Monday March 9, 2009 Temples and Buddha

(Since I haven't been able to find a computer that will upload pictures, I will specify the names of many of these places so you can google them to see them. I'll have to put up pictures at a later date)

Well...this morning came too quickly. After 28 hours of being awake, I don't think that my body moved once it touched those 1000 count sheets. The breakfast spread was unbelievable. There was a full Western buffet, and a full Korean buffet too. A little odd to have rice for breakfast, but I tried it. We had a four hour drive to the Ancient capital of Korea in its Southeast corner.

Gyeonju is much smaller than Seoul, and surrounded my rural areas focused on rice and strawberries. They are in the middle of cultivating the area for the rice that they will plant in May. The streets here are lined with cherry blossom trees. They bloom about April 1st so it is a shame that we are here a few weeks early. I bet it would be so beautiful. During our drive we passed some of the old Olympic venues, they were huge and beautifully designed.

When we first got o Geyonju, we ate lunch in another traditional Korean restaurant, at this one we ate on the floor, shoeless and all. It was cool because the stone floors were heated. Korean food is a "family style" type meal where everyone is served rice and soup, but when you first arrive the table is covered in 30 soup sized bowls filled with different foods that are kinda like appetizers. They range from Kimchi (fermented cabbage) to anchovies, to egg somethings, fried fish, bamboo, prawns, and some dishes just have spices to put on the meats. We made lettuce wraps, and they were very good. The food here is very spiced, not spicy just spiced.

We went to the burial grounds, Taenungwaon, across from the restaurant. They look alot like our Indian mounds. They buried their kings, royalty and aristocrats in these mounds. Kinda an economic way as opposed to the Egyptians and their pyramids. Also, we saw an old observatory, Chomsongda. It dated back to the 7th century. It was only about 30 feet high, but they said that because of the lack of pollution back then, that was all they needed to interpret the stars clearly. The Koreans are on a lunar calendar with 24 seasons. They building symbolically embodied those seasons and various elements of the solar calendar too.

Our next stop was the Pulguksa Temple. This old temple dates back to the 7oos as well, but only part of the original remains. All of the temples are built from wood and accented with stone. When the Japanese occupied Korea in the 19th and early 20th centuries, they destroyed all of the temples by burning them. This temple still has the remaining stairs...which are beautiful, and two stone pagodas. The rest of the temple was rebuilt to replicate the original in the early 1900s. The two pagodas were interesting because one was masculine and one was feminine. I was so interesting to see that depicted in sculpture of such a simple object (Sokkat' ap Pagoda is the masculine one).

There were many shrines to Buddha inside of the temple gate. I did not realize that Buddha has many depictions and is very similar to the saints of the Catholic church. There is a Buddha who hears your cries for help, one in hell, one in heaven (even though they do not believe in heaven because of reincarnation and nirvana), one for prosperity, one for becoming Buddha during your current life. It is amazing to try to wrap one's head around the Eastern religions because they are so intrinsically different from the Western religions, and yet there are certain things that are so similar. (see next section)

Our last stop was up on the highest mountain in Korea to see the Seokkul Grotto. This is a natural cave that has been converted into a shrine to Buddha...please look up a picture of this one, it is amazing. The Buddha is carved from limestone, so it is perfectly preserved. He is sitting in the peaceful lotus pose and looks very meditative. Some of the similarities I was talking about are depicted here. The disciples of Buddha are carved in the rock. Buddhism also was influenced by Hinduism, shown through similar "guardians" of the temple, much like the knights of western times. The carvings in this temple even seem to have some Hellenic influences, showing that the Koreans had some interaction with the Greeks...perhaps the silk road? Kinda cool to think they were actually world travellers although we think our generation was the first to "globalize".

The history here is so rich, I hope I can scratch the surface for you. I will get pictures to you soon enough. Until then I miss you all and hope that all is well.

Selah from Korea's Hilton (always something American around here)...BML