Info About Temple Stay

Some people were upset at me because I haven't updated my blog in awhile. And by some people I mean my mom. Im glad I have one reader! I was in Gangnam for 4 days after my temple stay and an old friend was able to put me up in his place for the short time I was down. His place was awesome because of one thing, AIR CONDITIONING. Its super muggy and hot in Korea and it gets a bit hard to deal with. Anyways I bet my "one reader" is wondering how my temple stay was. Well there are many things that happened, some spiritual, some funny and some enlightening. I broke it up into a couple categories and I'll post each section one day at a time so that you don't get bogged down with an overload of information. Just as a general overview this was my daily schedule.

3:00am - Wake Up

3:25am - 108 FULL BODY BOWS. That is no mistake 108 full bows early in the morning. I would be covered in sweat

4:00am - Chanting. This was cool cause it was like the movies where monks chant

4:30am - Meditation. Standing still cross-legged and thinking about nothing.

6:00am - Formal Silence Breakfast

6:30am -  Work

8:00am - Break

8:30am - Meditation

11:00am - Lunch

11:30am - Break

1:30pm - Meditation

4:30pm - Dinner

6:00pm - Evening Chanting

7:00pm - Meditation

9:30pm - Lights out

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Today I will talk about eating at the temple

When I was younger I use to think Asian's had no manners when it came to eating because they would chew with their mouth's open, reach across the table for food, elbows up, shovel their food into their mouth and slurp. I now know that Asian don't necessarily focus on the actual eating aspect of the meal but their are a ton of other small things that you can do at the dinner table that would be considered "bad manners". For breakfast and lunch our meal were formal, meaning that we had to obey the rules of meditation and be in complete silence. We all have our own dishes that are wrapped up in cloth. To eat breakfast or lunch there is about 20+ different steps you have to take Just to eat your food. Luckily when it comes to food I am quick learner.

1. You wait for everyone to be seated

2.  The teacher hits a stick and everyone bows

3. You unwrap your 4 bowls and cutlery

4. Then you wait for the teacher, he hits the stick and you bow again.

5. An assigned person gets up and walks around to each person and offers them water in their rice bowl. 

6. That water is then poured into each bowl until all the water is in your last bowl.

7. The stick is hit again

8. An assigned person gets up and picks the rice porridge pot and goes to each person a places the pot next to them. That is when you can scoop your own porridge. 

9. Wait for the stick to be hit. During this time almost all the white people put peanut butter in their porrige. I thought that was gross as hell but they seemed to love it.

10. Now you start to eat. For every 2 people there is a mini table with vegetables and other side dishes you can eat. Typically it is very bland and not that filling.

11. You shovel your food as fast as possible. You don't want to be the last person finish because  everyone else sits their in silence waiting for you to be done.

12. Another hit of the stick and the assigned person pours really hot rice tea.

13. Each person gets the rice tea poured into their rice bowl.  Now comes the interesting part.

14. You use the hot tea to clean your bowls. There is no typical dishwashing afterwards so you have to be very careful you clean your plate well. This is basically what you have to do. You get a piece of kimchi and with the hot tea you wipe down the bowls you used. Its actually really fun to do. This why it is absolutely important to eat every last morsel of food as you don't want to be dealing with huge chunks mixed with hot tea. As you use the same rice tea to clean each bowl the last bowl becomes quite dirty. Then you drink the floaty dirty water.

15. After you drank the sludge water, you then use the regular water you got in the beginning and start the whole process of rinsing your bowls all over again.

16. Once they are all clean you use a cloth to dry off your bowls and cutlery

17. You then wait for the stick and then you push away the small table.

18. A huge pot comes along and so you can pour the excess water into it. However, you have to do it as silentlly as possible and there can not be any food in that water. 

19. You then start to repack your bowls. But this also has to be done in utter silence. I remember one time as I was re-stacking my bowls and one of the bowls slipped and it came crashing down making the hugest amount of noise. The head Zen Master looked at me in disgust. It was as if I just spat a loogie on baby Jesus, or in this case baby Buddha.

20. We then bow and wait for the monks to put away their dishes.

21. We bow and then pack away ours.

After experiencing that way of eating it really gave me an appreciation of the importance of treating food with respect and the importance of eating everything on your plat. I now understand why Korean people consider it "bad manners" to leave any rice.

Jeeze that was a lot to talk about. Next blog will be about my my friend Mr Fuzzy. (You might ask who Mr. Fuzzy is, don't worry you'll get to know him in the next post)