This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
The Great Unification Buddha has quite the view. Sitting cross-legged in the sun, with the expression of someone who’s just laid down their chopsticks after a satisfying lunch, the 108-ton bronze statue faces directly onto a belt of serrated, pine-cloaked mountains. At the foot of the figure, a brazier is puffing out clouds of incense while votive candles flicker and sputter. The spring day is hot, the air woozy with the scent of burning sandalwood.
The giant Buddha doubles as a divine meet-and-greeter at the main entrance to Seoraksan National Park, some two hours’ drive from Seoul, in the country’s north east. This is, after all, somewhere that warrants a grand welcome. It’s one of South Korea’s largest mountainous national parks, covering more than 154sq miles, as well as one of its oldest, having been granted protection back in 1970. Since then, its otherworldly peaks and granite outcrops have become one of the region’s biggest outdoor draws, both literally — its tallest summit, Daecheongbong, is 5,605ft — and figuratively.
I’m here for three nights to explore the area — the natural landscape, as well as the culture and history intrinsic to it — through a number of day treks. “We should go now,” says Kwak Yong-duk, ‘YD’, who’s guiding me on my first excursion, as the incense wafts around us, “We have a mountain to climb.”
We start following a steady flow of walkers along a path up into the woods. Our goal is the 2,864ft summit of Ulsanbawi, bare and multi-headed — a shape that’s made it one of Seoraksan’s most iconic sights. Next to the trail, cork oaks lean over a stream gushing down from the upper passes. YD glances this way and that, pointing out small Buddhist stupas, stone memorials containing holy relics, among the trees.
Buddhism isn’t the dominant belief system in Korea. According to 2023 statistics, only around 17% of the population claim allegiance, placing it below Christianity and even further below irreligion. There are reasons, however, why it has maintained a strong presence in remote places like Seoraksan.
The practice was first introduced from China in the fourth century and was widely adhered to across the Korean peninsula. But when the Joseon dynasty, which championed Confucianism, came to power in 1392, Buddhists were forced out to rural areas. The country’s mountains, many of which are fortress-like and far removed from the cities, proved the ideal place to settle.
That’s not to say they’re still hard to access. Hiking is something of a national pastime in South Korea, and I was envisaging the park’s trails as rugged, earthy tracks — the sort of paths that single out true lovers of the mountain. So, I’m pleasantly surprised when the broad walkway up to Ulsanbawi becomes a set of neat stone steps. YD tells me that the most popular paths have been made as simple and user-friendly as possible. “Safety is very important to the park authorities,” he says, matter-of-factly. “But you’ll see. It’s not such an easy walk.”
By now, the views have opened out to reveal thickly wooded slopes below us and sawtooth ridgelines above. Large-billed crows caw as we climb past. Around 90 minutes after setting off, we reach Gyejoam Grotto, a seventh-century Buddhist shrine built under an immense overhanging boulder. Lines of spiritual text have been carved deep into the stone, while inside, piles of bananas and pineapples have been left as offerings.
The shrine serves as a midway resting point on the Ulsanbawi climb. Two hikers are drinking rice wine on a rocky ledge as an unseen voice chants sonorous prayers from further up the hill. Sitting outside to take in the scene, I meet Moon Seo-rang, a thirtysomething from Seoul here for the day and on his way down from the top. I ask him what it’s like at the summit: “Neomu meosjida,” he replies, taking off his baseball cap and grinning. “Too cool.”
The final stages of the walk take the form of a tough ascent up a series of steep metal stairways fixed to the cliffside. I’m breathless on reaching the path’s highest point, but we’re now just below Ulsanbawi’s stony, undulating apex. I look around at the view as a single swallow arcs through the sky. In one direction is a green mass of crags and scarps, in the other lies the twinkling blue of the coast. “The East Sea,” YD informs me.
From up here, South Korea’s neighbours feel close. Japan lies somewhere out there across the waves, while North Korea is less than 20 miles away over the hills. Indeed, when a border across the peninsula was first drawn up after the Second World War, as an arrow-straight line along the 38th parallel, the spot where I’m now standing was on the northern side of the frontier. Only in 1953, after the devastation of the Korean War, was the present, more sinuous border established.
