My Legs Hurt and Mr. Fuzzy

Everyday at the temple I would have to do 108 full bows at 3:00am in the morning. The first day I did this I almost fainted because the constant rushing of blood to the head and then the immediate drain when I stood up would cause me to feel sick. After the first 50 I said to myself, "Ohh crap. what have I gotten my self into". As the day progressed a fellow temple stay patron came up to me and told me that I was doing the bow completely wrong. I almost was offended that he would say that. Im Korean for god sakes, I have to bow all the time for ceremonies and festivals. He then told me that when bowing try to think of your blood as energy and that you want to keep your energy at the center of your body (gut). So a proper bow is when your knees hit the floor first and keeping your torso upright. Then as the knees hit extend the arms and place them on the floor. Keep your back straight, rock back making sure to keep your back horizontal to the ground. Before this lesson in bowing I was doing it completely the opposite way. I would bend my torso first place my hands on the floor and then my knees would follow. So basically my head would be inverted for most of the bow. This caused the blood to pool in my head. Anyways, once I was shown how to bow correctly I thought my second day would be easier. I was wrong again. Basically the new way of bowing uses more leg muscle and by 70 bows my legs were cramping. Having stiff legs would have been Ok to deal with in any other normal circumstance, However or zen room was 2 flights of stairs up and our dorms was 3 flights up as well. So every day I would be walking up and down stairs with sore legs. By the fourth day I swear my legs were jelly.

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So one of the funniest parts of this Korean Buddhist temple stay was out of the 15 monks and 20 patron, me and 3 other people were the only Koreans. Most of the patrons and monks were from Europe and Russia. It was funny to see all these white faces in a Korean monastery. What was initially funny, quickly turned to embarrassment on my part. All the monks and most of the patron knew more Korean then me and could read it better then me as well. I even walked by this one room where they had tutors teaching the monks Korean on daily basis. I then thought to myself, here are these Russian and European monks that are being taught how to speak Korean and here I am a full Korean that doesn't even know how to count to 100. SAD!!

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Here are some really small points I will cram into this section as I am tired of writing about temple stay.

During tea break I use to keep the one mini size snickers bar they gave us. As the day would progress I would look at the snickers bar and consider it my treat for completing one day. It was really weird, I never looked at a candy bar with so much joy in my life. I would giggle like a school girl every time I would look at the snickers bar.

So our shower stall was this one room about 10 feet by 6 feet. The only problem was both shower heads were placed right beside one another. I hope you as the reader know where I am going with this story. Basically we had to shower within inches of a fellow person. The awkward part is when people would talk to me in the shower as I am scrubbing down. They would actually try to carry on full conversation with me as I was buck naked. After a couple of days of this male bonding, I started to embrace this way of showering and started to also have full conversation in the buff. Its amazing what people will talk about when your butt naked. We talked about family, relationships, what we want to do in the future or the hardships (no pun intended) we encountered. I guess men are the most honest when there balls are exposed (literally and metaphorically)

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The story of Mr Fuzzy

So about 2 days into meditation and I was starting to go crazy. If you remember my previous post, I had 10 hours of meditation a day. The first 3 hours were ok but the remaining 7 would kill me. Then something occurred that saved my meditation life. As I was looking at the floor in front of me I saw a huge piece of fuzz. Either because of the extreme heat or the hours looking at the same spot on the floor, it seemed that the small piece of fuzz was moving every so slightly every couple of minutes or so. This would make me smile ear to ear. As my meditation approached into the hours I would look forward to see this piece of fuzz move a millimeter at a time. It brought me so much joy that I had something to root and cheer for. About an hour before our meditation was about to end I started to get worried that when everyone would stand up this piece of fuzz would be blown or kicked away. So right when the meditation was over I quickly grabbed the piece of fuzz and hid it under my meditation mat. Everyday afterwards I would pull Mr Fuzzy out of the mat and place him on the floor in front of me. I would make up Lord of The Ring style adventures for Mr. Fuzzy. I was literally going insane like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away" and would talk with Mr. Fuzzy. The saddest day was when I walked back to my mat and tried to look for Mr. Fuzzy but he was gone, I actually felt sad that I lost friend and got mad a myself for not taking care of him. But then I met his cousin "Mr. Lint From My Socks" and the adventures continued....

As you can tell my Temple stay was a weird experience and I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. But the few that are willing to open their minds and truly try to live like a monk all I can say is, when you leave your mind will feel sharper. The only true valuable lesson I learned was the past is not important and the future is unpredictable so don't stress over it. Ohh yeah and the "spoon" doesn't exist