Temple Stay at Home: An Online Korean Templestay

A temple stay (templestay) is a program where you spend a day or two at a Korean Buddhist temple following its daily rhythm: the dawn service, the formal bowl meal, 108 bows, Seon (Zen) meditation and tea and conversation with a monk. Hapjang (합장) is Goyosa, an online temple in your browser, so you can try some of these at home in front of your screen, such as following the service, the bowl meal, 108 bows, breathing and shared work. It cannot replace actually sleeping, eating and living in a mountain temple, though.

Temple stay: Staying at a mountain temple and following its daily life (often one night, two days)
What you can try in Hapjang: Following the service, bowl meal, 108 bows, breathing, shared work, pagoda circling, sutra copying, ringing the bell
Clothing: You can choose Templestay clothes when you enter
Schedule: One Goyosa day ≈ 17 real minutes, with a dawn and an evening service each day
Cost: No sign-up or payment

What is a Korean temple stay?

Templestay is a program in which you stay at a temple in Korea and briefly share the flow of the monks' day. Every temple is different, but it often includes the dawn service (yebul), baru gongyang (the traditional temple meal eaten from nested bowls), 108 bows, Seon meditation, chadam (talking with a monk over tea) and ullyeok (shared work such as sweeping the courtyard).

Many temples welcome people of any religion or none, and programs are often split into rest-focused stays and structured experience stays. You wear practice clothes, go to bed and get up at set times, and put your phone away for a while.

How is Hapjang different from a temple stay?

A temple stay means physically going to a mountain temple and spending the night; Hapjang is a place to briefly follow a few scenes from that day at Goyosa, an original temple on your screen. The biggest difference is that you can stay right now, for five minutes or an hour, with no booking or travel.

In Hapjang, other people who are online right now are on the same grounds. Inside the temple grounds no one talks; you stay together through half bows and breathing together.

Which parts of a temple stay can you do at home in Hapjang?

Service: at 03:30 dawn and 17:40 evening (Goyosa time), follow the service in the hall with captions of the Chiljeongnye (Seven-Part Homage).
Bell: before the service the temple bell rings 28 times at dawn and 33 times in the evening. You can also ring the bell for a wish yourself once a day.
Bows: three bows and 108 bows on a cushion in the hall, counted to the beat of the moktak.
Meal: in the large room of the monks' quarters, follow the mindful bowl meal with four bowls in six steps.
Shared work: sweep the courtyard leaves together with everyone online as shared work.
Meditation: breathing on a cushion, and the slow walk on the forest path.
With the monks: sit silently beside a monk on the veranda with a cup of tea, or follow the elder monk in pagoda circling. See With the monks for more.

What can't you do online?

A screen can't replace a night's sleep at a mountain temple, eating real temple food, the sweat and breath of 108 bows with your own body, or the chill of mountain air at dawn. Hapjang also has no chadam, where you sit face to face and talk with a monk as in a real temple stay; there is only a place to sit silently beside a monk.

So Hapjang works better as a taste before a temple stay, or a way to keep going after one, than as a replacement. Once you are comfortable at home, visiting a temple stay at a temple near you is a good next step.

How do you prepare for a temple stay at home?

Earphones: the moktak, the temple bell and the stream are half the experience.
A cushion or chair: when you sit on a cushion on screen, sit up properly in real life too.
Notifications off: silencing your phone for a while keeps the feeling of being in a mountain temple.
Know the etiquette: it helps to read Korean temple etiquette and palms together, half bows and full bows beforehand.

Try it in Hapjang

When you enter, choose "Templestay clothes," start on the forest path, and walk in this order: half bow at the One-Pillar Gate → incense in the courtyard → three bows in the hall → service → bowl meal in the monks' quarters → shared work in the courtyard. What you do is marked with stamps in your Goyosa notebook, and since a Goyosa day lasts about 17 real minutes, staying that long takes you through both the dawn and evening services.

Enter the temple

Frequently asked questions

Can I do a temple stay online at home?

It can't replace a real temple stay, but in an online temple like Hapjang (합장) you can try parts of it in your browser, such as following the service, the bowl meal, 108 bows, shared work and breathing. There is no sign-up or payment.

What do you usually do on a Korean temple stay?

It differs by temple, but you commonly follow the monks' day through the dawn service, the bowl meal, 108 bows, Seon meditation, tea and conversation with a monk, and shared work.

Can I practice before going on a temple stay?

In Hapjang (합장) you can get familiar with the palms-together, half-bow and three-bow greetings, the order of the bowl meal, the rhythm of 108 bows and the direction of pagoda circling. Real temples each do things a little differently, so follow the guidance on site.

Can I talk with the monks in Hapjang?

No. You keep the monks company in Hapjang without words. You can share a cup of tea on the veranda, pagoda circling, shared work and walking to the moktak beside them, and receive a wrist mala once a day.

Last updated 2026-11-07