That night's sleep was turbulent. Namely because as it is I work until about 9 o'clock each night, that means I get home, unwind for a bit, and usually don't slide into bed until around 12 or 1am. This is a highly appealing time schedule for me, as I am somewhat of a night person. However, at the temple lights out is at 10pm, and that is a tad early for my liking. Pile that on top of the fact that I found the room to be far too hot to my tastes (the other women in the room ran a few degrees colder than me, but as I'm something of a human furnace, I guess that's not that huge of a surprise), and the fact that as soon as I finally drifted off into some real sleep the Head Monk's adorable white husky mix of a dog decided to stop being adorable, and to start being really f'ing annoying, howling into the darkness until we heard someone shuffle out and quiet him. I get vicious about my sleep, and considering I was only being afforded a precious 6 hours (I require a minimum of 7) I was pretty ticked off.
Oh well.
We were woken up at 4am to the sound of a monk clanking on a wooden instrument, chanting out a melody while walking slowly around our building. It wasn't half so unpleasant as I'd thought it would be to get up at that time. Actually, I woke up about 10 minutes before 4am, and my mind began to prepare to be awake. I have a funny tendency to wake up right before I need to. It came in handy that day.
Shot of me staggering up a hill, punch drunk. Shot of me going up and down bowing in mechanical willing submission, of the brown pillow that I kept resting my head upon, of the backs of the monks, of their shiny bald heads, of Buddah statues and paper lanterns.
Sound of my breath flowing into my hears. Sound of a slow chant, then a chant with a quicker pace, and then finally a chant that sounded almost Native American, upbeat, quick tempo-ed with a sort of exuberance emanating from its core.
It is now 5:00 in the morning, and I have that cracked out feeling that only sleep deprivation can bring on. That feeling that is accompanied by a loss of equilibrium, and defined by the feeling that I am not actually awake, but simply moving lucidly through a dream. I know I'm not.
Shot of me staggering up a hill to the outside terrace to meditate.
But shit man! It was f'ing cold out that morning. And my benevolent heart lent my heavier sweater to Hannah because, as I've said I run warm, and I didn't see the cold being a problem. After all we're in Southern Korea, it doesn't get really cold till late November!
As it turns out this is not true in the mountains.
That meditation started off hellishly. Which isn't to say it ended in a grand explosion of serenity, but fortunately for me a particularly kind female devotee of the temple saw my shivering suffering ass, and threw her heavy fleece over me after the first 10 minutes of the meditation, and things went a bit better from there on out...that is of course until my foot fell asleep! Haha. I could not win that morning. So after a bit of rubbing and shaking the foot woke up, and I started to focus on the meditation, then it was time to stop meditating...of course. Haha. This was fine, though. So we went on a walking meditation which ended with us meeting the sunrise, that was quite nice. Then we were set free until breakfast at 6:30.
Breakfast consisted of white rice and kimchee as the two staples. It was good though, I like both those foods quite a bit, and they also served up some really tasty tofu and this spicy soup I really dug so that was sweet.
As I've said before, because it was Chuseok, the schedule was a bit more lax than usual, so really we were free until about lunch time.
That meant I had time for a nap, some wandering and some interesting conversations on religion, spirituality and God with Hannah, Dan, and another teacher from Daegu who I want to call Colin, though I'm pretty sure that wasn't his name.
Somewhere in between all these happenings we had a tea ceremony with the Head Monk. It was cool, but in truth a bit un-fulfilling due to the language barrier. I drank about 5 tiny cups of delicious jasmine tea, and listened to the Head Monk alter between fast Korean and awkward English when responding to questions. I was so curious about him, and Buddhism, but really I realized that his English wasn't strong enough to give me answers that would satisfy me, and so I spared us all the awkwardness of attempting to force that which simply could not be brought forth.
Later that day we did some real Sunmudo training, and that was pretty cool. Again it started off like Yoga and ended sort of like Tai Chi--which as it turns out is quite taxing on the muscles, slowness of movement really forces you to exert an intense control over your body.
From there on out we had the option to go to this other Buddhist temple up the street called Girimsa temple--naturally we all paid the $10 (roughly) and went. It was cool. This temple was quieter, and I believe older as well. Inside of different small buildings there was almost always a monk to be seen silently standing, or praying before these beautiful ornate statues of Buddah. It was really amazing and inspiring to be in the presence of so much devotion in a world where the main things we are devoted to are usually our addictions of varied sorts (television, the internet, cigarettes, coffee, and so forth). There was also a museum at this temple which I perused, and it had all these really intense paintings of Kings and their courts watching prisoners be punished in various horribly painful ways by these part animal monster ghoul demon things. Weird. But also sort of beautiful.
Then we were off. We drove back to Golgusa in a big ole' van, went and gathered our things, said goodbye to a few people, and hopped the bus back to Gyeongju. Once there we took a brief detour to see this park of tombs (think gigantic mounds of grass with dead guys interred in them) which is actually quite lovely, and then we were on the train back to the home land of Ulsan City.
Turkish food and hookah followed, then we (Me, Dan and Hannah) parted ways, and so was the end of the Temple stay weekend.
So all that took place about a month ago, and I apologize if I skimped on the details in the latter half of the stay, I can't lie, I've gotten a bit bored with telling this story. Oh me of little patience. But regardless, the time spent at the temple has certainly influenced me, and has made me want to go back at some point and have a genuine solitary experience. Just me, the monks, the anonymous other temple-stayers, perhaps a good book, and my mind locked away in the silence of meditation.
Meditation is hard. Since the temple stay I have been trying to meditate at least a few times a week, for anywhere from 20 minutes to 45. At first I wanted to meditate every day, but with time the realization came to me that really I do not always want to meditate, and forcing it seems sort of pointless. So I have been attempting to meditate a few days a week, with varied results. At times it's really incredible, difficult to still my mind always, but rewarding once it finally slows down, and calm washes over me. Other times it's just a battle that I feel destined to lose, and in many respects do. I walk away from my meditation frustrated with a sense of failure, with a voice in my head saying, "Damn it! How are we ever going to find inner peace if you won't shut the fuck up during our meditation!?!"
I'm certain that voice is un-constructive.
Regardless, I persist. Wish me luck. Till next time!
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