Empty stomach, full day

Many of my friends have, one time or another, gone on a "Templestay". This is the program that immerses its visitors in a day and a half of life in a Buddhist temple. Never having been that hot on sleeping on the floor and being awakened 'way before dawn to squat cross-legged and gimpy-kneed (and caffeine-free) on a different floor to meditate, instead I tried the "Templelife" program, a 2-1/2-hour sojourn at Bonguensa. (I posted about my first visit to Bongeunsa on 9/30/10, in case you inexplicably haven't memorized the contents of my 386 previous blog posts.)

Most Korean temple complexes are expansive and set in the quiet of rural mountains, where they were driven by the government's anti-Buddhist campaigns centuries ago. Bongeunsa, despite the fact that it's the locus of Korean Seon (Zen) Buddhism, is a pocket-sized complex right in the midst of the richest neighborhood in Korea: down the street, past the Jaguar and BMW dealers, you can see the Olympic Stadium; right across the street from the temple is the biggest underground mall in Asia and Seoul's World Trade Center, where the G-20 meetings were held last year.

21st-century Korea, in one photo.

The lady at the ticket booth was very friendly and spoke excellent English, other than telling me that a ticket cost 14,000 dollars. (I didn't want to go in that badly.) It's actually 14,000 Won, or about 13 bucks. There were enough foreign visitors that we were split into two groups of a dozen people each.

Our guide, a very pleasant ajumma (middle-aged lady) with good English skills, took us on a 15-minute tour and explained the temple's history and Buddhist traditions.

(White is for mourning.)

(Red is for funsies.)

After being taught the correct way to bow (knees, forearms, and forehead touch the ground), we laid down mats in the main temple building and sat before the three gold-toned Buddha statues. Then it was on to a tea ceremony, then (paper) lotus flower construction, followed by a brief meditation, led by a young monk...

... which would have been better if, among the two dozen Westerners and the-oh-so-earnest monk, all meditating together in an absolutely silent room, somebody hadn't chosen that time to make his 59-year-old, empty gut sing all kinds of gurgly, twangy melodies (and, believe it or not, harmonies). Echoes, too. It would have been funny in a movie; in real life, I tried to become one with the floor.

Well, Buddha would have laughed; Buddha's my homeboy.

Say hello to my little friends.

Then, finally, each of us was given a surprise present: a Buddhist prayer bracelet. It matches the one I bought at Donghwasa, outside Daegu, and have worn for four years as a reminder to be peaceful.

I could wear one on each wrist, but then how would I take the photo?

So, down to it: I enjoyed my brief stay, though I was glad I hadn't done the overnight. My opinions of Buddhism were reinforced: first, the worship end of things is goofy. I don't believe that hideous, snarling guardians painted on the wall scare evil spirits away; I don't believe that your karma determines whether you will return as a ghost, an animal, a human, or a demon; I don't believe in touching my forehead to the ground in front of a golden statue of a guy who said not to worship him. (I did it--I don't like to be rude--but I don't believe in it.)

But, also, there was a great feeling of serenity at Bongeunsa, as I always get at the temples in Korea. I still hold with the things I've learned from Buddhist philosophy: compassion for all, detachment, living in the now. Holding them in my mind and heart has made me more peaceful and less troubled. 

For me, Buddhism as a way of thinking is priceless because it sees the world as it is, including all the pain and loss that we can't avoid, and teaches us how to look at it a different way and to be happy, not in some promised postmortem future, but every day. 

So I was glad I went.

---

I cut through the aforementioned COEX Mall to the subway, and here's a surreal and ironic juxtaposition for you, after the aura of gentleness at the temple: in the courtyard stood the star of the new American TV show Hannibal (as in Lecter), which hadn't even shown in the US yet. He was signing autographs and having pictures taken with the shoppers and his assistants, who were wearing butchers' aprons stained with--I hope--fake blood.

 

Buddha and the world's most famous fictional serial killer? I call that a full day.

Jesus, the Buddha, and me

I love this picture.

