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Published: September 15th 2008
Roxanne
You don't have to turn on the red light...Do you know who you are? Don’t know? It doesn’t matter. Just read on.
Choseok is a major 3 day holiday and one of the busiest times of year for travel in Korea, making it nearly impossible to get a train or bus ticket to any destination in the country. Luckily, after some grueling efforts and cut-throat demands from a Korean train station volunteer, I was able to score the last and only one way standing ticket to Gyeryong, where I would meet up with my sultry Scottish lassie, Laura, in our love motel where we could relish in a room of what would be our last taste of comfort and conversation for the entire weekend.
In Korea, for $35 a night, you can stay in a tasteful hotel with furnished rooms equipped with a big screen T.V, PC, large king sized bed with silk sheets, and, in our case, a library of domestic porn and fantasy toy machine in the hallway, where one can purchase a peach coloured dildo for $20 and a small cock ring with synthetic brown hair for $10, tallying up to not much more than the cost of the room.
Fantasy machine
Wha Wha Wha Wha Wha what's your fan ta ta see... This peculiar lewd, along with the red-lit hallway and room gave the impression that we were lodging in hooker hill, which in all likeliness was more than probable taking into consideration the escort business cards lined up like a poker game on the steps of the hotel entrance. What really topped off the night were not the erotic photos I snapped with Laura, but the sight of Sue Johanson in all her Sunday Night Sex Show glory. There’s something so satisfying about being in a foreign country and seeing a little piece of Canadian culture on the ‘big screen’. I caught the last couple minutes of the end credits and enjoyed it with intense pleasure.
The desk lady at Hooker Hotel was kind enough to drive us to the temple, where we would pay our $50 fee and proceed to the dressing room to be fitted in our traditional grey outfits which we would wear for the rest of our 30 hour stay. We were given a brief list of temple rules, highlighted with strict guidelines such as, “no mobile phones or communication devices. No outside reading material. No talking during or before breakfast. Bedroom lights off by
Up close & personal
What's your flavour? 9:20pm. Men and women should not go into each others rooms or go hiking together. Wake-up at 3am. No leaving the temple unless there is an emergency.” It was also noted that there would be a total of over 10 hours of Zen sitting. What had I gotten myself into?
After a brief orientation we were seated in the dining room of the dormitory building for a traditional Korean lunch of rice, soup, kimchi and mixed vegetables. The modus operandi of the repast was the most complicated part of the temple stay, as there was a very specific protocol to be carried out. Not to get into too much detail, I still hadn’t mastered the placing of the bowls or the folding of the napkin by the last supper, and I am still put off by the fact that you have to drink the dirty water that you clean the bowls with. Part of the Buddhist philosophy is to waste nothing. This particular branch of Buddhism also believes in practicing celebacy. That should have been my signal to call it quits before getting started.
5 minutes before the meditation session starts the Moktak is hit to
Sue Johanson on the tele
Sunday Night Sex Show with Sue... airs on a Friday night in Korea! signal everybody to get ready. The sitting period begins when the chug-pi is hit three times. For the first few hours of Zen sitting I tried, with all my earnest intent, to put into practice what we were taught. I struggled to sit with my back as straight as possible with my hands in the Mudra posture and my legs in the half-lotus. Our teacher offered to strike us on the back or shoulders with a wooden plank should we get fatigued, but I was not looking to get beaten on my relaxing fall holiday.
According to our teacher, when we take away all of our thinking, our true self appears. So I practiced breathing in, thinking “what am I?”, and breathing out, “I don’t know.” I was starting to feel this nothingness that is part of the process until my ADHD kicked in and forced me into a state of distraction. Laura, my better ¾, is somewhat of a Dharma disciple and with her pitch perfect posture, appeared as though she had escaped into a fantasy world of spiritual enlightenment and zenastic bliss. Slouched over my cocoa colored pillow examining the dirt under my fingernails, I was
The Zen room
Where the Zen sitting takes place
wishing I had memorized the lyrics to Annie’s song “I Know Your Girlfriend Hates Me” so that I could have put the words to the melody that repeatedly jingled in my head. My mind drifted to counting the Sino-Korean numbers 1-10 repeatedly until they flowed freely, 6, 7 and 8 being the most difficult continuation to smooth over. I kept looking behind me at the clock, than at the others, wanting nothing more than to give up, get up, and walk out the temple door to continue my life of undisciplined selfishness.
