Buddhist Boot Camp Pt 2

After we talked with the monk, we made our "Dream Pouchee", or dream pouch. The Koreans are really big on "dreams", and a very common question is "What is your dream?" It's kind of like the American version of "What do you want to be when you grow up?", except it's not just for kids. Anyways, they gave us this pouch, and all we really did was to string the tie through the top so that you could pull it closed. This, however, required a diagram on the board and several people walking around to help. After we had made the pouch, we were supposed to write our "dream" on a small card, and put it in the pouch and close it. We also had to put our names on the outside of the pouch so no one's would get mixed up. Then after everyone had finished and put their dream pouches in their pockets ("Keep it close!"), they taught us how to bow.

You start with 'hapjong', or standing straight, with your feet together, and your hands in front of you in a praying type position. Keeping your back straight, you then bend your knees until you are in a kneeling position. Then cross your feet, keeping your knees together, and put your head down to the floor. Move your hands to the side of your face near your ears, first putting them palm down and turn them palm up, and then palm down again. Then sit back up with your back straight and put your hands back into the hapjong position. Uncross your feet, and without using your hands, push off your knees back into a standing position. This is generally repeated a minimum of 108 times.

After we finished the pouches, around 9:30, we headed outside into the freezing cold and walked up a rather steep side of a mountain to the Jeokmyulbogung, another building on the premises. When we got to the top of the mountain, there were strings of lotus lanterns all lit up towards the building.



When we got inside, we were instructed that we would be doing the 108 bows. The first 50 would be done together to the beat of an instrument, and then afterward we could do the rest at our own pace. I was able to do about 25 or so before my knees started to protest, so after that I simply bowed at the waist each time they hit the bell. I stopped bowing all together after the first 50, but about half the people there completed all 108.



After the bowing, we were taken part way back down the hill to where we were sleeping, the girls in one room and the boys in another. It was traditional yo, which is mats, or in our case blankets, on the floor. They gave us whole warm baked potatoes for a bed time snack, and asked us to have the lights out by 10pm, as we were to get up at 3am to start the next day.


Usually sleeping on the floor isn't that bad because of the ondol, or under-floor heating. It actually makes for cozy sleeping arrangements when it's cold outside. It is not cozy, however, when you have the ondol turned up all the way, and the floor is so hot that it burns you if you touch it with your bare skin. And so this was the way I fitfully tried to sleep through the night, already having a pretty bad cold made worse by going in and out of the cold air and warm buildings. They came and woke us up at 3am, saying that we needed to be at the Bubundang building at 3:30 for the "dawn devotional chanting". I was in no condition to wake up, and respectfully asked if I could skip the yebul (chanting) and wake up in time for the breakfast. I was allowed to go back to sleep, which was rather hard considering they didn't turn down the heat at all and I was sweating in my bed. Everyone came back around 5:45 after meditation and chanting (which I'm glad I missed, because apparently there was a considerable amount of bowing as well). We walked back down to the Heungnungwon building for a traditional Temple-style breakfast, called Balwoo Gongyang. The sun was just coming up.


We had to watch a video before we ate that showed us the proper way to eat the food. There is a specific order that you have to undo the bowls and napkins that you are given, and a very specific way to eat your food. You only take what you will eat, as it is an insult to the people that made the food for you not to finish. You also have to clean your bowls when you are finished, with a yellow radish, and then eat the radish, otherwise that's wasted as well. They're pretty strict about eating everything you take, they actually walked around the room and made several people finish their food that really didn't feel up to it.



After a silent, regimented, and rather unappetizing breakfast, we were allowed free time for an hour. Most of us slept. Then we made lotus lanterns, which was actually quite fun, and made for a lovely decoration for my apartment when I got home.



After we finished the lanterns, we hung them outside to dry, and then headed back up to the Yaksajeon to make bowing beads. We were each given a small plastic bag with string, and 109 beads inside. We had to melt the ends of the string and pull it to a point so we could put the beads on it. Then we were supposed to do one bow for each bead we put on. They said that if you couldn't do one for each, you could do two or three beads for each bow, but no more than 5 at a time. So you bow (from standing to kneeling and then standing again), and then kneel down and put one bead on the string. Then stand up and do it again.


I did my beads 5 at a time.


I counted them carefully each time I put them on the string, but after counting the whole thing three times, I only had 107 beads. So I had to go ask for one more. After everyone had finished putting their beads together, the monk that had talked to us the day before came back and spoke to us again, thanking us for taking part in the program, and saying that he was happy that we all participated fully and hoped we had a good time. Then we followed him around the room about 6 times, chanting vowel sounds, and then we hung our dream pouches on the wall (you can see them in this picture behind the monk).


When we had all finished, we headed outside for a group photo with the monk.



Then we were done, so we headed back to the main building to change into our own clothes, and get on the bus. The people that I went with were pretty tired, and once we'd gotten back to 'civilization', it was a unanimous vote to go for coffee before getting on the subway to go back home to a hot shower and a real bed.

