Unmun Temple... Tuesday part 2

We had a long bus ride to the monastery, and during that time, Dr. Yi informed us on some of the protocol for the nuns. (BTW...the nuns and monks are interchangeable words here. They are female monks, and they call themselves monks because they have done away with gender as they enter the temple, so the word "nun" is not exactly correct) She taught us about the bowing procedures and explained the history of Unmun Temple...this is coming later in this blog. Either way, we were very excited for the upcoming culture immersion.

The nuns welcomed us graciously and showed us to our building. They have heated tile floors here, which is great because it is chilly up in the mountains. Their temple is full of buildings, some are shrines to Buddha, others that are living structures, dining halls, and teaching classrooms.

This is a monastic college, so the women here are studying to become ordained monks. They shave their heads and wear gray robes and slip on shoes that they have to take off before entering any building. They are learning about their sutras and dharmas to become completely ordained.

They speak incredible English, it is kinda eerie that they have been living in isolation yet have amazing pronunciation. There is one American girl here from Colorado, she has been in Korea for 6 years and living in Unmun for 2 years...two more and she will be a monk. She is our defacto tour guide and is amazing for translation and explanation of all of the cultural practices. The monks must have a mentor before beginning their training, then they have 2 years to see if they can live this lifestyle, then they shave their heads and begin in the monastic college. From college you can go on to graduate monk studies or intense mediation (24 hours) or to become a teacher of other monks.

They had a welcoming ceremony for us and the Buddhist media was here to document all the white faces in the temple. They showed us how to bow (full prostration) and greet all of the professors (a half bow).

After the orientation, we were allowed to explore the grounds seeing the carvings and decorations on the outside of the shrines. One cool fact about their construction is that Koreans refuse to waste building materials. So they try to build structures using the natural shape of the wood as opposed to cutting it down into straight lines, so many of their buildings have some curved lines.

We ate our first meal here and their number one rule is to eat everything on your plate. Every grain of rice, so you have to really gage your appetite before filling your bowl. Partially to save on waste and partially because they use only one water basin to clean all of the dishes, they cut down on excess at every meal.

After dinner they played the four ritual instruments. One is a giant drum for the beings with pelts (animals and humans), they play a giant wooden fish (for the beings in the water), they play a metal cloud (beings in the air) and a huge brass bell (the souls in hell) Because this is the evening, we were putting all of the creatures to bed. The percussion session was pretty cool though, their rhythms are awesome.

We went next to the Dharma hall for evening chanting. There were two different chants and we did various bows. A half bow is the typical karate bow you think of. And a full bow, you start with hands in prayer, do a half bow, back up then squat down to the floor, put your forehead on the floor, lift your palms upwards to your ears, then raise back up to a kneeling position and then stand again. We only did about fifteen bows in the evening session, but it still took a toll on my knees. Tomorrow morning should be interesting.

We also had a few more education sessions. One was about formal bowing and meditation poses. The other is about their "barro gonya" or formal eating. They have four bowls and eat systematically and leave no waste (it's actually pretty gross so I won't describe too much , but think like drinking your milk but with real food) The four bowls are pretty cool though they mean four things. 1) Equality...the same food and the same amount for everyone 2)Cleanliness...we're not going to leave any mess in the bowls 3) Thrift...there will be no wasted food 4) Togetherness...you eat in this fashion when there are more than three people together

Long day and a long night in the temple...not ready for my 3:00am wake up call, but the floor is calling my name at 9pm...so we are lights out..Until tomorrow...miss ya'lll...Britt