When I think of Buddhist life, I think of quiet meditation, slow walks, appreciating nature, and vegetarian cooking. Sounds, relaxing, easy, perfect for a vacation! Boy did I learn.

Our monk tour guide showed us around the temple complex. This 5-story pagoda is several hundred years old, and like most stone pagodas, houses some relics from Buddha.

Patrick and I signed up for one of Korea’s 100+ Temple Stay programs. In 2002, South Korea hosted the World Cup, and the huge crowds overwhelmed their hotel industry, so the government made the temples and monasteries open their doors to guests. After the Cup was over, the tourists were so thrilled about their temple experience that the country kept going with the idea as a tourism draw.

The idea is simple: live a day in the life of a Buddhist monk. Our agenda was filled with things like “temple etiquette”, “tea with a monk” and “finding happiness in myself”. Turns out finding happiness is a lot of work. 🙂

We arrived at Beomeosa (sounds like Bomosa – the “e”s are more like German indications of a deeper “o”, rather than ee-o) Temple around 3pm on Thursday – Chuseok Day! Because we were staying over a holiday, we had a special holiday program to celebrate the full moon. We said hello to the guest host, who spoke fluent English, and were instructed to change into baggy short-pants and a vest (over our t-shirts). These clothes identified us as Temple Stay participants, and were comfortable for the sitting/bending we’d have to do. Then we joined the two dozen other guests, about half Korean and half Westerners.

A beautiful original painting in the main Buddha temple at Beomeosa.

We started with a quick overview of how to hold our hands, how to bow to each other and the Buddha, and how to enter/exit Temple buildings. They even gave inclusive instructions for the non-Buddhists, telling us that instead of bowing for Buddha, bow for God or our own prayer requests. These Buddhists were practicing something similar to Zen Buddhism, but there are a variety of other forms practiced throughout the country.

Some of the participants and our monk leader at the temple stay building.

For each activity, we had a monk leader, who spoke in Korean, and the foreign host, who translated into English. Although there were plenty of times that the monk would talk and all the Koreans would laugh, then she would translate, and we didn’t hear anything funny. Lost in translation a bit…

We got a tour of the Temple complex. There were several larger temple buildings for meditation, chanting sutras, and honoring different bodhisattvas. We learned about the multiple gates to enter the temple, including one called the “duality gate” where after you cross, life and death, man and woman, being and nonbeing, all dualities cease to exist in the quest to be like Buddha.

The duality gate. We walked through the first time without even realizing that we were moving past the everyday split of life/death, woman/man, etc.

Our evening meal was simple and tasty – all vegetarian. After dinner we gathered in the twilight to hear a drum performance on the huge hanging drum in the watchtower. Four monks alternated playing. The valley was hushed, and the rhythmic beats were moving and powerful. Then we gathered with a monk, some candles, and a cushion to sit in front of large windows and meditate under the full moon’s light. We sat quietly for only about 15 minutes, and then did a few guided meditations to send and receive energy to each other. It really was a connecting experience.

After our meditation, we took our candles back to the templestay building and made some candle art.

The full moon over the temple valley.

We hit the sack (a.k.a. floor mats again) around 9:30, because we had an early wake-up call planned. The monks get up at 3 to wash in silence and then attend their 3:30am sutra chanting and meditation. About half of the participants opted to join in – including Patrick and I. I woke abruptly to the beat of a single hand-held drum. One monk was tasked with walking the rows of sleeping quarters, chanting and drumming to wake the monks.

We walked in silence to the Temple and spent about 15 minutes chanting, then sat for another short silent meditation before the other guests got up at 5 for another drum performance before breakfast.

one of the monks watching the other monks performing on the huge drum hanging in the temple watch tower.

The “highlight” of the experience came right after breakfast – “Finding Happiness in Myself”. That meant we would be making Buddhist prayer beads, which I think are pretty similar to the rosary – a guide to physically help with a repetitive chanting prayer. Buddhist prayer beads have 108 beads. We strung our own, with each bead getting strung at the bottom of a prostration. One prostration means moving your body from standing, to kneeling, to touching forehead to floor – then pause to string a bead – then back to standing.

The monk guided our pace with a bamboo clapper. And we moved. We did all 108 prostrations and beads in about an hour. It was the most effective meditation I’ve ever done. I had to focus so completely on making my body move and getting the string through those tiny wooden holes, that I couldn’t wander to any other thoughts. And it only took about 3 days to be able to walk without pain again.

I had pictures of the actual prostrations and prayer beads, but those got lost. Here’s me after the prostrations, really warm and exhausted.

Our stay ended with a Buddhist tea ceremony. We were instructed on how to properly steep and serve green (and “yellow”) tea, including how to be sure your guest gets the highest quality cup. Over tea, we got to ask questions of the monks. They had a good sense of humor about it: to “why did you become a monk”, we heard “because of a bad break-up…” before a laugh and his story of being unsatisfied with material gain. We learned that these monks were a critical part of the Japanese wars in the late 1500s, being located right next to a fortress, and using a special form of martial arts only taught at that temple to defend Korea.

Our monk guide leading us in the tea ceremony. Check out the tiny steeping pots and tea cups!

So in short, I’d highly recommend the Temple Stays, but maybe not to anyone with bad knees!