My Life as a Buddhist Monk
Name: Bulguksa
Architect: Unknown
Date: ~774 C.E
Materials: Wood on Stone Terrace
Location: Gyeongju, Gyeongsangbuk-do
I may have been a Buddhist monk in another life. My parents were raised in Buddhist families, as have many Koreans, but we’ve migrated as a nation to globalized technology and a powerhouse of semiconductor manufacturing. But maybe, if the miracle on the Han River never happened, I wouldn’t be writing this blog. Maybe, I would be sitting on one of the intricately carved stone terraces of the Bulguksa Temple in Gyeongju, meditating and seeking enlightenment. Seeing ancient Korean architecture like this, which serves as time capsules and remnants of a forgotten past, gives me a nostalgic feeling as to how my life might have been different if I were born in another time.
I’ve always been interested in liminal spaces, because I have a strong sense of nostalgia even for places I’ve never been. When I see a long-abandoned school, playground, or waterpark, I can’t help but imagine the place at the height of its activity, with kids running around and the memories that they made. Where are those kids now? Do they even remember that place? But anyway, I think this also applies to historical buildings that used to serve as just everyday buildings for everyday people. For the Bulguksa Temple, what was once a praying site for Korean Buddhists has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is visited by countless tourists. Imagine the annex building becoming a national monument; that’s quite unimaginable. This isn’t to say that the Bulguksa Temple isn’t special, its architectural elements and historical symbolism most definitely are, but I think a lot of people see historic places as special and sacred areas, when they really were regular buildings in the past that just happened to be preserved until today.
So, the next time you see or visit a historic building, I think it’d be interesting if you did some research on what life was like for a regular person in the area and time period that the building was used for the purpose of a building, not a tourist attraction. Imagine you happened to be born as someone from that period in that area. What might your daily routine have been like? How would you have interacted with that building? Where would you hide if you had played hide and seek as a kid there? What food from the era would you have snuck in your pockets? It takes some imagination, but I think that’s a really cool way to experience history through architecture.
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