Korean Temple Stay at Beomeosa Buddhist Temple (범어사) in Busan, South Korea

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good afternoon and good afternoon guys greetings from Busan South Korea
actually just outside of Busan we are at Beomeosa temple (범어사) it is a big Buddhist
temple here and we're actually going to be experiencing a temple stay in Korea
what's going to be awesome is we're going to be having dinner here and then
we're going to be staying overnight and also having breakfast it's a total
immersive experience I can't wait to check it out let's go inside
so the first thing we do at the temple is take off our shoes and then we're
gonna put on a uniform and our clothes right so David what's up what you're
doing just got my clothes yeah we gotta go change into them yeah this is where
the next 24 hours not 12 but the sliding doors just in front of us so that's
where we changed I'm looking good it feels great man it's such a comfortable
shirt fortunately it fit last thing to do is to change out of my shorts Welcome to the Beomeosa (범어사) Temple Stay Program
I am the supporting monk for the program takes about five years to become a monk
here in Korea and I am on my last year for the two days you guys are here we
have arranged different programs to kind of help you guys to let you guys
experience the Korean culture as well as the temple culture to go over the rules
that you have to know they're just basically common sense stuff not too
difficult so the first rule that we have is that in the temple you you have to be
quiet normally it's called Bugan and it means no speaking at all and this is
because for months we have these intensive training periods once in the
summer once in the winter it's a three-month period where the monks kind
of focus on their studies so right now the monks are busy doing their their
studies the second rule is please organize your shoes when you come in so
for this building for example if you look outside the door there's a wooden
floor the wooden floor is not for shoes so please don't come up on the wooden
floors with your shoes on but the center door has a nickname in
Korea we call it a Gong which translates to royal door or a Kings door and the
reason they call it that is because back in the past Korea had a king and the
king would have multiple wives and the wives would all try to have sons and
then they would have they would try to make their son become the next
okay and so in that during that process you know a lot of the princes of the
sons ended up killing each other so what a lot of the sons did the princess did
back then was in order to avoid that kind of bloodshed they would come to the
temple shake their head and become monks and so back then Dora there are a lot of
monks who were formerly princes only the monks who were princes who had royal
blood can enter an exit through the center door and then the other doors the
monks that would be using would be based on what their class was before they
became a monk so that's why we call it the royal doors so now today we don't
have classes we don't have princes today the doors that are used is decided upon
how long you've been a monk the center door the royal door is usually for the
head monk of this temple we want you guys to have a comfortable time the
program itself is designed so that you guys can kind of experience things in a
relaxed manner a lot of people seem to think that the temple is some kind of
very strict very solemn place but it really is not so you know you guys can
just relax just have fun so next I have to explain to you how to bow so we have
a certain way of bowing here first began we're not going to be stepping on the
fishes you're gonna have the cushion in front of you for the entire ceremony for
the entire evening ceremony and when you're doing any number of bows you're
always going to be in the hapjeong position so the hapjeong is basically
gonna put your hands together and then you're also going to put your feet
together as well and the reason why we do this is because this was actually
something that they did 2500 years ago when the Buddha was alive this was a
posture that showed respect to the monks the second purpose was that back then
this was a way of showing that they were unwilling to harm the other person it
was a way of showing friendliness so when you have your hands together you
can't hold a weapon right I'm gonna show you guys the first bow so
you're gonna go on your knees then you're gonna put your hands on the
cushion then your forehead flip your hands over you're gonna raise them up
just pull all the ears just below the ears then you're gonna put them back
down lay and stand off so we just had a meeting greet with the monk that is
gonna be with us during our entire time that we're at the temple stay and it was
really interesting because we learned how to do a hapjeong and a few
different bows and he explained the program that we're gonna be doing I'll
go more into detail with that later but for the time being we're gonna do a
little tour and then have some dinner
the temple has three nicknames its Sun charitable time come don't own in harm
to time so it basically it's to show how
important the temple is and so that's why we have the nickname here and then
here we have the name of the mountain dong hun and then the name of the temple
Beomeosa (범어사) all the temples will always have the name of the mountain that it's
built in and the name of the temple and to explain the names kumudam Han
