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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. Wi th
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.
 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
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.
 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
why Korea? Was i t 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,
especial ly wi th 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. |
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| - The article courtesy of Seoul magazine |
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