PYEONGTAEK, KOREA – Out of all the places I like to visit in Korea, Buddhist temples are my favorite to go see. The combination of the colors, the surrounding nature, the atmosphere, as well as the history of the temples make me feel like I am taking part in a wonderful experience. Everyone should stop by and visit a temple while in Korea.
On the west side of the Anseongcheon River lies the temple of the Stone Seated Vairocana Buddha, also known as the Cosmic Buddha, in the Simboksa Temple. The Cosmic Buddha is the current world embodiment of the absolute universal truth. Hence why as soon as you arrive at the temple, you are greeted by a great mural of depicting people following a woman holding a light.
According to the temples own accounts, the Cosmic Buddha was found submerged under water by a local fisherman who brough it to shore. Wanting to build a temple for the Buddha but lacking the resources to do it, the fisherman brought the Cosmic Buddha home. Later that night he had a dream in which Buddha himself instructed him to go back to the seashore where the fisherman would find a shipwreck with which to build a temple and the oxen to help him transport the shipwreck to the new temple site. The fisherman did as he was told and brough the shipwreck to the temple site using the oxen he had acquired at the seashore. Unfortunately, shortly after completing the temple using the wood he salvaged from the shipwreck, the oxen died. For their efforts and dedication to the building of the temple site, the oxen were buried on the temple grounds. The burial mound can still be seen today on the road to the Simboksa Temple itself.
Today there are seven buildings on the temple grounds: a dining hall, a central office building, the entrance to the temple building, sleeping quarters, the main temple building, a small temple building adjacent to that, and an outhouse. When I paid a visit to the temple, I spoke with the staff in charge of the dining hall who said “We are not just a temple, we offer temple stays for tourists, classes on traditional Korean tea drinking etiquette, as well as religious services”.
Tourists who do the temple stay get to sleep in the sleeping quarters on the temple grounds as well as wear robes during their stay. Tea drinking etiquette classes are done wearing traditional Korean Hanbok which I was encouraged to get my own and get it ready for a future class. Unfortunately, classes and temple stays have been severely limited due to COVID-19. The temple staff hope to pick classes back up later this year if the COVID-19 pandemic eases up.
The temple grounds also include trails that lead to small ponds decorated with Buddhist symbols and small towers of rocks that represent the wishes of the temple visitors. Further down the trail we came across the burial mound for the oxen that helped bring the shipwreck to the temple site. After paying our respects to the oxen, we headed back to the temple site where we said goodbye to the temple staff and went home.
This article is written by Nicolas a PIEF Foreign Reporter
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