 

I've written before about how appealing Buddhism, as a philosophy, is to me, even as I'm turned off by the ritual and the iconography. The principles of nonjudgment, of compassion, of letting go... they really speak to me; they form a way of looking at the world that makes sense to me. I find it fairly easy to take what I find helpful and leave the rest.

Just lately it's occurred to me that I haven't done that with Christianity. The Universe is, to human minds, essentially infinite in both space and time; I don't believe that we (and only we, not Earth's other creatures) are offered eternal life-- or eternal punishment if we don't believe the right things or behave the right way. I've tried; I went to Baptist religious ed classes in elementary school, attended the Methodist church on Easter, sang in the Catholic folk group, got dragged into a Christian cult (briefly) by my first wife, taught for eight years in Catholic school... it doesn't make sense to me in any kind of literal way.

But I think I've neglected how the culture I come from really is suffused in the moral teachings of Jesus; does a fish notice water? I've been turned off by the hypocrisy of Christians, but the Buddha taught compassion for all living beings and virtually every Buddhist in Korea is a voracious consumer of animals.

There's so much to be gleaned from the Christian worldview, just as there is from the Buddhist. Maybe Buddhism is just more appealing to me because of my nonjudgmental, detached nature or my resentment of authority; Christianity seems to me to be an aggressive, militant pursuit. I'm not saying the Buddha's teachings are right; I'm saying they're right, or more right, for me.

If Facebook had a "relationship with God" status, mine would read "It's complicated". I guess I'm an agnostic/transcendentalist/panentheist/freelance believer-in-something. I know a couple of things have happened in my life that I can't explain in any rational way, things that made me feel as if the wheels of the Universe were aligning and Spirit was opening me, filling me with wonder and peace.

I guess I mostly believe, as Einstein said, "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion."

...and so back to the picture. I think I like it so because Li'l Jesus (must be a fake beard) and Li'l Buddha are gazing together, in an open, candid, childlike way, at something wonder-full. That's how I want to be.

I can't believe it's not Buddha

After our monstrous rain on the first day of autumn, the weather miraculously stayed beautiful for the rest of our Chuseok vacation week. It was sunny and crisp, just the kind of gorgeousness we've learned to relish but not expect. Fall truly is beautiful here (although the leaves don't get spectacular), and all the more so because it's all too brief.

On Thursday, I discovered the correct bus number to go from our neighborhood to the COEX Mall. (The city government has a website that allegedly tells you how to get from anywhere to anywhere by bus, but it works about as frequently as Kim Jong Il hosts a pie-eating contest.) My destination was Bandi and Luni's Bookstore, my purpose to get the third book in Steig Larsson's oddly compelling The Girl Who... mystery series.

I still had the excellent Seoul map we used on our school photo scavenger hunt and I was amazed to see that Bongeunsa, a Buddhist temple, was right across the street from the COEX Mall/Seoul World Trade Center, which I had visited often. It had been so long since my happy trips to Donghwasa, on the outskirts of Daegu, that I just had to visit Bongeunsa.


The first amazing thing about Bongeunsa is simply that there is a serene, bucolic temple compound right in the middle of one of the most upscale shopping areas in this huge, materialism-mad city. Down the street, you find Jaguar and Porsche dealers, ritzy department stores, the city's poshest hotels, and off in the distance, the huge Olympic Stadium. It's hard to imagine a less likely place for renouncing material goods.

The second amazing thing is that, as I entered the temple, the middle-aged Korean woman at the information desk noticed my "Ithaca is Gorges" t-shirt and asked if I was from Ithaca. I was startled, but (suave devil that I am) recovered and cleverly said, "Yes, I am." She said, "My son is at Cornell!" It's a small weird, after all.

She also told me about the temple's outreach program, in which foreign visitors take part in a tea ceremony, talk with a monk, and meditate. It sounds interesting and it only takes two hours... unfortunately, they hold it every Wednesday and I was there on Thursday; my next Wednesday off isn't until after Christmas. As usual, my timing was peccable.

