Temple Stay
Overnight trip to find out my
true ego
It was a cold day when a spring rain fell down in
April 2012. I was heading toward ‘Kilsang-Sa’(the temple of Kilsang) where I
had applied for a Temple-stay program. I entered the temple with so much worry
because the midterm exam was only three days away. Temple-stay is a program
that I could experience temple life, rest my mind and learn traditional culture
in temple. I could participate in this program by on-line application. If you
search for information about Temple-stay on a portal site, you can find some
temples region by region. The entry fee of Kilsang-Sa where I had applied was
50,000 Korean won(48 US dollars). And period of Temple-stay was from 12 o’clock on Saturday to 10 o’clock on Sunday.
There was something I need to prepare before I taking part in this program. I
had to take toiletries, a towel, socks, outer clothing, clothes, sneakers comfortable
to wear and a personal cup with me.
At first, my specific memory of temple stay is Dado.
Dado means ceremony of drinking tea. In Dado class, we learned the method of
pouring boiled water into a small tea cup, tea-courtesy and the history of
Korean tea. Pouring the water into the cup requires certain steps : 1. Pour
boiled water into a water kettle and cool it down. 2. Then, open the cap of the
kettle and put tea leaves. 3. Finally, pour boiled water that was poured into the
kettle into the tea pot. Distribute the tea into three cups, do the same for
two more times. Depending on a person, preference on flavor of the tea you can
alter the time you brew it. The longer you brew the tea, the deeper the flavor
it is. The correct courtesy drinking tea is not hard to follow. Tea cups and
kettles should be handled with your right hand. And with your left hand,
support the bottom of teacup and kettle from below. It can be stable.
Second, specific memory of temple stay is Meditation
lecture. In meditation lecture, I learned how to meditate and position. The
chief-monk directly taught us the way of meditation. And it has seven-order as steps.
First, sit with correct position by gathering legs. Second, straighten your
back. Third, bend your both shoulders back. Fourth, throw out your chest.
Fifth, pull my chin as possible as you can. Sixth, roll up your tongue by half,
and make your tongue touch palate slightly. Then finally, look to your front a
little. It was very hard for me to straighten my waist and sit because I
usually bend my back and shoulders on walking or sitting on chairs. However, I
could feel sitting comfortable and have a state of balance after 30 minutes. I
also could have times when I thought myself during this meditation class. I
thought my present, past, future, worry, parents, friends, school calmly and
deeply.
In my daily life, cities and modern society are fast,
fast and fast and full of noise, machines and stuff. In contrast, there is some
place silent, traditional and belonged to nature. I can experience Korean
traditional beauty, learn courtesy and take a trip to. It is just temple-stay.
At temple-stay, I am also able to get a time to look back on myself, which I
could not do in daily life.
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