Nak-san Temple

Sokcho Diary

8.10.06



Just down the coast from Sokcho is a rarity in Korea, and well, Asia, a Buddhist temple that sits on the sea. Most temples here are set back in the mountains, at the back end of deep wooded valleys, or even in cities, but Nak-san is different.

Nak-san temple was first founded about five hundred years ago by a group of monks seeking a place of quiet contemplation. Only they know why they choose a pleasant bluff over looking the sea in the town of Nak-san, or even if the town existed at that point, they just seemed to like the area.

I went down there with Kelsey and her friend Lara. Lara is a pretty neat girl, about my age, a single mother, she has never before been out of America and chose to come to Korea for a long weekend, about four days, to hang out with her college friend Kelsey.

We had made plans early last week to head down to the pek-ban restaurant for lunch. This restaurant does not serve main dishes, only side dishes, usually about twenty, with a small main course of roasted mackerel for each person. What is really cool is that you can get refills of any dish you want, except the fish, and it all only costs seven thousand won.

After eating we walked down to the bus stop and took the number nine out to Nak-san, about a half hour down the road. I had been to the town before with my friend Matthew but we had never made it to the temple itself, instead we had stopped at the local Family Mart for a drink and never made it up to the temple.

The temple sits on a bluff that looks over Nak-san beach, a very popular place for vacationers from Seoul in the summer. Today, even though it was a beautiful day, it was almost deserted. There were a few boats pulled up on the sand but no people along its entire length. We stopped about half way up the hill and watched the big breakers role in for a time before hitting the temple itself.

When we reached the temple, again, me for the first time, I was struck by the fact that almost all of the buildings were new. It turns out that Nak-san had had a tragedy here about two years ago when a forest fire had swept through the five hundred year old temple. All the buildings were lost, a thousand year old bell had melted and the only things that had been saved were a few handwriting sutras from the seventeenth century and some beautiful old paintings depicting the monks of Nak-san at a funeral and offering gifts to the gods of the sea.

The buildings of Nak-san have been replaced by cedar ones, I don’t know if they look anything like the original but they are pretty. The logs have all been peeled and set into white frames and the insides smell of fresh cut wood.

The temple grounds consist of a small plattue that has two buildings, a gift shop and a small museum, where the few relics that had been saved by the fire were displayed in glass fronted cases.

At the end of a small path that led to the edge of the bluff was a tiny pavilion, brilliantly painted, as are almost all Buddhist buildings, in reds, greens, and blues with orange lotus flowers on the end of the roof beams. From this point one looks down almost five hundred feet to the bottom of the cliff where there are jagged rocks that break up the waves. To the south, the right, stretched Nak-san beach, almost as far as the eye can see, and to the left, the north, you can see Sokcho city.

Walking out of the pavilion there was a small path to the right that led to a tiny shrine with a small gold Buddha. Inside the building there were several ajummas, older Korean women, bowing and praying to Buddha.

Walking back up the path we turned right and went to the top of the hill where the two main shrines are.

Below the summit of the bluff was a huge building, again painted in reds and blues with something that I have never seen before on a temple, dragonheads at the end of the rood beams. I don’t know why they were there, maybe to ward off evil spirits, maybe for luck, but they were just as colourfully painted as the rest of the building.

Inside were icons of the seven Boddihistavas, man I wish I knew more about Buddhism, and other icons, all over the walls. The floor was old, maybe ancient, and you could tell that either it had been salvaged from the fire or been brought in by another temple, it had not been made in the last hundred years, it was almost black with age.

Along with the usual burning joss sticks, for luck, were candles and people praying in typical Buddhist fashion. Some of them had mats on the floor to help protect their legs but others did their prostrations without them, rising and falling in the seven ritual bows.

Alongside the walls were gold inlays of other gods and deities; all sacred and holy in one way or another, and on the ceiling were little tags with the names of people who had donated money to the temple.

Leaving the most holy shrine at the temple we headed to the highest point on the grounds where there is the only Buddha statue in Asia that looks out over the sea, or at least that is what I had been told.

When we reached the top Lara just sat looking at the white statue while Kelsey and I just stared at the ocean, talking a little, but mostly just staring out at the blue green waves moving over the surface of the ocean, breaking on the rocks below.

Pictures

1. The outside of one of the shrines at Nak-san

2. Waves breaking on the rocks

3. The roof of a building at Nak-san

4. Looking down at the small pavillion that overlooks the sea from the top of the bluff at Nak-san

5. The inside of the roof at the Nak-san pavillion