to be the place where Jajang meditated after enshrining the relics, and a stone chest survives as well — the vessel, according to tradition, in which Jajang carried the sacred relics on the back of a lion. Beyond these, Beopheungsa holds several other items of cultural significance, including the stele of the monk Jinghyo of Heungnyeongsa Temple, designated Treasure No. 612. Of particular note are the palm-leaf scriptures kept at the temple — texts recorded in Sanskrit on the leaves of the talipot palm in an era before paper, originally preserved at Mahayeon Hermitage on Geumgangsan Mountain. According to tradition, a monk brought them south to escape the Communist occupation, and they have been kept at Beopheungsa ever since.

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Baedamsa Temple, Inje, South Korea

Baedamsa Temple, Inje, South Korea

746, Baekdam-ro, Buk-myeon, Inje-gun, Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea

Baedamsa Temple, nestled at the heart of the inner Seorak range, is a place connected to two figures who left profoundly significant marks on Korea's modern and contemporary history. It is also, for me personally, a place threaded through with memories from childhood. Heading out from Inje in Gangwon Province toward the junction for Hangyeryeong Pass and turning in the direction of Jinburyeong, one soon reaches the entrance to Baedamsa at Yongdae-ri; from there, an unpaved road winds upward for some eight kilometers before the temple comes into view. In years past, visitors would walk this path for two hours, or make the journey by taxi or private car. But returning after twenty years, I found that everything had changed: all private vehicles are now stopped at the national park entrance, and the only way to reach the temple parking area is by a shuttle bus run for a fare of two thousand won each way. The shuttle, I was told, is operated by residents of the surrounding village — a welcome sight of the kind one more often associates with famous tourist destinations or national parks abroad.

Baedamsa, revisited after nearly twenty years, has changed a great deal. What was once a small and modest hermitage has expanded considerably; multiple new halls now stand within the precinct, and the temple runs templestay programs alongside various other revenue-generating activities, much like well-known temples elsewhere in the country. The atmosphere of remote solitude that I remembered from before — the sense of a place deep in the mountains, quietly keeping to itself — has largely disappeared, and I felt a faint pang of regret at finding it gone. Yet the valley stream of the inner Seorak flowing before the temple was as beautiful as ever, and for a long while I found myself lost in memories of my university years, when I had climbed the trail from this very spot up through Bongjeongam Hermitage all the way to Daecheongbong Peak — a route I completed three times in those days.

According to the temple chronicle written by the monk Manhae Han Yong-un, Baedamsa was founded in 647 — the first year of Queen Jindeok, the twenty-eighth ruler of Silla — by the monk Jajang, under the name Hangyesa, and was renamed Baedamsa in 1783. This brings me to Manhae Han Yong-un himself, the author of that chronicle, who cannot go unmentioned here. The name Manhae Han Yong-un may call to mind first and foremost his poetry collection The Silence of Love, but Manhae was far more than a poet: he was the preeminent Buddhist intellectual of the Japanese colonial period, a leading figure in the resistance against Japanese rule, one of the thirty-three representatives of the Korean people who signed the Declaration of Independence during the March First Movement of 1919, and the founder and driving force behind the Korean Buddhist Youth Association — one of the most prominent independence activists of his era.

Perhaps because of this, once one understands that background and looks at Baedamsa with fresh eyes, the entire atmosphere of the place seems suffused with Manhae's presence. The experience of passing through Baedamsa in youth as little more than a waystation on the way to climb Seoraksan, and the experience of returning with a true understanding of the temple's history, are entirely different things. Baedamsa was never a large temple to begin with, and it holds no particularly notable cultural artifacts. Yet the spirit of Manhae Han Yong-un that permeates this place, and the traces he left here, are alone enough to give the whole temple an overwhelming weight.

There is, however, a second figure associated with Baedamsa — former President Chun Doo-hwan. Having seized power through the military coup of May 1980 and subsequently convicted of massive corruption following his time in office, Chun served part of his sentence before receiving a presidential pardon, after which he retreated to Baedamsa for several years of self-imposed seclusion, eventually returning to his home in Seoul once public attention had subsided. Baedamsa stands at the center of that chapter of his life. Standing within the temple grounds and holding both men in mind, the contrast could not be starker: one figure's legacy grows only brighter, the other's only more squalid. Had Chun known how history would judge him, one imagines he might have thought twice before choosing to take refuge in a place so imbued with Manhae's moral and spiritual legacy.

