The path to Anjeoksa Temple (安寂寺, “Temple of Calm and Silence”) in Gijang winds upward through a quiet mountain forest. The air is cooling in the summer heat and a small stream folds its sound into the silence. Lanterns hang lightly between the trees. At night, they must cast pools of soft light onto stone figurines placed with care beneath them. These figurines appear as guardians of memory and witnesses of past and present devotion. This is a place where the folktales of Wonhyo linger. Wonhyo (617–686) was one of Korea’s most revered Buddhist monks, known for carrying philosophy out of the monastery and into the everyday lives of common people. His practice wove together discipline, song, and legend. Known from his time are stories of heavenly offerings refused and of spiritual fire glowing so bright that no celestial maiden dared approach. Although the temple is located far from the coast inland, it belongs to a landscape stretched between mountain and sea. Nearby is Okcheonsa (옥천사, “Temple of the Jade Spring”), which is a site where Avalokiteśvara revealed herself as a maiden, offering sweet spring water to thirsty monks. But also Seoktapsa (석탑사, “Stone Pagoda Temple”) is remembered both for its solitary stone tower and for the tale of life-giving water given in disguise. In this setting, water taking on the quality of an offering turn the liquid gold into a medium of compassion. This place is embedded in a dialogue between solidity and flow.
To bring printed residues of past contacts that were obtained from Busan's different sea waters into this mountain grove became an act that posed a host of questions that would unsettle and expand the site’s meanings.
What does it mean to let the salt of the ocean seep into the stone and soil of the forest?
Can the sea, source of danger and sustenance, be carried into the heart of a place named for calm and silence?
The act suspends the temple’s old axis between the sacred mountain and the encircling sea. Laying the printed sea on the forest's floor folded maritime memory into a highland sanctuary. In this gesture, the water ceases to be only protective or quenching. It becomes a residue of encounter, a trace of elsewhere. It asks whether care and compassion flow across terrains, whether devotion can be translated in salts and oils, and whether the ocean’s restlessness belongs, too, in the stillness of the mountain.
photo credit: Dae-Hong Kim
