This past weekend I decided to take some time off of being such a social butterfly and take in some well needed rest and Korean culture. I told one of my friends about it and she jumped at the chance. We booked ourselves in for a 2 day/1 night temple stay at one of the biggest temples in Korea - Beomeosa. The temple is situated on top of Mount Geumjeongsan. It was just a short subway ride away and an even shorter bus ride from my house. It probably only took about an hour to get to it when it was all said and done. The bus ride up the lower portion of the mountain was a god send. I couldn’t imagine walking up that and having enough energy to explore the rest of it. The streets on the way up were lined with cherry blossom trees that were almost in bloom so the view was gorgeous. There were quite a bit of people out and about - all of them dressed in their neon pink and green hiking suits which made me giggle.
It took us a bit before we figured out where to sign in, but like most things here, we eventually figured it out. There were 4 other foreigners and about 10 Koreans that were participating in the temple stay with us. Basically a temple stay is just when you stay in a temple over night and you get a glimps of what it is to be a Buddhist. The activities planned for us got underway shortly after we arrived. We started off with the dreaded "sit in a circle and introduce yourself" thing. I thought after standing in front of a room full of strange kids that my heart wouldn't dramatically increase in speed as it got closer to my time to speak - but it did. Granted, it wasn't as bad as it usually is. I think there's still hope for me:)
After we all said our piece one of the Monks came in and introduced himself (all in Korean, of course). There was a translator on hand but unfortunately she wasn't as great as the website said. It ended up being her first time doing it and she kept apologizing how lost she was in everything. The only thing she was really clear on is that most of the time there we were not allowed to talk. There was an itinerary in English that we ended up following pretty closely so at least we had that to go by. We learned some temple etiquette and after we learned how to formally great a Monk he left and came back in and we did a little chant. Then we all sat down for some tea and the Monk took questions from everyone. At this point I really wished that I understood Korean. The foreigners could only read the faces of the Korean participants but knew the Monk was saying interesting and probably insightful things. Not long after that we took a walk through the grounds to their dinner hall. It caught me off guard because there was an actual bank machine just outside of the doors. I guess even temples need funding!
By this time I was starving and still unsure what a "traditional temple meal" consisted of. We all sat down in two parallel lines with the Monk at the head of the table. In front of us was a page of instructions on how to eat... which consisted of 27 steps. This should be fun. I had to remind my now growling stomach that this is all a part of the experience. The translator was nowhere in sight. I guess this made sense because this was also one of the times we weren't allowed to speak. Step 1 - don't have wondering eyes. Great – In hopes not to offend anyone I made use of my peripheral vision and creepy side glances to watch what my neighbours were doing to make sure I was doing it right. Or, that we were at least not messing it up more than they were.
We had four bowls in front of us. One was each a bit larger than the next. The smallest was for side dishes, the next smallest for "rinsing" water, the next one for soup, and the largest was for rice. They all had to be arranged on the floor a certain way. The monk was served first, which was good because then we could just follow what he did. I was never really good at written instructions. Before accepting anything you bowed down to the floor facing the server and held out your bowl. Before placing it in front of you, you had to put the bowl to your head as thanks and then place in on the specific spot on the floor. I couldn’t help but think of my serving days and how this would never happen back home. When eating, we were instructed to always have the bowl in front of our mouths so no one could see how much or how little you were eating at a time. There was also no mixing of rice and side dishes. After we were finished, we had to put some “rinsing” water in our first "rice bowl" and tossed in a piece of pickled radish. With our chopsticks we had to manoeuvred it around the bowls in attempt to "clean" up all the sticky residue left behind. After we were satisfied with the cleanliness of it, we dumped the gunk (for lack of a better word) into the next bowl and did the same time. This was done for each of the bowls. The last bowl that collected all the gunk of the other bowls was considered our dessert. That's right, we had to drink it. It's definitely not a shot that I'd ever recommend to the general public that's for sure! We then took water from our "rinsing bowl" and give each of our bowls/chopsticks one final rinse, but this time we could use our hands for a more thorough clean. I know what you’re thinking, but no - we didn't have to drink this water, that would just be dirty! My hands are always so dirty here – everyone’s are! I’m always so thankful that everything pre-packaged to eat is accessible to consume without any direct contact of my hands. Anyways, back to the story... We emptied our remaining water into a communal bucket. There were chunks of things all through it from everyone's bowls. It literally looked like a big bucket of backwash and made me want to gag. The monk said something and one of the other participants loosely translated it to "look at all the food we wasted, now we drink because". I was glad everyone laughed because there was no way I would/could do that. I was happy at that moment I was only a tourist in all of this because we found out after that is what the Monks have to do.
After a short visit at one of the temple rooms to do some chants we were escorted back to our main hall where we were given a package of beads and a string. On the website it said that we were making 108 beads. No matter where you go here in Korea you can usually find temple prayer beads so I thought we were going to take a few hours and make a bunch of them while relaxing and resting on our own. The name of the stay was after all "Rest and Relaxing". I thought it was a little odd that we were only given one package of beads, but figured it was just the way they had it set up and we would get more after. They gave us a tooth pick and told us to thread it through every bead. Everyone was pretty chill - most of us hadn't changed out of our outside clothes because everyone was still talking and warming up from being outside. A lady came in with a giant bamboo stick and started clapping it – I remember thinking to myself “this is kind of random”. I had no idea what was going on, but we were instructed to bow. I finally caught on - we were going to bow for every bead that was going on to this necklace. We didn't even have time to take our jackets off before they started! I was sweating up a storm. We barely had 30 seconds to go into a full on bow to the ground, put a bead on the string, then stand back up - just to do the whole thing over again. Did I mention we had to do this 108 times? I really wasn't expecting it. But I will say, I’ve never been so proud of every bead on that necklace I made before. I'll also appreciate all the work that goes into the ones I see around from now on, too.
