Beomeosa (pron Bo-mo-sa... silent e's apparently)
This is the view from almost the top of the mountain where my friend Jenn Nentwig, and Erin and I went for our Temple Stay. This view was by far the most peaceful moment of my stay. That is a pic of the rising sun over the city of Busan. We had already been up for about 4hours by then...
So a Temple Stay is where you get to live like a monk for two days... for me it was a love hate relationship. I loved some of their precepts and will adopt many of them into my life, but... there was not one position there that wasn't painful. Your body just went from one painful thing to the next.
Monk life... is not for me. But the view certainly is..
This was hilarious for the toilets.. (not squat toilets thank Heavens)
What's odd is that, for a place built on the cleansing of body and mind... they don't drink water. I was dehydrated for two days. Cups at the water cooler were the size of shot glasses. I had water shooters.
One thing I loved about their buildings (this pic is of one of their temples that people can go and do their praying and bowing at) is that every surface is an opportunity for beauty. EVERY surface.
This is inside the temple, just along their altar base boards. This is hand carved, and hand painted. The painting has to be redone fairly regularly to maintain it's beauty.
So, here for table manners, it's considered rude to show your mouth while you are shoveling food in. So you learn to eat and suck face with your bowl to cover your mouth.
After each bite, you were to meditate in silence while you chewed. And you had to always put your spoon in the soup bowl, and your chopsticks always in the hot water bowl to rest.
Koreans are actually the only society to eat rice with a spoon.
Their spoons are longer and more petal shaped inspired by the lotus flower.
And yes, we had to say this chant before every meal. Which consisted of rice, soup, and side dishes of kimchi, etc. The monks were given the food by the members, so there was never any complaining. Every meal was a gift.
This beautiful drum was played two times a day, of which we attended both: 9pm and 330am to both bid the animals to sleep and to wake.
The Buddhist monks are vegetarians, so to obtain the leather to make this drum, they waited till the cows died of natural causes.
These beads...this my friends is what 108 bows looks like. At this point, I was still smiling and excited...
So, for every bead that went on this string, we did a Buddhist bow. You start standing up, feet together, hands in prayer position, and you end up on the mat on the floor to pray and bow, and rising again (your hands still in prayer position) using only your heel and leg muscles to stand upright again...feet together.
For those of you that don't think this would be painful to perform 108 in a row, I will show you how to do a proper bow, and then you will eat your words by doing 108. I'll use my prayer beads to count...
So, the blonde to my left is Erin :)
The brunette to my right is Jenn. And we are showing off our hard earned prayer beads.
This pic is on the way up the mountain. About 3/4 of the way up there is another remote temple that people may pray at. The path is narrow and steep. This religion is definitely one of the more physically active ones...
The two pics below are of the temple at the top of the mountain. In the one pic, that is the monk that often trained us... but I believe he was still in training..
My two beautiful friends... xoxo :)
This is a pic of Jenn and I in front of the building where we were trained, did the ceremonies, slept, etc. This is the Temple Stay building.
This was the tea ceremony from the last day right before we left. I'm with two other Americans
This is the pic with all the foreigners. Our interpreter Simone even referred to us as foreigners when addressing us...
"Foreigners! Please come around me."
"Foreigners, you forgot to put your mats away. Koreans all put mats away."
"Foreigners, eat all your food in your bowl. Do better next time."
For more pictures look on the pictures link :)
