Temple Stay!

Last Friday night I stayed in because I had to be up early Saturday morning to head out on my first Adventure Korea trip, which was an overnight temple stay to Bubheungsa temple. I had to be up at 6:00 a.m. in order to get ready and meet with Carmela on time because we were taking the subway together to meet Joanne, Crista and Duncan, so we could all subway into Seoul together. We got to Seoul with about 20 minutes to kill before we had to be on the bus, so we had some coffee and breakfast. The bus ride to the temple was about 3.5 - 4 hours. Since, we were ahead of schedule we made a stop at this beautiful area along the way (I forget the name).

Carmela, Chris and I enjoying the scenery and each others company. Carmela and I found this frozen patch of water, so Carmela decided she wanted to try and break the ice. After many failed attempts at breaking the ice, she managed to finally get this chunk and was beyond excited for her success. I'm on top of the world...well, this neat rock formation.

When we finally arrived at the temple we were given a brief introduction about the clothes we would have to wear and receive our name tags.

Carmela and I showing off our 'monk' clothes, which were insanely comfortable.

We had a brief orientation , so we would know what was going to happen over the course of the weekend. Our first task was a 'walking meditation', which meant walking very slow and in a specific manner. We were not allowed to talk, just focus on the walking and clearing our heads of everything negative. It was probably one of my favorite moments.

Dinner was afterward and it was delicious. Since, monks don't eat meat there was plenty of tofu, rice, potato salad, seaweed and a delicious soup.

We did devotional chanting with a female monk, which involved quite a few bows. After this we had a tea ceremony with the head monk and we had moments to discuss our dreams with him or ask him questions. Here is a picture of the tea ceremony with the head monk at the front.

We also made dream pouches, where we wrote a dream on a piece of paper and put it in the dream pouch for safe keeping.

Here is my dream pouch with my Korean name and all.

Then came the hardest part of the temple stay, we had to do 108 bows in a very small temple that was crowded and super hot. All of us had to do 50 bows together and then if we wanted to continue to 108 we could. Carmela, Chris and I did all 108 and were exhausted afterward. Thankfully, after the 108 bows it was bedtime for all. Sunday morning came far too soon, especially with our 3:00 a.m. wake-up call. We had to head to do some early morning devotional chanting in the tiny temple from the previous night where more bows were involved. We then headed to do some early morning son-meditation with the female monk. My body was aching from all the bows the night before that I couldn't get relaxed enough and had to keep adjusting my position on the floor. Since, we were ahead of schedule we all headed back to the rooms to catch some shut-eye before breakfast. We had about a 45-minute nap before we had to head to a temple-style breakfast. We had to watch an instructional video on how to set our own dishes out properly for food. Then we were joined by the head monk who walked us through the entire eating process.

This is a picture of the breakfast set-up. Everyone's place settings are set the exact same. Here is the food (slop) we had to eat. Rice, seaweed soup, side dishes all in one bowl and the cutlery/water bowl. We were not allowed to leave any leftovers and we even had to drink the leftovers after the cleaning process.

Breakfast took us over an hour to eat because of all the steps required in order to do it properly. Plus, we had to clean the dishes ourselves and put them away properly. We had an hour of free time after breakfast, so I took advantage and had a 30 minute nap. Then we made lotus lanterns, which were a lot of fun. They start off as just wire with white paper over top and we had to add the tissue paper over them to create the lotus lanterns.

Here is my finished lotus lantern, which was definitely one of the best ones made. I'm thinking of taking a job on the side as a lotus lantern maker :)

The last activity of the day was the making of 108 beads. This meant that we were making a bracelet/necklace with 108 beads, but for every bead we strung we had to bow, so that meant...108 bows for 108 beads. It was exhausting and very hard on my body, but worth it.

I'm not sure how many bows I was at by this point, but I'm sure it was more than halfway. Finally, the finished product. I survived 108 bows for the second day in a row and got a great bracelet out of it that I will cherish forever.

Once everyone had finished their bows and beads it was time to hang our dream pouches in Yaksajeon temple (same temple we made the beads). This involved us following the head monk around the room in a circle a few times while chanting before hanging the pouches.

We got a giant group picture with the head monk at the end of the day and then he allowed us to each get our own pictures with him.

The head monk and I outside the temple with the fresh air and beautiful scenery in the background.

The temple-stay weekend ended with us eating some lunch, but it was curry and I hate so curry, so I only had rice, soup and some veggies. Then we had to return our outfits, pack up our things and head to the bus for the 3.5 - 4 hour long car ride home.