I walked fifteen minutes down a side road and found the temple entrance. A tall, fair-haired German about my age showed me around; he’d been staying at the temple five months already and his calm demeanour was a testament to this. I next met my roommate, Chang Min, a Korean I presumed to be in his thirties. He was unmarried and taking a month off from his work as a civil engineer to live the austere temple life. “I make money and buy, make money buy…” he explained in shaky english. “I want to find who is I.”
I walked with Chang Min to dinner, a steep uphill climb that left me panting and legs throbbing. Following this we had my first Sunmodo training. This temple is a particularly special one for being the headquarters of the Sundmodo discipline – a Korean Buddhist martial arts tradition. Sunmodo “envelopes the dynamic movements of a martial art into the peaceful practices of meditation, yoga, and chi gong exercises.” I did not know it yet but it was to be as much a physical challenge as a mental one.
After learning proper bowing techniques from a nice Polish girl, the forty or so of us in the dojo-like temple were led in ritual chants by one of the masters. Though I was provided with a “lyrics” sheet for the chants I found I was far too busy trying to ensure I bowed properly and at the right time to join in on the droning. Next we were led in stretching exercises. My mat was next to Ryan’s, an American who also joined that day, and the two of us proved woefully inflexible. There were some particularly interesting movements however including one where you sit, legs spread in a wide “V” whereupon you reach out to grab your ankles and roll backwards onto your neck, keeping your “V” shape and trying to touch your feet to the ground behind your head. You then roll back to the sitting position and carry on ten times or so.
Many of the martial arts movements are done very slowly and methodically. They require grace in the movements of your limbs and strength in your legs as they are performed in the horse stance (google it). I think I am in decent shape and still my legs would burn so bad during some movements that I was forced to stop several times to straighten my legs and shake out the fire. One movement involved swinging your arm, hand in knifehand position, on either side of your body (front and back) utilizing momentum to create fluidity. The next step was incorporating the other arm simultaneously. I watched our master perform this and it had the effect of an impenetrable whirlwind of knifehands seeming to defend every angle of him at all times. Few of us could properly perform this. This was probably my most embarrassing attempt at the martial art during my stay. My arms refused to mirror each other’s movements and instead wildly flailed like two demented windmills. I looked like I was eight-years old again using my one primitive defence tactic against my big sister.
The next morning Chang Min and I awoke at 330. We showered and headed out for the 430 chanting service. It was lightly raining just as the day before. After the chanting we did thirty minutes of sitting meditation followed by thirty minutes of walking meditation outdoors in the cold rain. This involved walking very slowly and keeping in a line about two metres apart from the person in front of you. We were advised to take this time to soak in and think about the nature around us, or otherwise simply focus on the pressure beneath our feet as we walked. I enjoy walking meditation and the consonance of sounds around me – morning birds chirping, rain falling, feet rhythmically rising and falling – was indeed plenty to occupy my thoughts, but our steep, downhill and slippery path necessitated a portion of my brain stay focused on simply not wiping out.
One final event worth mentioning was the performance of the 108 Bows. This involves standing in a circle and prostrating oneself the aforementioned number of times for the purpose of self-purification and to humble oneself. Each bow is for a different “promise” or “objective” which is read out in Korean. We were provided English translations which I kept at my feet. With every bow I would quickly read what it was for and contemplate it for the few seconds before the next. “I bow to wonder where I came from and where I am going,” “I bow to appreciate my parents for giving birth to me,” “I bow to ask for forgiveness from the people I have hurt,” “I bow to call attention to the good in others, but not the bad,” and so on. I had been nervous about the pain my body might go through with all the getting up and down, but I found I was so occupied by each bow’s significance that I hardly felt discomfort on even the final bow. It was a very moving experience and one of my favourites during my stay.
One night’s stay was not long enough to really get your mind and body into the flow of temple life I realized. I can’t stay for months as some lodgers there do (not that I’d want to given the chance), but I do intend to go back and stay for two or three days for a more thorough experience.
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