Nov. 17 - Golgulsa (골굴사) Temple Stay

Now for what you all have been waiting for, my entry about the Buddhist temple stay!

Korea offers you many opportunities to try your hand at Buddhist life. If you are interested at all in the experience, which honestly, I would recommend even though in all honesty, I would probably not do this again. Not because the experience was bad, it's just that I'm not cut out for waking up at 4 am every morning and I mean EVERY morning. So if you are in Korea give it a try! More information can be found at the Temple Stay website.

The website is very informative, it will tell you if the Temple has people who speaks English and what their main focus is on. I chose Golgul Temple because they spoke English and it was near Gyongju. The other girls joined me primarily because this band of monks are known as the Marital Arts Monks. Golgul Temple is the Headquarters for Sunmudo in Korea.

Here's a little video clip of the Head Buddhist Monk and a couple of Monks doings some moves in the background.

After you watch it for a while, it looks like Yoga Martial Arts and it's just amazing how they can go from one position to another.

Yet, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. First, we had to GET to the temple. Since there was 6 of us, there was no way we could all fit into one taxi, so we had to take 2 taxis. One group had a map and other one didn't. Unfortunately for the group with the map (my group) we had some miscommunication and ended up going to the wrong Buddhist site! So we were freaking out considering we had no way of contacting the other group and didn't know if they were at the right place or not, plus we were LATE to check-in. So after I called my Korean Buddy, Ji-Hye, and got the phone number to the place and also had her explain to the taxi driver that we wanted to go to the Temple. When we arrived, we were told that the first group had arrived about 20 minutes of so before us, so we were really comforted by that, 'cuz I was really worried about them.

Once we arrived, we were given this orange vests that we were told to wear everywhere. Here's a group picture of us in our lovely vests with a couple of Buddhists and monks. This was right before dinner around 6 pm and see how DARK it was!

We were given our room keys and we told to come back up that horrible steep hill in about 20 minutes to have dinner. We changed into our workout clothes and headed to dinner.

I gotta say the Budda dog was just too cute and I don't know how she did it, but I don't have a single picture of her looking in the direction of the camera, she's always looking away. She also attended 4:30 prayers and wasn't all that helpful with her LOUD snoring.

Anyway, we had dinner, which was basically rice, soup and vegetables, Hanna was loving it. ;o) We then made our way to the Sunmudo Training building, where we watched a video about Sunmudo and then did some more meditations and then stretching and then the actual training.

There was a lot of other people there who apparently were there to train in just Sunmudo. Our instructor was actually from France and his Korean was actually better than his English. LOL He seemed a bit frustrated that we weren't picking up on some of the "simple" movements. Let me tell you, I am really not use to being in a squat type position for very long and making your left arm move in one direction while getting your right arm to go in a totally opposite direction isn't as easy as it sounds. Afterward, we were treated to watching some highly advanced students practice their pretty awesome moves. One of the guys was from America, I don't know where the other guy was from, he was definitely a "Westerner."

Here's a picture of the little shrine area, where the head monk gave his speeches and also where we focused on during our meditations.

It was around 9 pm at this point and we were warned not to be late to 4:30 am prayer or you will have to do 3,000 bows. Yes, 3,000!! Bows aren't just the ones where you bend at the waist either, it's the kind where you start on your knees and get up and bow and then get back down on your knees to start the cycle again.

He even advised us to wake up around 3:30 am because it takes about 20 minutes to walk up the hill to the meditation center. O_O So we made our way back to our nice and warm rooms, but found out to our frustrations that we couldn't really fall asleep, knowing that we had to wake up so early. I think I finally fell asleep around 12:30.

So we grudgingly got up and make our way to the temple area in the pitch darkness and freezing cold, determined not to do the 3,000 bows.   We came in and sat in the back near the dog seating area. Men sit on the right and women sit on the left side of the room.  Then after 20 minutes of chanting (approx. 27 bows), we did about 40 minutes of sitting meditation with a loudly snoring dog sitting right behind us.

