Temple Stay | J. Sees the World

I was determined, by whatever means necessary, to do a temple stay in my time here in Korea. I’ve (at this point in time) accomplished this twice. I think I want to get one more in before I leave. I have stayed at the same place because a) it’s easy to get to (now), b) I really like the location, and c) the first time I went, the head and regular monks were away to a different temple and the monk who we saw spoke no English and was sick. Not that my first stay was anything to cringe at, it was fabulous, but I really wanted to be able to ask some questions and get some insightful answers. First, I’ll talk about my first time going and then I’ll add in some small details about my second time (though with me, nothing is ever small).

I mentioned that I wanted to do a temple stay at my school. The other two female foreign teachers also expressed interest in it. This was great because the more, the merrier, and it was really fun. We searched online and eventually decided to go for the Lotus Lantern International Meditation Center. It was located fairly close-ish, but still far enough away that we felt like we were going on a retreat. Also, their website told about being very foreigner friendly. We were still babies to Korea and this was highly attractive. We booked our rooms and our weekend was set.

Here’s the thing about not being able to speak or read Korean. You make mistakes. You misjudge distances, end up paying $30 for a cab, hop on a bus (thinking it will only take about an hour or so, but ends up taking close to four hours), and are almost late for your own retreat. Safe to say, after showing our bus driver the small note I had written about fifteen times, we missed our stop by one (thankfully), and had to walk about 5km back to our original stop before going along the dirt path to our temple. We were late, but it was okay because we were told when we got there that we had guest monks, the schedule was all messed-up, and we would be winging it most of the time.

That’s an exaggeration; we weren’t really told that, we were just told it was okay when we got there. However, we did find all that out by the time our overnight stay was over.

We changed into the “uniform.” This consisted of purple pants, a grey shirt, and a purple vest. At first, I thought they were quite ugly, but then I put them on and immediately changed my mind. Talk about comfort, these things were on point. Please madam, may I have twelve more?

We were shown to our room and, like almost all Korean places, the floors were heated. Deliciously warm on my feet. Oh yes, oh yes.

Then, we watched a short video (in Korean) about how to function on the temple grounds. What should we do when we met a monk, how we should bow in front of the Buddha, how we should act and speak in different buildings, etc. After this, we were shown the kitchen. (We included my two co-workers, me, and another foreign teacher, public school, and a woman who was coming to rest from back pain and stress). We were informed that typically, there was a cook for the temple, but she was not there that weekend. It seemed like everyone had left, but that was to be expected. It was going to be Buddha’s Birthday soon.

We prepared a completely vegetarian, perhaps even vegan, dinner and yes, yes, yes. It was freaking amazing. It tasted wicked yummy and I had to hold myself back from pigging out. I’m a bit of a food-junkie. If I like it, I want to shove my face in it. Or cradle it lovingly in my stomach. All of the food is mine, my own, my…precious. Ha, forgive the dork-reference.

We then retired to have some tea because tea is life. It was actually pretty special tea actually, according to our host. She lives at the temple and helps take care of the monks. The tea, she told is, was made from fermented tea leaves. This type of fermentation was unique, or something like that, and it originated from China. Or maybe the tea came from China. I’m not sure. All I knew was that it was yummy in my mouth and I wanted to drink all of the tea. Which I could because screw it. If we have extra stomachs for ice cream, I have an extra stomach for tea. Watch out, cows, if you aren’t careful, I’ll have more stomachs than you.

We had a bit of a late night, chatting quietly in our room (which was a bit hot for me, I wanted the window open, but the others may have gotten cold), and the morning wake-up knock seemed to come too soon for my liking. However, we got up and went to the shrine. It was quite lovely, that early in the morning, when all was silent. That is to say, it was lovely at all times, but it was especially lovely because there was nothing to distract me from its beauty.

We did our morning chats then went off to meditate. It was the most amazing experience to clear my mind and just sit, completely still, while the sun rose and the world awoke around me. The door panels were wide open and the view was just the grass and trees of our temple. Being able to listen to the birds start to wake up and sing their little songs of life, that right there made my trip worthwhile. After meditation was breakfast (a mish-mosh of things which included some mushroom soup we made the night before which none of us –meaning foreign teachers- could handle first thing in the morning), then back to our room for cleaning, then another sitting meditation, and we wrapped up the morning with a walking meditation. It was greatly, we went on a jaunt through the woods, discovered the tomb of someone who I can’t recall (I think he was important in that region), and just watched the dogs play. When we returned to the temple, we wrapped up with working mediation (weeding the garden), a calligraphy lesson, and finally coffee with the monk before we decided to head back to our home.

