Temple Stay

In May I finally got around to doing a temple stay. Even before going to Korea, a temple stay was on my to-do list. What happens in a temple stay is that you go to a Buddhist temple and are able to stay overnight. I’ve had limited experiences with Buddhism, but they’ve all been extremely positive. What’s not to like about a religion/philosophy that at its core is about being a good person, and not doing harm to others.

I went for the temple stay with twelve other people, none of whom I knew. There’s a great company called Adventure Korea that organizes trips for wayguks (foreigners). When I saw they had an upcoming trip to Geumsansa temple for a one-night temple stay, I signed myself up. The temple was a few hours down the west coast from Seoul, by bus. We arrived on Saturday and they gave us time to walk around the temple grounds. There were about four buildings (for praying) and a big bell. After we walked around we were given our temple clothes. Everything about the clothing style was meant for comfort and freedom of movement. If I didn’t look like such a block in them, I would have loved to take a set home. The complete look was loose-fitting pants, and a loose shirt. That night we did many things: met the monk who would be with our group, had tea with him, had dinner at the temple, made a paper lantern, and said the nightly prayer. We went to bed early because the morning prayer was at 4:00am.

Sunday everyone got up for the morning prayer (they were surprised since it was optional) and after that we did 108 bows. The number 108 is very significant in Buddhism. I don’t remember the exact math of it, but I know it holds great importance. Every morning the monks do 108 bows. This bow is not just bobbing your head. The full bow starts with you standing legs together and palms touching. Then you put your knees on the ground making sure your right elbow, then your left, are also on the ground. Your whole forearm on both sides should touch the rug/mat. Then you touch your forehead to the ground. While your forehead is touching the ground you bring your palms up, then put them back face-down to the ground. Then you stand. Then you repeat 107 more times. While we did the bows the monk held a bamboo stick he would slap against his hand to signal us to bow again. Lucky for me, he kept count (I lost track around 40). He told us while we were doing it we should think about our past, or our family. I tried to focus on individual people for a couple bows, then switch. When you didn’t focus on the strain of the motion, they were a lot easier to do. When he signaled we were doing the last bow, I actually thought we were only somewhere around 70. This was by far my favorite part/accomplishment during the temple stay. I won’t pretend though, that I’m as skilled as the monks: my legs felt like jelly when I walked down stairs.

After we bowed, we meditated with the monk. Then we ate a traditional monastic meal. The lesson of the meal was to appreciate simplicity of food, and not waste anything. We had four bowls: one for soup, one for rice, one for side dishes (radish, vegetables, etc.), and one for water to wash everything. We served ourselves, but told beforehand that we had to eat everything in our bowls; and I mean everything. At the end of the meal they gave us some rice water to rinse the dishes, and we used a pickled radish to help clean. After cleaning the three bowls (not the water one) we had to drink the rice water and eat the radish. Of course, the rice water was not delicious: it had pieces of vegetables and rice in it from the other dishes. The point though, was that the bowls were clean and nothing was wasted; that’s the Buddhist lifestyle.

After the meal we made Buddhist beads. Really, we were given string, and 108 wooden beads. They gave us an hour on the temple grounds to complete our necklace. The way you are suppose to do it, is each time you put a bead on the string you should attach a wish to it, and do one full bow. Maybe I didn’t mention that I had already done 108 bows that morning. I was able to do a full bow for 40 beads, but then I thought that Buddha would understand that at the end of it all, I would like to walk from the temple and not have to be carried. Overall, I really enjoyed the process of making the necklace. It’s harder than I thought it would be to attach meaning to each bead. Since I think Buddhist beads don’t hold the same superstitions as birthday wishes, I can tell you what I was thinking. For each bead I tried to think of a friend or family member. My wishes were usually health or happiness related. If I knew someone was having trials, I tried to focus on that for them. I know this necklace will be something I’ll treasure forever.

After the necklace was completed, we had tea, changed back into our clothes, and were on our way back north. I’m very glad I had the chance to do a temple stay; it was a great experience and one I always remember. 

I made this lotus lantern!