Inside the elaborate and colourful main hall at Sujeongsa Temple in Ulsan.
Hello Again Everyone!!
Sujeongsa Temple was recommended to me by a friend. He glowingly spoke about the temple and its double Samseong-gak (a shrine hall inside a shrine hall). It only took us a couple drive-bys and misses to finally spot the unmarked turn-off to the temple. Up a long and narrow one lane road, we finally arrived at the end of the road and the temple at the same time.
Getting out to explore the unassuming Sujeongsa Temple, we were greeted by a volunteer at the hermitage. She was happy to see me again at the temple. I looked at her with a confused look on my face. So my wife talked to her for a bit more clarification, as she explained to the woman that it was the first time for me to visit Sujeongsa Temple. With a surprised look on her face, I realized that she was confusing me with my friend. I’m pretty sure that we’re the only two expats to have ever visited this out of the way temple.
A closer look at the breath-taking main altar.
The next person to approach us was the head nun at Sujeongsa Temple. As I was exploring the main hall and my wife was praying, the head nun introduced herself to us. She went on to basically give us a private tour of the temple, as there were no other visitors at the temple but us. She told us how she had a dream about how the interior of the main hall should look. So with a professor from Dongguk University, she was able to see her vision come to fruition. Surrounding the main altar is an elaborate relief of seventeen Gwanseeum-bosals (The Bodhisattva of Compassion). This relief is joined by an equally beautiful relief of a Shinjung Taenghwa (guardian motif) and one of Jijang-bosal (The Bodhisattva of the Afterlife), as well. The base of the altar amazingly depicts the Palsang-do images, and the main chandelier that hangs from the main hall is made from the same material as airplanes.
A look at the double Samseong-gak at Sujeongsa Temple.
She then directed us towards the Samseong-gak, which is a shrine hall inside another shrine hall. The head nun told us how she had initially intended to simply knock down the 200 year old Samseong-gak; however, Sanshin (The Mountain Spirit) appeared to the head nun three times in a dream. During an early morning ceremony at the Samseong-gak, a picture was taken that captured what looked to be a neighbouring pine tree on fire. The head nun took this as a sign, so she built a new protective Samseong-gak around the old one. The reason she did this, as she explained it, is that if she didn’t, someone would die.
The apparent flame above the old Samseong-gak.
The final stop along the tour led by the head nun at Sujeongsa Temple was of the Yongwang (The Dragon King) shrine to the far left of the Samseong-gak. She explained to us that before you pray, you can lift the stone that sits on the Yongwang altar. However, once you pray, you’re no longer able to lift this stone. So me being me, I decided to put her words to the test. And strangely, she was right.
We were very fortunate to have the head nun as our personal tour guide. It’s not very often that this happens. And as we were saying thank you just before we left, a collection of cars arrived at the temple.
For so many reasons, we were lucky in the time we had at Sujeongsa Temple in Ulsan.