Not long after our bead frenzy the men were separated from the women and we were put to sleep. It was 9:00 so I feel I can say “put to sleep”. I can't even think of the last time I went to bed that early, especially since moving here. My school hours are from 2-9 so I usually go to bed around 2 in the morning and wake up around 10 or so. It's been the norm for me here. So, going to bed at 9 was a bit of a stretch. I had to keep on reminding myself of the schedule though... we were expected to get up at 3am for another drum ceremony and more prayers the next day. The bedding was brand new and made of silk and in bright pastel colors. It consisted of a mat, a comforter, and a pillow made of barley. It ended up being one of the best sleeps I’ve had here. Even though I woke up once thinking I was in a POW camp. The hall we all slept in was pitch black which is something I've longed to sleep in since I moved here. It was kinda funny cause the lights were turned off so unexpectedly that one of the Korean women was still changing into her pj's when the lights went out. She opened the door from the change room to the hall and said "Oh.. My, God!" as she stumbled around. Everyone had a good chuckle before trying to fall asleep.
At 3am sharp the lights turned back on. Everyone got up in what felt like 5 seconds. I guess I needed a little more time to adjust than my hall buddies. We were given strict instructions that we weren't to talk or wash our face before we went to the drum ceremony and finished the morning ritual. It was raining at the time so they had little disposable rain jackets for us to wear as we watched the Monks drum. The sound was almost transient. I have to say, it was pretty cool to watch. After we were done we went into another temple were there were 108 mini Buda statues and we did some more prayers. The sun was coming up by now. We had a bit of a break before heading up a rocky trail to some temples on a higher part of the mountain. The monk apologized for not having a better translator and then went into a big explanation on what all the symbols on the building were. It's a shame I didn't understand more. I did catch from one of the Korean participants that knew a little English say that the statues near one of the temples is made up of Monks ashes. The statue almost glistened in the light with tiny crystal like stones that are apparently found in the remains of cremated Monks. The stones are believed to embody the spiritual knowledge, teachings, realizations or living essence of the spiritual masters they belonged to. I'm glad I caught that much (after google-ing it when I came home), but it really made me wonder what other interesting things I missed.
After our trek we had breakfast which was the same ritual as dinner from the night before. But this time we washed our bowls in a sink after our "dessert" and they also gave us some pre-mixed coffee which was a nice surprise. When we did the bucket thing again there were hardly any loose pieces, but it still didn’t look like anything you could pay me to drink.
I'm really glad I decided to go on this adventure even though there was a bit of a language barrier. There wasn't any one part of it that I didn't enjoy. My eyes went in wide open. I didn't take any pictures while I was there, but my friend that came with me ended up taking a lovely picture of the wardrobe we had to wear while staying there. I was thinking of getting the same thing in purple cause it was just that flattering. lol
... until next time!
Not long after our bead frenzy the men were separated from the women and we were put to sleep. It was 9:00 so I feel I can say “put to sleep”. I can't even think of the last time I went to bed that early, especially since moving here. My school hours are from 2-9 so I usually go to bed around 2 in the morning and wake up around 10 or so. It's been the norm for me here. So, going to bed at 9 was a bit of a stretch. I had to keep on reminding myself of the schedule though... we were expected to get up at 3am for another drum ceremony and more prayers the next day. The bedding was brand new and made of silk and in bright pastel colors. It consisted of a mat, a comforter, and a pillow made of barley. It ended up being one of the best sleeps I’ve had here. Even though I woke up once thinking I was in a POW camp. The hall we all slept in was pitch black which is something I've longed to sleep in since I moved here. It was kinda funny cause the lights were turned off so unexpectedly that one of the Korean women was still changing into her pj's when the lights went out. She opened the door from the change room to the hall and said "Oh.. My, God!" as she stumbled around. Everyone had a good chuckle before trying to fall asleep.
At 3am sharp the lights turned back on. Everyone got up in what felt like 5 seconds. I guess I needed a little more time to adjust than my hall buddies. We were given strict instructions that we weren't to talk or wash our face before we went to the drum ceremony and finished the morning ritual. It was raining at the time so they had little disposable rain jackets for us to wear as we watched the Monks drum. The sound was almost transient. I have to say, it was pretty cool to watch. After we were done we went into another temple were there were 108 mini Buda statues and we did some more prayers. The sun was coming up by now. We had a bit of a break before heading up a rocky trail to some temples on a higher part of the mountain. The monk apologized for not having a better translator and then went into a big explanation on what all the symbols on the building were. It's a shame I didn't understand more. I did catch from one of the Korean participants that knew a little English say that the statues near one of the temples is made up of Monks ashes. The statue almost glistened in the light with tiny crystal like stones that are apparently found in the remains of cremated Monks. The stones are believed to embody the spiritual knowledge, teachings, realizations or living essence of the spiritual masters they belonged to. I'm glad I caught that much (after google-ing it when I came home), but it really made me wonder what other interesting things I missed.
After our trek we had breakfast which was the same ritual as dinner from the night before. But this time we washed our bowls in a sink after our "dessert" and they also gave us some pre-mixed coffee which was a nice surprise. When we did the bucket thing again there were hardly any loose pieces, but it still didn’t look like anything you could pay me to drink.
I'm really glad I decided to go on this adventure even though there was a bit of a language barrier. There wasn't any one part of it that I didn't enjoy. My eyes went in wide open. I didn't take any pictures while I was there, but my friend that came with me ended up taking a lovely picture of the wardrobe we had to wear while staying there. I was thinking of getting the same thing in purple cause it was just that flattering. lol
... until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment