My First Temple Stay

The thunder rumbled above, the rain slashed against the walls and the wind creaked the doors. Car noise drove close, halted, and drove on again until it faded away and was replaced by a new sound. Car horns beeped and dogs barked. The sounds of a new day in Seoul were beginning outside.

But inside the Great Dharma Hall there was a sound far more tranquil. A monk, sat peacefully in his robes, slowly donged the large bell at the front of the Hall. Signifying the end of suffering for all sentient beings as the world slowly awoke for a new day.

At the front of the Hall stood three large, golden Buddha statues. Each in a unique pose and each to remind us of the true essence of Buddhism. When in the Hall, the statues grab your attention before any other decoration can. Yet their presence feels entirely humble, another reminder of Buddha's teachings.

I'm sat there on my mat and surrounding me are a dozen of Korean Buddhists, up early on a Sunday to honour their tradition. As you enter the Hall you take a mat from the back, find a place to sit and then do three prostrations (three special types of bows which involves touching your forehead to the floor). After this, you follow the ceremony of chantings and prayers. A very relaxing experience and a nice way to begin the day.

This was at 4:30am at the International Seon Center in Seoul. The second day of my temple stay program.

Let's rewind to the first day. I arrived at the temple at 1:30pm and was shown to my room and given my temple uniform. The room was very clean and modern however there was no bed. While in the temple you are required to act like the monks and this involves sleeping on the floor with just a quilt for padding.

The uniform included a waistcoat and very loose fitting bottoms. While they will not win any fashion awards they were very comfortable to wear and the bland, navy blue colour offered little distractions. Little distractions is a very important feature of temples. While in the temple you should practice meditation at all times - whether walking, eating, sitting, talking, showering - you should always be mindful. If there were a vast array of distractions, meditation would prove to be very difficult. You are told to walk slowly, without rush and, if you pass a monk, you should bow. Another important element of temple life is to keep the noble silence. That is to keep silence at all times unless necessary or if spoken to by a monk. This is to keep that inward concentration and further lessen the amount of possible distractions.

The first day involved learning the temple etiquette and receiving some basic Buddhist teachings by the Sumin (a monk). The Sumin was our teacher throughout the stay and she was clearly a person of wonderful wisdom and experience. It was a true honour to have been in her presence for the two days.

The Sumin also taught us how to practice walking meditation. This is something I have found difficult to get involved with in the past but her explanation of the method made it very simple to practice. We practiced for about 40 minutes of that first day and towards the end I could feel myself getting better at the method. It is fascinating how when your mind focuses on the simple activity of moving one foot in front of the other, you realise sensations that you never felt before. For example, the sensation of the sole of the foot touching the floor as you step or the feeling of movement as you swing the leg forward. These feelings are clearly always there but how often do we realise they are a part of our experience? It makes you wonder what else you might miss in every passing moment.

You can do this right now. Just notice the feeling in your feet while you sit here. Don't try to change it, just notice what is happening. What are they touching? How does it feel to have your feet touching the floor? How do the socks feel against your feet? Take a few seconds to notice. Already you are meditating. 

Next we were taught mindfulness sitting meditation. It's been about a year since I learnt how to meditate on a farm in Germany and mindfulness meditation is something I practice regularly. Therefore I was pretty clued up on the technique. What was new to me was the posture. Instead of sitting on a chair, as I normally do, we had to sit crossed legged on a mat - for a duration of 30 minutes.

This new posture opened up an entirely new experience for me. The first section of my meditation was a "normal experience". My mind calmed, I observed the wondering mind or monkey mind and I was able to continually bring back my awareness to the present moment - in this case, the breath. Such to a point where I reached good tranquility for good periods of time.

However this swiftly passed, as my legs, in this crossed legged position, became increasingly painful. I have learnt that if you feel discomfort during meditation the best way to deal with this is to focus the awareness on the pain or discomfort. This was my first experience of discomfort during meditation to this degree but I refused the impulse to move as I knew this would disturb the meditation. So I carried on focusing on the feelings in my legs and tried to remove from my mind that this was a "bad feeling". (As I type this, I can see from my window a lady of around 60 years old doing splits and ridiculous stretches on a bench - putting me to shame!)

Eventually, with just a short period of time left, the feeling eased. As I explained to the group afterwards, I wasn't sure if this "easing of pain" was me detaching from the discomfort or if my legs had just got too numb! The Sumin told me that this experience was good and she explained why. During that period of discomfort my wondering mind or monkey mind was pretty much non existent. I was so focused on the feelings in my legs that the mind didn't have a chance to jump in with its usual random thoughts. The Sumin told me that if I want my meditation to improve then I should start meditating cross legged and continue to be aware of any discomfort, if it arises. I was very grateful for her advice as it was the first time I had been given any personal tips on meditation since I first started in Germany. It's certainly given me a new found sense of motivation.