Seoraksan and its surrounds found themselves in the south. The Great Unification Buddha, at the park entrance far below me, was built in 1997. As its name suggests, it was created in the spirit of some distant future when the two countries might become one again. Up here on the lookout, from where the mountains rumble northwards with not a care for national boundaries, such a sentiment feels less outlandish than it sounds.
Monk mode
The welcome presentation is about to begin. Young temple assistant Jo Eun-jeong enters the wooden-floored hall with a smile playing on her lips. I’ve just changed into my issued temple-stay uniform — a comfortable two-piece of baggy brown trousers and loose linen waistcoat — and lowered myself into a seated pose on a mat, radiating what I imagine to be a ready-for-anything calmness. “OK, good,” she says, kindly. “But the screen’s that way. Or are you going to stare at the wall?”
Naksansa Temple sits on a cave-pocked stretch of coastline outside Seoraksan, four miles east of the national park borders, south of the port town of Sokcho. It was established in 671 by a Buddhist monk named Uisang Daesa, who’s said to have favoured the location for its meditative serenity. More than 1,350 years later, the temple complex has seen plenty, and not all of it tranquil — including a disastrous wildfire, which damaged most of its since-restored buildings in 2005. Still, it remains a place of rare beauty. Low mantras echo across its wide courtyards, pine trees sway in the sea air and sparrows twitter under the eaves of the prayer halls.
It’s the day after my Ulsanbawi hike, and I’m here to join a one-night temple-stay programme, designed as a chance for visitors to experience Korean Buddhism up close. Naksansa is one of 28 temples around the country that offer similar opportunities to overseas guests, an initiative originally created for the influx of visitors during the FIFA World Cup in 2002. I’d arrived in the early afternoon, and the video welcome presentation — once I turn to face it — explains that the next 20 hours are a chance not just to learn, but to sharpen one’s senses.
Jo Eun-jeong takes me and the five other international visitors on a tour of the temple complex. It covers a huge area, with rhododendron-flanked paths leading through the sloping grounds. The building where we’ll be sleeping, on floor mattresses in two-person rooms, is minimalist and modern. But the wider compound is full of elaborately painted pavilions and pitched-roof prayer halls, both typical of religious Korean architecture. Wherever we go, we find dancheong paintwork — a geometric riot of greens, reds and yellows — and bliss-eyed golden sculptures.
Nineteen monks live here full time in all. Outside the main worship hall — its tiled roof swooping above sturdy red pillars — we meet Naksansa’s only nun, Snim Ji-wol. “I was 18 when I was ordained,” she says, cheerily. “I’m now 64.” Like her male counterparts, she wears dove-grey robes and has a shaved head beneath her floppy sun hat, protecting her from the rays that are beating down on us. She leads us up to a shadeless circular terrace overlooking the sea, dominated by a statue of a bodhisattva deity named Avalokiteśvara.
“If you imagine the road to enlightenment as an education,” Snim Ji-wol says, “Buddha would have a doctorate, while a bodhisattva would be an undergraduate.” Avalokiteśvara, she goes on to explain, is synonymous with compassion. The statue is 52ft tall and made of pale stone, towering into a sky the colour of sapphire. The thumb and middle finger of one of its hands are touching, symbolising peace and clarity.
The rest of the day is given over to ritual and contemplation. We join a prayer session in the main worship hall, bowing and kneeling in time with the monk leading the service, all of us facing a row of gleaming statues. Then, we file down to a basic dining area for a disarmingly delicious buffet meal. We eat rice, kimchi, spring greens, peppers, tofu and red chilli paste, appreciated in near-silence save for the clack of our chopsticks.
The Naksansa complex draws visitors during the day, but by early evening, we have the freedom of the place. Wandering its pathways as the light fades is deeply calming. I find myself at a tiny prayer hall on a low cliffside, said to have been built on the spot where Uisang first founded the temple. A single monk is inside, using a hand-held woodblock to tap out a rhythm and repeating a short, hypnotic refrain. The chant lasts for the entire hour I’m there, the words mingling with the breaking of the waves.
