A week spent meditating on my life in Korea

A walk around the temple before bed Night lit by the light of lanterns hanging

The lotus reads "life"

The mountains by the light of the early morning

.....very early

Dawn hits the staircase on my way up to my

third meditation session of the day.... hmmmm

When they say monastic living they mean it. Picture

a dark little box with a heated floor and 1 mattress...

but that's ok, because you don't sleep much when

you are a Buddhist monk anyway.

Even Pollish monks can rock out when the occasion calls for it!

luv ya Miaho

The day before the intensive lunar New Years retreat began

I was lucky enough to join the monks as they cut loose for a night

My Korean On-ni!!!!!

Guitars, BBQ, SOJU, salsa dancing...

and you thought temple stays were just about meditation

Getting all purified at an amazing spa in near the DMZ!

Naked outside in -15oc wheather is always interesting.

But when you're naked with nuns... it's even more so.

Skating and sledging on a frozen lake in the DMZ.

Freeeeezing! but hilarious!

Sliding accross the ice on traditional Korean sleds

Drinking tea after a long meditative hike with Po Hwa Sunim, the temples' head monk

Hwagyesa International Zen Center through the woods

Mark this week as a special week in my Korean adventure and maybe the greater adventure of life. Egged on by the lack of anything more worthwile to do with my vacation, I decided that it was high time to make my dreams of a temple stay a reality. A Monday-Sunday intensive week of meditating, hiking, sleeping little and thinking much. What I was not expecting was the level of commraderie and community that I found within the temple walls. Here, everyone is equally valued and respected in a quiet, seious and yet light hearted environment which was like nothing I'd yet experienced in Korea. the hustle and bustle of Seoul was stripped away and the stillness that has been lacking from my life since my arrival here was reclaimed.

I was very lucky in my choice of weeks to stay at the temple for I had the best of both worlds so to speek. I participated in the regular schedule of this fully functional Zen Center for the first coupple days of my stay. Temple life is a completely different routine. As the burdens of the outside world are stripped away, the 24/7 schedule of this environment seems slightly less dramatic. Every day, as your body and mind adjust you need less food and less sleep to sustain you throughout the day. The schedule reads:

3AM -Meditation

4AM -108 Bows

4:30AM -Chanting

5Am -Meditation

6AM -Breakfast and chores

7-11AM -Meditation

11:30AM Lunch

12PM -Hike, instruction

2-4PM -Meditation

4:30PM -Dinner

6PM -Chanting

6:30-9PM -Meditation

9:30PM -Lights out.

Sustaining this simple lifestyle grows upon itself, and in a very short amount of time everything else begins to quickly fade into the background. The temple is run with military precision. This is serious business. Breakfast at 6AM means be there at 5:58! or no food! or worse the Zen Master will chew you out! It definitely got easier with each day that passed. The first two days were reallllllllly hard!!!!!!!!

After our all out excursion day on Wednesday in which we: went to the spa, went for tea, went ice skating in the DMZ, had an amazing dinner with drinks and songs and dancing and enough car giggles to sattisfy even the silliest 10 year old, well it was down to serious business.

The 15th marked the beginning of the Lunar New Year and also the beginning of the intensicve Winter retreat. the monks will litterally sit in meditation for 21.5 hours a day taking only 5 minute breaks every hour and 3 1hour breaks for meals and showers. NUUUTZ!!! During the retreat you are not supposed to touch your spine to the ground. I followed along Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the quite intense distinction of choosing to sleep at night. But they're the Monks, not me. All things considered, I think I did pretty well. I worked my way up to sitting for 7 hours on the last day. Not too shabby. And with regular practice i could probably to more! I made some solid aquaintances and had some major reflection time. It was the first time in Korea that I have had the chance to just be myself and live my own life appart from being Alex the english teacher. In that way, it was truely an amazing experience. It has also given me a more positive outlook on Korea and my position here. Doing is the key and I intend to keep doing as much as possible in the future. That includes leaving all of those things that cause me anxiety and unhappiness behind and trying to incorporate more of the things that make me happy into my every day life.

That is my goal in this new year. We shall see how I fare.