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Rediscovering Korean Mountain Spirituality ROGER SHEPHERD, Author of Seoul Selection’s Soon-to-Be-Released Baekdu Daegan Trail Guide Book, Explains His Alpine Infatuation with Korea
Written and photographed by Roger Shepherd
Mountain spirit village cleansing festival
The idea that Korean mountains shimmered with a special energy not found in other parts of the world was not something that addressed me prior to exploring its ridges. When I seriously began walking Korean mountains fulltime about three years ago, it was not in search of some supposed invisible force. It was simply for the hell of it―a desire to walk and slip my skin in what seemed like a wonderful new landscape with an endless horizon of blue dorsal-shaped mountains that swam along a hazy, mysterious foreign horizon. As I walked for hundreds of kilometers and more along the ridges of Korea, I began musing in my thoughts like a wandering monk, wondering why I was here. With outstanding mountain-scape as my backdrop, I basked in the joy of being free, arriving somewhere new everyday, and always on foot. I let the addiction of pilgrimage, journey, sauntering, and long-distance hiking slowly take control of my modern life, causing me to abandon my comfortable yet demanding lifestyle and casting me into a vagabond realm of wonderful uncertainty. The more I walked, the less I needed. Slowly but surely, over three separate expeditions that covered over 2,000 km of mountain, this inexplicable predilection gathered me up and levitated my life, like a band of soft monsoon cloud hitting the side of a mountain and dispersing into the forest like a watery ghost. So, too, became my immersion in the Korean Mountain.
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National Nervous System How did this come to be? The dazzling aura that is Korean mountain spirituality or energy has existed in Korean identity for thousands of years. Because the Korean Peninsula is so magnanimously mountainous, it was understandable that the early pre-Buddhist civilizations of Korea would animate and revere mountain landscape. Chinese Taoist hermits lived in mountains for thousands of years seeking immortality. The mountains in most ancient civilizations were always seen as portals of energy that would transmit life energy forces between land and heaven. Mountains in Korea have been known to provide famous figures with enlightenment or certain acts of wisdom and clarity. Korean mountain names normally depict some astounding act of spiritual achievement―a far cry from the names of mountains in the West, which are now normally named after the first pioneers who saw them, replacing any anthropomorphic
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meaning they once had with an imperialistic identity. Korean mountains served as guardian spirits, forming the origin of Korea’s oldest folk religion, San-shin. There is, of course, the mythological father Dangun (said to have founded the kingdom of Gojoseon in 2333 BC) and the sacred mountain of Taebaek on which he was conceived. In addition, there are many more legends and stories on Korean mountains that dance around the festivals of Korea. The unique topography of Korea was always going to give it a sense of lifebreathing immortality. Indeed, the mountains of Korea were once revered as an animistic energy source of vitality. The peninsula's main mountain system―the 1,400km Baekdu-daegan, which begins at Korea’s highest and most sacred mountain Mt. Baekdu-san (2,744 m) in North Korea and ends at Cheonhwang-bong (1,915 m) in Mt. Jirisan―has for an unknown period of time been depicted as a spine of important energy that transmits its vitality through the Korean landscape via its subsidiary ridges and spurs, like a giant central nervous system. To worship its mountain spirits (San-shin), peaks and energy lines meant to allow an unimpeded flow of energy that would sustain the villagers with good water and crops. In the late 9th century, master monk Doseon-guksa elevated this tradition, documenting it as Pungsu-jiri and outlining the peninsula as a myriad of energy lines. He incorporated the geomantic theory of Chinese feng shui, but maintained the unique Korean shamanistic mannerisms of magical life-giving energy forces. Indeed, even the occupying Japanese forces noticed the admiration the Koreans had for mountain energy and made numerous attempts to snuff its circulation by impaling iron spikes along its crests―such spikes can still be seen at Beopgye-sa Temple in Mt. Jirisan. The complete overtone of Korean mountain history, combining shamanism, Taoism, Buddhism, San-shin, Dangun, Pungsu-jiri, and ancient folk stories and legends of Korea, can still be seen and found along the crests of the Baekdu-daegan and all of its sibling ridges that amass in the topography of this peninsula. They say that to walk these energy lines is to encompass oneself in the ancient supernatural energy of this land.
why Korea? Was it this force? I knew Korean mountain scenery was incredible. I knew that it was possible to walk endlessly from ridge to ridge, spur to spur, temple to temple, pass to pass, without having to worry about fences, private property, irate landowners, nasty dogs, drugged criminals, wild animals or life-threatening diseases---all the while taking in mesmerizing mountain landscape that housed great rural folk, monks, shamans, Taoists, hermits, foragers, alchemists, artisans, hikers, and so on and so on. But what I did notice over time, especially with the Buddhist monks, was this overwhelming instantaneous conviction that they believed I possessed Inyeon (인연, 因緣).
Over the Mountain is a Mountain Inyeon is a kind of fate or destiny. The monks said I was “more-so reincarnated,” meaning it was my fate to be back here, and that my mountain walk was a search for my Inyeon or passage. One Taoist master said my walking was a kind of intensive meditation. I would politely laugh at these suggestions, but my journey became richer and richer with this wild notion, adding a higher dimension to long-distance hiking. The same expression, Inyeon, was used over and over with different people I met. I began paying attention and started tying my Inyeon in with the
energy of the Baekdu-daegan, the first ridge I walked in South Korea. Had the energy of the Baekdu-daegan captured me? Had its arterial magic absorbed its way through the soles of my boots, spreading through my own energy system, slowly transfusing into me? Was I on some crazy supernatural quest like an old Chinese Hermit? True to the Korean expression san neomeo san― meaning “over the mountain is a mountain”―I walked over one mountain to another, wanting to know if my fate was on the other side, the beautiful landscape consuming me bit by bit. Was there a name or term for all this wandering? Embodied, it is called Korean Mountain Culture; it was this that stole me away, that tapped my inner fate. It is the true magical identity of this country, a landscape that is given meaning and breath through mountain worship, a kind of ancient environmental awareness that predates recent industrialization and Westernization. Subsequently, Korea’s anguish, or han (한, 恨), over the past century has been a pattern of one injustice after the other, slowly polluting this mountain culture identity. Can Korea recover its unique mountain energy identity in a partnership with modernization? Does it want to? I know it can, and I know it does, because its energy is still infused in its mountains and in its people. It is in their Inyeon. They just need to keep walking the mountains, to keep going. It’s in their blood.
Inyeon So had I unknowingly incorporated this energy? Was this why I had become fixated on the Korean Mountain? I was well aware of other great parts of this world that contained amazing mountain scenery, so 1
1. Shamans on Mt. Taebaeksan 2. “Sansin-je” spring water purifying festival
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Worshippers at Cheonje-dan altar on Mt. Taebaeksan 24 SEOUL June 2010
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