There is an irony in all of this. Baedamsa was once little more than a small hermitage — precisely the quality that gave it such warmth and intimacy. But in the wake of the former president's stay and the notoriety it brought, the temple appears to have grown several times over in scale, expanding into something rivaling the more established temples of the country. For someone who travels in search of Korea's finest and most unspoiled temples, it registers as something of a blemish on an otherwise fine picture. I arrived at Baedamsa at four in the afternoon, and after an hour of wandering through every corner of the grounds, it was five o'clock; the sun was beginning to settle against the mountainside, and the temple, caught in the backlight, took on a quality of quiet mystery. It was just at that moment that I had to hurry away to make the return journey, and riding the shuttle bus back down to Yongdae-ri, I let my thoughts drift once more to those precious memories of younger days.

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Geonbongsa Temple, Goseong, South Korea

Geonbongsa Temple, Goseong, South Korea

723, Geonbongsa-ro, Geojin-eup, Goseong-gun, Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea

It was only a year or two ago that I came to know Geonbongsa Temple in any meaningful way. I had come across references to it as one of the great temples of Korea — one that had been burned to the ground during the Korean War and left as a ruined site before undergoing partial restoration in recent years — and my curiosity drew me to look more closely into its history. What I found astonished me. Geonbongsa is said to have been founded in 520, the seventh year of King Beopheung of Silla, by the monk Ado. For well over a millennium it maintained its prominence, and right up until the eve of the Korean War it stood as one of the four great temples of the country and one of the thirty-one head temples of the modern Buddhist administrative system — with the now far more famous Baedamsa and Seoraksan Sinheungsa among its subsidiary temples. Then the war came, and it was burned entirely to the ground.

This is perhaps not difficult to understand. Geonbongsa sits near the armistice line in territory belonging to the Geumgang Mountain range — one of the most fiercely contested battlegrounds of the entire conflict. Even today, military installations line the access road leading to the temple, offering a vivid sense of what that terrain must have looked like during the fighting. For anyone who knows the modern history of this peninsula, the destruction of Geonbongsa feels less like a tragedy of chance than an almost inevitable consequence of where it stood. It is, in the most literal sense, a temple at the very edge of the division between North and South Korea. Until not long ago, the area fell within the Civilian Control Zone, and public access was restricted; but the temple and its approach road have since been removed from that zone, and the site can now be visited freely.

The only structure at Geonbongsa to survive the Korean War unburned was the Buriumun, the Gate of Non-Duality. Even this gate — unusual in having four pillars rather than the customary two — still bears the unmistakable marks of bullets across its surface, a testament to the ferocity of the fighting that swept through here. All other buildings on the grounds date from restorations carried out after 1989 and hold relatively little heritage value in themselves. Throughout Korea there are countless sites of ruined temples, and Geonbongsa came close to joining those that have slipped quietly into the margins of history; what stands today represents a recovery from that near disappearance. Given the enormous original scale of the complex, much of the temple site remains as it was left — unrestored, open ground — with only the main hall and a handful of buildings brought back. Through the center of this partially recovered precinct runs a small stream, and spanning it is Neungpagyo, an arched stone bridge of rainbow form, built in a style reminiscent of Seungseon Bridge before Seonamsa Temple in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province.

Ruined temple sites are found across the entire country, and I have long considered them to be cultural heritage worthy of respect in their own right. Something in the experience of standing beside Neungpagyo and trying to imagine, from imagination alone, the vast monastic complex that once spread out on both sides of that bridge has its own particular value. And yet it was here, for the first time, that I found myself thinking: perhaps restoration — even partial, even imperfect — is better than leaving such a place to slowly vanish. On the way out, I came across a black-and-white photograph taken in the 1920s showing Geonbongsa as it once was. It looked like something conjured from a time machine — an immense complex of extraordinary scale, filling the valley in a way that was almost impossible to reconcile with what stands there now. Had Geonbongsa survived intact to the present day, what a breathtaking sight it would have been.

This brings to mind something a scholar once said: that for a civilization with such a long history, what Korea has managed to preserve is painfully little. Even of what did survive, there are countless examples of heritage left unprotected, neglected, or damaged through simple ignorance of how to care for it properly. What is needed now — and urgently — is the wisdom to find the right methods, to manage and preserve what remains in a systematic way, and to pass it on to those who will come after us. The great cultural heritage passed down from the past is a mirror held up to all of us, and much of it is of a value that defies easy reckoning.

