Such Great Heights: Golgulsa

On April 20-21, 2013 my bosom travel companion Ellie and I finally tried out a templestay. Essentially, you go to a temple and agree to abide by (some) of the temple rules and regulations for a period of time. You can just stay the night (a cheap and comfortable option if you're ever traveling in Korea), stay for two days and one night (which is normal), or even stay up to a month.

Some people go on a templestay and never leave, just becoming part of the temple life. Living with monks! Six hours of sleep every night! Eating only the food you grow!

I was pretty excited. I had been wanting to try it since I moved here, but when I first arrived I was a.) too poor and b.) too shy, and then c.) the weather got abruptly cold. But then we found Golgulsa, near a city called Gyeongju. A temple where the focus is on meditative martial arts training.

Martial arts monks.

COME ON, GUYS.

No, I didn't entertain any notions that it would be like reliving The Shaolin Temple. 

And it was an hour bus from Busan! So we booked it and we took off. Ellie is crazy about Gyeongju, incidentally, and she raved about it for the whole week leading up to it. I'd never seen it, but as soon as we got there I knew what she meant. While it has its fair share of ghettos, it is unusually sightly for South Korea. Gyeongju is so into itself that even the gas stations have traditional Korean rooftops.

Would I lie to you?

The short of it is, my experiences doing a templestay at Golgulsa were transformative, in a way I couldn't express, then or now. Thus shall I do a photo blog and hope my camera phone can in some small way do my staggered speaking for me. Forgive my ineloquence on this matter. I am still sorting it all out in my head.

We took a bus out to area where the temple was, and we found....countryside! In Korea! I was shocked. And then the bus deposited us here.

You can imagine my surprise.

I know what you're thinking. This is not a temple. This is on its best days an unprepossessing stretch of rubble. Luckily we spotted a rusty sign that might have said "temple" and definitely had an arrow, so we walked thatwardly. And after about a kilometer, lo! We happened upon this large stone next to the road!

If your Hangeul is rusty, it says, "Golgulsa". It was a good omen.

We took a look around a corner and sure enough there were some lanterns leading up a short hill. There is, of course, a lot of religious significance to lanterns that I periodically Google. The lanterns led me to what I believe were the gates to Paradise.

THE WAY WAS MARKED WITH MARTIAL ARTS STATUES. HAHAHA.

The area has been a site of Buddhist worship since the 6th century, but it lay largely forgotten after an 18th century fire until twenty years ago. The site was restored and became the center of Sunmudo practice in South Korea.

Temple clothing. It was like martial arts pajamas, all the time.

Lodging.

Our guest house.

The other guest house.

Dining hall. We all ate together, all vegetarian, no outside food allowed.

We were encouraged to walk in nature.

But there were also subtle footpaths we were forbade to tread.
(Obvious monk forest training areas.)

Walking meditation area.

Temple dogs are the chillest bros.

Up and up.

When you climb up and face this 1500 year old
Tathagata Buddha, you are said to face your true self. 

I didn't get any pictures of Sunmudo practice and I barely got any of the demonstration, because I was so wrapped up in their insane endurance and flexibility. Sunmudo "envelopes the dynamic movements of a martial art into the peaceful practices of meditation, yoga, and chi gong activities," to quote the information packet (hey, they put it succinctly). Sunmudo is all about mastering the body. These Seon (Zen) Buddhist monks (and other practitioners who live there or visit) believe that only in achieving mastery of the body can only truly find peace and serenity. I am not sure if this is true for all Buddhists, but they don't see the mind and body as separate entities, so you can imagine the importance of the condition of the physical form. It is actually in many ways about doing the most difficult thing you can do.

In a nutshell, Sunmudo is all about...the opposite of how I was trained to do martial arts. The Grandmaster happily repeated that there was little to no practical fighting application to Sunmudo. For instance, the hand/arm motions that went with the kicks or stances seemed baffling and impractical to me, but I kept reminding myself that it was all about having control of the body and mind. There was yoga and tai chi and kung fu and chi gong and traditional meditation everywhere, all at once, made one thing.

It was super cool. I didn't get very good pictures. 

How did you even tuck your legs...ugh. And he just stayed like that.

I just couldn't capture how fast and fluid they were. It was amazing.

There was a traditional Korean dance portion of the Sunmudo demonstration.

Anyway, in a nutshell, it was a deeply spiritual experience for me. I have wielded levity here in an attempt to tone down my feels for general consumption. I had a hard time leaving. It was a lifestyle I can definitely get behind.

*Tune in soon to see the short sojourn we took to other local sites in Gyeongju.