basically means golden well mountain and it's the name of this mountain
and the reason why it's called the golden well mountain is because long
before this temple was built the locals that lived here they had a legend and
the legend was that near the top of this mountain there's a big stone pillar and
but the top is concave so water gathers there and so they believed that there
was a golden fish from heaven that came down and lived inside that well and if
you drank the water from that well you could be cured of any illness that's the
legend that the locals had
to get to the main part of the temple we have to pass through three different
gates I think the most interesting one for me was the second gate that was the
one with it was like the for everything before Heavinly Kings that write off
evil spirits from the Buddha world right for now we're in the third gate I don't
know the meaning behind this one but this is the last gate right now let's
enter the temple listen to the temple so here we are in the dining hall and
apparently we're gonna be dining on the mats on the floor which is fascinating
can't wait to do it part of um Jung is the traditional way for Korea monks to
have meals this is something that we do here at the temple every every meal
basically you know breakfast lunch dinner and so it's just a traditional
way of eating back then Buddha would have actually just one bowl and he would
go out into town once a day and beg for food they would go around seven houses
and whatever they got that was their meal for the day they would come back
they would put all the meal into one spot so that tradition kind of carried
over and here in Korean temples we don't beg for food Buddhism is not like the
state religion or the country's religion so if we went out begging we probably
wouldn't be able to survive basically we kind of have meals here inside the
temple yeah but you're going to be using these bowls which is called puddle and
these are like the traditional bowls that's supposed to symbolically
represent the bowl that the Buddha used and so we have four inside and I'm going
to show you how to use each one top cover basically you're just gonna fold
it like this you're gonna put the spoon and the chopsticks and this you're gonna
put it on your lap then you're gonna take the cover off you put the cover on
the side as well on top of the on top of the cover then you're gonna lift up your
puddle and then you're gonna unfold the bottom part so this is your mat yes then
you're gonna put the puddle on the bottom left corner and then you're gonna
take the first one you put it on top you have to put the second
one on the top right corner the third one right then you're gonna take out the
spoon and chopstick then you're gonna put them on the second
bowl over here on the top right then you're gonna pick the the cover for the
spoon and put it on top and then you're gonna put this this is for you washing
your bowls you're gonna put it on top as well the the largest one is for rice the
second largest one the one on the right side is for the broth the one where you
have the spoon here is for the water and then the last one is for side dishes
normally before we start I have to tap three times but this is my first time so
I forgot so I'm going to tap three times now we do have power I'm gonna tap once
and we're gonna distribute the food yes you're gonna get your rice bowl and
you're just gonna hold it off and once it's about one third full you're gonna
shake your bowl like this so that means that you had
so first up I am grabbing some rice
largest bowl here the second Bowl is going to be for the various side dishes
that are coming soon okay next up we're having something that's a little bit
similar to join jongsu it's got seaweed this ball put a little
bit into here I put that next to my rice and I believe when the side dishes come
that's what I'm going to put it on top of the soup as well
you're gonna take have a number of bites and then you're gonna put your bowl back
down but you're not gonna do is you're not gonna keep holding onto the bowl as
you eat so in Korea here we say that's impolite so you're gonna pick your bowl
up you're gonna eat and when you eat you're gonna cover your mouth you know
you're gonna cover your mouth with their bowl like this so you're not going to
eat like this you're not gonna eat like this you can just kind of just lightly
cover your mouth and you're gonna eat like this and then once you eat then
you're chewing you're gonna put your bowl back down and just kind of chew
like this and then when you have to eat again you pick up your ball again same
thing so next up we have a banchan course and that goes directly into the
season so it looks like these are potatoes kind of pickled cucumbers
kimchi soybean and then we have yellow radish
alright man what a meal oh my god what did you think it was incredible I mean
silent eating 101 exactly who we filled our bowls we had the main one was rice
and then we had side dishes with some it was sort of like a soybean tape like
miso type of soup Duane Jeong and yeah we ate it silently you're supposed to
lift the bowl up close to your face and it's like it's all about modesty not
making any any noises 20 minutes no no yeah and you're sitting down and dislike
communal position yeah and it really hurts after a while no and like our legs
are cramping of it's a serious cramping and then what happens is you clean your
bowls at the end and because we're far from experts ended up having to wash it
a bit came back dried it assembled the whole thing and brought it basically
