One of the highlights of the past month was going to Hongbeopsa Temple for their “Window to Korean Culture” program. Once a month this temple holds a cultural event specifically for foreigners in the Busan area. We ate a delicious vegetarian lunch, listened to a Dharma talk (essentially a Buddhist service) with an English speaking monk, and learned how to do calligraphy—all for free!
The Dharma talk was fascinating. About 70 foreigners sat on the warm, wooden floor on comfy mats and listened to a Polish-American monk talk about his 30-year practice of Zen Buddhism. His teacher was from Korea, hence why he was there to give the talk. I won’t explain all of what he said, but I’d like to highlight a couple thoughts:
-One of the main aspects of Zen Buddhism is asking yourself the question, “Who am I?” He emphasized how people are so quick to label themselves yet they do not know the answer to that seemingly simple question. People strive for things, money, fame, status etc. but they don’t stop to ask, “Who am I?” They let other things define themselves. We need to ask ourselves that question, even if the answer is “I don’t know.” The point is not to have a specific answer, but to try to understand the “I don’t know.”
-He also told a story about an article he read about a dog race. Apparently one dog stopped abruptly in the middle of the race. Then, instead of following the other dogs and chasing after the fake rabbit in circles, it cut across the entire racetrack to catch the rabbit on the other side. He explained that we need to be more like that dog and take 5, 10, 60 minutes to stop and open our eyes to the world around us rather than focus on one thing that we feel is motivating or driving our ambitions.
-“Your life is a laboratory. If you find some thing, some way, or some belief that you try and find you don’t like—throw it away and move on!”
After the Dharma talk, we learned the art of calligraphy. The calligraphy teacher emphasized how this act of writing is the basis of the oriental spirit. It’s a serious art and one should feel connected to what he/she is writing. We used rice paper, a writing brush, and ink to create our calligraphy. I have to admit, I was quite proud of myself for knowing how to write some words in hangul on my own!
Although we are starting to catch on to Korean a bit more, there are still times when our non-verbal skills or onomatopoeia are worth a thousand words. On his way home the other night, Aaron decided to stop by our favorite chicken restaurant and get it delivered to the apartment. He told his order and then tried to explain “delivery” but the woman could not understand. He tried to write his address down, to point at a delivery box, to say “home” and point to his chest but nothing was working. As a last resort, he decided to mimic the delivery guys who usually deliver the food on scooters. So, he turned on his engine, made the “vroom vroom” sound, and pretended to ride a scooter out of the store. Believe it or not, the woman UNDERSTOOD! I can’t wait to play charades when we get home as I feel like everyday is charades boot camp here in Korea!
Finally, one of my highlights of the past month, was running my first 10K race ever. A couple other friends of ours were doing it, so I thought it would be a fun way to get back into shape. I trained (quite loosely) for the past 2 months but managed to reach my goal of running it in under an hour! So, now I’m determined to improve my time and signed up for another 10K on April 18. Hopefully I’ll take the training a bit more seriously as the weather warms up!
No comments:
Post a Comment