I have visited Magok-sa temple several times until now. In this time I found out the small secret of the gates of this temple.
As I had posted before, there was the order of the gates in the temple.
The first gate must be the one pillar gate indicating us “You are entering into the temple area”
The second gate is the 4 Heaven Kings protecting the periphery of the Buddhist paradise.
The third gate is the Geumgang gate protecting Buddha and his teachings.
The last gate is the Haetal man gate standing in front of the main hall of the temple, usually Daewung-geon.
Even though I had visited this temple several times before, I didn’t notice the order of the gate was changed.
The first gate was the one pillar gate, but the second gate was the Haetal man gate. And there was a woman praying in the Gate.
It used to be the 4 Heaven kings gate. Haetal mun is the last gate normally. And there was no Geumgang gate in this temple. But instead of Geumgang gate, the statues of Geumgangs were stood in the Haetal mun gate.
Interesting thing is Both Geumgang statues close their mouth. Usually one Geumgang warrior closes his mouth and the other Geumgang warrior opens his mouth. It is the sign of the begin and the end. But they are closing their mouth. It could be interpreted there are only the end without the begin. Does it make any sense ?
The other thing is Both gates of the Haetal and the 4 Heaven Kings are standing along the slightly different angles. Or both gate are not on the straight line. Usually in oriental society, especially in Buddhism, the straight line is not preferred to the curved line. Because of not straight arrangement of the gates, the road between the gates are curved slightly. It could be said the secret of the gates.
The autumn leaves between the gates were splendid
And the small piled stone stupas were on the ground between the both gates.