just put it away and yeah that was our first basically Buddhist traditional
Buddhist meal here in Korea yeah it was really amazing food was super delicious
you know really organic yeah really the hardest part was being quiet yes and now
we have to be really quiet
alright man so we just had an experience that we could fill it was called the
evening chanting ceremony 15-minute like procession yeah basically we got up down
on our knees bow up down bow then they the monk and the lady next to us like to
like a song yeah and then he brings a bell yeah it
was long yeah it was fascinating yeah it was really
really enjoyed it also realized I need to work on my flexibility well I start
doing some more stretching pretty hard on your knees I thought yeah and now we
have about 20 minutes and we're going to our next activity
yeah we're gonna learn how to do 108 bows -wow and we're gonna do together like
some beads under 108 beads number 108 so in Buddhism we say that a person has six
ways that he or she can interact with the world so we see with our eyes we
hear with our ears we smell with our nose we taste with our mouth we feel
with our skin and we think with our minds so when we use these six senses these
six organs you make two kinds of false views so the first one is in terms of
good and evil so something's good something's not good something's neither
good nor not good the second one is in terms of personal preference so
something you like something you don't like something you neither like nor
dislike so there's six senses six organs and then there's three and three which
is another 6 so 6 times 6 is 36 and then you're going to multiply that by 3 which
is a concept of time so past present and future basically the timeframe is an
infinite type thing because if you consider a past life present life future
life so within this infinite time frame 36 times 3 is 108 and so originally the
idea is that every time you do a bow you're contemplating on each of the 180
false views at the beginning we have to start with a half bow
right so the half bow is going to be three taps and then for each tap you
guys are going to do one full bow you go down do the hand motions come back up
before the last bow before the 108 bow I'm going to give a verbal comment I'm
going to say this is the last bow and then I'm going to tap you guys are gonna
go down do the hand motions and then for the last bow you have to do the extra
step right so the one extra step while you're doing that extra step I'm going
to give two more taps I'm going to go then when you hear the two times you
have to finish the last one the last step the extra step and you have to
stand up
my experience overall oh my gosh it was really intense
yeah you know after like the first 50 I just lost myself in my own mind keep
count at all I know it makes me realize how out of shape I am I need to go back
on a fitness program that was interested that was now we do what hundred and 108
beads and you're gonna have one beat that's larger than the rest with a top
so that's called the mother bead you're gonna use it a lot you're gonna set it
aside and then there's one for decorative purposes so you're also going
to use that last so you consider it a sonnet or not so what you can do is you
can count to make sure you have a hundred and eight beats either before
you start or after you finish so it just went through a process of making a
bracelet or you can also put as a necklace yeah so it's 108 beads and
usually what people do in other temples is what they do is it's 108 bows but
after each bow put together to put one bead into like the band right answer huh
yeah but they sort of simplified a big interesting a lot of people were
complaining cuz it legs apart because yeah once you've done it you stay on
your knees and you do it so I mean once you do that whole process but all
together it takes like a long 20 minutes right through the two activities I was a
part two of what we did yeah really cool good man it's nice right
so even give the accommodations Chris pretty comfy I have to say giant
sleepover like they say like firm mattresses are good for your back yeah
yeah they say yeah that's true yeah and we are firmly on the ground
good morning good morning we made it through the night here at the temple
stay yes what'd you think it was good but there was some mosquitoes buzzing in
my ear I got four in the morning I mean the drums started at 4:30 that's right
so that that's the only time I woke up though this is the first time I made it
to the night oh is it great acting my best leave here yeah and then we heard
the drumming and then an hour later now it's it's like five o'clock and we were
woken up it's time to get up we have things to do lights were turned on and
yeah this is the start of the day goes go let's do it well I was just informed
that they have coffee so I think I'm gonna go have a coffee and looking in
the screen here I've got Wolverine hair so I think it's also time for a shower
gonna do both of those things one of the most common ways to do Samatha
meditation is you focus on an object so let's say it's like this dot here so
you'll look at it and you'll concentrate on it and you meditate if you focus on
one object as you as you meditate then that object is supposed to become bigger
and bigger covers your entire feel of you that's like samatha meditation so
you're basically concentrating on one thing the other way of meditating is
called Vipassana meditation the Vipassana meditation is basically letting go of