I definitely recommend a temple stay to anyone who wants to be convinced that they never want to become a Korean monk. Or if you want to exercise your knees. Or if you enjoy getting up before the sun. Or if you like a militant environment in the guise of a restful retreat. Otherwise, just enjoy the temples as a tourist. :)

Buddhist Boot Camp Pt 1

I signed up a few weeks ago to go to a Buddhist Temple Stay. This is a program that the multiple temples around South Korea have started to allow people who are interested in learning more about Buddhism and the life of a monk to experience it first hand. Although most of the larger temples have a Temple Stay program, only a few allow a single person to make a reservation, and quite a few more require 15 or more people and a week's notice.

One of my friends suggested that we go as a group with Adventure Korea, so about 7 of us signed up for a trip to Bubheungsa (법훙사). Since the temple is in the province to the east of us, and about a 3 hour drive from Seoul, we had to catch the bus at 9:30am on Saturday (meaning that I had to be on the subway by 8am, so on a bus to get to the subway by 7:30 am). I was able to take the metro with Kathryn, one of the girls I'd met at my Wednesday night dinners, and one of the people I'm going to Japan with.

There were 30 people on the trip, and we all got to the temple with nothing exciting happening on the way. We did arrive at the temple about an hour early, so our guides brought us to a nearby river, where we walked up the side of a mountain to get a better view, and found a pagoda and buddhist rock carving.

(Dayna, Vincent, Maria, Kathryn, me)

We then wandered down to the river, which had some really cool stones that had been eroded from the elements.

(Lauren, me, Kathryn, and Dayna)

When we got to the temple around 3pm, we were given a white shirt and navy pants to change into (they called it a training suit), a key to a cupboard to keep our stuff, and a name tag. The girls changed in one room, while the boys changed next door, none of us realizing at the time that the rooms were a sliding paper door apart from each other.

(me and Dayna posing zen style, with our cupboards and a vacuum behind us)

During the orientation in this same room, we learned about proper manners in the temple, and a little bit about the temple itself. It was a little difficult to follow, because our guide only spoke Korean, so every sentence or so was translated by another guide, whose vocabulary was excellent, but whose accent was a bit hard to decipher. We were also give a temple stay schedule, which is the only reason I'm able to remember the order and times that we did everything! (They stuck to the schedule almost exactly.)

At 4:20, we did walking meditation in the "Forest for enlightening Intelligence". Walking meditation is simply walking VERY slowly, and concentrating only on the act of walking, and not thinking about anything. This is much more difficult than it seems. It looks, to a casual observer, like a mourners' procession, since everyone is supposed to be walking silently and slowly, with their head bowed and hands crossed.

One of the hard parts was not thinking about anything except your walking. We walked for about half an hour, but didn't really get that far. That's a long time to think about nothing but your feet. The other hard part was, oddly enough, the walking itself. You had to walk slowly, but continuously. So you actually spent quite a bit of time balanced on one foot with the other in the air, on it's way to the next step. Quite a few people stumbled on their first step because they were so unused to the balance required to walk like this.

After the walking meditation, we had dinner in the dining hall around 5pm. The meal itself wasn't half bad. We were told ahead of time that any food we served to ourselves had to be eaten - we weren't allowed to have leftovers, as this was rude to the people who had spent time preparing the meal. We also had to wash our own plates and silverware, and return them to where we got them from.

After dinner we had Yebul, which is a devotional chanting. We pretty much all sat in front of a large projection screen with a picture of one of the alters at the temple, while one of the monks chanted and beat a wooden-instrument. When she beat it three times, we were supposed to bow (which is a seven step process, and very hard on the knees), and when she beat it once, we were supposed to stand up.

After the chanting meditation, we took a freezing walk up the hill, where they showed us a bell that's wrung in the morning and at night. We were allowed to help ring the bell two at a time.


When we came back to the orientation building, we had hot tea with another monk, who told us a little bit about Buddhism and about the temple we were staying in. There was only time at the end for three questions.

Hot tea served in bowls

That's the life

I've spent the last week or so making both mental and physical preparations for two changes: I moved apartments (again), and both James and Cherita left to go home this weekend.

I suppose it's the nature of people who move to a foreign country to be a bit transient, but it makes it doubly hard when you've made a strong connection with someone who leaves to the opposite side of the world. The ex-pat community is very tight here, both in Uijeongbu and around the country. It's difficult to make the transition into a completely different culture, and having a network of like-minded people makes it both bearable, and enjoyable.

I never truly understood why there were places like Chinatown, or other equally concentrated areas of immigrants living near each other. I always felt that if you were going to live in another country, you should be making every possible effort to learn about the culture and not only immerse yourself in it, but become a part of it (without losing your own heritage of course). I always thought that areas like this made it harder for foreigners to become acclimated to their new home. I now completely understand why these communities exist. Though you may have made a vow to become as enlightened and immersed as possible in your new culture, you will never really be an integral part of it. You will cling to your heritage and your culture, as much as you yearn to understand your new one. This can only be done successfully if you have a support system of people from your native country who not only hold the same general beliefs (and accents) that you do, but at the same time are open enough to want to experience as much of the new culture as they can.

So when the biggest part of my support system left me halfway though my contract, I feel like a large chunk of me has left with them. Though I have made several other friends here (two of which I'm going to Japan with. Wohoo!), the daily contact and closeness acheived with a coworker won't be easily replaced.

That having been said - I love my new apartment! It has a couch!!