Wed. March 11th...Buddhism's Newest Converts

The 3am wake up call was not too bad, even though we slept on the floor on only one inch pads. We went back out to the four instruments, but this time they were waking up all of the creatures, so they started out soft and built up volume. The chilly mountain air proved more potent than coffee and had me alert and active in less than five minutes.

We went to the main Dharma hall for the 3:30 morning chanting. It consists of four different songs with various combinations of bows and half bows then a final part with 108 full prostrations. Your knees and thighs get to burning when you are about 40 bows into the cycle. I had to use my hands on many of them, so I felt like I was just doing a lot of push ups. The monks are amazing with their bows. They are so fast, smooth and light as they lower themselves to their ma and get back up without having to take a step or a stumble. Practice make perfect. The chants are unified and monotone and very calming. It is almost better to not understand them, kinda like an opera.

Our next activity was a meditations session. Our professor monk taught us how to sit in the lotus position, hold our hands, and breathe with our diapraghms. We meditated for about a half an hour then talked about our breathing. (Where we felt the air touch our nose and throat, the temperature and consistency of the air) Concentrating on your breathing helps you clear your mind, but sometimes I would find my brain wandering back to Tony Horton P90x yoga/mediation and I would have to fight the urge to giggle. Sitting in the lotus (painful form of Indian style) has stretched my hip flexors, knees, and ankles a ton. It makes me value all of the time when I can comfortably stretch out my long limbs.

Random thoughts: I love their floors here, I want to have heated tiles installed in my house. The heat gradually rises up through your pillows and blankets to create a very embryotic environment. I'm reading a book on Psalm 23, and I can't help but laugh at the irony of studying Christianity in a Buddhist college. The paper walls and paper doors here are beautiful and amazing. The paper is a special paper that regulates heat and humidity...kinda cool.

Now we moved on to our formal breakfast. Kimchi, rice, spinach soup and greens are good...but maybe not at 6am. Everything is very ordered and must be silent, you should not even make noise moving your bowls. They are worried about creating waste so you have to literally lick the bowl clean. We ate fast because we were under pressure to do everything right and I did not eat alot. The meal did not hold me over for too long and I let the dreaded "Ben and Jerry's sweet tooth :-)" get the best of me and I ate a Twix bar about 10am.

Next was morning chores, and we were told to sweep the yard in front of our building and the main dharma hall. One problem, it is dirt out there...why would we just sweep dirt around? The Koreans like their order in their world, so we did. They sweep in large semicircle fashion, and once we got done it actually looked pretty good. I guess it is like when we cut a baseball outfield in a lattice pattern, just for looks.

The nuns took us on a tour of the temple grounds. There are 40 buildings in the complex and huge fields around because they grow all of their own food. They are vegetarian here, another wrinkle in the meals for us carnivores. Korean architecture is unique because they build the roofs in such a way as to try to blend in with the mountains. When you look down on them from a cliff above, they succeeded in blending in with nature, it is really beautiful.