A Monkey Weekend

Rice. Kimchi. Cabbage. Sounds delicious, I know. This was what my body was fueled on during my weekend stay at a Buddhist Monastery. All the while, enduring freezing temperatures accompanied by a short supply of patience. I guess you can say my weekend was filled with hardship, because it was. I, however, would like to use either the word terrible or horrible to describe my experience. It is possibly for these reasons that I have delayed writing a post about the monastery.

I’ll begin with the only positive memory of the weekend: the river trek. Our bus pulled into a beautiful river valley, filled with rice paddies, farm houses, kimchi pots, few clouds and a gloriously sunny backdrop. We took a short five minute hike up to the peak of a nearby hill, overlooking the sparkling river. At the top, we were met with a large 16 foot Buddha statue, monolithically standing guard over the river. By his side was a small open structure used by monks for prayer.

Afterwards, we backtracked to the bus and headed down toward the river. The river rocks were bright white and carved smooth from thousands of years of erosion. As for the water, ‘brisk’ would be a slight understatement. It was freezing. I know this because pools of water next to the river were not pools of water. They were sheets of ice. Nonetheless, Steve, Ferrin and I took our shoes off and stuck our feet in. They came out as bright red popsicles.

The entirety of the river trek lasted maybe an hour. This was the last bit of fun I was to experience for the rest of the weekend and it was still Saturday morning. We hopped back on the bus for the 45 minute remainder of the 3 hour bus ride. It was somewhere in between the river and monastery where my camera ran out of batteries. I don’t personally have photo evidence of the Buddhist prison, but I will steal Steve’s pictures as soon as possible.

Upon arriving at the monastery, we were given Buddhist monk training robes to wear. I would also like to note the temperature at this point in the trip. In the middle of the day on Saturday, it was somewhere between 5 and 10 Fahrenheit. Under my robes, I wore 2 t-shirts, a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt. Over the robes, I wore an additional coat. All these clothes did nothing to stop the piercing cold from penetrating the core of my and everybody else’s bodies.

It was then that we met the master monk. He was very soft spoken and seemed to be at complete peace with the world. He wouldn’t hurt a fly and, if it could, the fly wouldn’t hurt back. He wore white robes under half a red robe, resembling a toga. His head was completely bald, and, based on the sheen, completely doused in turtle wax. His thin wire frame glasses squeezed his bald head very tightly creating a frame indent on either side. The only thing that led me to believe he wasn’t 1000 years old, were his Nike sneakers that he wore outside. Although, he probably made the shoes himself and just put the Nike swoosh on them to look cool.

Our first activity was walking meditation where we were led into the middle of a diamond pine tree forest. Google them, they are incredibly rare and seeing them in the glory of a full forest was spectacular. The monk told us to focus our thought on the complexities of walking and each successive step. We slowed down our pace to as close to a full stop as possible without completely stopping. Literally, one step took 5 seconds. Coupled with the idea that we were supposed to be totally silent, walking became very difficult. Dried leaves and pine needles were everywhere and somehow the monk could have stolen honey from a sleeping bear. The rest of the group would have been mauled. No matter, the cold penetrated so deeply from the lack of movement that my blood nearly froze. It was quite uncomfortable and easy to lose focus simply walking.

Finally, we headed toward the lecture hall part of the temple where we were first given our robes. It turned out this was where we were going to spend the majority of our time; as it had gotten too cold to move between different temples. Here we had the most uncomfortable and unsatisfying meal possible. It was uncomfortable because we had to sit cross legged (Indian style) for nearly 2 hours straight. Try it, because my legs went numb within 10 minutes. Imagine trying to cope with and combat this feeling for an additional hour and 50 minutes. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we, again, had to be as silent as possible. That meant we couldn’t even complain to each other about how much Indian style hurts.