Although Bongeunsa can't match Donghwasa's grandeur (as the latter is set among the birdsong and little waterfalls of the mountains), the Seoul temple grounds have their own charms. There's a tremendous sense of serenity on the property, with only the traffic noise outside the walls disturbing the crunch of gravel underfoot and the aura of peace that comes from so many hundreds of years of meditation.

I've written in passing before of my affinity for the philosophy of Buddhism: detachment, a peaceful mind, acceptance, living in the moment, and (above all) compassion. I fail at these goals often, but at least I know what I would like to be.

The trappings of the actual religion (the inevitable golden statues and incense, the bowing to a man who instructed his disciples not to worship him, the often-grotesque art, the extremely unlikely cosmology) repel me as much as the philosophy appeals to me. I think that ritual-- of any kind-- just turns me off.

 

...Tug likes this painting, though.

So I guess I'll never be a capital-B Buddhist, but the Dalai Lama and, especially, the wonderful Thich Nhat Hanh speak to me in a way that probably no other spiritual leaders do. And I love that Buddhism instructs us to renounce our egos and accept our place in the universe, rather than to place ourselves at its center.

Hey, look at me! Look at me! I'm renouncing my ego!

After my visit, I crossed the street to the dazzling neon-LED-jewelry-fashion-go-go-go underground world that is the COEX Mall and got my Larsson book (as well as a book called Buddha or Bust). I went placidly among the noise and haste and remembered what peace there may be in silence.

Buddha, birthdays, bracelets, baseball

(This Buddha had the jewel in his forehead stolen sometime in the last TWELVE HUNDRED YEARS; the tiger's getting impatient, but they're not quite ready for the birthday party yet...)

Through a series of day-off swaps arranged at Heeduk's request and the big holiday this weekend ("It's Buddha's birthday, it's Buddha's birthday, and we would like to wish him all the very best..."), I ended up with yesterday (Tuesday), tomorrow (Thursday), either next Monday or Tuesday (not sure which yet) and next Thursday off. To tell the truth, working Saturdays, which all my non-LIKE friends have off, and Sundays, when absolutely everybody but me has the day off, is a pain. There's not a lot to do on the days I have off, when nobody I know is free. So I look for activities that will get me out of the apartment. I'm very fond of my furboys, but they're lousy conversationalists.

So yesterday, I went for a run outside! (I've always hated running on a treadmill, but that's where I do almost all my running now because it doesn't pound my knees.) Then I set of for Donghwasa Temple on Mt. Palgongsan.

I have become very fond of my wooden bead bracelet. It's actually a Buddhist prayer bracelet, it even has a little golden Buddha inside the capsule-shaped piece that comes apart to stretch the bracelet, but it isn't that for me. (Hey, if Madonna can shake her exoskeleton half-naked wearing a crucifix...) For me, it's a reminder of the serenity I feel when I'm out of Palgongsan, with the flowing water and the birdsong, and it helps me stay centered.

Anyway, I lost the bracelet on Monday, somehow. The fact that I lost it didn't upset me terribly, which is so unlike my old self. But I did determine to get another one, which involved a 20-minute bus ride downtown, a 40-minute ride to the mountain, and a steep 15-minute climb to the temple. That was worth it in itself for the quiet on the mountain. The bracelets themselves cost five bucks, so I bought a reserve too. By the way, it occurs to me that it might be a tad ironic that one of the things I've learned from Buddhism is a detachment from physical things, so I ran right out and got another bracelet... to quote good old Walt Whitman, "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself." I've found that quote useful in innumerable ways. By the way, I'm sure that everyone's come to expect a parenthetical aside in every paragraph I write. (Here it is.)

I took the bus back to town and headed over to the ballpark. My first attempt to go to a game this year was not totally inerrant, as the game was in the sixth inning when we got there; this past Sunday, I showed up at 1:10 for an allegedly two o'clock start, entered a six-block-long ticket line that moved thirty feet in thirty minutes and gave up; the game was at five o'clock, at that! I don't get it.

