Caveat: 고봉산 영천사

Today, Andrew and I set out for a temple I visited a long time ago. I believe it is the “working mountain temple” closest to my home. It’s on the side of a mountain called Gobong-san (고봉산), which is north of the railroad tracks in the part of Ilsan I think of as “old Ilsan”. It is my opinion that this is the “one mountain,” of the various mountains around, that is the best candidate for the origin of the name of the city of Ilsan, which means “one mountain.”
We visited the temple on this mountain called 영천사 [yeong-cheon-sa]. It’s a small, unpretentious working temple. I met a monk there and had an actual conversation with him – I lived in Ilsan, I had been in the cancer center, my brother was visiting. He wished me good health. Then he ran down and told one of the men hanging out near a storage shed, “OMG there’s a foreigner speaking Korean up there!” I didn’t catch the exact words in Korean, but that was the drift of it.

I felt flattered.

I bowed.

Here are some pictures.

Andrew on the trail up the mountain.

picture

The temple garden.

picture

Behind the temple outbuilding (monks’ quarters).

picture

Standing on the stoop of the temple looking toward Tanhyeon towers.

picture

The main temple building and administrative building to the right.

picture

A smaller shrine behind the main temple. These are always my favorite places to go to do sitting or prostrations, rather than the main temples. They are dedicated to various saints (bodhisattvas) and I have no idea which one this one was dedicated to – I don’t really see that it matters.

picture

The interior of that small shrine.

picture

Andrew took a picture of me doing a few prostrations there.

picture

I took a picture of Andrew sitting quietly there.

picture

Looking down on the larger temple from the stoop at the shrine.

picture

A trail leading up into the forest behind the shrine.

picture

A buddha in a stone niche near the shrine.

picture

A very large number of kimchi pots behind the administration building.

picture

A closed door detail on the shrine.

picture

I like how in random spots you can find little figurines enacting scenes.

picture

Some other figurines.

picture

Here is a picture of a woman getting a drink of water at the public fountain (every temple has one) and a laughing buddha. Slightly out of focus…

picture

Here is another smaller temple we passed while walking down the mountain.

picture

A jang-seung [장승 = traditional shamanistic totem] I saw amid some flowers on the main road at the base of the mountain at the end of the trip.

picture

Here are a ton of “temple-panel paintings” that I snapped. I love these things and am trying to build up a collection of images of them.

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Drug Scarf

My drugs come prepackaged in little “breakfast/lunch/dinner” packets that come attached in a long chain of little cellophane packages. I was talking to Andrew about the fact that my ugly, deformed neck requires me to adopt some new fashion – turtlenecks or gauche scarves.

He suggested I could use my string-o-drug-packets as a scarf: drug scarf!

picture

CaveatDumpTruck Logo

Caveat: Everyone Matters

A bit advertastic, but this video my brother found is worthwhile viewing all the same, and very, very relatable given my own recent experience.

Caveat: Yes, I actually went to work today

I worked about a half-day, scoring month-end student speech tests and interacting with all my long-missed students quite a bit, and several short meetings with Curt relevant to planning August and what kind of teaching load I might have.

I felt wonderful to see all my students, and as usual, I came away more positive than going in. That's what I'm in this job for. But I'm quite tired now. I'll blog more, later.

Back to Top