This post is getting quite long now so I will wrap up with the other activities we did during the two days. We made lotus lanterns and prayer beads (which included doing 108 prostrations/bowing - a very tiring workout). We also ate meals together which were purely vegetarian. We could only eat at the specified times of 5pm and 6am and this was one of the toughest elements of staying in the temple (there is a lunch time schedule too but I was not there for that). In the morning we practiced walking meditation around a near by park which was very relaxing and peaceful. We ended the program by having traditional Korean tea with our Sumin and a head monk. The tea was fantastic and it offered a great opportunity to ask questions and learn further teachings.

Overall it was a fantastic experience. I'm not sure I could live the temple life for too long but the practices and attitudes that are conducted inside the temple certainly have my respect and admiration.

Prayer beads

Lotus lantern

The uniform

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Wednesday morning I was informed that the hagwon I am working in will be closed until Monday due to the MERs outbreak. What a great opportunity to book some last minute flights somewhere. Or not, as in my case! This being my first month in Korea and still awaiting my first paycheck, my bank balance would not allow a quick get a way. Instead I have booked a temple stay for Saturday to Sunday where I will learn traditional Buddhist techniques. A temple stay was top of my list of things to do in Korea so I am delighted I can do one so early on in my stay. It slightly makes up for missing a trip away somewhere!

Yesterday I visited Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul. I have visited this landmark a few times since I have arrived and on my most recent trip there I remembered to take my camera to get some shots. The architecture is a far cry from the palaces of England but offers its own unique beauty that really pushes home the realisation that I am in Asia! I arrived in time to witness a guard ceremony at the entrance to the Palace which was a real treat. The uniform being hugely different from those guarding Buckingham Palace. The lakes in the Palace's gardens are also very impressive and picturesque.

This is the view as you exit Gwanghwamun subway station - not bad!

Teaching English in Korea!

It's crazy to think I have been teaching English in South Korea for almost 3 weeks now. The time has gone so quick since I packed up my belongings and headed off to the other side of the world. Yet, at the same time, it feels like I have been here ages.

The experience so far has been simply brilliant. I surprised myself at how quick I settled into both living in a foreign country and also how quick I settled into teaching. Being thrown right into the thick of it and teaching after just a few days in Korea certainly helped. I had no choice but to learn, adapt and somehow work out how to teach a foreign language to a bunch of Korean school kids!

These are still early days but my view on TEFL (teaching English as foreign language) is certainly positive. There are, of course, challenges and they come in all types of shapes and sizes. On Fridays I have a class full of noisy, hyper, adrenaline fueled, over excited adolescents. It's difficult to keep them focused on their work and incredibly easy to allow them to become distracted. Straight after this class I have the polar opposite. A class so quiet you can hear the clock tick in the background whenever I ask a question. I sometimes wonder if they are actually alive. Getting these kids to talk and build their confidence, which is the best way to learn a language, is almost as difficult as trying to navigate a Korean washing machine.

It's a miracle that my clothes survived this monster

The challenges are part of the fun though and over all the experience is fantastic. When you teach the students something new and you sense (or even know) that they really have understood and grasped it - then the feeling is so satisfying.

After the teaching, I have Korea to explore and so far it appears awesome. I am living in Seongnam, a satellite city of Seoul. Seongnam is a great place to be based. There's a shopping complex next door, plenty of restaurants, some nice parks and a overall good vibe. There's even a McDonalds next door for when I don't quite fancy another bowl of rice with a side of kimchi. The city is typically Asian. Large, busy, noisy roads. Plentiful pedestrians darting in and out of each other. Smells of wonderful Korean street food on every corner and neon lights darting up the side of buildings brightening up the large, grey, monotonous complexes.

The area is very mountainous and when a building isn't blocking the view you can see the mountains rising off in the distance. This is even a popular sight in Seoul and therefore hiking is a very popular pastime here. I am certainly looking forward to my first hike.

Seoul is a very nice city too. The temples are very magical and the nightlife is very upbeat. I will post more about Seoul in the future.

Today and tomorrow my school, like many in Korea, is closed due to the MERs outbreak. At the time of writing about seven people have died, 80 have been infected, 2000 are quarantined and 2000 schools are shut. The seven Koreans who have unfortunately passed away have been elderly and had other medical problems alongside MERs. Those who have been infected are currently only those who have been in a hospital alongside a MERs patient - such as nurses and other patients. The illness is also, apparently, not hugely contagious. Touching a MERs carrier or being in close proximity for a long period of time is the most likely way someone can catch the illness. Based on this, there doesn't seem too much to worry about right now. However this hasn't stopped a surge of Korean's wearing surgical masks or the Hong Kong governement advising against all but necessary travel to South Korea. I imagine MERs will be contained successfully and soon the country will go on as normal. So for those at home - do not worry!

I'll sign out with some photos from Gangnam - a trendy area of Seoul made famous by Psy's K-Pop song 'Gangnam Style'.

The Han River runs through Seoul