Anyway, when we finally got to serve ourselves buffet style we were told only to take as much as we thought we could eat. This means that you had to judge how hungry you were before the meal even began. I call it buffet style for the reason that we were able to serve ourselves once. A single serving of what you thought you could put down. The punishment for taking too much food was eating through the pain. That’s never fun. And under normal human circumstances, our brain always seems to trick us into thinking that we can eat way more than what’s actually possible. It’s how the phrase, “so hungry, I could eat a cow,” came to fruition. To be honest, I didn’t take a lot of food anyway. I knew that I could only eat so much dry white rice before getting sick of it. What I wouldn’t do for a cheeseburger.

After the meal, we were told to clean our bowls with a radish wedge and some water. So we took our chopsticks and used the radish as a dish towel on our bowls until they were spotless. Then, only after it was determined that our bowls were clean enough to warrant the good graces of a trained monk’s eye, we were to drink our dirty water and eat the soggy radish. Yum, lukewarm toilet water.

I was exhausted after dinner and it was only 7pm (we started our day at 6am). The only thing that I wanted to be doing was to lie down in a nice soft cushy bed. Obviously, I was in an illusion only Copperfield could pull off. We were forced into a group discussion of our childhood dreams that nobody really cared about and of course we were still sitting Indian style.

When bedtime rolled in at 10pm, we had to hike up a large mountain to our sleeping quarters. Although the path we took up the mountain was paved, it was as steep as an incline could possibly be before stairs were required. We were also experiencing sub zero temperatures at this point and as I was soon about to find out, our bedroom was not heated. It also wasn’t really a bedroom. It was more of one large room with 15 blankets and pillows for all the guys. The girls had something different, but like summer camp, we weren’t allowed on their side.

I would have liked to sleep until the cows came home, but we had to be up at 3am for a ‘morning’ prayer service. I use the word ‘morning’, because when morning happens people wake up for the remainder of the day. Under normal circumstances, I would absolutely use the word night. I went through morning prayer in my own personal stupor. It consisted of 2 monks chanting words for 15 minutes, while bowing (including us).

After the prayer service, we went to a nearby temple for a half hour meditation session. I think my blood was circulating slower than normal, because my legs went numb even before sitting down. Only the first minute went by pretty quickly, the remaining 29 minutes were not so forgiving. Upon finishing, the master monk spoke to us and told us the following: “I’ve been doing this for 15 years and my legs still hurt afterwards.” Thanks for stating the obvious Professor Monk.

Breakfast came and went with more dry white rice, kimchi and cabbage. This time however we were able to eat in the cafeteria in chairs. That’s another thing I am thankful for. The chair. We were also allowed to speak and carry some conversations. I think it was at this point in the stay that everybody had realized that everybody else was just as miserable as they were. I overheard many people using the same phrases I was only thinking about in my head. They included, but were certainly not limited to: we only have to get through x,y & z; only x hours left; when are we leaving; I can’t wait to get out of here etc. We also began to notice how prison life (barring ‘shower time’) might actually contain more freedom than ours did at that time.

Post breakfast we headed back to the lecture hall area for the 6 remaining hours of the trip and some much needed arts and crafts time. We were going to make some wooden prayer beads from a little packaged kit that they handed out to everyone. Each kit contained exactly 108 beads and a string. The number 108 symbolizes the five senses and life (6 in total), multiplied by a spectrum of feelings of likes, dislikes and indifference. They somehow got it to hit 108. Each single bead represented a wish or dream that you would pray or meditate for. Meditation means silence and bowing. So that’s what we did. We had to make one full bow for each bead strung. A full bow begins in the standing position, then to your knees, then forehead to the floor and then back up to your feet. Each single bow takes about 15 seconds, which, when totaling 108, takes a considerable amount of time. Basically, I hated it.

I think I blacked out for the remaining hours, because I have no recollection of what happened. I guess it was traumatizing and boring enough for my brain to just not care to record the information. Believe it or not, but the four hour bus ride home was actually a reprieve from a Buddhist’s lifestyle. And although the trip was painstakingly torturous and boringly slow, I did learn a lot and gain great perspective into the trials of monkhood. I can honestly say that they work very hard to accomplish nothing. At the end of the day, a monk will have his robes and peace of mind to which he may call his own. Not glamorous, but very well respected. Live it for a day and you have to give it to those guys for choosing that way of life.