Haedong Yonggungsa Temple

This guide to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple in Busan traces a promise across six centuries, from a wandering monk named Naong, who dreamed the Sea God told him to build on these cliffs in 1376, to a temple burned by Japanese forces in the 1590s and left in ruins for over three hundred years. It follows a 1930s rebuilding effort and then a monk named Jeongam, who sat in meditation on this clifftop for a hundred days in 1974 chasing what Naong had left unfinished. The one hundred eight steps down to the sea are said to each represent an earthly craving to shed before reaching the water.