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Naksansa Temple, Yangyang, South Korea

Naksansa Temple, Yangyang, South Korea

100, Naksansa-ro, Ganghyeon-myeon, Yangyang-gun, Gangwon-do, Republic of Korea

Traveling along the eastern coast of Korea, one encounters a remarkable succession of beautiful places — beaches, mountains, sea caves, and natural scenery of a strangely moving quality. Among these, there is one outstanding cultural heritage site situated directly by the sea: Naksansa Temple in Yangyang, near Sokcho in Gangwon Province. I cannot recall exactly when I first visited Naksansa, but I believe I came once or twice as a child with my parents, and later, during my university years, I would stop by whenever I made the trip to Seoraksan — it was close enough that there was little reason not to.

Naksansa is a temple of rare scale among Korea's coastal Buddhist sites. It stands on Naksan — the mountain said to be the dwelling place of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, known in Korean as Gwanseeum Bosal — and was founded in 671, the eleventh year of King Munmu of Silla, by the great monk Uisang. It was rebuilt several times over the centuries, burned to the ground during the Korean War, and reconstructed in 1953, going on to earn renown as one of the three great Gwaneum pilgrimage sites in the country. Then, in April 2005, a massive wildfire swept through the Gwandong region and destroyed most of the temple's buildings, which have since been rebuilt. As a result, the site holds relatively little in the way of conventional cultural heritage value today, yet there remains much to see — among them Uisangdae Pavilion and Hongnyeonam Hermitage, both attached structures of Naksansa and together designated Historic Site No. 495.

The entirety of Obongsan Mountain, stretching along the Yangyang coastline, constitutes the grounds of Naksansa. The official main gate is Hongyemun Arch Gate, first constructed in 1467 during the thirteenth year of King Sejo of Joseon; it was lost to the wildfire and later rebuilt, and follows the characteristic style of Joseon-period fortress architecture. Many visitors are unaware that this is the temple's formal entrance. Because the nearby Naksan Beach is so well known and so well equipped with amenities, most people approach from that direction, ascending along the path that leads first to Uisangdae Pavilion and Hongnyeonam Hermitage — the sites associated with the founding legend of the monk Uisang.

This stretch of coast is celebrated as one of the finest places along the eastern seaboard to watch the sunrise, and it is here that the grounds of Naksansa properly begin. Passing through Botajeon Hall — a new building despite its traditional tiled roof — and climbing the hill, one arrives at the imposing Sea-Facing Gwaneum Statue, the Haesugwaneum. The hilltop on which the statue stands is the highest point within the temple grounds, and from it the coastline of the East Sea stretches away in both directions in a sweeping panorama that is, in itself, a magnificent sight. Continuing along the footpath past the statue, one comes to Wontongbojeon Hall, rebuilt after it was consumed in the 2005 fire. Much care has gone into its reconstruction, yet for those who remember the hall as it once stood, a sense of irreplaceable loss lingers.

The cultural heritage that has endured through the long centuries and survived to the present day may not always appear, at first glance, to be of great significance. But what has accumulated across that span of time and reached us now — once lost — is gone forever. When I think of all the precious cultural treasures that have vanished in the course of repeated foreign invasions and the upheavals of modernization, I feel a hollow ache, as though something has been taken from the chest and never returned. Revisiting Naksansa after the fire, I found myself thinking: to take thorough precautions for what little remains, to put in place systematic plans for its preservation, and to pass it safely through our hands and into those of the generations that follow — is this not the duty of all of us who were born and live upon this land?

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Ansimsa Temple, Cheongju, South Korea

Ansimsa Temple, Cheongju, South Korea

169-28, Sadong-gil, Nami-myeon, Seowon-gu, Cheongju-si, Chungcheongbuk-do, Republic of Korea

Ansimsa Temple sits on the outskirts of Cheongju City in North Chungcheong Province, a subsidiary temple of Beopjusa — the most prominent Buddhist temple in the province. Even many residents of Cheongju are unaware of its existence, yet it too stands as a temple of over a thousand years. According to tradition, it was founded in 775, the eleventh year of King Hyegong of Silla, by the monk Jinpyo. After its establishment, his many disciples named the temple Ansimsa — meaning "the temple that brings peace to the village." It was rebuilt in 1325 during the twelfth year of King Chungsuk of Goryeo by the National Monk Wonmyeong, and underwent several further reconstructions during the Joseon Dynasty, before being burned to the ground during the Japanese invasion of 1592 and falling into ruin. The temple survived only as a faint remnant until it was rebuilt in the 1980s, taking on the form it holds today.

