The date was 29 Jan. The time was . The place was Yeongcheon train station where I was imminently to jump onto a train headed for Gyeonju to begin my trip to enlightenment.
flashback
Fade to black… 2 weeks previously… Fade into past time…
I had been wondering what to do with some of my time on winter holiday, seeing that I was not given sufficient time to head out of Korea, when I had a thought.
“Temple Stay.”
I had been wanting to do one and it was on my list of “Things to do while on an Asian adventure”
(along with: jump off a ledge attached to a giant rubber band; ride an elephant, pet a tiger, see an orangutan, run off a mountain with a cloth attached to my shoulders and a seat attached to my back; amongst other things – incidentally thus far I have accomplished the last in that list… NO, not the “amongst other things” bit … the “run off a mountain with a cloth attached to my shoulders and a seat attached to my back”)
So I began searching and after a couple of days trolling over google I found what I had been looking for. There was a picture of a guy doing the splits and touching his toes at the same time, and all this was about a 1-1.5m off the ground and below it was a picture of a monk in worship at a Buddha statue.
“That’s the place for me,” I thought. So I booked a spot for a night (as a trial stay for potential future stays) and took a walk down to the bridge over the local river to watch the sunset over the ice covered waters on the crisp winter horizon, to celebrate.
FAST-FORWARD TO PRESENT TIME…
My journey to Golguksa temple was fraught with peril of the terrifyingly dull kind. It took me 2.5 hours to get to the temple when it should have taken me 1 hour. Stupid language barrier. Anyway…
I registered my arrival with the main office where I met Kate – A Brit who is staying and training at the temple. I was later to find that a Frenchman, a Dutchman, a Norwegian and obviously a Korean or few, were training and staying at the temple. The Frenchman and the Norwegian (who is going for his 4th Sunmudo Black-belt in August) were asked to baby-sit the waygooks (foreigners). Again I am getting ahead of myself…
After collecting one of the most comfortable yet insufficient pair of pants I have ever had to wear, and my vest (the getup we wear to let the monks and administrators know we are temple stayers) I went to investigate my pad for the night under the instruction that I would have the place to myself. There was not much (not that you need much) though there was a fridge if you brought food (which you were not permitted to eat on the grounds) and the infiltration of modern society and its demands dictated the presence of a LAN cable for internet connectivity. I was to sleep on Ondole, which is the heated floor. It was very warm, despite the temp outside being -18C. More description later.
ish and I had 1 hour until the start of my programme and supper so I did a speedy rush around the temple to take pics and for a walk. Absolutely breathtaking views though they were better the next day when the sun was not hiding behind the valley hills. Arriving back to my room the Admin lady told me I would actually have company for the night. This was when I met Shtef and Reinholdt. Two chaps from Gemany. The latter is a German teacher in Shanghai and the former (a psychologist in Germany) is his friend, who had come for a visit, and they had decided to come to Korea for an 8 day temple stay. Supper nice guys – Reinholdt was a real character, I can just imagine what sitting in his classes must be like. Sadly our association was not all bratwurst and beer, as I never got much sleep due to Shtef’s snoring, but I suppose when you are getting up at , nothing is enough sleep.
was dinner and this was what we had:
It was really nice. I was really hungry having not had much of a lunch so went back for a couple of helpings. There was a guideline at the temple that you do not leave any food or sauce on your tray as it means that you are living beyond your means, which is not what (to a small extent) Buddhism is about. You, also, were requested to be punctual and if you were not there was the threat of 3000 full body bows as punishment (which in discussions later I found out would take you about 9 hours if your body did not give way long before then)
After dinner was our “orientation” were we watched a video about the Sunmudo roots and how it links with Buddhism and it’s principles. This was followed by 2 hours Sunmudo training. 10min of breathing, 10min of scilent sitting meditation, 1 hour of warm-up exercises and light work and then 1 hour of training by the Norwegian triple black belt. Sunmudo is actually a beautiful martial art. It is about achieving balance between mind and body and it more about overcoming the limitation of the mind and the body, than it is about aggression and defense. The grading system revolves around a series of movement sequences that are graded from 1 – 10. You then write a 20page paper about a topic given to you about a week in advance about Buddhist teachings and your own thought and journey towards those the topic. Here is a video of what it looks like:
MY WORD – In the warm up I moved muscles I had not moved since my 2nd year at Varsity. The epicenter of the punishment was in my shoulders. We did sequences of punches, rotations and flexes that would get faster the more you do and then slow down to change to the next movement. The total number of each movement you were required to do should add up to 100. when you were finished with the section of the warm-up you would have done in excess of 500 movements.
After warm-up the waygooks were taken aside and we were instructed by the Norwegian how to do the 2 movement sequences that you learn as you progress through your training. By this point my shoulders were shot so anything that needed me to lift my arms was done with a contorted face and locked jaw. In this practice each movement was supposed to be specific and localized i.e. if you were doing twists from side to side you had to only use your torso and abs. Your waist and hips were meant to stay rooted to the floor to act as your centre of gravity. What struck me most about the exercise part of the experience was the balance and muscle control. Remarkable – hence I remarked!
we got back to our room, showered and went to bed, to wake up at to make sure we were at the main shrine for morning chanting and meditation, the total time of which went for 1.5 hours. My word was IT COLD!!! My roommates taught me on the walk up to the shrine that the crunch of the snow/ice under your shoes gives one an indication as to how cold it is outside. Were they messing with me? They were very genuine guys so I don’t think so. After the early wake-up we were to experience something unique, a traditional Buddhist breakfast – the process of which is very complicated and can be explained here, if you are interested.
After breakfast we got a bit of free time, which my German colleagues took to sleep and I tried to read but that lasted all of 15min before I too fell asleep. At 8’ish we were supposed to meet the monks of the temple for team and a chat but they never showed so we sat talking to 2 of the Martial Arts masters for about 2 hours. It was a very interesting chat, listening to their stories, opinions and choice behind coming to stay at the temple.
The last activity in our program was a demonstration of Sunmudo conducted by the masters of the art. There were also a couple of other cultural dances – the videos for which are below:
So ended my 1st but hopefully not my last temple stay. On the bus back to Gyeonju I got a chatting to Pol from Ireland, Yanna from Swellemdam and Brian from the States. So many interesting people on a very interesting if sleep deprived experience.
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