Korea is a predominantly Buddhist country, and I often find myself bumping into monks decked in traditional gray cotton garb in the most mundane of settings (a monk had to nudge me once because I was sitting on the sleeve of his robe without realizing it!) The beauty of the Buddhist faith is that it invites people from all religions to come and find similarities in Buddhism that mirror those highlighted in their own faith. Point in case: the temple stay.
This past weekend, Shaina, Amanda and I set out for Golgulsa Temple, a Buddhist temple famed for it's very accessible (meaning they have a monk who speaks ENGLISH!) temple stay program. Temple stays are a means to dip a toe in Buddhism; to test the waters, so to speak. For however long you pay for, you can sleep, eat, chant, pray and essentially coexist with the resident monks to get a crash course in Buddhism. There is no quicker way to learn the tenets of an ancient religion than to shadow someone who devotes their every waking moment to its practice.
2 subway lines and 3 bus rides got us to Golgulsa's gates at around 4:30pm, and with Korea's temperatures plummeting into the 20s and below in the evening, our cups of green tea were clattering around on their saucers as we tried to warm up in the main office. It was 40,000 won for 2 days and 1 night of Buddhist life- a bargain when you consider you get all your meals included, tea time, exercise classes and a place to sleep.
A hollow wooden gourd is tapped to signal the beginning of prayers and meal times, so we were delighted to hear the "tap tap-tap-tap" sounding off at 5:30p.m. Luckily, my one prior experience with Buddhist dining at Dhongwasa temple prepared me for the meal. Buddhists believe in moderation, so eating is simply a ritual to fuel the body. So what does that mean? That means that you better elbow your way in front of all those little bald men or there won't be any tofu left! A Buddhist meal is typically finished in under 30 minutes and you are REQUIRED to eat every bit of what you serve yourself. And I mean every. bit. If you leave even a single grain of rice behind, the women behind the counter who prepared the meal are likely to swat you with a ladle and you will be sentenced to bowing punishment by the Grand Master (the big daddy monk in residence). And let me tell you- bowing is no joke! 1 bow is actually a complicated series of kneeling and placing your forehead on a mat three times in succession and punishment bows are prescribed in the thousands. For example: you are late to chanting- that's 3,000 bows, please. I'm sure you are scoffing and saying to yourself "yeah right, like someone would actually do that many bows." Let me attest: it's real! It generally takes anywhere from 13-18 hours for a 3,000 bow punishment to be completed (and punishment bows can go higher than 8,000!!) I was never late... to anything!
See?
After our meal of tofu, kimchi, rice, slivered onions, sesame spinach and red bean dok (rice cake), we had to get changed and walk in the arctic, thought-obliterating cold to sunmudo training, which is Buddhist martial arts. 90 minutes of it. The training began with chanting for 1/2 an hour. Unfortunately, it was all in Korean, so I mouthed some of the sounds but I haven't the faintest what I was saying. Following chanting is meditation, the most important aspect of Buddhism. When I asked one of the monks what the most important principle behind Buddhism is, he told me it is to know yourself. That sounds pretty spacey, but it has to do with the fact that until you know yourself through and through, you cannot hope to connect with the divine at all because baser human inclinations like pride, anger, lust etc. would interfere (sound familiar?). Meditation is used to quiet your mind so you can get beneath all that and realize that every single human being is the same, and all of our struggles in life are completely self-imposed.
I'd like to tell you that something miraculous happened and that I had a true moment of zen huddled on the cold wooden floors of the training room. I could lie and say that the heavens parted, and infinite wisdom and peace rained down upon me in my supreme meditative state and that I awoke enlightened. But no. I sat there for another half hour, shaking from the cold, muttering in my mind over a numb butt and lower back pain and worrying when I would next get an opportunity to go pee before this running and jumping martial arts business started up. (As a side note, I asked the Sunmudo master what he does to combat the stiff back that sitting cross-legged on a hard floor will give you and he said with a huge, endearing smile: "Why, I sit on my couch, of course.") Once the actual Sunmudo began it was 9pm. We began with light stretching (one of the moves was to rub your belly and smile!) before channeling animal movements into our exercises: running around smacking your knuckles on the ground like a chimp, slithering on the floor like a dragon and running on all fours like a tiger. And then we played leap frog! Quite possibly the BEST game of leap frog ever! There were 2 monks present among all the temple-stay participants and they were vaulting over people, laughing uproariously and acting like children. Once sunmudo was finished, we had to bundle back up and traverse the vertical, hellish hill to our room, which housed 6 people. It was Korean style, meaning we slept on a few blankets on the floor, but we all tried to go to bed as quickly as possible because.... here's the clincher.... monks get up at 4 IN THE MORNING!! Apparently, that's when the cosmos begin to jive. CLICK HERE for a video of some of the chanting.