Among the various halls at Ansimsa, the oldest surviving structure is the Daeungjeon, the main hall, which is designated Treasure No. 664 and dates to the Joseon period. No records survived to confirm its precise date of construction, but during a restoration project in 1979 in which the hall was dismantled for repair, an ink inscription was discovered indicating that the building had been renovated in 1606, the thirty-ninth year of King Seonjo's reign — confirming it as a Joseon-era structure from the early seventeenth century. Also believed to have been created and enshrined at the time of that same renovation is the Hanging Painting of the Vulture Peak Assembly, designated National Treasure No. 297. In other words, this is a wooden structure some four hundred years old. The building was originally three bays across the front and three bays along the sides, but through successive rounds of repair, one bay was lost from the sides and the roof was changed from a hip-and-gable form to a gabled form.

My first question upon arriving was why such a significant wooden structure had survived in so obscure a location — but standing before the Daeungjeon of Ansimsa and taking it in, I found myself nodding in quiet understanding. It is small in scale, yet it is unmistakably a work of beauty, one that carries within it the full grace of Joseon-period Buddhist art. The temple holds several other treasures as well, among them the Sejonsarip Stupa and its accompanying stele, which tradition holds were erected by the founding monk Jinpyo to enshrine relics of the historical Buddha. The stupa disappeared in the late Joseon period, only to be rediscovered on Guryongsan Mountain; it was moved to Gucheon-dong in 1881, the eighteenth year of King Gojong's reign, and then returned to its original home at Ansimsa in 1900, the fourth year of the Gwangmu era.

My visit to Ansimsa fell on a spring day, and the temple grounds were in full bloom with white hydrangeas. The sky was clear and deeply blue, and the white blossoms spread across the courtyard formed a scene of striking beauty in harmony with that sky. The cultural heritage we encountered at this little-known temple was, as ever, magnificent — more than worthy of the deliberate effort it takes to seek it out. If the chance arises, I would very much like to return in the autumn.

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Janggoksa Temple, Cheongyang, South Korea

Janggoksa Temple, Cheongyang, South Korea

241, Janggok-gil, Daechi-myeon, Cheongyang-gun, Chungcheongnam-do, Republic of Korea

In Cheongyang County, South Chungcheong Province, there is a mountain called Chilgapsan — a name made famous largely thanks to a popular folk song. And nestled within Chilgapsan is Janggoksa, a venerable temple with a history of over a thousand years. A subsidiary temple of Magoksa, the head temple of the sixth district of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, Janggoksa is not widely known among the general public. It possesses a number of distinctive charms, yet it cannot be said to offer any single standout attraction. According to tradition, the temple was founded in 850 — the twelfth year of King Munseong of Silla — by the Seon master Chejing, known posthumously as Bojo. It underwent reconstruction on several occasions thereafter, though no records of those intervening histories have come down to us.

With the exception of two of its halls, the surviving structures at Janggoksa were rebuilt or reconstructed in the modern era. What makes the temple particularly unusual is its layout: the precinct is divided vertically along a steep incline, with two separate main halls — two Daeungjeons — positioned one above the other. The upper Daeungjeon is designated Treasure No. 162, and the lower Daeungjeon is designated Treasure No. 181. Why this arrangement came to be is impossible to say with certainty, but the topography of Janggoksa offers little in the way of flat, lateral space. It seems the builders resorted to stacking the structures vertically — a solution found nowhere else in the country. Within the precinct, there also remains National Treasure No. 58: a seated iron Medicine Buddha, or Yaksa Yeorae, together with its stone pedestal.

Owing to this vertically cascading layout, the temple becomes a place of extraordinary atmosphere during the autumn foliage season. A gentle hiking trail connects Janggoksa to the summit of Chilgapsan, making it well suited for a leisurely mountain walk. From the summit, the view of the West Sea coast unfolds in a panorama that defies easy description. Janggoksa sits on the far side of Chilgapsan from the town of Cheongyang, which means public transportation is sparse. Unless one carefully plans around the few buses that run each day, a taxi is virtually the only option. It is not a famous destination, and visitor numbers remain modest, so there is no ticket booth to speak of — the grounds are quiet, unhurried, and still.