I sleep fitfully, regularly woken by the tinkle of wind chimes, so I head to a pavilion high above the shoreline to wait for the 5am sunrise. The lights of a few fishing trawlers are blazing out at sea, a soft breeze blowing in from offshore. Somewhere below me, I can again hear chants and drumbeats emanating from the prayer hall. Then, the sun arrives, climbing over the sea, and the dawn clouds are lit aflame.
Before we leave, Jo Eun-yeong takes us to a quiet room in one of the temple buildings. “You’ll be making 108 prostrations,” she says, laying out mats. “After each one, you’ll thread a prayer bead onto a necklace.” The number 108 is a sacred one in many Buddhist traditions, representing for some a way of multiplying the six senses. We begin the prostrations. Thirty-five minutes later, my knees are aching, my eyes are fuzzy and my brow is pouring with sweat. But I’m left with my own prayer necklace — and with my senses, inarguably, awakened.
Natural highs
Back in Seoraksan the next day, a black swallow-tailed butterfly flitters among the shrubs at the trailside, oblivious to the scale of the scenery. It’s taken me two hours to climb from the park entrance to the viewpoint for the Towangseong Falls, via stairways, bridges and a zigzagging forest path up a rocky stream. The trail has crossed pools, rapids and frothing cascades — the scene so pretty, at times, as to seem almost invented.
But the truest reward is here at the top. Far across the valley from the look-out, the falls thread down the silvery mountainside in a three-tiered, 1,050ft drop. Framing this natural centrepiece is a mighty pantheon of hard-edged peaks, lined with pine groves, swept by a fresh wind and soundtracked by the rush of running water.
Staring out at the panorama from a bench at the viewpoint is Lee Woo-myeong, a 77-year-old retired businessman in a hat emblazoned with the words ‘No Problemo’. He tells me he made the climb this morning on a whim after arriving from Seoul and learning that the cable-car he’d wanted to take, elsewhere in the park, was closed. “I come to Seoraksan whenever I can,” he says. “I was 25 on my first visit.” I ask if the park has changed much in the past five decades, and he thinks for a moment. “No,” he says. “They’re mountains.”
Returning to the valley floor, I make my way to Sinheungsa, the largest of two major Buddhist temples within the park. Its 17th-century prayer halls are incense-scented and busy. It’s a few days before Buddha’s birthday — celebrated annually on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar — and 6,000 brightly coloured lanterns have been strung above its main courtyard like celestial party balloons. Dangling under each one is a handwritten tag, inscribed with a name and a wish.
I whisper one of my own, then begin the final walk of my time here. It starts easily enough, with a gentle path through the oak trees. I pass a toddler playing hide-and-seek with her parents, then — in jarring juxtaposition — reach a slim stone monument to the soldiers who fought and died in these woods during the Korean War. A mile further on, the crowds have thinned completely and a stony trail leads up into the slopes.
My goal is Geumganggul Cave, a natural cavity high in the cliffs. It’s had spiritual associations since the seventh century, when it was the base of an ascetic monk named Wŏnhyo. He was evidently made of stern stuff. I’ve been warned the climb is both precipitous and exhausting, even with the modern benefit of steep stairways on the final stages, and so it proves. The 600ft ascent takes me almost an hour in the heat. I pass no one, and whenever I think I must be close, I look up to see another set of steps stretching almost vertically up the baking cliffside.
My thighs are screaming when I reach the entrance. The cave is around 26ft deep and beautifully cool, with a low roof of rough, uncut rock. Three simple statues sit on an altar at the far end, and a framed painting of Buddhist deities rests against one wall.
Some time later, a middle-aged Korean couple appear, coming up the steps, panting but beaming. We exchange greetings, then they place their palms together and bow to the statues. As I’m about to leave, one of them opens her pack and proffers me a packet of plump, steamed rice cakes. I accept one gratefully, and we all sit there eating in silence, with the little shrine at our backs, dust on our boots and a soaring green wilderness at our feet. The view back over the crest of the valley is sensational; I hear nothing but distant birdsong. I sit and rest, elated. In its remoteness and quietness, the cave feels like another level of holy.
Published in South Korea 2024, distributed with the November 2024 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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