So this time I got there at 5:15 for a 6:30 start, and it turned out I could have waltzed in at the time of the first pitch and picked any of 5,000 seats. The weather had been beautiful when I was at Palgongsan, but as the evening came, it got cool, windy, and intermittantly precipitatious.

So I sat and shivered a little in the sporadic rainage and watched three and a half hours' worth of sloooow baseball. The visiting team has the pathetic name of Heroes, and they're the only team in the league without a corporate identity. Perhaps depressed by this turn of events, their pitchers walked nine Samsung Lions and I swear to the ghost of Abner Doubleday they went to a full count on every single batter and threw over to first six times every time a runner got on. I was, however, filled with pride for the Lions (get it?! Gosh, I'm funny) when they won, 4-1.

I decided to sit in the midst of the rabid cheering section that is at every game, with the guy in the Lions uniform blowing his whistle, chatting up the crowd (that probably would have been more entertaining had I understood a single word), and leading cheers incessantly, the dancers, the guy beating the big Korean drum, and the fans constantly cheering, singing, chanting, and beating those inflated sticks together. Might as well get the full experience.

I realize that I just posted a couple of days ago about the status of women as shown by the dancers outside the stores, and it might seem a little hypocritical that I don't have a problem with the ones at the game. Do I contradict myself? Very well... ah, never mind. I do think that there's a difference between entertaining, and seeming to have a good time, when you're part of the attraction at a family event and endlessly gyrating in front of an eyewear store while nobody pays you the least attention. Maybe it's not a moral difference, but the dignity level somehow is higher. (And the little girls who got up that one time? Very cute.

By the way, I don't care if they fit Korean words to "Na na na na na na na na... hey, hey, goodbye" or Swanee River or Do Wah Diddy, but they could damn well leave This Land is Your Land alone.

After the crowd had performed each of those songs about eight times each, I decided that I preferred the American style of fandom, where you go, have a relaxed good time, talk to your neighbor, and actually pay attention to the game.

Does that make me a cultural imperialist? Very well, then...

The glass is already broken

I went to Mt. Palgongsan again today, this time with Joanna and Leo (rhymes with Mayo), a new arrival from Ontario at the Samduk school. The weather was glorious, aside from some serious smog that eventually burned off, and the cherry trees lining much of the route were gorgeous.

Donghwasa Temple, near the base of Palgongsan, reminds me of two tenets of Buddhism that resonate with me. The first is compassion for all beings, which is what I decided to seek 18 years ago when I went vegetarian. The average Buddhist (at least around here) doesn't try very hard, as only the priests pursue a vegetarian diet. But compassion is a natural companion to the knowledge that we are all one, that (as somebody said) "There's only one of us here." And that's what I (who for so long believed nothing, really) believe.

The other is detachment, of letting go of desire. This has been a hard lesson for me; I've always been a grasping person, and I've hated goodbyes worse than just about anything. A couple of years ago, I read somewhere "The glass is already broken," that is, that eventually we lose everything physical: our belongings, the people we love, even our own bodies. Loss is inevitable. But if we see everything as only on loan to us-- like a drinking glass we love that, because it will be broken sooner or later, is in its essence broken already-- then we can appreciate whatever or whoever it is while we have it and not grieve when it's gone. This concept has brought a great deal of peace of mind to me.

Ironically, it was tested today. First, my aluminum hiking stick fell apart. Longtime readers of this blog (that is, me) may remember that in September I said I couldn't see much difference between the eight-buck sticks and the eighty-buck sticks. I guess I see one now. Anyway, I survived the hike without it. But I took a couple dozen gorgeous pictures only to find when I got home that my camera was on permanent strike, nothing working but the on/off button and the display permanently stuck in op-art mode. So I lost all the photos and a good camera. Here's the point: rather than cursing and stomping around, I said "Huh." So Not the Drama, as my friend Kim Possible says.

I've already replaced the eight-buck hiking stick with a nine-buck hiking stick and I'll have to find a bargain on a new camera even though I don't want to spend any more money, but the thing is, I feel free. Freer, anyway. It's the end of the glass as we know it, and I feel fine.