After waking up our hand chakras, our solar plexus chakra, and our third eye chakras, we got up and did a walking meditation. We walked in the darkness around 5 chakra hill (picture below) and then down to the stone pagota at the bottom of the 2nd hill.

Just so you guys don't think I'm such a whiny baby about all this walking, here is a picture of one of the hills that we had to walk up. Yes, it is that steep! I have no doubts that these monks have like amazing calf muscles!

So after we got to the bottom, we were told to head back to the dinning hall for our instructions on how to eat a traditional Buddhist meal. Basically get get this meal kit, which gives you 4 bowls. One Bowl is for the rice, one is for the soup, one for your sides, and one for the cleaning water. First step is to get water in the big bowl and you rinse that bowl, then you pour the water into your soup bowl and rinse the bowl, until you finally get to the last bowl, where it just stays. You aren't allowed to leave ANY food. So if you picked up something you don't like to eat or too much rice, too bad, you have to eat it ALL. Then you are suppose to be really conscious of your eating. So you can put the rice and veggies in your mouth but then you have to wait until you've completely chewed and swallowed your food before you getting and other spoonful. Nice concept, but we ended up being VERY last folks finished and everyone else was already GONE.

I think they were cheating, they weren't chewing completely before swallowing.  Then there is a specific way in which you cleaned the bowls, this again using that water you had first rinsed your bowls with and then using a piece of kimchi you are to wipe the bowls up and then eat that too. My rice was rather sticky so I had some problems getting all of it on there, and I couldn't quite figure out how to use the kimchi to clean up the bowls without getting the kimchi pepper all in the water or all over the bowl. Go figure.

They said we have basically 1.5 hours of free time and to be back up the mountain for tea with the head monk. The girls headed back to the room to sleep, but I stayed and took some pictures. There was no way that I was going to go down the hill only to spend 20 minutes walking back UP the hill again. So I got some pictures of the top of the mountain and of the special Buddha carving that the temple is also famous for.

So after snapping some photos and some video, I headed back down for tea. We had tea with one of the advanced Sunmudo fighters, until the head monk arrived.

Then we sat around drinking tea and asking some questions. It's sort of unfortunate that I'm in the presence of a great thinker and fighter but I'm unable to really come up with any questions to really ask him. I need to get a question to ask people, like "What do you think is the meaning of life?" So instead we asked about how many Monks are there at Golgulsa (5 monks, 2 monks in training, rest are fighters). Where did Sunmudo come from? From India, originally part of Buddhism but was lost along the way during history but has been "found" again. Why do you have to wake up at 4:30 am? 4 am is the best time in the day for meditation. In bigger temples, they actually have 3 am prayers to take advantage of the 4 am time period.

After our little tea time, we could go on a trip which cost 5,000 Won, go horseback riding, or tour the temple area. Seeing how I had 20,000 Won and wasn't sure how much the bus ride back into Gyeonju was, plus perhaps dinner, and the bus ticket back, I chose not to go on the trip. Instead, Angela (who was in the same boat as me) and I decided to go take pictures and then head back to the room for a nap. Hanna and Heini went horseback riding. Tea and Kukka went on the trip to the other temples.

Apparently, they went to the beach because I found this odd picture in the photos that we were sharing with each other. ;o) Anyway, it was so cold that it was so nice to be able to lie down on the really hot floor and just sleep. We left the door unlocked for Heini to come in, which she did shortly after us as she was FREEZING from horseback riding. So after a nice warm snooze we came back up the mountain for lunch. I'm not really sure why I have this disgusted look on my face, but here is the rest of us having our lunch before we left.

They invited us to stay for the 3 pm Sunmudo show, but we were all so sleepy and tired that we just wanted to head back to Daegu to sleep.

Again, I gotta say I really am very glad I did this temple stay, but I'm really not cut out for the 4 am thing. The experience certainly was something I am glad that I got to do and I could see how living such a simple life makes you think about everything and where you can actually think about each movement, something as simple as eating. I already think about everything and really have to wonder just how much or how little my life would change if I lived their simple life and thought even more. It's a little bit of a scary concept to me, for I think I would lose myself in the silence of thought.

More pictures here.