Some of the Buddhist temples in Korea allow people to stay overnight, or for many nights, to learn about Buddhism, meditate, chant, and practice other Buddhist activities. With a group of 10 other Pohang foreigners, I stayed at a temple about an hour away. For myself, as well as most of my group, I wanted to learn more about the religion, have an opportunity to have real conversations with Buddhists, and experience a side of Korean culture that has been distant from the modern-day Korea I live in. And for $50, I got just that.
It ended up feeling a bit like summer camp, only instead of sleeping in cabins, we slept in temples. And instead of eating unexciting camp food, we ate unexciting Buddhist food. Instead of singing campfire songs, we chanted prayers. And instead of intertwining God and Jesus into each camp activity, we intertwined the Buddhist principles of inner-peace and proper breathing in everything we did.
The temple stay started at 2pm with a lesson in archery. We were given instructions on how to properly hold and shoot the bow and arrow by a Polish girl who is, I'm assuming, living and volunteering there. I had done archery in the past at the two summer camps I used to frequent as a child, but I learned something new about shooting a bow and arrow. Our arrows were not tipped with sharp arrowheads, but rather with rounded butts. Our Polish instructor explained that if the arrow bounces off the target, that means our breathing was wrong. Only if we breathe properly will the arrow sever the target and stick. Out of the 6 or 7 of my arrows that actually made contact with the target, only one stuck. So clearly I need to work on my breathing.
Afterwards, we watched a performance of Sunmudo, which is considered a meditative martial art. Though it can be used as self-defense, it seems to be more used for personal growth and balance, literally and figuratively. Like everything else, proper breathing is absolutely crucial while practicing Sunmudo, and many moves require big leaping movements that end in perfectly still landings. It reminded me a little bit of yoga, capoiera, tai chi, and tae-kwon-do mixed together.
We then went for a hike up the hill to an engraving of Buddha in the side of a rock that dates back to some time between the 7th and 9th centuries. We continued on through the hills and forest. Although most of the trees have lost their leaves, the maples were still fully clothed and showing oranges and reds about as vibrant as autumn colors come. One fellow in our group asked a monk that day why temples are usually up in the hills. The monk answered that it is because once you walk up that hill to reach the temple, your body and mind are tired, and you are less likely to possess strong feelings, thoughts, and emotions that can disrupt your inner peace.
For dinner, we ate a traditional meal of rice, kimchi, vegetables, and soup. Buddhists are vegetarian, so this meal contained no meat, or any animal product that I'm aware of. We served ourselves and were asked that we not waste any food at all.
After dinner, we were given instruction in Sunmudo. One of the monks had us start with warm-ups, stretches, and the most bizarre exercises my body had gone through. Some of the exercises were quite strenuous, and that was just during the warm-up. Then we stood up and practiced some punching and kicking moves. Most required very quick movements, too quick for most of us to keep up with. At one point we had to do four rapid-fire punches followed by one powerful punch. I couldn't help but laugh at the entire row of people in front of me who were struggling to punch quickly enough so they all just jiggled their rear-ends four times with their fists out in front of them, and then punched once.
We all retired to our rooms at the early time of 9pm, which was a good thing since we woke up at 4am for early morning chants and meditation. Surprisingly though, nobody seemed cranky to be awake at such an early time and walking up a steep hill in the cold to chant words that meant nothing to us. We arrived in the dimly lit temple where a few monks were seated on cushions in the front, facing the large Buddha on the front wall. We all took seats on cushions behind them, with women on the left side of the room and men on the right. We had been taught the night before how to bow, which required getting down on your knees, placing your forehead on the ground, and making certain movements with your arms, then standing back up. They provided us with laminated cards with the words of each chant so we could chant with everyone, and we began, constantly bowing and standing and bowing and standing, and chanting to the beat of the head monk who kept a steady tempo on a wooden hand drum.
Oh the hand drum! Understandably necessary, as we need to chant to the same tempo together. But unnecessarily LOUD. So loud that each whack of the drum pounded my ear drums. I tried to ignore it. I thought to myself:
Inner peace... inner peace... breathing... BANG! BANG! BANG! Ugh, ok, inner peace... inner - BANG! BANG! Roman, ignore it, focus on happy things... peaceful things... pea - BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! I want to steal that drum and smash it into tiny pieces and grab the monk by the shoulders, shake him, and scream, 'YOUR INCESSANT DRUMMING IS SO OBNOXIOUS!'
Luckily for myself and everyone in the temple, the drumming ended and we were able to have about 20 minutes of silent meditation. The point of meditation is to clear your mind of everything and think of nothing. Obviously this is easier said than done. One of our instructors told us that a good thing to do to not think is to focus on our breathing, count each breath up to 10, then count down to 1, then back up and so on. Another monk told us to focus on feeling the air moving through our nostrils and brushing past our upper lip. So I focused on these things. I could probably count three or four breaths before my mind would wander. But even focusing on our breathing is thinking, so I'm not sure how that clears our heads. I decided if I was going to inevitably think, I might as well think of good things. So I did.
Breakfast was quite an ordeal. Dinner was a very casual occasion, but breakfast required the most rigid and stressful procedure of the weekend. Everything needed to be done a certain way, from the placement of each of our four bowls and utensils, the cleaning of our bowls before and after eating, the way we accepted our food from the servers, the fact that we had to eat EVERY SINGLE MORSEL of food, and we had to eat it quickly. When we finished eating, someone came around and poured hot water in one of our bowls. We had to use a piece of kimchi to scrub that bowl, then pour the water into the next bowl and scrub, then into the next bowl and so on. After scrubbing all of our bowls, we were to drink the water and eat the piece of kimchi. It wasn't too bad, and was extremely resourceful! Having to eat every morsel of food is a good practice, something we should all be more conscious of in our own eating habits.
The final event of the temple stay was tea and conversation with one of the monks who spoke English. I was very much looking forward to this so I could ask some questions and learn more about the religion, but unfortunately the combination of the monk's accent and the reverb/echo of the large room made it very hard for me to hear him or anybody else speaking. I could make out about 50% of the words, which made for a frustrating and boring hour. Oh well, I'm told from my friends who could hear that I didn't miss much.
I'm glad I finally did a temple stay. It is considered one of those essential activities that foreigners should do in Korea, so now I can scratch that from my bucket list. It was educational, it was slightly challenging at times, and though it did not draw me closer to the religion, it did motivate me to reflect on my current life, think positively, and think about the moment and not worry so much about the past and future.
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| One of the monks demonstrating Sunmudo. |
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| We were required to wear these fashionable yellow vests and baggy grey pants during our stay. |
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| Many of the statues looked like this. |
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| The monk who led the tea and conversation time. |
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| The 1100 - 1300 year old carving of Buddha. |
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| Practicing for the Hunger Games. |
