Temple Stay

It's really wonderful to be able to hop on a bus and 2 hours later find yourself in the woods on mountain in a buddhist temple. Temple Stay Program in Korea is really popular with travelers and locals. People go on mini-retreats to temples to relax and get out of the city, or to experience the life of a monk, or to practice meditation.

Me and Caitlin went to check it out and see what it was all about. She made the reservation by phone although you can reserve on line too. The monks are tech savvy these days. I was surprised to see a buddhist priest checking his texts during a tea break.

So you reserve your room and what kind of schedule you want to participate in. The choices include making lotus lanterns and studying buddhism, talking to a buddhist priest, walking meditation. Because the temple was having an event that weekend they didn't offer any program for the temple stay guests. A temple shrine from the year 500 had just been renovated and a huge party and prayer ceremony were scheduled to take place all weekend. I was just happy to be in the woods and eating vegetarian food.

As a guest you have to wear a simple uniform of baggy pants and a top (ours were too short and the baggy to the pant was lost and stretched narrow). The monks on the other hand wear really beautiful costumes and look spectacular (some monks were wearing individual digit toe socks which was cute). We had a chance to ring the bell to evening prayer and wake up at 4 am to attend morning prayer. This wasn't as traumatic as I worried it might be, the waking drum was very gentle- the drummer walks around the grounds and you feel like you actually have a snooze alarm. The temple has a small farm where they grow their own tea, so we spent the long morning hiking an

d sipping tea.

The drum, rasp fish, and bells are

played to awaken all the

beings to prayer.