Woljeongsa (월정사), one of Korea's most famous temples, located in Odaesan National Park (오대산국립공원)
Capping off my tour of Gangwon province this past week was a temple stay at Woljeongsa, located in Odaesan, Korea’s least visited National Park.
The temple, which dates back to the 7th century Shilla Dynasty, is a part of the Jogye order of Korean Buddhism, the most popular sect in Korea. These days, for ₩50,000 a night, anyone can don temple robes and live life as the monks do. Or at least, that’s what the program would have you believe. The reality of my visis was actually quite different.
According to the program, the temple stay is divided into nine different blocks of activities, with three meals per day in between. The following is section by section review of each:
Day 1
Upon arrival at the temple we were greeted by the head monk, and a woman who seemed to be some sort of temple administrator. Her English was almost perfect. Unfortunately, our time around this woman was limited to not much more than that.
-
4:00 Instruction in Buddhist Manner
This really only took about 15 minutes, and was the last real time we were able to converse with anyone whose English was up to the task of explaining theories behind the Buddha Vairocana, on which much of Woljeongsa’s layoutis designed to reflect. Basically, they teach you to err on the side of quiet when on temple grounds, the posture for walking with hands folded in front of you (차수), and to bow in the middle of the Dharma Hall whenever you walk past it (a gesture that shows you are always mindful of the Buddha mind).
-
4:30 Walking Meditation at Pinetree Road
Not so much walking meditation (which is an actual form of meditation used in some orders of Buddhism, requiring a particular technique), this time was more of a “why don’t you go take some pictures because we don’t have anything planned for you at the moment.” No guide. No explanations. No idea why I paid for this.
Now this was actually one of the bright spots. Though the food is thoroughly vegan and actually quite gross, the experience of noble silence while eating (공양) with a hall full of Sunims and Bhikkunis (Monks and Nuns) is not one to be missed. As this part is supposed to be silent, the lack of any explanation from anyone is not as sorely missed as in other aspects of the temple stay.
-
6:10 Bell Striking Ceremony
Hearing Korea’s oldest Dharmabell struck repeatedly while you are standing next to it is one of the sounds that will stick with you for your whole life. The bell is said to save sentient beings in hell whenever struck, and hearing the bell really gives you a sense of why they might say that. The bell, struck once, continues to reverberate for what seems like forever after each strike, giving off low, wavering soundwaves, the buzz of which you can feel resounding in your bones. It feels like it would send sound waves off in every direction for an infinite amount of time. Hearing this sound totally made up for the fact that our guide, now a 22 year old volunteer who had arrived at the temple for the first time only 3 days earlier than us, was trying to give us instruction by trying and failing to read directly from an English language printout on the meaning of the four instruments at the Bell Pavilion.
Another life affirming experience. When I was a kid watching all those Orientalizing movies portraying Asians mindlessly bowing before golden idols and fierce looking deities, lit by candle light, and chanting harmoniously (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, for ex.), this is basically what I figured one would see all the time in Asia. And while the Yebul (예불) ritual is more than just mindless idolotry (the Sunim and Bhikkuni are in fact bowing before their golden Buddha in an effort to stay mindful of the Buddha mind that they are all capable of realizing as well as showing respect to a revered figure), this experience really does indulge a sort of fantasy of what “the Orient” is like in the Western imagination. Try it, it’s well worth the strain on your back, knees, neck, calves, and self confidence all that bowing and contorting will give you.
Not quite. Apparently some of the other temple guests decided it was a good time to stay up late, probably drinking soju and yapping about God knows until midnight.
Day 2
Not quite. Apparently some of the other temple guests decided a 4:00 AM wake-up wasn’t early enough for them and they would need to have annoying, singing alarm clocks go off at 3:00, 3:20, and 3:40, respectively.
Same as previous Yebul. You won’t regret waking up to experience this.
Interesting mix of yoga and meditation and one taught by the English fluent temple administrator, who, it turns out, was a Bhikkuni herself for seven years, several of which she spent studying yoga and meditation in India and Myanmar, respectively. She was fluent in four languages, too. So yes, world class instruction. If only my joints had the slightest bit of flexibility…
Another memorable experience eating a disgustingly vegan meal in silence along side a hundred or so bald, chaste individuals.
More rediculous than the first. This time our guide, the 22 year old boy, peppered us with questions about American pop music, rather than letting us attempt the walking meditation we had, you know, paid for try. I have to give the guy credit though. He wasn’t paid, he had no qualifications, but he was worked like a dog by his superiors, and did the best he could. But it kind of pissed me off that it became a problem for me to not talk about the ins & outs of Buddhism with our ”guide” out of concern that I might cause him tremendous embarrassment by exposing his complete lack of knowledge on the subject for which he was supposed to have been the “expert.” Where did our world class yoga master run off to?
-
10:00 Tea Ceremony with Sunim
Perhaps the mostridiculous part of them all. Wow. Our 22 year old guide was charged with translating everything Sunim said. Everything. And he was talking about big, big concepts. And this guy would struggle to introduce himself. Geez. I wanted to tell him to shut up and let us try to figure out what Sunim was saying on our own, but didn’t out of fear I would cause him collosal embarassment infront of everyone else. The highlight of the experience for me, was asking the Sunim, in Korean, about how those of us who are not monks can ”polish the mirror” realize the Buddha mind inside of us, thus showing off that I could not only speak terrible Korean, but that I had also once read the Platform Sutra of the 6th Patriarch
-
11:30 Lunch
-
12:30 Check-out
Unless you are like Huineng, whose body has been mummified, preserved, and revered for 1300 years, you are unlikely to gain any special insights into reality during a temple stay program
So… Temple stays. Good idea? Bad idea?
Well, nobody is going to teach you the basics of Buddhism (they didn’t explain who Sakyamuni was, nor what Seon/Hwaduseon/Dharma and countless other terms and concepts are), so if you want to learn about Buddhism, it might be better the pick up a book on the subject or do what I did here. And unless you are Huineng, who was Enlightened instantaneously upon hearing the Diamond Sutra, you are not about to gain any special insight into reality just by spending a night or two there.
Basically, you’re paying for a nights sleep in a room comperable to a minbak, three terrible meals, a yoga class, and a few unforgetable experiences alongside a community of Buddhist monks.
Having said that, those few unforgetable experiences alone are worth the price of admission. And if you are lucky enough, like I was, you’ll go there during a record snowstorm and experience all the beauty of a mountain encapsulated temple multiplied exponentially by the snow.