meditation you sit and you meditate all kinds of thoughts will will arise right
so you'll have all these different kinds of thoughts and so if the Vipassana
meditation the practice is letting go of those thoughts so you're not holding on
to them you really analyze the way the body thinks that might think you'll
notice that it goes from one place it's very radish it's very chaotic you
won't focus on one line of stock your mind doesn't work like you know what am
I gonna have for breakfast what am I gonna do after breakfast what a living
death what am I gonna do after that the way the mind works is kind of like okay
what am I gonna have for breakfast whatever I do yesterday what was that
song that I was thinking of two days ago you know it's very chaotic but practice
of the pisano meditation is to not hold on to one thoughts you're basically
letting go of anything so if the thought arises you just let it pass as quickly
as possible without holding on through so these are the two main types of
meditations I think we're going to go with somewhat of Education except we're
not going to look at something we're gonna focus on breathing so breathing is
actually the most basic way to do meditation gonna breathe in and then
breathe out and then that's gonna be what they're gonna do it again
we then read out this gonna be - so you're gonna go from 1 to 5 and then 5
to 1 except the one rule is you think about something else other than the
number you're gonna go back to 1 the goal is to go from breathing in to out
and then counting without having any other thoughts in between and then if
you have some other thought for example ok I'm a little
then you go back to one so right now we're doing a morning meditation there
are a number of different styles that you could do but the one that we're
gonna be focusing on is on our breath and we're doing it outside because it's
such a nice morning we started off with a morning meditation and it was
fascinating because basically we were expected to just focus on numbers
counting to five sabri thing in one breathing out as I look to and anytime
you focus on anything else like if I thought crept up then you go back to one
yeah the main thing is that you literally only see that in your mind
right nothing else is coming in but then I saw that camera I was like oh the
camera yeah the one again anyways the setting was great because we actually
went outside for a little bit just it's so calm in the morning huh yeah yeah
some peaceful nice breeze birds chirping looking over this mountain it's
incredible oh my gosh yeah like this has just been a phenomenal stay anyways it
is time for breakfast apparently it's a buffet
so guys we have a buffet breakfast we've gone back to the same dining hall and
it's just a vegetarian extravaganza and you can put as much as you want on the
plate which is amazing just take a look here as a combination of vegetables and
fruit we've got kimchi over here we've got
rice we've got like a fruit salad and what appears to be a male
you know broccoli so it's just a super healthy way to start the day I'm gonna
try a little bit here I want to try the kimchi looks so good oh my gosh
and the other thing I should mention too is that everything is organic and
locally sourced and that just makes the experience even more authentic and
healthy Oh
kimchi so them potent spicy and let me try the broccoli which is just a
wonderful way to start the morning so part of the fascinating experience about
dining here is that you've wash your own dishes afterwards which makes a lot of
sense I mean it's just a very respectful thing to do so let's go do that go a
walk into here and turning on the water nice wash pad pour yourself into that a
little bit on the pad a little bit on the on the place
power washing - right once you're done kind of shake it a bit
let it drip-dry slightly and we actually bring chopsticks in the pleat back to
the dining hall area and there was a stack of pleats but we've already been
collected so I'm gonna put my hair and that's it so next up we're visiting a
smaller temple actually there's ten of these that surround the main temple
what's fascinating about this area is that this particular temple had a
founder of martial art that became quite popular and famous in Korea now it's
moved its headquarters since then but at the time this was the headquarters for
that martial arts another thing that's fascinating is that
you can see some mythical characters from different eras of Korea's past I
think it dates back to its shamanism period
so the final program we had here at the temple is just very casual tea with some
oranges and we got to talk to the monk a lot just ask him questions about
whatever we had on our mind which is fantastic a very fun way to end the
program here overall the temple state was phenomenal we absolutely loved it
the program they put together was very special we got to experience what it was
like to be a monk here in the temple in South Korea we also eat some fantastic
Korean food all vegetarian we got to try meditation we got to do a whole bunch of
different things if you're coming to South Korea and you're looking for
something to do especially an experiential stay like this highly
recommend doing a temple stay in Korea if you enjoyed this video please give it
a thumbs up subscribe to our Channel Samuel and Audrey subscribe to david
channel and we will see you with more food and travel adventures here in south
korea
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