Early November, and the wind is cold against my skin. I try to pull the window closed, but the hinges are broken and it is stuck half open; a gust of dirt blows at my face as the bus gives a jerk. We have been following this road for a while now. I will be lucky if I even make it to the temple tonight, because the driver will happen to spot a cousin or a neighbor trotting alongside the road and will slow down to inquire after the year’s harvest and the size of a corn cob or a yam or a chile pepper, and then with a sudden percolating noise the bus will start again, the driver not even pretending to try to catch up with the schedule, which the ticket seller in Seoul had handed me with a nod of assurance at six this morning.
Pitch black outside, that much I can see. Night comes earlier in Korea’s South Cholla province. The sparkles in the distance could be anything, really—the tiny sheds where farmers live or a nameless station where the bus might drop off its few passengers, who seem nonchalant about being so late.
But I am getting anxious with each delay. I must arrive at Songgwangsa, my first destination in a wildly concocted itinerary of sleeping at Buddhist monasteries across Asia, before its 9 p.m. lights-out. Despite the widespread belief that a temple shelters all wayfarers in need, most do not welcome random drop-ins. And I can offer no letter of introduction. I am not even a Buddhist. Back in Seoul, I was confident that I would find my way in. Friends of friends had done it. Many times they told me to make sure to arrive before dinnertime, ask for Monk Wonju (the one who manages the household of a temple), and tell him that I have come to pay respect to Buddha. “Then what?” I should have insisted. Now, it dawns on me that Monk Wonju might find it blasphemous that a young woman who is not even a Buddhist, who looks peculiarly Western despite her signifying Korean face, does not have the courtesy to show up at a decent hour and demands a room as though a temple were a hotel. “Sorry, no room.” I picture the stern face of a monk, any monk, all monks I have ever seen. But before I can come up with an alternative plan, I feel my eyes getting heavy and the rolling hills as soft as dough and I count the hours that I have spent on a moving vehicle today and then lose count, and then begin again; and it is not until the bus lurches forward and sighs to a full stop perhaps half an hour later that I open my eyes to a sudden light.
The driver disappears into a tiny shack with a few cases of fruit and boxes of crackers and soap. I dash across to the store. A middle-aged woman in a persimmon-hued sweater is facing the window. She turns around and stares at me as if she cannot remember how I happened to be standing in her store. “Need a minbak (bed-and-breakfast)?” she finally asks. “No, no, no, I need to get to Songgwangsa, tonight,” I insist. “The last bus left an hour ago,” she answers. Then, after studying my face a bit longer, she points to a taxi across the street. “But he can take you.”
I jump at the offer. The driver keeps sneaking looks at me through the rearview mirror as though he finds me somewhat suspicious, but he does not ask anything, and I am relieved. The ride is increasingly uphill, and he seems to think he is driving a safari jeep. I am about to ask the wild man to slow down when the car halts with a precipitous thump.
To my eyes, trained among skyscrapers, the darkness is menacing, and I have no flashlight. There are no paper lanterns guiding the way, no reception desk, no ticket seller. “Where would I find Monk Wonju?” I ask the driver. He does not answer but instead climbs out of the taxi and walks off into the dark. Within minutes, he reappears with a man in a beige jacket, who peers through the window and motions for me to follow him.
I have no idea who he is. The stillness is so heavy that I am afraid to speak. The only thing I am certain of is that I am now officially inside. We pass through a few gates and walk alongside several dark halls. The intersecting courtyards are eerily empty, and I sense not a trace of the 100 monks who supposedly reside on the grounds. He walks so fast that I am almost out of breath when he abruptly stops before a brightly lit, paper-screened door, through which I see wavering shadows. The man calls out, “Monk Wonju, are you in there?” There is a pause, or perhaps it is the thick air engulfing me. Then a voice from the other side: “Who is looking for me?” I don’t know what to say, so I keep my face down and stare at the several pairs of shoes on the stone step when I finally remember the words: “Please let me stay the night and pay my respect to Buddha.” And then I hastily add, “I came a long way.” The last bit sounds coyly familiar, as though I were reciting a line from a play. Then a pause again, this time longer. I wait, and the wait is so broodingly dark, and the room seems to grow brighter with each interminable second, and I really want to be inside, and I think maybe I should tell him that I left Seoul at six this morning, and that my flight from New York took 13 hours before that and cost a month of freelance writing, and that I still haven’t even had dinner—I am about to tell him all this when the magic words ring through the door: “Please enter.”
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.
Inside is a small cafeteria. The perpetual silence is starting to make me nervous, or perhaps it is being here among the monks eating together. I keep my eyes on the marinated bean sprouts, steamed adlay roots, and pickled sesame leaves. Temple food is known to be very pungent, as they use the freshest greens seasoned only with salt. I finish every last bite despite the early hour. I wonder about the basic fear of being alone. I wonder if it is why the monks are here together, each one finding his own way within the shelter of Buddha. I wonder what brought them here, and if it still matters.
Outside, the sun has risen. I can finally see the gently sloping shingled roofs, the faded red pillars, and the spectacular mountain filling the horizon. I am humbled by the thought that I have spent the night here. I hear footsteps behind me.
I press my palms together and bow, the way I have seen others do. Monk Wonju motions for me to follow him. He explains that the most important hall is currently closed to the public, but since I came such a long way—he smiles—I must not leave without seeing it.
“This hall is the soul of Songgwangsa,” Monk Wonju declares. “This is where the greatest monks of Korean history have persevered to carry on the true spirit of sangha.” He then hands me a string of prayer beads made of agate. It is so beautiful that I hesitate before putting it on my wrist.
From a distance, a chant begins. It is the clearing of the morning sutra against the mountains, the sky, the birds, the shrines, exactly as they must have looked 1,000 years ago. Songgwangsa will soon brim with the bustle of its daytime visitors, but for now I sit on the stone and count beads.