Why I Could Never be a Monk and Other Concerns

I could never be a monk in Korea. No matter how much I wanted to, no matter how hard I studied, no matter how I scrabbled to attain enlightenment, I am simple not built to wake up at two in the morning to meditate. At Tongdosa Temple in the south of the country last weekend, we were awoken at three, an hour after the monks, for the morning ritual and meditation. Naturally, I had a hard time not dozing off,  much less concentrating on anything other than how tired I was.

The templestay trip had been planned for quite some time. I was excited about it, but I had no idea what to expect other than vegan meals and and a preposterously early wake-up call. Oh, and meditating. Lots of meditating. Anyways, I don’t want to do a full rundown of the whole weekend, because that would probably be boring. Instead, I’ll whip you up a little creative nonfiction, because I haven’t done that in awhile, in an attempt to give you a feeling for what it was really like to stay overnight in one of the largest Buddhist temples in South Korea.

If you’re seeing a sunrise three hours after you wake up, something has gone horribly wrong. That, or you’re a monk.

This little exercise will be called:

***

WHERE HAS ALL THE KARMA GONE?

As we stepped through the small gate and entered the hermitage, a black and white cat came scampering towards us, crying loudly. It looked as though its tail had lost a fight with a grain thresher: it stopped after only about two inches. The cat (who, for my purposes here, shall be named Stubby) ran straight up to me, threw himself against my leg, and started purring madly.

Mr. Kang, our guide (who never told us his first name, if he even had one), laughed and said, “You have good karma!”

As if to validate Mr. Kang’s claim, Stubby stood up and walked straight over to him, where he plopped down and began rolling happily in the dirt. “Actually he just only likes men,” Mr. Kang said.

Great, I thought, Way to get my karmic hopes up, Kang.

 Stubby <3 Mr. Kang.

Later, after gazing into a hole in a rock wall in search of a golden frog (I missed the boat on why he was living in there), I caught up with Mr. Kang at the bottom of some steps leading up to the hermitage, waiting for the rest of our group to catch up. He was holding several tiny white flowers in his hand.

“Eat,” he said, holding his hand out to me and smiling.

I hesitated. I felt that I couldn’t trust a man who made fun of my karma and then tried to hand me flowers he picked up off the ground to eat.

“They are, uh, per-, ah, pers – …”

“Persimmon?”

“Yes! Flowers of persimmon!” he said triumphantly.

“Okay…” I took one from his outstretched hand and popped it in my mouth. “Oof,” I said. “Bitter.”

“Bitter, yes. Very healthy!” Mr Kang emptied the rest of the flowers in his palm into his mouth and chewed them up happily. Watching him, it was clear that this was a guy who was exactly where he wanted to be, doing exactly what he wanted to do.

Mr. Kang had explained to our group the previous day how he had wound up being the English guide for the Tongdosa templestay program. After living the life of a Korean bachelor – namely working, smoking, and drinking with his co-workers – he decided he had had enough. He quit his job in hopes of finding a place to study and become a monk. Two days later, he met the head monk of Tongdosa, who had invited him to live at the temple and help with their templestay program. 

Talk about fate, I had thought to myself after his story. And talk about faith. Sometimes it pays off.

***

 

So the templestay was a very interesting experience. It’s hard to write

about, because what you get out of it depends entirely upon what you put in. I’ll just say that if you find yourself in Korea with a free weekend, a templestay program comes highly recommended from this middling blogger.

Anyways, some other stuff has happened since that madcap Busan adventure. Mostly, the English Drama Club had their competition on Wednesday and won second place overall, in all of Daejeon! My school went a little nuts; there is a perception that schools on the outskirts of Daejeon aren’t as good at English as schools in central Daejeon, so they were glad to stick it to ‘em. Now, though, every student in the school wants to be part of the club. Not because they want to act or like English necessarily, but because they really, really want to win something. Anything. Such is the Korean love of competition.

So, without further ado, I present to you our production of “One Midsummer Night”, the script for which you can find in a March post, if you feel so inclined. I promise that it’s thoroughly adorable and well worth fourteen or so minutes of your time. ‘Til next time, dear readers!