A temple of just the right size — neither too large nor too small. Cultural heritage of several centuries standing, not so renowned as to be overwhelming, yet impossible to dismiss. A precinct so hushed it feels as though no one else exists in the world. Natural scenery at one with the gentle contours of the surrounding mountains. All of this together makes Janggoksa an ideal setting for the kind of quiet, unassuming journey that asks nothing of you. After taking in the full grounds, I walked a good while back down to the bus stop. Here too, as in Oesan Township near Muryangsa in Buyeo, a small and modest rural village stretches out along the way. Dogs bark from here and there among the houses, and the figures of elderly villagers appear at intervals along the road. Perhaps it is simply because I am Korean, but this kind of scene — one that could not be found quite like this anywhere else in the world — never fails to put me at ease, no matter how many times I encounter it.

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Heungguksa Temple, Yeosu, South Korea

Heungguksa Temple, Yeosu, South Korea

567-348, Sangam-ro, Yeosu-si, Jeollanam-do, Republic of Korea

Taking a bus or taxi from Yeosu Airport and passing through the Yeocheon Industrial Complex, one continues well beyond the sprawling refinery and petrochemical plants before climbing a gentle hill that looks, from a distance, like little more than a modest rise behind the complex. It is here that one of the most notable temples in the Yeosu area is to be found — Heungguksa. The temple came to be built somewhat later than many of the more celebrated Buddhist sites scattered across the country. It was founded in 1195, the twenty-fifth year of Goryeo King Myeongjong's reign, by the national monk Jinul, also known as Bojo Guksa, and was reconstructed in 1560, the fifteenth year of Joseon King Myeongjong's reign. During the Japanese invasions of the 1590s, the temple served as a training ground for monk-soldiers and stood as the primary base of operations for the Buddhist militias and volunteer fighters of the region.

The monk Gyeteuk oversaw a further reconstruction in 1624, the second year of King Injo's reign. A dharma hall was added and the Palsangjeon was built in 1690, followed by the Seondang meditation hall in 1780, and the Simgeomdang in 1812. The layout of the complex follows the slope of the hillside, with the Sacheonwangmun, Bonghwangnu Pavilion, Beopwangmun Gate, Daeungjeon, and Palsangjeon arranged in sequence along the central axis, while the Jeokmukdang and Simgeomdang flank the main hall to either side. The Daeungjeon of Heungguksa is a mid-Joseon wooden structure designated Treasure No. 396. The temple further retains the rear Buddhist painting of the Daeungjeon, designated Treasure No. 578, and the Heungguksa Honggyo — a stone arch bridge — designated Treasure No. 563.

As it turned out, this temple, which at first glance had seemed likely to be of little note — swallowed up as it appeared to be within the industrial sprawl of Yeocheon — proved to be a cultural site of considerable depth and history. Today the area is absorbed into the city of Yeosu and serves as the terminus for city buses running frequently from downtown, its surroundings dominated by one of Korea's largest industrial complexes. But it is not difficult to imagine that for a long time before the complex arrived, this temple would have played a central role in the life of the local community. On a weekday morning I appeared to be the only visitor, and a dog tied up in front of the monks' quarters barked loudly and persistently at the sight of a stranger.

Being fond of dogs, I instinctively moved closer whenever I came across one in an unfamiliar place, but this particular creature was having none of it. Pressing any further seemed likely to shatter the quiet of the temple grounds, so I gave up, left the dog to its noise, and continued exploring the precinct. Making my way up past the Daeungjeon, I noticed that the Palsangjeon perched on the upper hillside had an atmosphere that seemed somehow out of the ordinary, and I climbed up to take a look. The view from there was something else entirely. From the moment I had left Yeosu Airport, passed through the industrial complex, and arrived at the temple entrance, the landscape had left such a strong impression of industry and utility that I had expected nothing like this — and yet here, unmistakably, was a temple of genuine age and presence. The long journey from Seoul in the early morning darkness, the rattling flight and the drawn-out descent, had been well worth it after all.

If you would like to experience a unique side of Korea, the "Land of the Morning Calm," please feel free to reach out. I host small, private guided tours tailored for international visitors.

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