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Published: July 25th 2012
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I have been wanting to go on a temple stay for ages now, and I finally got the chance to go one weekend recently. The opportunity came from a temple in the north of Busan that runs cultural events for foreigners, and this was their annual temple stay. So on Saturday afternoon, I exchanged my jeans for a pair of the baggy grey monk equivalent, and set about trying to find enlightenment in the space of 19 hours.
After going through a brief introduction to Buddhism and the different types of bows, we headed down to the dining hall for our evening meal. Buddhist monks have a couple of big rules that you should know about when it comes to eating. Firstly, they're veggies. Secondly, they don't let any food go to waste. What you put on your plate, you eat. Which is a pretty good rule I think, you are in control of how much you put on your plate - so just make sure you don't put too much on! I, as usual, foolishly loaded my plate with food, completely disregarding the fact that Korean food isn't exactly my cup of tea, and even worse than that decided
to be brave with the kimchi and stack a handful of that on too. I instantly regretted that on my first bite. Some kimchi is tolerable, this wasn't. Still, I managed grit my teeth and get it all down. Your dining set contains four bowls: one for your rice, one for your soup, one for your sidedishes, and one for water to clean it with. After you have finished your food, you wash the first bowl using a yellow radish, and pour the water into the next bowl and repeat the process until all your bowls are clean. Then, in the spirit of not wasting any food, you eat the radish and drink the cleaning water. Now I know this doesn't sound too pleasant (and is probably a reason why you've never seen a monk win Masterchef), but it's all a matter of perspective. We think of the water as dirty water, but in reality it is just what you have previously been eating - there is nothing dirty about it. I found that an interesting take on things, it's good to look outside the box like that sometimes. Having said that I haven't drunk the washing up water once
since then.
Later in the evening we sat down for a meditation session with the high monk. I was feeling a bit guilty as I had just scoffed down a sandwhich that I had brought along with me (as I knew I was going to be hungry after dinner), and was thinking that I wasn't really entering into the spirit of things. Well I felt guilty until the head monk brought his iPad along to meditation. If he can bring an iPad to meditate, I can bring a tuna sandwhich to dinner and not feel bad about it! I was pretty excited about this meditation session, as I have never meditated before and wondered what all the fuss was about. He didn't speak English, so we had a translator, and unfortunately his English wasn't quite up to the challenge. He asked us all in turn what our passion was right now, by which I think he was trying to ask us how we were feeling. When we answered he translated back to the monk, who would then offer some advice. Someone said they were hungry, and he wisely told them to eat something. My girlfriend Courtney told him that
she had a bad cough, so he told her to think about the feeling in her throat. Now either she wasn't thinking hard enough or it was just a load of rubbish because she was coughing all weekend. I decided to save myself the embarassment and just tell him I was calm, not much he could advise me about there. It might have just been the bad translation, but I couldn't help feeling that any old person could have given out those pearls of wisdom...! Then came the meditation, where we were told to relax and concentrate on those feelings for ten minutes. I'm not sure if I was meditating or asleep, but I don't remember those ten minutes. Pretty sure I was just asleep. Overall it wasn't a great session, I felt like hadn't really learnt anything about meditation. After a bit of tea and fruit, we hit the hay around 10pm because it was going to be an early morning...
3.30am we were woken up for the morning ceremony. We dragged ourselves to the main temple, and watched the monks do their thing - chanting and hitting the wooden
moktak and bells. The haunting chant and sound
of the drum were exactly the kind atmosphere I had been looking for, and with it being so dark and quiet outside it was all the more magical. We did a lot of bowing there, and I thought that this was part of the 108 prostrations that I knew we were going to have to do. They finished what they were doing, and I figured I must have bowed at least 70 times - close enough I guess. Turned out that was just the warm up though, next came the real thing. And when I say bows, I mean full bows. Going from standing to on your knees with your head on the floor to standing again, without using your hands. 108 times. After 20 I was ready to give up but pushed on. It took me 4 days to be able to walk down stairs normally after that. This was my favourite part of the weekend though, I really felt like I was part of the experience here, not just watching it like a lot of other things.
After a walk, some weeding in the garden (apparently even weeding is Buddhism, but I think it was just a
sly way to get their lawn ready for summer), and making some prayer bracelets, it was time to head back. If I'm honest it was a bit of a disappointment. In my head, it was going to be a small group of us just chilling out with the monks, following them around their daily life and trying to join in. Instead, there was a big group and it really felt like we were just seeing a show put on for tourists. I'd love to do it again, but somewhere with a bit more of an authentic atmosphere...
As a side note, one of the guides (who I previously met and wrote about some of his prophecies...), came out with some more great stories. He told me that he recently spoke to a fortune teller who foretold that 'the female-dominated world that we live in today will change to a male-dominated world...in 2042'. I asked him what the big event in 2042 was, but he didn't know. So look out girls! He also claimed that America was founded by Koreans and that he cycled 50km in one hour that morning, so take it with a pinch of salt.
Ross
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Sophie
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Brilliant!
Another brilliant and hilarious story!! thanks for brightening up my day!! I've also tried meditation and fell asleep a lot!! Picturea are really incredible!! Can only imagine what its like being there!! I would definitly take riding 50km in an hr with a pinch of salt lol sounds like he might be exaggerating a tiny bit! lol keep up the fantastic work!! x