A. Introduction

Everyone is welcome to freely visit a Korean Buddhist temple at almost any time. In order to make a more pleasant visit, we have put together this information for you. When you tour a temple, please enjoy the beauty of these treasuries of culture, the homes of people seeking spiritual understanding, and places where Buddhism is taught and practiced. As temples vary enormously we decided to put the information about temples into sections rather than to write a guided tour. Thus it can also be used as reference material for reading the other sectionsof the book. We have used a variety of sources and tried our best to make the data accurate. Sources include the information boards in front of temples, Korean Buddhism, a compendium printed for the 1988 Olympics, and an article by Greta Diemente Sibley, Who's Who in Korean Iconography. We hope that you find it all useful.

There is a way to make your visit more enjoyable. Although Buddhists suffer from the normal human failings, they do try to live up to the ideals of the Buddha who taught a way of life, philoso-phy or religion -- depending on the way you look at it -- based on taking total responsibility for oneself and behaving with total tolerance towards others. Thus the monks and nuns who live in the temples try to be tolerant and open-minded, living to the best of their ability. In order for harmony to prevail, there are a few restrictions...