Getting home was much easier than getting to the temple. We didn’t even get lost once, though we almost though we were going to get turned around.

Overall, the stay was quite grand. And I loved being able to play with the dog. She’d grown up at the temple and basically had free reign during all times, but meal times. It was quite sad to have to say goodbye to her.

This being said, my second time was a bit different. I didn’t get lost or turned around (it also didn’t take me as long to get there, I arrived very early in fact), but instead of a regular weekend retreat, I went for an “intensive meditation” retreat. It was over the Chuseok holiday (Chuseok is comparable to a Korean-Thanksgiving. It is a time for feasting. However, where Thanksgiving is where you celebrate being thankful for your loved ones currently alive, Chuseok focuses more on being with your family to celebrate and honor your ancestors). I was looking forward to doing some meditation. There was a real discontent growing in me since I came back from Japan which was driven primarily from my increasingly realistic dreams of running way into the wilderness. I realized that I missed the quiet, I missed nature, and I needed to get away.

When they say intense, it was pretty intense for never having really done more than thirty minutes at a time. I was meditating for seven and a half or eight hours a day. Thankfully (or maybe not), I only stayed for almost three days (I didn’t stay the full third day because reasons, none of which had to do with the retreat and all had to do with personal issues, I was sad). The regular monks were back, the cook was back, and it was great to be there. I was the only foreigner there, so I stuck out like a sore thumb. Thankfully, everyone there was very polite. I was even told that I sat very well during the long meditations and my fellow retreat-goers were impressed that I came for something like this at all. Perhaps they’d never seen a foreigner doing a retreat before. I prefer to think that is the case rather than thinking that an American had gone to a retreat with them and then proceeded to act terribly.

I was able to have dharma talks over green tea with the head monk. He was very insightful and helped to quiet the voices in my head with some nice words of wisdom. He also told me about some of the old Korean beliefs about tree spirits which I loved. I still want to run away into the wilderness, but I’m better equipped at dealing with my issues (also, I still don’t know how to start a flint-fire). We didn’t really have a lot of free time, either. Everything was pretty regimented for us, which was fine with me. It was nice to have a routine.

Again, one of my favorite parts was the first meditation of the day. Getting to watch the world light up with energy around me as I sat in my grey room, all at once a part of and set away from the world. It was cute that, because the dog is quite attached to the head monk, she would wait outside the meditation area, sitting nicely, looking out into the world while we meditated. And if anything moved that she didn’t approve of, she’d be up and bounding away to check it out. It was like having our own personal body guard. If we ever needed it.

I think the hardest part, the hardest part, was the bowing. Not just once or twice, the full-on, something like 99 or 103…whatever, bows done before lunch time. My quads would be full-on burning by the time we were done. Which we weren’t actually done, we had more to do while we were chanting, and we just got breaks in between.

The food was still fantastic. Even better this time because the cook was back. And it was interesting because one of the monks there is from Russia. Hearing him speak to me or speak in Korean was fascinating because of the Russian accent – what a cool guy.

We didn’t take any long walks or do any of the working meditation (like weeding or planting), but on the few free time breaks that we had, I walked around the grounds and spent a lot of time watching the koi fish. I think one of the monks was amused by me because he stood next to my crouched form for a while before leaving and getting some fish food. Then he went about feeding them and laughing at my excitement as they all came close enough for me to touch (if I really wanted to touch them – I didn’t).

Getting back was as much of an adventure as it was the first time. I went all the way to the bus stop only to realize that I left my bus pass and my Nook on the shoe rack. Apologizing profusely to one of the helpers who drove the car, he laughed at me (and I think he wanted to bonk me on the head) and drove me to the bus terminal instead of the stop. I notice this is a theme around many of the Koreans I’ve encountered. They laugh and, softly, smack me a lot. I’m not sure if this is because I’m funny, ridiculous, or a combination of both. I’m leaning toward the middle, but the last could be a definite possibility. I was waiting around for a particular bus, twiddling my thumbs, double checking the route, until some older men pointed at me. I thought I was doing something wrong but one of the older ones (an ajashi –a Korean word, polite, that refers to an old man-) spouted off a bunch of Korean. The only thing I really understood was ‘no bus.’ When I nodded my head, he pushed me over to a different schedule and then asked where I was going. I responded ‘Geomam Yeog’ –Geomam Station- and he laughed at me. (I’m not making it up! I’m laughed at all the time!) He pointed to the bus right in front of my face and told me that this one would take me there. I thanked him and then shyly walked onto the bus to scan my card.

Who knew that holidays would change the bus routes and times?