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Published: January 8th 2009
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Temple Weekend
It only looks serene but they torture you there. Now that it's winter holidays and I'm only teaching 1.5 hours a day, I guess I can finally update my blog! So, let's rewind to the beginning of December. Tali arrived December 8th and after finding her way on the bus to my place, we went to get candy for my children. It's all about the children I tell ya. Oh and side note: we also ate a million rice cakes.
Tali went to sleep along with me shortly after and all was peaceful. I was happy to have my other half here. Little did I know that this was NOT going to last. After the first couple of nights, she started staying up later and later until...basically, she's been going to bed when I get up for work. Doing what you ask? Talking to a guy back home. I can think of many things to say at this point but I'm not going to. Oh and did I mention when she's not next to her computer, they're texting each other on the phone. Clickety clackety till 6 in the morning, it's very pleasant.
Tali's first weekend: We had taco night Friday with the girls. Taco night turned
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Freezing at the temple into disco night in Lynn's living room. Our exit song - "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"...you know it! Except since Greg was there, we sang "Greg just wants to have fun". This also led to the loss of my camera at the bar. Not a great loss considering the camera is filled with sand but I was sad to lose photos from taco night, which I'm sure would've been enjoyable.
Next morning, we are up DARK and early. We moseyed along to Seoul to catch the Adventure Korea bus to our Buddhist boot camp. We had signed ourselves up for a temple stay and we were stoked that we were going to get to be monks for a weekend. AND it was boot camp alright. Once we got there, we all received our uniforms and the torture began immediately. We had to sit cross-legged on pillows while this guy went on and on welcoming us to the temple. Do you guys remember how comfortable it was to sit cross-legged when you were 7 during story time? Well, it's NOT the fucking same when you are 27.
Then, we went on a walking meditation which basically just meant that
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Lanterns on the hike up I froze to death while walking REALLY slow. Now, I know how it feels to be Tali. Buddha, it's cold. Then we got to scream at the mountains to release our bad energy. I let him know then, that I was fucking cold.
Dinner! The best part of the whole boot camp if you ask me. It was all veggies and buffet style. The only stipulation - you had to finish everything on your plate. I was happily stuffing my face when I came to my soup, which I only took because I was so elated that EVERYTHING on the table was an option. It smelled like dirty laundry water and possibly tasted worse. So, I broke my first rule. I poured that soup down the drain faster than my students pulling the 5-finger discount on my candy.
The list of fun goes on throughout the evening, we sat through a tea ceremony where a monk came in to enlighten us. I had to keep from falling flat on my face. I can now sleep sitting up on a pillow. Then, we got to hit a gong-type bell thing. That was cold.
Then came the 108 bows
but not before the pilgrimage to the temple/our sleeping quarters. Let me just say...there was a steep hill involved and Tali is now a heart attack survivor. Congratulations little guy! I only did 80 bows before I gave up. Then off to sleep...and I would like to say that I had the most serene and peaceful sleep of my life but...it turns out that Buddhists do not enjoy sleep. They woke us up at 3:30AM. That's right, 3:30AM in the freezing dark. Note that the sleeping room, where I was passed out on the floor next to a dozen girls was hot as a sauna. So stepping out into the cold to make the trek to the temple again was EXTRA cold. There, we bowed some more...and there was some devotional chanting or some shit.
Onto the Zen meditation, where a woman monk spoke to us. I have to say, she was far more elegant and terrifying (in a good way) than the man monk. She had a certain presence at 4AM and a BIG wooden bamboo stick that she uses to BEAT you with if you fall asleep during meditation. That was only barely enough to keep me
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Self-explanatory awake. You know what kept me awake? The fact that my legs were cramping from sitting cross-legged...oh YES. Wake up you asshole, the blood clot is about to hit your brain and cause a stroke, move your legs!
Breakfast was TORMENT. I had high hopes that it was going to be as good as dinner, which made it maybe that much worse. We sat through the whole ritual of taking out a bunch of bowls and placing them in a certain way. We had to be served in a certain way and the bowls had to be cleaned using a pickled turnip and water. Nothing goes to waste according to the Buddhist ways so you can only imagine what they wanted me to do with the dirty bowl water. Drink it. Yes. Drink the dirty water and eat the pickled turnip. I ate the turnip. I dumped that water right back into the bucket, rice bits and all. They said the bucket of water goes to the "hungry ghost". The hungry ghost has an esophagus so narrow and thin, nothing can go down unless it is liquid, so technically you're supposed to drink all the bits after washing your
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I can't even remember where we saw this...in the temple? bowl. The hungry ghost might have choked to death that morning. I was probably doing it a favour if you ask me, I mean how long has it been hungry for?
NAP - sweet sweet REM cycle, how I love thee.
Lotus Lanterns (traditionally made for Buddha's birthday) - not torture but I am bad at art and I wasn't about to carry my lantern all the way back to Incheon. So I left it for Buddha. Happy fucking birthday.
The grand finale: Trek back up to the temple to do some beading. I quite like making beaded crafts but NOT if I have to bow for every bead I thread. 108 beads, 108 bows. We cheated, it was 1 bow to 3 beads. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the monotony of it all. Even serene, I would say...being in a room filled with people who are just bowing and beading in silence.
So, after hours of cramping in my legs, freezing, sweating, starving, and lack of sleep, I was able to achieve SERENITY after all!
Where was Tali in all of this you ask? She was there, she was just SO slow I never saw her.
She was always the last person in the group to show up to anything. Oh and she did try to cop out of the last trek to the temple (maybe wise since she was recovering from a heart attack) but I managed to trek up the hill myself and push her along. Yes, I pushed her up a steep hill.
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Michael Tyas
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Tears
Tears were streaming down my face. You have the gift.