None of us slept though. The wooden building was creaking like a haunted house all night and the gale force winds were seeping through the rice paper coverings on the doors. And the wind chime. OH the wind chime... I wanted to rip it from the rafters and chuck it into the woods, but I didn't want to be smote by Buddha or anything, so we all lay there listening to clanging metal bits and groaning floorboards until 4a.m. rolled around and a junior monk came chanting around our building, knocking on the same wooden gourd. Buddhist courtesy wake-up call. Chanting and meditation lasted for an hour and a half, and it was a comical juxtaposition: bleary-eyed, shivering foreigners, poised stiffly on the floorboards, glancing obsessively at the clock ticking away the seconds next to these serene little mounds of gray robes with bald heads poking out, oblivious to the temperature and the time; happy to be there. Oh, and since Buddha traveled the world with a dog at his side, there are all these husky-type dogs (a specific breed in Korea known as the Jindo) walking around next to the monks, acting just as zen. They had their own pillows in the temple and were sprawled out, relaxing among the fog of incense and trance-inducing chanting.
Breakfast was at 5:50 after walking meditation (outside!). Because it was Sunday, we were allowed to observe and participate in Balwoo-gongyang: the traditional 4 bowl meal that Buddhists use to promote mindfulness when eating. The bowls come to you stacked within one another like Russian nesting dolls. You have a rice bowl, soup bowl, vegetable bowl and water bowl. At the beginning of the meal, a splash of water is poured into the rice bowl and you use it to rinse out each bowl before the food is put in BUT you don't throw the water out: you keep it in the water bowl. The ultimate point of the meal is to clean your bowls so there is not a single particle of food left over in your bowl once the meal has finished. You are supposed to savor and appreciate every facet of the meal from the work that went into producing the food, to chewing to reveling in the sensation of being full at the end. It's a simple meal of rice and vegetables, and at the end, a junior monk will give you some hot water to wash out your rice bowl. You take a piece of kimchi (you are supposed to save 1 piece for this exact purpose) and scrub the bowls clean using the kimchi and chopsticks. Moving the water form bowl to bowl, you clean each one until you have some hot water with a few spices floating in it at the end. You drink this and eat the piece of kimchi. Rinse one last time with the cold water form the water bowl. A junior monk comes around and collects this cold water into a large bucket and brings it for inspection to the grand master. If the water is as clean as when it was first doled out, then the meal was a success. Many of the temple stay participants messed up and had dirty bowels or drank the water because they forgot how to correctly dispose of it- but I did the whole thing correctly! After the ceremonial breakfast meal we had tea time with one of the monks (an opportunity to discuss Buddhism and meet each other) and walked around the temple grounds until it was time for lunch. Too pooped to linger for much longer, we decided to head back home after lunch.
Walking through the countryside, trying to find Golgulsa Temple. The moment you get outside a major city, Korea becomes extremely rural. We were traipsing through rice paddies and persimmon orchards until we finally found a big wooden sign with a leftward-facing swastika, the Buddhist symbol of eternity, unity and looove.
This is a Jindo, a breed of dog only found in Korea. They were everywhere!
Rubbing the Buddha belly for luck.
:)
Our accommodations. Men on the ground floor, women above.
Rice paper walls DO NOT do a good job of keeping freezing wind out. Let's add something to the list of "things I miss": drywall and insulation.
6 girls to a room. Traditional Korean style with mats for the floor. Our floor heater did not work very well, so we were freezing the whole night.
Sunmudo training.
If you didn't pay attention, the penalty was a roundhouse kick to the face! Just kidding, but the monks were sparring. So cool to watch.
UPDATE ON PEPERO DAY:
So much for banning Pepero day, Maegok was awash in Pepero wrappers by the time class let out. I ate every single pepero I was given and had the best sugar high of my life that evening. here are some pic of some of my first graders, pepero in-hand.
Note the flu masks.
Juliet- the cutest 1st grader EVER!
p nut
ReplyDeletewe can see you at the monk "resort" better you than us
miss u love u
mom & dad