At the end of June, I traveled to Naksansa Temple in northeast Korea to take part in a temple stay. Temple stays had been mentioned to me by many people in the States as something they thought I would like to do and they were definitely right! My attending this temple stay was very last-minute. I saw the event posted on Facebook and looked into it. I have been craving such experiences lately in Korea, as a lot of my day-to-day life doesn’t seem to incorporate a lot of “traditional” Korean culture.
An early morning bus that took six and a half hours to reach my final destination traveled along the eastern coast of Korea. It really was a beautiful ride along the ocean, though it was an incredibly humid day so you almost couldn’t tell where the ocean ended and the sky began.
Once I reached Naksansa, I joined 10 other foreigners. We were asked to change into monastic clothing and then sit together while a Buddhist nun and her translator introduced us to the program called “Finding Your Bluebird”. We learned about proper prostration techniques and all were asked to come up with a “name” for ourselves which was what we were called throughout the weekend. Mine was “Intention”.
Most of the rest of Saturday was spent touring the temple grounds and listening to a few monks tell us their stories about living a monastic lifestyle. We ate delicious vegetarian food in silence and enjoyed an evening tea ceremony with a venerable monk. This was my favorite part of the temple stay as the monk was incredibly insightful, humorous, and kind. During the tea ceremony, we were asked to write on a small piece of colored paper more about why we chose the name we were being called during the program.
I chose Intention as my name because of a very dear friend of mine who passed away last summer. The last time I saw and spoke with him, I was moving away from where we both lived and he was imparting old man wisdom to me. He told me that he admired my desire to live life with intention. At the time, I had no idea what he really meant and I was also in the midst of a very tumultuous time in my life and didn’t feel much intention in anything that I was doing. Being at the temple brought back this memory for me. Life has been a bit wonky for me the last couple of months in Korea and I realized that I’ve lost sight of my “intention”. This temple stay helped remind me of it and also of my friendship with Stimp. The temple stay also coincided almost exactly to the one-year anniversary of Stimp’s death.
After the tea ceremony, we went to view the statue of Avalokiteshvara that Naksansa is known for. It was brightly illuminated in the evening and candles were lit all around. I spent some time on my own before retiring to bed. We all were sleeping in a traditional hanook on the temple grounds. My roommate and I decided to get up around 4:30 to go and see the sunrise over the East Sea. It was a beautiful morning!
The rest of Sunday included a couple of hours of individual exploration after breakfast. During this time, we had been told to please leave our colored paper scroll in a special glass vase in one of the temple buildings after doing 3 prostrations. My scroll, elaborating my intention, along with many others’ scrolls, is now at the base of another statue of Avalokiteshvara.
Once we came back together as a group, we walked to the temple’s farm and harvested blueberries. We met the Abott monk of Naksansa, who is an avid farmer, and learned about their sustainability programs. We were encouraged to pick each blueberry individually and with awareness, rather than mindlessly and in clumps. We were also encouraged to consume as many blueberries as we desired. :)
Following lunch, we joined the venerable monk back at our hanook where we made prayer bead necklaces. Normally, one would complete one prostration for each bead on the necklace (108 total), but we were told just to listen to a CD of 108 prostrations. After each one, we bowed and strung on a single bead.
A short concluding ceremony ended the temple stay and then we were all on our way back home! I was the only one who had traveled so far to attend this temple stay, but I’m so glad I did it! It reminded me of many things I had learned and experienced during my time in China and the re-connection to my memory of Stimp was an unexpected, yet wholly embraced surprise.
You can see some photos from my trip below and a link to Naksansa and my temple stay can be found here: https://www.templestay.com/temple_info_gallery_view.asp?idx=16564&page=1&t_id=naksansa
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