The following passage which I have translated is from the Korean book called “재미있는 우리 사찰의 벽화 이야기” or “Our temple’s interesting wall painting stories”. My goal is to translate as many of them as I can because I find this sort of thing interesting.

The artwork was photographed by myself at Jogyesa Temple in Seoul. All posts such as this one will be organized in the Buddhism category of this blog.

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The Life Work of Buddha

The Buddha is a historical person who lived with us in this world and experienced the four pains of the world. And he is in fact the founder of Buddhism. Furthermore, there are many stories about him and his teachings which are boundlessly big and wide. Accordingly, even on temples’ walls, his image is prominent.

Title: Evil soldiers try to move a water bottle

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Evil soldiers try to move a water bottle

Under a sacred fig tree, the prince sat with upright posture. He made a firm resolution that he would, by no means at all, leave his seat until attaining enlightenment.

So after painstaking work, the time of enlightenment was upon him.

Upper detail. Evil spirit soldiers crowding the prince.

The evil spirit soldiers knowing this, flocked to the prince’s side to prevent, with all kinds of bad acts, his enlightenment. However, there was no way they could interrupt the prince’s self-discipline.

The prince stood a small water bottle in front of his lap and he spoke to the frenzied crowd of evil spirit soldiers.

“Try to move this bottle. In the case that you all can move the bottle, according to your intent, I will give up on the attainment of enlightenment, however, in the case that you all cannot move the bottle, according to my intent, you must immediately retreat and not try to interrupt my attainment of enlightenment.”

Lower detail. Evil spirit soldiers use a rope to try to move the water bottle.

The evil spirit soldiers thought it just one trivial water bottle and each grappled with it with their hands to move it but the water bottle didn’t even budge.

So the next time, a rope was tide around the bottle and a great many evil spirit soldiers pulled together all at once but the water bottle, as always, didn’t even budge. Then the frightened evil spirit soldiers stealthily turned tail and ran away.