Although it is very hard to guess a monk’s age (their faces often appear timeless), Monk Wonju looks much younger than I imagined. He is a lean man, almost angular. The room is bare except for the books piled in the corner. There are three young women sitting opposite him, sipping tea. It is obvious that I interrupted their conversation. He picks up a clay teapot and pours me a cup of jade liquid. When I take a sip, I can taste the trace of a familiar flower. “Hibiscus,” he says, reading my mind, and smiles, all at once seeming much older.
Then he turns to the three women, who seem to be students from a local college, and continues discussing the Triratna (Sanskrit for “three jewels”), which consists of Buddha, dharma, and sangha. Buddha is the way, dharma is the road, sangha is the world, and the three form the essence of the mind itself. In Korea, Songgwangsa is the embodiment of the sangha tradition.
Although the temple was built in 800, during the Unified Silla dynasty (668–936), it was not until over 400 years later, near the end of the Koryo dynasty, that the national preceptor, Monk Chinul, named it Songgwangsa and declared it a base for Junghaekyulsa (the first reform movement against the corrupted Buddhist practice of the time). Since then, 15 more national preceptors have been reared on its premises, establishing its status as the temple of sangha. Songgwangsa serves today as the center of the Chogye sect of the Korean meditative Buddhism known as Son (Zen).
There is a quiet knock and a face appears, a novice monk, barely 16, whose boyish face reminds me of my little brother in Florida, whom I have not seen in half a year, and I am overwhelmed by an impulse to call him. Monk Wonju meets my eyes and says that the novice monk will show me to my chamber.
My chamber looks almost identical to the one in which we have just been sitting. The ondol floor (heated stones covered with mud) is warm, and I find several blankets neatly folded in the corner. Nothing is quite like lying on a heated floor on a wintry day. When I lived in Korea as a child, I used to run home after school to bury my frozen feet in a corner while snacking on steamed chestnuts. It is strange that I should be lying here in a temple on the southern tip of Korea, recalling those winters from so long ago; and it is shocking to me that I have not thought of them in years, which seems impossible; and it is still unfathomable that I am now an adult, which must mean that I have come a long way, but in such an unexpected motion, on such an unforeseen path, that I seem almost foreign to myself.
I hear the voice of the novice monk from behind the door announcing that it will be nine o’clock shortly, the lights-out hour, and that prayer will take place at 3 a.m. I close my eyes, realizing that I have not been in such complete darkness for as long as I can remember.
I bolt out of the blankets to a heart-wrenching cry so nearby it sounds as if it is coming from right outside my room. And it is, I discover, as I run outside to find a shadowy figure in ceremonial gray robes patched with a brown stole, chanting. I seem to have stepped into another time as I follow the mysterious monk through the ancient structures amid the wailing sutra. He finally stops in front of a row of 30 or 40 people. I join the line and stand awhile before realizing that they are all monks underneath their pullover hats and robes. Then a drum echoes through the night, followed by a bell, a gong, and a wooden instrument carved in the shape of a carp. The leather drum wakes the mammals of the world; the large bell rings for those who have gone astray; the cloud-shaped gong calls to the creatures of the air; the carved fish beckons the marine animals.
The monks make their way toward the Taeung-chon (main worship hall). Inside, they form two parallel rows. One of them hands me a straw mat and a thin volume of the Heart Sutra (the Buddha’s discourse on nirvana, emptiness, and ultimate reality). The monk in the center walks up to the altar, lights an incense stick and a candle, and the two monks kneeling at the far left start chanting, and then everyone starts bowing. It continues this way for a long time, and I am not sure how many more bows I can do, as it is getting even chillier now, and the wooden floor, even with a mat, is beginning to feel as hard as stone against my knees, and it seems impossible that it is 3 a.m. and that the world outside is asleep. Then, miraculously, the bows stop and we all start chanting from the sutra, and then the bowing begins again.
When I return to my room, my legs are shaking. The temple is full of activity now although it is only 4:30 a.m. I could easily sleep for another 12 hours when I hear the novice monk’s voice announcing that breakfast will be served at six. I know that it is not mandatory for me to get up for breakfast, but my eyes shoot wide open at exactly 5:45 a.m. The mountain water is icy cold in the washhouse, and my fingers seem to freeze upon a single touch. One must get used to this life—the lack of hot water, the 3 a.m. bows. Then I remember the other world, the one I call home: my studio apartment in downtown New York, secured by chain locks and window guards, poisoned each month by a team of exterminators against the infiltration of rats and roaches and passing strangers. It is hard to make sense of the choices we make, or the ones we do not make. I cannot tell how long it has been since I last saw a sunrise as I huddle through the morning chill toward the hall from which the light flickers the brightest.
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