A Study on Facilitating Strategy for the Templestay Program at Guryongsa Temple in Mt. Chiak, Wonju, Gangwon-do: Focusing on Walking Meditation

Participants in a templestay walking meditation program at Guryongsa Temple in South Korea reported expectations and experiences organized into categories. Expectations fell into four areas: anticipated personal experiences, relationships with others, relationships between self and others, and the temple itself. Differentiating elements included the temple environment, natural surroundings that support meditation, and specialized programming. Experiences were categorized into five areas: the self, relationships with others, meditation, the temple, and Buddhism. The authors propose that these findings can inform the development of templestay walking meditation programs tailored to the temple's characteristics.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This study aims to take an in-depth look at the Guryongsa Templestay walking meditation experience targeting the templestay participants at Guryongsa Temple in Mt.Chiak and to examine how to utilize it. This study was analyzed by applying the method of consensus qualitative analysis (CQR: Consensual Qualitative Research. Hill,2011; Hill et al, 2005). The research question is as follows. First, what do you expect from Guryongsa Templestay walking meditation? Second, what is different about Guryongsa Templestay walking meditation? Third, what did you experience during the Guryongsa Templestay walking meditation? The research results are as follows. First, as a result of analyzing the expectations for Guryongsa Templestay, 10 categories were derived in 4 areas: ‘Expectations of the experiences I will have’, ‘Expectations of relationships with others’, ‘Expectations of relationships between myself and others’,‘Expectations of Guryongsa Temple’. Second, as a result of analyzing the differentiating elements of Guryongsa Templestay, six categories were derived from three areas: ‘differentiated temple environment’, ‘natural environment that promotes meditation’, and‘specialized program’. Third, as a result of the analysis of the experience at Guryongsa Templestay, 17 categories were derived in 5 areas: ‘Experience of ‘I’ ’, ‘Experience through relationships with ‘others’ ’, ‘Experience through ‘Meditation’ ’, ‘Experience of‘Guryongsa’ ’, ‘Experience of ‘Buddhism’’. The above results were discussed, and the results of this study are expected to contribute to providing basic data for the development of a Templestay walking meditation program suitable for the characteristics of Guryongsa Temple.