Day 2 began at 3am. I slowly arose to the soft beat of the ceremonial drum and the abbot chanting a verse of “The Four Great Vows.” I woke up haunted, not because I was sleeping on a wooden floor surrounded by 5 other monks, but because 3am, in my familiarity, is the devil’s hour. This is the time of morning when I would sometimes get frightening prank calls, awake from psychotic dreams, or, under extreme intoxication, my detrimental second personality would make a self-destructive appearance. The calming chant and hallow drum created an interesting paradox, and I came to realize that I was waking up
catching up on beauty sleep
an afternoon cat nap in the male dormitory. at an hour in which I would still be out terrorizing the citizens of Seoul on any occasional Saturday night.
Instead of Burger King hangover food, I would have to earn my rice porridge by completing a rigorous 3 hour routine of chanting, Zen meditation, and 108 bows. And these were'nt just any kind of bows. We’re talking back aching, painstaking prostration bows that nearly left me immobilized for the rest of the retreat. Laura effortlessly glided through her bows, probably imagining herself floating through candy-cane clouds, licking rainbow lollipops shaped like the Dharma. I couldn’t get my mind off food, and I remembered Laura had saved her sweet potato crème filled custard from Paris Baguette, which I would later try to bribe her for without success. Never having endured such an epic fast, I held my bony fingers in mudra, begging for an end to the suffering of my starvation.
During our 10 minute break at 4am, Laura and I sat outside the temple and looked up at the stars that were the brightest I had seen in years. I took a deep breath of the clean country air and absorbed the resonance of morning
The dining room
Where we eat our meals. The bowls are on the shelf to the left wrapped in a cloth. crickets and delicate nature sounds. “I hate it here,” I whispered to Laura. “I didn’t pay $50 to come to boot camp. I’d rather be in the army, at least I’d get to exercise while I suffer.” There was a beat, and looking off into the distant sky, she replied, “Do you think we are aliens?” she answered back with her hands in the hapchang position and probably still in a state of Zen. That was the most conversation we had during our stay at the temple.
Instinctively, I saw the temple stay as a romantic idea, where I would be making kimchi and participating in festive events, like rolling balls of sungpyeon (rice cake) in the spirit of Chuseok. I also saw it as a weekend of relaxed discipline, where I could freely attend the meditation sittings and activities at my leisure. Being a Seoulite, I am more familiar with the hustle and bustle of the congested big-city buzz than the silent and soothing existence of the templegoers. The silence, at times, was unbearable, especially during meals when we were all facing each other, but not compared to 3am wakeup call and endless Zen sitting, which had
The main building
dining hall, dormitories, etc me wanting nothing more than to be back at the hotel with the big screen T.V and plenty of mindless shows to surf through.
I had hoped that the temple stay would sand down my rough, anxious edges and transform me into some kind of spiritual immortal or stoic of virtue. Looking back, I may not have found this nothingness that is to be attained by the mind, nor have I found my true self but I did stay for the full retreat, I participated in all the activities, and I was able to look through a window into a culture that never would have existed in my mind had I not gone to the Chuseok retreat. I feel a humble sense of inspiration from these seemingly altruistic monks that have resided at the temple for months, some even years, who have had an incredible and unimaginable journey that I am thankful to have been a part of, even if it was just a foretast of the journey that lies ahead.
* * *
Mu Sang Sa temple is located in the claw of Gyeryong Mountain, which is said to be the mountain with
Spider
We made a friend... the most qi (spiritual energy) in Korea, and is the main inspiration for the construction of the temple in 2000. The temple is an affiliate of the Kwan Um School of Zen, founded by Seung Sahn Soen Sa Nim, and is a combination of Korean Buddhism and Rienzi Zen, and has been adapted to the needs of Westerners.
www.musangsa.org/
* * *
Becoming Human
Zen Master Seung Sahn
If you look closely at human beings in the world today, you notice that they are not human beings. They don't act like human beings. If a human being acts correctly, then he or she becomes a true human being. Moment to moment, what do you do? What is your correct direction? Moment to moment, what is your correct life? How do you find your correct way? How do you save all beings from suffering?
We come into this world empty-handed. What do we do in this world? Why did we come into this world? This body is an empty thing. What is the one thing that carries this body around? Where did it come from? You must understand that, you must
Toy warrior
ready to attack with his rusty nail. find that. So, if you want to find that, you have to ask yourself, "What am I?" Always keep this big question. Thinking has to disappear. We have to take away all our thinking, cut off our thinking. Then our true self appears, then our true mind appears...
In this world, how many people really want practice? Many people don't practice at all, fight day and night, and all day exercise their desire, their anger, their ignorance. When you lose this body, then you have nothing you can take with you. When this body disappears, what will you take with you? What will you do? Where will you go? You don't know, right? If this "don't know" is clear, then your mind is clear, then also the place you go is clear. Then you understand your job, you understand why you were born into this world. Then you understand what you do in this world. When you understand that, then you can become a human being.
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