November was the month in which I have realized that I am not used to cold weather at all. With the temperatures reaching -12 degrees, there have been some days in which I actually felt physical pain; fortunately enough, I have found out that there are different things to help you cope with the cold. First of all, thermal clothes. Wearing thermal clothes seems like an obvious thing to do when the winter is as cold as here; however, I did not even realize that it was a thing before someone mentioned it to me. In all honestly, I felt really silly not thinking about it myself, but I had never had to face such temperatures before and so I was quite unprepared. Another thing that can really make a difference when you are out in the cold is o have hand warmers (or Hot Packs. In Korean: 핫팩). These are small cloths bags that when shaken heat up. I don’t know what is the material inside them (it looks like a metallic powder) but it works miracles! They usually stay warm for up until twelve hours, and although they are typically used to warm up your hands, nothing forbids you to use them to warm your ears, or even to put them in your socks to defrost your feet!
Before it got too cold, I had the chance to join a Temple Stay organized by my university. Being a Buddhist University, Dongguk often organizes trips to temples in or outside of Seoul, in which both students and professors are able to experience meditation and Buddhist prayers and ceremonies. These spiritual retreats can last for just one day or can be protracted for longer, over a couple of days. The one I joined took place in Ssang Gye Sa, one of the largest temples in Jindo Island, in the South Sea, and lasted two days and one night. After about five hours of travel, we got to the temple and were told to change into the temple clothes the monks gave us (and to this day the most comfortable clothes I have ever worn). Once we got changed we visited an art museum near the temple, the site was originally the house of the artist Hur Reon, who lived there at the time of the Joseon Dynasty. The artistic works were interesting, although similar to many others I had already seen in some of the art museums in Seoul and therefore not particularly stimulating. The place however was beautiful and picturesque.
Once we got back to the temple we had a delicious and rigorously vegan dinner with the monks and then after a quick rest we were called to learn the Buddhist gestures you need to perform when you prey which consists into a series of bows and prostrations that look way less physically tiring than they actually are. After the preyers we meditated for about half an hour. It was the first time I meditated and it did not come too easily at first because I did not completely understand how I was supposed to enter the meditating state. However, they explained us that in meditation you are not supposed to lose the sense of self, as I was convinced before, but instead to reach a consciousness of your being in the moment. What they told us to do was to visualize our thoughts, to see them as they came to us and left us. Although we finished meditating quite early, around 9p.m. we went straight to sleep as the day after we were to wake up at 5a.m. to meditate before breakfast.
So at 5, we were woken up by the monks playing the big bell at the centre of the temple and we all gathered to meditate. This time the meditation lasted for one hour and it was easier for me to enter the state of concentration and self-consciousness that I had struggled to find the day before. After meditating we got to share our thoughts on the experience with the other members of the group we were traveling with. That was probably one of my favorite moments of the stay because I got to listen to different people’s personal experience not only of meditation but also of Buddhism and faith, which I find particularly interesting being myself an atheist.
After breakfast we walked up the hill behind the temple and although the walk was not particularly long, it was incredibly steep and it took us much longer than I expected to reach the top. Nevertheless, the view was worth the struggle as we had a 360 degrees view of the surroundings.
On our way back, we stopped at the memorial of the battle of Myeongnyang. The battle took place in the 16th century and was fought by the Korean Joseon’s dynasty navy to defend Korean from the Japanese naval attach.
The temple stay was definitively one of the best experiences I have had so far here in South Korea. Not only it gave me the chance to experience a big part of Buddhist culture, it was also a way to get away from the chaotic environment of Seoul and to reconnect with nature and with myself. It was a chance to stop and reflect, something that seems quite a luxury in the dynamic environment of a big city and in the busyness of our routines.